Filmmaker Ondi Timoner is back with 'We Live in Public;' free screening at IFS

If you haven't yet seen "Dig!," then there's something really wrong with you. Period.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize (Documentary) at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival (back when that still meant something), the raucous rockumentary is a nearly decade-long chronicling of psychedelic rock bands the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The tempestuous, onscreen misadventures of the BJM and Dandies make for what may be the most pertinent and plain-and-simple best rockumentary of recent years.

"Dig!" represents intensely intimate filmmaking at its purest and helped to define the entire DIY ethos of contemporary cinema.

Fuck, it's a good one.

Seven years and a handful of movies later, "Dig!" filmmaker Ondi Timoner (On-dee Tim-owner) is back with her award-winning "We Live in Public," which will be screened on campus this Saturday. Timoner will also be in attendance for a Q&A after the free show.

Q: Has your approach to filmmaking changed since your success with "Dig!"?

A: My process has evolved. You get more refined over time, and I have a better sense of what I need now. If I were to do "Dig!" again, maybe I wouldn't have shot 2500 hours of footage. But, there was also something vital to that film in order to take the audience on a ride. I needed to spend that time with the bands. You've gotta just hang in there.

Q: Could you describe the development of "We Live in Public"?

A: The film was shot over ten years, which is something you just don't do. I was called to the bunker by Josh Harrison (subject of "Public") back when I was still making "Dig!" in 1999. When I went down to the space and there were people moving in scaffolding to build a "pod" and there were people setting up 110 cameras everywhere to record those living inside, I didn't need much more than that. I didn't really know what it was while I was shooting, but I was in.

It took ten years to film, watching people prostitute themselves for (the internet) cameras set up everywhere. Everything people would do just to get into the space. It was very disgusting to me, actually. I was fascinated by the "why" -- why be interrogated like that?

Ultimately, I found (that what Harrison was doing) prefigured reality TV and was connected to what would become a larger element of the internet.

Q: In your experience, would you say that the Sundance Film Festival has changed over the years?

A: It's still a great place to launch a movie for sure. No matter who you are, though, you need a publicist there. It's still the place everyone's going to. My creative career and entire course of my life has been majorly affected by Sundance and their showing my movies, as well as my work through the Sundance Insitute. They haven't strayed from their original mission.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?

A: Make your film about something you care about, something that you feel in your soul, so that whatever the marketplace is, you're making something you're proud of. You really gotta have a story and a question you're seeking to answer. I love filmmaking because it's like a search mission.