From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell.

You can also the show at KCRW.com.

The Sundance Film Festival has been very good to my guest, writer-director, Deborah Granick.

In 1998, she won for her short film.

2004, she was Backford Down to the Bone, which won a directing prize for her.

And this year for her film Winter's Bone, she won the Grand Prize from the Jury and also the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Deborah, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you.

What was it like that first time going with your short film in 98?

That was a strange experience because the film came from such a kind of personal development process of working with our real-life family in upstate New York.

And we hadn't totally thought through

what it would be like for a story that involves some elements from their real life to be

actually then seen in a more public way because it started really as an exercise. And then

a student film was created from that. I just have this very, very distinct memory of calling them from Utah and just saying,

this is really weird guys, but I just need to tell you this.

And, I mean, this is something very good has happened to our project, you know.

And so that was one of those things where it's a very insular process and the transition to a public exhibition feels, it has a shocking quality.

It must be like sort of letting the genie out of the bottle a little bit, isn't it?

You have no idea with that contact with the air is going to be like until you actually see it take shape in front of people.

And then there's also that whole part of public exhibition where you really are asking an audience, are you guys resonating with this?

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