Being an actor since she was a child, Jena Malone has been on her fair share of film sets. And what she’s learned is that working with first-time filmmakers is what she enjoys the most.

“I think, throughout my career, my number one favorite activity is working with first-time filmmakers that have a very unique vision,” Malone explained. “And [who] support innovation and clumsy emotion, and have just a unique perspective on humanity, you know?”

As his first feature film, Begert admitted at TheWrap’s Sundance Portrait and Interview Studio presented by Nfp that it started “just as a bit of a writing experiment,” and evolved from there into a short film and, eventually, into this feature. For Malone, working on this film was “amazing.”

Malone stars in music video director Jack Begert’s debut feature “Little Death,” running as part of Sundance’s program this year. Begert has become...