JONAS BALL AS MARK CHAPMAN IN DIRECTOR ANDREW PIDDINGTON’S THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON. COURTESY IFC FILMS. After spending the majority of his career working in television, 54-year-old Brit Andrew Piddington has committed the rest of his career to being an independent film director. He began his career working with poetic filmmaker Brian Lewis in 1980, and directed his first solo project as a writer-director, D.H. Lawrence as Son and Lover, that same year. Over the course of the 80s, he distinguished himself with his television work, most notably more biographical dramas about significant cultural figures, such as Under the […]

THE GHOSTLY TOMÁS (ÓSCAR CASAS) IN DIRECTOR JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA’S THE ORPHANAGE. COURTESY PICTUREHOUSE. Though he looks and dresses like he’s still a teenager, behind Juan Antonio Bayona’s youthful appearance hides a mature and sophisticated cinematic sensibility. The 32-year-old Barcelona native has a passion for movies that first led him to become a precocious journalist, and then to study directing at film school. Since graduating, he has built a formidable reputation making a series of acclaimed commercials, pop promos for Spanish artists such as Hevia, Ella Baila Sola, Camela and OBK, and two short films, Mis Vacaciones (My Holidays) (1999) […]

JENNA FISCHER AND JOHN C. REILLY IN DIRECTOR JAKE KASDAN’S WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY. COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES. Our perception of a director hinges heavily on the most recent film they’ve made. Jake Kasdan’s last movie, The TV Set, was a smart, sardonic satire of the process of creating a hit series that drew on Kasdan’s own bitter experiences in network television. Though Kasdan had enjoyed working for Judd Apatow on Freaks and Geeks (1999) and Undeclared (2001) — directing episodes for these in between making his first and second features, Zero Effect (1997) and Orange County (2002) — […]

ANDY WARHOL AND DANNY WILLIAMS IN DIRECTOR ESTHER ROBINSON’S A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY. COURTESY ARTHOUSE FILMS. Esther Robinson has an effusive passion for cinema that is infectious, and has led her to dedicate her career to helping artists and filmmakers. She studied film and television at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, and at the age of only 24 produced Alive TV, a television show for PBS about alternative and experimental film. In 1998, she started Wavelength Releasing, a company established to explore new ways to make, distribute and show movies, which was […]

BILLY PRICE, THE STAR OF DIRECTOR JENNIFER VENDITTI’S DOCUMENTARY BILLY THE KID.COURTESY ELEPHANT EYE FILMS. You might say that Jennifer Venditti is a people person. After starting out as a fashion stylist, she moved on to casting where she distinguished herself as someone with an eye for the unconventional as well as the beautiful. In 1998, she started JV8inc, a New York-based casting company working in fashion, commercials and film, which has become known for its use of street scouting, finding “real” people for campaigns or movies by going out and pounding the pavements. Since starting JV8, Venditti has worked […]

CHRISTIAN SLATER IN DIRECTOR FRANK CAPPELLO’S HE WAS A QUIET MAN. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Whether he’s writing, directing, creating special effects, playing music, or simply recounting anecdotes, Frank Cappello seems to have a compulsive need to entertain. He honed his storytelling skills as a kid reading out his imagined motocross adventures to classmates, and then spent years writing spec scripts while working in special effects. Though the first script he sold, Suburban Commando (1991), became a derided Hulk Hogan vehicle, it was a launchpad for Cappello to direct two genre pictures. American Yakuza (1993) and No Way Back (1995) both […]

STEVEN C. STEWART AND CARRIE SZLASA IN DIRECTOR CRISPIN HELLION GLOVER’S IT IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE. Put simply, Crispin Glover is not from here: there is an otherworldly quality to the actor-turned-director’s appearance, manner and aesthetics that make even his friend and mentor David Lynch seem pretty normal. The son of actors Bruce and Marie Glover, he came to prominence in the mid-1980s with performances in Back to the Future (1985) and River’s Edge (1986). Very much treading his own path, he combined a career playing eccentrics on screen with painting, writing books, like Oak Mot (1991) and Rat […]

NICOLE KIDMAN IN DIRECTOR NOAH BAUMBACH’S MARGOT AT THE WEDDING. COURTESY PARAMOUNT VANTAGE. If you believe what you read, Noah Baumbach’s films — sharp, witty, poignant and sometimes devastating — are drawn directly from his life. The son of Village Voice film critic Georgia Brown and novelist and film critic Jonathan Baumbach, Baumbach debuted as a writer-director in 1995 with his acclaimed Kicking and Screaming, the first of a number of films made during his twenties about New Yorkers in their twenties. After his second film, Mr Jealousy (1997), Baumbach admits that he got “derailed” and ended up making Highball […]

OCTAVIO GÓMEZ IN STEVE BARRON’S CHOKING MAN. COURTESY INTERNATIONAL FILM CIRCUIT. Considering Steve Barron’s career, you can’t help wondering why he isn’t better known. Having grown up around films (because his mother, Zelda Barron, was a script supervisor, producer and director), Dublin-born Barron progressed from a clapper loader on movies like A Bridge Too Far and Ridley Scott’s debut The Duellists (both 1977) to one of the most influential pop promo directors of the 1980s. He was responsible for the videos for Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing and a-ha’s Take On Me. After making the cult […]

THE LATE, GREAT JOE STRUMMER IN JULIEN TEMPLE’S JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. For 30 years, Brit Julien Temple has combined his dual passions of film and music, and worked with greats in both fields along the way. He first came to prominence with The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979), the Sex Pistols’ madcap cinematic offering, and from there went on to become an important figure in the fledgling pop video medium as well as pioneering the feature-length promo with the Human League’s spy-themed Mantrap (1983) and Mick Jagger’s Running Out of Luck (1987). […]