Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Nora Fingscheidt, the Writer-Director of The Outrun

By Bailey Pennick

One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there's always more we can learn about them as people. This year, we decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!

It's common to ask filmmakers how they got into this all-encompassing line of work. However Nora Fingscheidt's answer to that question isn't. This is a bit embarrassing, but when I saw Titanic as a kid, I got so upset that Jack had died. So I tried to find out whose choice this had been, recalls the German writer-director. I found out that there is a profession called directing' and I planned to become a director to do a remake of Titanic and have him survive. And while we're still waiting on Fingscheidt's interpretation of the saga of Jack and Rose, her third feature The Outrun (debuting in the Premieres section of the 2024 Festival) is a different kind of story about love and survival.

Set against the stark and overwhelming backdrop of Scotland's Orkney Islands, The Outrun follows Rona (Saoirse Ronan) on her sobriety journey. With peaks and valleys as craggy and untamed as her childhood home, Rona faces her past with drugs and alcohol, her tumultuous family history, and love lost all while working for an environmental conservation organization on the Islands. Based on Amy Liptrot's memoir, The Outrun is a measured and intimate look at the complex realities of battling addiction and charting your future even if you can't imagine it.

People need hope and empathy. And to take a look outside their comfort zone, says Fingscheidt when asked about why Rona's story needs to be told now. Always, but these days maybe even a bit more than usual.

Below, learn about the challenges Fingscheidt faced while filming The Outrun, why rubber seals were not necessary, and what she would be doing if she wasn't a filmmaker.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/give-me-the-backstory-get-to-know-nora-...
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