By Jessica Herndon
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there’s always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
If someone asked you which of your teachers had the most significant impact on your life, who would you name? We all have that one — or crew of teachers etched in our memory who believed in, challenged, and motivated us. For many of the students at Middletown High School in upstate New York, that teacher was Fred Isseks.
In the early 1990s in upstate New York, teens taught by Isseks shot a controversial student film about their community and its exposure to toxic waste. After 30 years, those students reflect on their movie and the project’s impact in Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s documentary Middletown, premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
“The film is a testament to the power of a great teacher to inspire young people,” says directing team Moss and McBaine, who answered interview questions about their doc together. “The film is about teenagers, so we hope they watch the film and discover what life was like before the internet when a camcorder was a powerful tool. And we hope their parents, [who are] our age, watch the film because our film is also partly about looking back at our younger selves and measuring who [we] were as young people, celebrating the teachers who inspired us, and the distance we’ve traveled. The film is also for anyone who cares about the future of journalism, democracy, teaching, and our environmental health.”
Below, Fest alums Moss and McBaine (Girls State, 2024, and Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Documentary winner Boys State, 2020) discuss what Isseks kept in his basement, why their film is essential viewing, and how the Sundance Institute has helped enrich their creative journeys.
What was the biggest inspiration behind Middletown?
The inspiration behind the film was our discovery of the incredible documentary that Fred Isseks and his students at Middletown High School made in the mid-1990s called Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed.
What was your favorite part of making Middletown? Memories from the process?
We did something wonderful and terrifying with our cast of subjects on a soundstage in Los Angeles that we’ve never done before in all our years of documentary filmmaking, but I can’t spoil it. It’s the closest we may ever come to time travel. We also loved going down to Fred Issek’s basement with him to watch tapes that he’s carefully safeguarded for 30 years, hoping someone would tell the story of his class and their investigation.
What was a big challenge you faced while making Middletown?
The story that Fred and his students investigated is sprawling and complicated, a little bit like the movie Chinatown. We had to be rigorous but respectful in compressing a multi-year investigation while balancing the delicate personal stories and the contemporary frame of the film. It was and always is a hard juggling act [that is] only achieved through trial and error and with the help of some very talented collaborators.
Why does this story need to be told now?
Our country is sailing into turbulent waters. We need stories that will inspire, entertain, and help us set a course for a better future.
Tell us why and how you got into filmmaking.
We were both drawn to documentary filmmaking in the mid-1990s, right around the time our film was set. Like the teenage subjects of the film, we discovered the power of the camera and the potential of the documentary form by watching some great films from that time period and then setting out to make our own. We both loved the ways in which documentary is an alchemy of visual art, cinematic storytelling, journalism, and political engagement, with no formal rules but grammar and a great tradition.
What is something that all filmmakers should keep in mind in order to become better cinematic storytellers?
Open your eyes to all of the visual arts and theater, and watch lots of movies. Also, shoot your own movies when you start out, if you can.
Who are your creative heroes?
Well, we found a new hero making this film: our subject Fred Isseks. We can’t wait for more people to meet Fred through our film and in person.
What was the last thing you saw that you wish you made?
We just rewatched When We Were Kings and loved it as much as when we first saw it 20-plus years ago. The editing is brilliant. Everything about it is brilliant. And the story of the footage lying dormant for two decades, then coming to life, is miraculous, perhaps a little like our film Middletown.
Which of your personal characteristics contributes most to your success as a storyteller?
Jesse loves production. Amanda loves the writing process. We’re a good compliment of restlessness and patience, rigor, and risk.
Tell us about your history with Sundance Institute. When was the first time you engaged with us? Why did you want your film to premiere with us?
We made films for many years before we finally came to the Festival with our own film, The Overnighters, in 2014. Since then, we’ve shown other films at Sundance and participated in some of the artist support programs. Sundance has been such an important part of our growth as artists and brought us some of the richest experiences of our lives. We love premiering new work at Sundance and the power of the community that assembles in Park City; it’s nourishing and inspiring and keeps us going through the ups and downs.
What’s your favorite film that has come from the Sundance Institute or Festival?
It’s hard to pick one from Sundance. Paris is Burning and Hoop Dreams were early documentaries that inspired us — also Reservoir Dogs and sex, lies, and videotape — landmark indies.
