Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Ian Bonhte and Peter Ettedgui, the Filmmakers Behind Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

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!

I love that as a filmmaker, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you're creating or revealing a world, says Peter Ettedgui, discussing the importance of filmmaking. You're building an immersive experience. With Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, the storyteller's latest collaboration with fellow writer-director Ian Bonh te, the pair invite the viewer into the world and life of the late Christopher Reeve.

While his turn as Superman might be the first thing that comes to mind when hearing his name, Reeve was a complex figure on and off screen. His acting career is full of rich characters, and his work as a disability rights activist - after a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down - kick-started a foundation, a rise in spinal cord injury research, and more. Super/Man invites audiences into this mosaic of a life with the care and detail that Ettedgui and Bonh te's nonfiction projects are known for - including 2018's McQueen and 2020's Rising Phoenix.

We think of films as empathy machines,' Ettedgui continues, touching on his and Bonh te's creative process. It is amazing how much you, as a filmmaker, can touch other people through the stories you project on a screen. And how much a story can affect someone, show them the world in a different way, make them feel for the characters you portray, change their hearts or minds or vision of the world we share.

Below read more about the partnership of Ettedgui and Bonh te, the production of Super/Man, which debuted in the Premieres section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and the power of good editing.

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