“Doc Filmmaking Can Be a Very Weird Process of Interpersonal Negotiations”: Debra Granik on Conbody vs Everybody

Though Debra Granik is no stranger to Sundance — 2004’s Down to the Bone, 2018’s Leave No Trace and 2010’s Oscar-nominated (in four categories) Winter’s Bone all premiered in Park City — I was a bit surprised to see the indie vet’s name attached to a project at the fest’s 40th edition earlier this year. Unlike the director’s prior critically-acclaimed films, Conbody vs Everybody is neither narrative nor a traditional feature doc, but a documentary in five chapters (six at Sundance, of which only parts four and five were screened) that took Granik and her longtime collaborators, EP Anne Rosellini and EP/editor Victoria Stewart, close to a decade to make. Over eight years the team followed Coss Marte, a man on a Herculean mission to “de-stigmatize the formerly incarcerated community, ease their integration back into society, and change the systemic inequity of the criminal justice system,” according to the website for ConBody, the business Marte founded based on his self-invented, prison-style fitness method; and also the ConBody instructors, all formerly incarcerated individuals like Marte determined to defy both statistics and preconceived notions. Needless to say, many days bring an uphill battle, especially since Marte, a native son of New York’s Lower East Side, is doggedly waging it on his now privileged-white-gentrified (on steroids) home turf. To learn all about this unexpected, longitudinal cinematic study Filmmaker caught up with Granik soon after the project’s Sundance (Episodic program) debut, and again prior to its DOC NYC premiere on November 17th. (Parts one and two of the newly revamped version will screen in the Metropolis Competition.)

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.