Authors — Nick Dawson
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Astra Taylor, Examined Life
CORNEL WEST IN DIRECTOR ASTRA TAYLOR’S EXAMINED LIFE. COURTESY ZEITGEIST FILMS. Still in her twenties, documentarian Astra Taylor has already brought a philosophical bent to non-fiction filmmaking and is looking to push the form in new and exciting directions. Taylor was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1979 and grew up in Athens, Georgia. She studied first at the University of Georgia and then got an MA in sociology, philosophy and cultural theory at the New School for Social Research in New York. In 2001, she co-produced and co-directed the 45-minute documentary Miracle Tree: Moringa Oleifera, about infant malnutrition in Senegal, […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 25, 2009 -
Morgan Dews, Must Read After My Death
MORGAN DEWS’ SECRET FAMILY HISTORY IS REVEALED IN THE DIRECTOR’S MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH. COURTESY GIGANTIC RELEASING. Good things can always be salvaged from even the worst of circumstances, and that has seldom been more true than in the case of documentarian Morgan Dews. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1968 after his mother had run away from a troubled family situation to get married. He grew up oblivious to the difficult circumstances from which his mother had escaped, and then attended Rutgers University, where he studied History, graduating in 1990. Subsequently, he decamped to Spain where […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 20, 2009 -
Tom Tykwer, The International
CLIVE OWEN AND NAOMI WATTS IN DIRECTOR TOM TYKWER’S THE INTERNATIONAL. COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES. German writer-director Tom Tykwer, arguably one of the most exciting auteurs in world cinema, has been immersed in movies since he was a child and always seemed destined to become a director. Born in the town of Wuppertal in 1965, by the age of 11 Tykwer had picked up a Super 8 camera and begun making films. At the age of 14, he got a job at Cinema, the local arthouse theater, where he would stay after hours, repeatedly watching Blade Runner. After completing his compulsory […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 13, 2009 -
Veit Helmer, Absurdistan
MAX MAUFF AND KRISTYNA MALÉROVÁ IN DIRECTOR VEIT HELMER’S ABSURDISTAN. COURTESY FIRST RUN FEATURES. German writer-director Veit Helmer is a true oddity, a creative mind whose films might well have been unearthed from a time capsule buried during the era of silent comedy. Born in Hanover in 1968, Helmer spent much of his childhood watching Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and by the age of 14 had already made his first film. He studied at Munich’s School of Television and Film, and made quirky shorts throughout his time there, such as the highly inventive Surprise! (1995). When Wim […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 6, 2009 -
Milcho Manchevski, Shadows
BORCE NACEV AND VESNA STANOJEVSKA IN DIRECTOR MILCHO MANCHEVSKI’S SHADOWS. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Writer-director Milcho Manchevski has only made three features over the course of his 15-year film career, yet the multi-talented Macedonian rarely allows himself a moment to catch his breath. Born in 1959 in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, Manchevski studied History of Art and Archeology at his hometown university before going to film school at Southern Illinois University on a scholarship. Following his graduation, he relocated to New York and began making commercials, music videos, documentaries, shorts and experimental films. In 1992, he won several major awards […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 30, 2009 -
Werner Herzog, Encounters at the End of the World
WERNER HERZOG AND D.P. PETER ZEITLINGER CAPTURE ANTARCTICA IN ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD. COURTESY THINKFILM. Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 22, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed Encounters at the End of the World director Werner Herzog for our Director Interviews section of the Website. Encounters at the End of the World is nominated for Best Documentary. For more than 40 years, Werner Herzog has been redrawing the map, both cinematically and geographically. He started making short […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 19, 2009 -
That’s What Friends are For: Writer/Director Lynn Shelton on the Collaborative Process Behind Her Poignant Comedy, Humpday
Lynn Shelton has worked in a variety of creative forms for most of her life, but seems to have found her true voice in the role of writer-director. A Seattle native, Shelton spent her formative years immersed in painting, writing poetry, taking pictures and acting. She was a stage actress for ten years (and was told she was destined to work in film), and subsequently studied for an MFA in Photography at NYC’s School of Visual Arts. She then began working in film, both as an editor on movies such as The Outpatient (2002) and Hedda Gabler (2004) and as […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 17, 2009 -
Doris Dörrie, Cherry Blossoms
Though little known outside her home country, Doris Dörrie is arguably one of the most important cultural voices in Germany, both in film and across several other cultural forms. Born in Hanover in 1955, she spent two years in the U.S. in the mid 70s studying drama, philosophy and psychology at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, and the New School in NYC. She then returned to Germany to attend the School of Television and Film in Munich, during which time she also worked as a film critic. Dörrie directed a series of shorts and worked on television […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 16, 2009 -
2008 in Quotes
Last year, I put together a blog post with a taster of some quotes from Director Interviews I did in 2007 and I have now (somewhat belatedly) come up with a compilation of choice soundbites from this past year. Though in my thoughts on 2008 I expressed the opinion that it had been a below average year for cinema (at least in comparison with the high water mark of 2007), it has been a hugely enjoyable 12 months from my perspective as an interviewer. Any year in which you get to sit down with George Romero, Werner Herzog, Catherine Breillat, […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 11, 2009 -
Ole Bornedal, Just Another Love Story
From his eclectic resumé, it’s clear that Ole Bornedal likes to challenge himself so (almost always) refuses to return to familiar territory. The Danish writer-director was born in the small town of Nørresundby in 1959, and became a director of Danish radio plays in the 1980s after failing to get into film school. In the early 90s, he moved into television, where he wrote and directed sketch comedy and political satire as well as the colorfully titled TV movie Masturbator (1993). Bornedal made his feature film debut in 1994 with Nightwatch, a thriller about a law student who moonlights as […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 9, 2009
