What to do between films? Spin! A look at what’s going on at the Sundance Film Festival | 570News

What to do between films? Spin! A look at what’s going on at the Sundance Film Festival | 570News

PARK CITY, Utah – Associated Press reporters at the Sundance Film Festival share what’s in their notebooks:

ANOTHER SOMALIAN PIRATE DRAMA: Filmmakers behind “Fishing Without Nets” say there’s room for another Somali pirate movie in the wake of Oscar-nominated “Captain Phillips” — this time told from the perspective of the pirates.

Shot in Kenya using Somali actors speaking their native language, the subtitled drama premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday night. It tracks a fisherman who resorts to piracy in order to feed his family and finds himself — at least initially — successful in hijacking a French oil tanker and taking hostages.

Director Cutter Hodierne said he became fascinated with the subject reading news articles when modern piracy was at its peak in 2008 and 2009.

“There’s so many angles to this but what I care about is … why would they do that,” Hodierne told the premiere audience.

He travelled to Kenya to meet with Somalis and developed a short film by the same title that won the top jury prize at Sundance two years ago — when the Tom Hanks-starring “Phillips” was already in development at Sony.

Media company VICE financed his feature, which expanded on the short’s storyline with the lead pirate bonding with one of the hostages. Hodierne set up individual scenes for his actors, but then let them come up with dialogue. He said he didn’t know what was actually said until he had translators view his footage back in New York.

And as for “Captain Phillips,” mentioned in the first two questions from audience members after the premiere: “The fact that there’s several films that tackle different angles I think is just a sign of how meaty the material is. You could probably make six or seven films about (modern piracy),” Hodierne said.

— Ryan Pearson, AP Entertainment Writer (Twitter: @ryanwrd)