Director Geeta Gandbhir: Interview Techniques for Documentarians

Editor's note: The Sundance Collab event Advisor Studio Series: Geeta Gandbhir on Documentary Interview Techniques originally took place on May 31, 2022. This AAPI Heritage Month, we're revisiting sessions like this one as we spotlight Asian American and Pacific Islander voices in independent film. You can watch in its entirety as part of your Collab membership.

By Vanessa Zimmer

While the script drives the action in a narrative film, interviews are the skeleton of a documentary, says award-winning director, editor, and producer Geeta Gandbhir.

I lay out my interview bites first, because those are the necessary bones of the storytelling, and then you build everything else around them, the filmmaker explained last spring in a Sundance Collab Advisor Studio Series on interviewing techniques for documentaries.

That principle elevates interview sessions to a position of critical importance in filming a truthful and compelling documentary.

Among Gandbhir's works are a powerful documentary about sexual assault and the backlog of rape kits, I Am Evidence, co-directed with Trish Adlesic, and Armed With Faith, co-directed with Asad Faruqi, which followed a bomb disposal unit in Pakistan pitted against Afghan terrorists. Both works won Emmys.

Following are some of the veteran filmmaker's recommendations for conducting interviews.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/director-geeta-gandbhir-interview-techn...
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