Authors — Erik Luers
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Five Questions for Jim: The James Foley Story Director Brian Oakes
Developing a documentary about the murder of an innocent photojournalist at the hands of ISIS would be an emotional experience for any first-time feature filmmaker. Now imagine that the slain journalist in question, Jim Foley, is someone you’ve been friends with since childhood. This is the situation filmmaker Brian Oakes found himself in when making Jim: The James Foley Story, a film that looks at his friend’s death as well as the chilling aftermath the Foley family had to endure stateside. An intensely personal experience, Jim will air on HBO next month following its world premiere in the U.S. Documentary Completion section of […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 2, 2016 -
Five Questions for NUTS! Director Penny Lane
A medical doctor in name only, John R. Brinkley became famous in the ’20s and ’30s for claiming to have found an unusual cure for male impotence: all it would take was the transplantation of goat testicles into his human subjects. A hundred years removed from “discovery,” documentarian Penny Lane (whose Our Nixon was about another very larger-than-life public figure) dives into the life and times of Brinkley, a man whose entire history was based on lies and false acclaim. Filmmaker: Your first feature documentary Our Nixon is compiled from archival footage clearly relevant to American history and politics. Did you set out for your follow-up to be a […]
by Erik Luers on Feb 2, 2016 -
Five Questions for Life, Animated Director Roger Ross Williams
Chances are you’ve experienced one or two-dozen animated films from Walt Disney Studios. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King: the studio famous for introducing the world to Mickey Mouse has produced some of the most identifiable films (and, subsequently, images) of the twentieth century. One of the studio’s most ardent fans is Owen Suskind, a young man diagnosed as autistic at the age of three and the subject of a memoir, Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, written by his father Ron Suskind. Using Disney films as a guide to communicate and express himself to […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 29, 2016 -
Five Questions for Southside with You Writer/Director Richard Tanne
Intriguing for its logline alone, Southside with You raised considerable interest when it was announced as a Sundance selection. Telling the true story of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Robinson’s first date in Chicago in 1989, the film features the leader of the free world at a moment in time where things were perhaps not as high-stakes for him as they are now. Bonding over ice-cream and shared interests, that fateful date would prove to be a more important outing than the lovers could have initially realized. As the film prepared to make its world premiere, director Richard Tanne discussed the […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 28, 2016 -
Eight Recommended Short Films at Sundance 2016
Features premiering at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival tend to receive the most media attention and press coverage, but there are a number of short works making their debut this week that deserve equal or greater consumer attention. Documentary filmmakers trying their hand at narrative work, established producers getting behind the lens for the first time: many of the shorts in this year’s Sundance lineup feature filmmakers stepping outside of their comfort zone to expand their careers and diversify their storytelling output. The short form is an ideal place to try new things, of course, and it’s encouraging to see filmmakers of […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 21, 2016 -
The Orchard Ripens
One of the busier buyers at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, The Orchard — per its website, a “21st-century distribution company with a global presence and a local feel” — has only recently made a name for itself as an arthouse distributor. Founded in 1997, they’ve been known as a leading distribution label for independent music; to date, digital music sales, streams and transactions from titles The Orchard oversees have accounted for 20 to 30 percent of all digital music revenue. But recently, The Orchard garnered media attention for its newly created film division, a division that applies the lessons […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 20, 2016 -
A Suburban Megachurch in John Hughes Territory: Stephen Cone on Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party
Simultaneously a rebellious yell against Christian authority and an appreciation for growing up with evangelical values, Stephen Cone’s Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party is neither religious condemnation nor agitprop. Its title character is a gay teenager celebrating his birthday with friends and family; the film, unfolding over 24 hours, keenly observes how temptation and buried secrets can rise to the surface when theological and political debates make their presence known. A rather sexy movie — in part because premarital sex is presented as something risqué or taboo — Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party is a beautifully rendered, impeccably scored experience that makes a profound, heady impact. There’s an interesting moment featuring a conversation […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 8, 2016 -
A Neighborhood Movie Mentored by Spike Lee: Michael Larnell on Cronies
Michael Larnell grew his black-and-white debut feature Cronies through New York University’s Graduate Film program. Executive produced by NYU professor and project advisor Spike Lee, Larnell’s film follows three young men living in St. Louis as they discuss women, drugs, and other salacious topics of interest to innocently pass the time over a twenty-four hour period. A nonchalant, unassuming look at how men externalize their emotions, Cronies’ pleasures derive from its layered, amusing screenplay, documentary-inspired character interviews, and conflicted study of how far one will go to protect their brethren. As Cronies opens this Friday in IFP’s Screen Forward screening series, I spoke with Larnell about the decision […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 11, 2015 -
“A Documentarian Needs to be Disarming”: Khalik Allah on Field Niggas
Filmed throughout the summer of 2014 on the warm, sweat-drenched streets of Harlem (between 125th Street and Lexington Avenue to be exact), Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas is an all-out sensory experience, gonzo journalism that’s a visceral call-to-action. Placing himself amongst the socially ignored and maligned inhabitants of Harlem’s famous cross streets, Allah takes a nonlugubrious approach to documenting the men and women who frequent the area and suffer from poverty, addiction and a hunger to have their voices heard. Both stylistically and narratively innovative — the subjects’ stories often told via non-sync sound and invasive close-ups — Field Niggas’ attention-getting title is only the tip of the […]
by Erik Luers on Oct 16, 2015 -
In North Dakota with the Neo-Nazis: Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker on Welcome to Leith
Chances are that if you’ve heard anything over the past few years about Leith, North Dakota, it was related to infamous white supremacist Craig Cobb’s attempted takeover of the micro-sized city. Self-proclaimed as “one of the most famous racists in the world,” Cobb descended upon Leith’s unassuming community (population size: twenty-four) in the summer of 2013, attempting to purchase as much land as possible to morph into a haven for fellow white nationalists and white supremacists. What first sounded like a deranged urban legend ultimately became a reality, as families with similar points of view moved in with their swastika flags displayed […]
by Erik Luers on Sep 9, 2015
