Production Diary

Day 7: Seven Weeks ‘Til Shooting by

Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia

Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia

Hired a costume designer, Liz Vastola, though now I hear at our budget she doesn’t even come on until two weeks out from production. When I made my last very low budget film, The Delta, in 1995, we were paying so little, everyone just started working when they got the job.

I was watching Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia last night and had a bout of anxiety about the fact that I’m only seven weeks from shooting. I only finished the script in February and am now in pre-production—years less than it usually takes. This weekend I will start going through stacks of films I need to study and pulling scenes for inspiration. Moments of panic lead me to hours of organization. I am old enough to know the best solution to anxiety is work.


Ira Sachs

writer, director, blogger

Ira Sachs is a writer and director based in New York City. His films include Married Life (2007), The Delta (1997) and the 2005 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Forty Shades of Blue. His most recent film, Last Address, a short work honoring a group of NYC artists who died of AIDS, has been added to the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA and played at the 2011 Venice BIennale. Sachs teaches in the Graduate Film department at NYU and is a fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He is also the founder and co-curator of Queer/Art/Film, a monthly series held at the IFC Center in New York, as well as the newly established Queer/Art/Mentorship, a program that pairs and supports mentorship between queer working artists in NYC.


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