Peak Screenings in Park City

Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie and Brazilian cinematographer Heloisa Passes, ABC won the cinematography prizes at this year's Sundance Film Festival - a testament, perhaps, to the event's global reach. Debie actually won his prize for a U.S. production, Joshua, which focuses on a diabolical child's efforts to reconfigure his immediate family; Passos won her award for Send A Bullet (Manda BaIa), a documentary about pervasive corruption in Brazil.

The jury for the festival's Dramatic Competition lacked a cinematographer for the first time in quite a few years. Its members were filmmakers Sarah Polley, Catherine Hardwicke and Pamela Martin; Film Independent executive director Dawn Hudson; and National Public Radio correspondent Elvis Mitchell.

The jury for the Documentary Competition comprised filmmakers Alan Berliner, Lewis Erskine, Lauren Greenfield, Julia Reichert and Carlos Sandoval.

AC caught up with Debie, Passes, and four other cinematographers who created some of the festival's most memorable images.

Joshua

Cinematographer: Benoît Debie

Director: George Ratliff

Parents' worst fears are chillingly realized in Joshua, a nerve-jangling drama that earned Benoît Debie this year's Excellence in Cinematography prize in Sundance's Dramatic Competition.

All seems well when we first meet the Cairns, prosperous Manhattanites who enjoy all the city's perks. Sam (Sam Rockwell) is a Wall Street broker at the top of his game, which allows his wife, Abby (Vera Farmiga), to serve as a stay-athome mom in the couple's luxurious apartment near Central Park. Their precocious son, Joshua (Jacob Kogan), is a piano prodigy who attends a posh private school. But when Abby gives birth to a baby girl, a strange tension descends on the household. The infant bawls at all hours, sending Abby into an emotional tailspin. As Sam tries to cope, he begins to notice that Joshua's increasingly odd behavior seems linked to a series of unsettling incidents, including the sudden death of the family dog. After Abby suffers a nervous breakdown, Sam is forced to confront the situation head-on, with horrifying consequences.

For Debie, the Sundance prize was a welcome addition to his Eurocentric résumé. A native of Belgium, he earned the 2004 Best Cinematography Award at the Stockholm Film Festival for the feature Innocence, and was nominated for a Joseph...

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