239. US independent filmmaker Debra Granik’s third feature film “Leave No Trace” (2018): An unusual tale of a father and his teenage daughter duo, living in the woods in self-imposed exile, far removed from socially acceptable elements of modern living

D irector Debra Granik is an independent filmmaker in USA who works outside the Hollywood studio system. Leave No Trace is her third feature film as a director without support from the influential studio producers and mainstream distributors. Ms Granik often works with US scriptwriter Anne Rosellini. Their collaboration has resulted in two notable independent feature films: Ms Granik’s second feature film Winter’s Bone (2010) and Leave No Trace. The duo picked up two novels on individuals living on the fringes of society (one on the family of a drug addict, another of a traumatized war veteran), and transformed those into the scripts of unusually magnetic feature films with very striking performances from carefully chosen actresses, propelling them from near obscurity to world attention. This happened with all three feature films directed by Ms Granik: Vera Farmiga in Down to the Bone (2004), Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone (based on a n...