Meet the filmmaker: Wendy Bednarz
Filmmaker Interview Questions:
What are the specific qualities that, in your opinion, make a film great?
This is a slippery but awesome question because what is great to one person is
unwatchable to another. Still to me, a great film has emotional resonance – it can be
felt by the viewer whether it’s making their heart race, their jaw drop, making them laugh
uncontrollably…There’s also the intellectual side, the discovery of something new, an
idea or a perspective, that opens the viewers’ minds to different possibilities, that
separates an okay film from a great one. Most importantly, a great film is one that
crosses borders and appeals to a wide audience as if speaking one language that can
be understood by people from different walks of life and cultures – that’s brilliant.
What films have been the most inspiring or influential to you and why?
What’s harder? Getting started or being able to keep going? And what drives you to continue making films?
They’re equally as hard – perhaps in slightly different ways. Getting started requires a
steadfast belief in what you’re making, even without a track record and convincing
people to join your cause without a guarantee that you can pull it off. But keeping going
also requires endurance and the pressure is on to make something as good or better
than the last project. Both require persuading people to believe in your vision – and
filmmaking is literally taking an idea from the ether and materializing it – that’s magic in
my mind but not an easy sell. I’m driven to make films despite the insanity of the
business because I’m addicted to expression. There’s nothing more beautiful that
saying something meaningful in visual language and it impacting people (hopefully
positively!) Given the state of the world, there’s a lot to be expressed.
How do you know when your story’s finished, when to walk away?
A film is never finished – it’s a living breathing creation in my mind! The key is ‘when to
walk away.’ I think it’s part instinct and part hard deadlines. In between, it’s about
managing time and resources so that you maximize each stage of the process which
includes not just the necessary work and collaboration but stepping back from the
material, refreshing your imagination and then returning with renewed perspective. To
me the fact that there are infinite possibilities is what makes the creative process so
exciting. At some point you just must say ‘enough is enough’ and let it go.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
There’s an expression I love ‘watching a blade of grass grow.’ It’s in moments of
stillness and observation that I find inspiration. An idea that is worth dedicating years
to, is like being struck by a bolt of lightning. It happens rarely in life and when it does, I
can feel a visceral reaction – my heart rate changes. There are smaller glimmers of
inspiration that happen throughout the creative process and those are usually
experiences, mental notes made sometimes years before that are filed away in the
subconscious, that come to light as if kismet. The key is being open to the inspiration
when it comes – ready for it.
What are the next project or projects you are beginning work on?
I’m currently working on a laugh-out-loud comedy, a departure from ‘Yellow Bus’ –
called ‘Yahoo Boy.’
A fiery widow falls for an online romance scammer and loses her life savings in a crypto
scheme. Convinced her life is doomed, she travels from her dreary Oregon town to vibrant
Nigeria to scam the scammer, instead getting a second chance at life.
We’re in the arduous stage of fundraising, my least favorite part of the process. Still
with a great screenplay and the right team things always materialize.
Filmmaker Bio:
Wendy Bednarz’s career began in NYC’s fashion industry, working for Stephen Sprouse in the old Andy WarholFactory. There she developed a taste for the offbeat and a love of both still and moving images.
Today, Wendy’s work engages multicultural narratives. She crosses-over between storytelling forms, film,photography and video installations. Her work screened and exhibited at venues worldwide, including New York MoMA, Montreal World Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, She initiated Syrian Children’s Storybook (2019), traveling to Turkey where she worked with refugees to write/illustrate their own stories.
Wendy’s (writer/director) debut narrative feature film, Yellow Bus’ premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (2023). ‘Yellow Bus’ has garnered over twenty-five awards world-wide,
Wendy splits her time between New York City and The United Arab Emirates where she is an Associate Arts Professor of Film and New Media at New York University Abu Dhabi.
Her passion for visual language is underpinned by its power to transcend boundaries and touch on the pulse of what it means to be human.
Learn more about other filmmakers of the month on our blog!