Writer/director Peter Sattler is ready to tell a different kind of Guantanamo Bay story in one of this year's major competition films.

Peter Sattler's Camp X-Ray will undoubtedly stir the pot when it premieres on Thurs., Jan. 17, the first full day of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. First there are the political provocations: the film follows a young woman recently assigned to prison guard duty at Guantanamo Bay who finds herself befriending an inmate. Then there are both critics and fans of Kristen Stewart, anxious to see how the film subverts the actress' assumed evolution (and judging from the sold-out screenings, they latter will be coming out in throngs). Camp X-Ray marks Sattler's directorial debut, though it would be an ambitious project for even a seasoned filmmaker. Before it bows at Sundance '14, we talked to Sattler about his career, developing Camp X-Ray, and his hopes for this competition film:

Background: Sattler studied film at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he befriended filmmakers like David Gordon Green (who executive produced Camp X-Ray), Jeff Nichols and Craig Zobel. There he took to experimental filmmaking, directing the Student Academy Award-nominated short Newton. When Green directed his second feature, All the Real Girls, he grabbed his college buddies, including Sattler, to work as below the line crew. “I worked in the art department and I told him, 'I don't know the first thing about the art department,'” recalls Sattler. “And he said, 'That's OK, we'll work it out.'"

The Big Break: After years of working in art departments, Sattler turned a passion for screenwriting into a full-time job. With writing partner Geoff Davey, he tackled studio genre assignments and rewrite jobs, slowly putting his graphic design work behind him. In 2008, he set up an adaptation of the graphic novel Freaks of the Heartland at Overture with Green attached to direct. All the while, Sattler toiled away over Camp X-Ray, the result of a newfound obsession with character and classic storytelling.

Getting the Film Off the Ground: When Sattler's script for Camp X-Ray was production-ready, he handed it to Green, who had been anxious to help his former collaborator get a feature off the ground. Sattler explains Green's willingness to help him in simple terms: “David just wants to see movies made.” Together they attracted investors, along with a lead actress who gave Sattler's debut a star-power boost. “It was the script and David's involvement that got Kristen interested,” he says. “She took a huge risk, jumping on to this movie with a director who hadn't directed a feature, but I think she responded to the power of the script.”

When It All Seemed to Click: Knowing that many first-time directors stumble with style over substance, Sattler opted to shoot Camp X-Ray as “a very classic, very elegant film” that let the script and performances do the talking. So it wasn't until he met with Stewart and talked through the character of Amy that his vision began to coalesce. “The weird thing about Kristen is that there's Kristen Stewart the star and Kristen Stewart the actor,” he says of his lead. Together, they started asking questions that acted as foundation for the film's main action. Sattler rattles off examples: “Who is this girl? She didn't do that, she did this. OK, what did she do in high school? Was she involved in sports? Was she a virgin?” He says Stewart filled in many of the blanks and added dimension to the ideas he had put on the page.

For a low-budget drama, finding a Gitmo stand-in could prove difficult. But that's what the Internet is for. Sattler began researching and discovered that Guanatnamo Bay was designed by a U.S. contractor known for its maximum security prisons. Then he stumbled upon a juvenile prison in Whittier, California (just outside of L.A.), that just so happened to have a block of cells mimicking maximum security prisons. Stars aligned. Sattler believes the verisimilitude was essential to Camp X-Ray. “The movie basically has three characters, three primary elements: Kirsten, Paymer [Moaadi, of A Separation, as inmate Ali] and the character of this place.”

The Mission for Camp X-Ray: Sattler didn't want to make a movie about Guantanamo Bay that was politically charged and reflective of a big picture. He wanted to make a movie about Guantanamo Bay as a home to inmates and guards alike. “What if a movie could be about Guantanamo Bay without focusing on the 100 miles of fence line and, instead, focused on the smaller details. The microscopic view instead of a grand scale. Not Zero Dark Thirty but an intimate look at a world. These characters don't experience amazing helicopter shots over Guantanamo. They basically experience those four walls they see day in and day out,” Sattler says.

TheHollywoodReporter

David Gordon Green (executive producer of CXR) talks about Camp X-Ray with comingsoon.net

CS: It's funny, people are pointing to "Prince Avalanche" as your return to indie, but you've continued to produce indie movies even while doing your studio comedies, so what's the latest thing you've been working on?
Gordon Green: Actually, I was out on set yesterday. I'm producing a movie that stars Kristen Stewart called "Camp X-Ray" that a friend of mine, Pete Sattler is directing. It was great to go out to that set, the star of "A Separation" was in it (Peyman Moaadi ) and I'm a huge fan of his, so it was kind of cool to see them in action. It takes place in Guantanamo, so they're shooting at a prison, so it's kind of fun. You know, for me, it's always an exciting balance, films like "Compliance" or "Catechism Cataclysm," some of the strange, offbeat stuff that I feel like needs a voice or needs some financing or just needs to exist on this earth for my own selfish and self-indulgent enjoyment. So it's great to wear a producer hat for me and put forth the writhing waves of talent out there.

CS: One of my nurses is a big Kristen Stewart fan, so she is definitely excited for "Camp X-Ray."
Gordon Green: Right on. Well, I think it's a great change of pace for her, and I'm excited to see it, too. 

From CinemaBlend

You’re helping a lot of people make their movies these days. You’re producing like a ton of different…
I just went to visit a set in LA the other day for a movie that…

Which one?
It’s called Camp X-Ray. My good buddy from college, Pete Sattler, is on production on it right now. It stars Kristen Stewart, about Guantanamo detainees. It’s really awesome.

Holy crap.
Yeah, it looks great. He used to be my props guy. I went to college with him and it’s just really amazing just watching him work as a director as opposed to a props guy or graphic designer, all of the different jobs he’s had. I come from a community of really supportive people that are always looking. You know, there are so many movies that we all want to make, you have to bring more people into the making part, like you need a lot of people to make your movies. Like me and Craig Zobel wrote a horror movie and I was reading it the other day and we were talking and he was like, “Man, I don’t know.” I said, “If you don’t want to make this, maybe I’ll make it. If you don’t have time, what if I did that or what if we give that to so and so, our other buddy?” You know, it’s kind of fun to have people that you can say, we need to accomplish a lot as a collective, very casually, and so, the more people we have working, the more we get done, the greater legacy we leave behind.

He also mentions Camp X-Ray in this interview
[at about 17-minute mark]

  and in this interview [at about 14:30 minute mark]