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So when I invite someone on the podcast, it's usually about promoting a particular project at a festival. There certainly is that here with director Andrew Kightlinger regarding his genre-breaking film OKAY (2026), which had its world premiere at Slamdance 2026, a festival that he also served on the jury. But we don't hit OKAY discussion until minute 27!

That shouldn't surprise you, though, if you look at Andrew's biography. His origin story is incredible, yes, but what fascinated me the most is how deeply knowledgeable he is about the art of filmmaking. He was brought on to direct OKAY to highlight Fujifilm's GFX ETERNA 55 and Andrew did it in a way that made me rethink how he deal with human emotions on screen. There's a documentary about the project that is well worth watching.

I wish every camera maker funded a gorgeous film to highlight their products. And I wish every filmmaker was as thoughtful as Andrew.

In this episode, Andrew and I discuss:

• is Slamdance too indie? a hearty defense of the festival;
• his unique background into filmmaking, South Dakota by way of Madagascar;
• how pirated blockbusters are what's easily accessible around the world, including a hilarious story about belatedly watching TITANIC (1997);
• starting with shorts or jumping into features;
• the wild story about how he became a director and what he turned down to stay independent and true to his vision;
• how he makes successful pitches for investors, including a lot of dentists (who knew?!);
• how to find great collaborators;
• the common threads for films he judged at Slamdance and whether chapter headings say something about episodic content;
• what is OKAY about and how Andrew describes it;
• how to depict grief on screen and why OKAY is so original in its handling of the subject;
• giving feedback in a creative and useful way that finds a way to make art honestly;
• the connection between Fujifilm and Andrew;
• whether the ubiquity of great cameras means we're moving back to more story-led films;
• why some big budget films "look like crap";
• how indie films are screened and if Fujifilm thought about how people would watch the film;
• what's next for him.

Andrew's Indie Film Highlight: WALKABOUT (1971) dir. by Nicholas Roeg; DIRTY WORK (1998) dir. by Bob Saget

Memorable Quotes:

"If anybody's thinking, ugh that's too hoity tody or that's not good enough, or whatever, just stop and just submit the movie...the movies are very varied. It's a very eclectic selection of films, and the tastes are all over the place, and that's what's really fun about the festival. It's it's a cornucopia of stuff and everybody should submit."

"why is this kid obsessed with movies? Like, why? We want a scientist."

"So we didn't see the last hour of Titanic until a year later when we went to Minnesota." 

"Because I went out to my dentist and said, hey, can I get 10 grand? He [said], sure!"

"A valuable lesson to learn as a filmmaker: choose your collaborators wisely."

"Look at my name in the credits and you want to feel good about helping a young artist. And if you sell that to them, they'll invest. If you sell them numbers, they're not gonna do it."

"Shorts are good as reps in the gym."

"The common thread between all the movies that I watched on the feature jury, the movies in competition, I would say that 70% of them were in black and white, which is a trend right now, which kinda shocked me. And almost 50% of them had chapter headings throughout the film."

"The short film is a movie about grief at its core, and it's about a woman who is grieving the death of her husband and she's trying to find healing by searching for him in the cosmos. And that's the general idea of the film, and people just need to watch it to figure out what that means."

"OKAY is the most honest move I've ever made because I was able to pour myself into it."

"Younger filmmakers send me like their ideas or treatments like, Hey, could you look at this? And I can tell that it's been written with that [AI] format."

"[OKAY] was the weirdest concept by far. But they said, oh, that's our favorite one." 

"I wanted to make a movie that had very formalistic editing and very dirty 70 style camera work as well. And they didn't shy away from that."

Links:

Follow Andrew On Instagram

Watch The Documentary On OKAY