Marshall Curry, two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker, joined us for dinner. Here are trailers of two of his movies:
There were two main questions I would have liked to ask, given more time:
- Does Mr. Curry believe that he would have stuck with documentary filmmaking had his films not been so immediately successful (winning awards in festivals such as Tribeca and earning Oscar nominations)? I can easily imagine numerous other aspiring filmmakers going through a similar struggle to make a movie and then feeling dejected if their movie does not receive high acclaim. I would have liked to ask Mr. Curry how much of his success he attributes to the luck of the first film he ever made being so well-received and how much of of it he believes comes from pure talent and determination.
- Mr. Curry mentioned that in two of his films, Mistaken for Strangers and Point and Shoot, he chose to use the footage in a way the subject of the film didn’t intend. I would have liked to ask him what terms and conditions a documentary filmmaker agrees upon with his/her subjects at the outset. I was also interested to learn how the subjects felt about his editorial decisions.