Sundance 2024: The Cameras and Lenses Behind 20 Documentaries

Sarah Shachat

January 19, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.·1 min read

Every year, IndieWire reaches out to the cinematographers behind the films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and asks which cameras, lenses, and formats they used — and why they were the right choice to create the looks and meet the production demands of their films.

Documentarians have both utilitarian and aesthetic concerns when developing the look of their stories. Some filmmakers needed to account for very particular shooting environments and needed the precise gear that would track a hummingbird’s wings; some filmmakers chose cameras in order to match the look of the fantastic digital environments they were also pulling from in order to create a complete picture of their subject; and some filmmakers needed as much versatility, as small of a shooting footprint, or as warm of a portrait look as they could get.

More from IndieWire

Here are the responses from 20 filmmakers who brought documentary features to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival; check back next week for a survey of the 2024 scripted narrative features lineup.

Films appear in alphabetical order by title.

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