INTERVIEW: Debra Granik, director of Stray Dog

If you don’t think someone fresh off an Oscar nomination would spend five years to follow her critically acclaimed fictional narrative with the first feature-length documentary of her career, you don’t know Debra Granik. When I interviewed her back in 2010 in support of Winter’s Bone, she was already talking about documentary observation as being key to her work. After all, that movie and her debut Down to the Bone both utilized real people from the towns in which she filmed for visual and contextual authenticity. One of those locals—Ronnie…

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INTERVIEW: Debra Granik, writer/director of Winter’s Bone

While attending the 360|365 George Eastman House Film Festival in Rochester, I was struck by the selection of festival winners screening for its Upstate New York audience. With so many award-winners, I went in blindly to whatever fit into my schedule, experiencing work I wouldn’t have a chance to see in theatres for months, if at all, here in Buffalo. After three straight days of movies, Winter’s Bone, the winner of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Drama, ended up being the final film of my tenure there. I…

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REVIEW: Down to the Bone [2005]

“What do you think about these tiles?” I remember watching 15 Minutes back in 2001 and thinking Vera Farmiga‘s captivating foreigner played quite well off of Ed Burns and Robert De Niro. Sadly, until five years later with a spate of high profile films leading to the A-list status she now holds, I still never knew she was an American born in New Jersey. I therefore had no knowledge of independent film Down to the Bone despite it proving a Sundance-winning piece for both her and director Debra Granik amongst…

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