Director Interviews

Michael Almereyda, Paradise

A STILL FROM DIRECTOR MICHAEL ALMEREYDA’S PARADISE. COURTESY POST FACTORY FILMS. As he himself puts it, writer-director Michael Almereyda loves to make movies like a fighter likes to brawl, and over the course of his directorial career he has sought out an intriguing variety of creative challenges. Born in 1959 in Overland Park, Kansas, Almereyda spent his formative years in the Los Angeles area, where he discovered cinema and became a voracious moviegoer. Almereyda attended Harvard as an art history student, but dropped out in order to pursue his film career. He made his debut with the short film A […]

By Nick Dawson on Sep 24, 2009 Director Interviews
Bob Byington, Harmony and Me

JUSTIN RICE IN WRITER-DIRECTOR BOB BYINGTON’S HARMONY AND ME. COURTESY HARMONY AND ME, LLC. From Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez to Bryan Poyser and the Zellner brothers, Austin is a hotbed of gifted directors, and Bob Byington now emerges from there as another talent to be reckoned with. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Byington studied at UC-Santa Cruz before going to graduate school at the University of Texas, where he used his American Studies major to indulge his newfound love for the movies. In 1995, he cut his teeth as a production assistant on the indie hit The Last Supper, […]

By Nick Dawson on Sep 18, 2009 Director Interviews
Joe Berlinger, Crude

A STILL FROM DIRECTOR JOE BERLINGER’S CRUDE. COURTESY FIRST RUN FEATURES. Joe Berlinger is a filmmaker who makes documentaries that tell important stories with integrity, while still always entertaining his audiences. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1961, Berlinger studied English and German at Colgate University, and got his first taste of the movie business while working on TV commercials at an advertising agency in Frankfurt. After deciding he wanted to make films, he moved to New York City, where he got a job working for the Maysles brothers. Berlinger’s first foray into directing was the documentary short Outrageous Taxi Stories […]

By Nick Dawson on Sep 9, 2009 Director Interviews
Alexis Dos Santos, Unmade Beds

FERNANDO TIELVE AND DÉBORAH FRANÇOIS IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ALEXIS DOS SANTOS’ UNMADE BEDS. COURTESY IFC FILMS. If there’s a restlessness to the filmmaking of Alexis Dos Santos, you only have to look at the background of the young Argentinian writer-director to understand why. Born in Buenos Aires, Dos Santos relocated with his family to a small village in Patagonia when he was eight. He returned to the capital city to study Architecture at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, then moved on to study acting, and finally settled on filmmaking as his vocation. After completing his undergraduate studies at the Universidad del […]

By Nick Dawson on Sep 2, 2009 Director Interviews
Robert Siegel, Big Fan

PATTON OSWALT IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ROBERT SIEGEL’S BIG FAN. COURTESY FIRST INDEPENDENT PICTURES. For someone who says his main creative motivation is boredom, Robert Siegel has done rather well for himself. Born and raised in the Long Island town of Merrick, Siegel graduated from the University of Michigan 1993 with a B.A. in History, after which he followed his then-girlfriend to Madison, Wisconsin, where she was studying for a PhD. In addition to working for the local newspaper and volunteering at Madison’s public radio station, Siegel started writing for a small satirical rag that was given away free in the town’s […]

By Nick Dawson on Aug 28, 2009 Director Interviews
Lucrecia Martel, The Headless Woman

MARÍA ONETTO IN DIRECTOR LUCRECIA MARTEL’S THE HEADLESS WOMAN. COURTESY STRAND RELEASING. Over the course of the past decade, Lucrecia Martel has established herself as one of the most gifted and original filmmakers around. The Argentine auteur was born in Salta, a city in the northwest of Argentina, in 1966, and spent her teenage years capturing much of her family’s daily life on film. In 1986, she studied Communication Science and had stints at two film schools, Avellaneda Experimental, studying animation, and the National Experimentation Filmmaking School in Buenos Aires. However because she never finished her film studies (one of […]

By Nick Dawson on Aug 19, 2009 Director Interviews
Andrew Bujalski, Beeswax

MAGGIE HATCHER, TILLY HATCHER AND ALEX KARPOVSKY IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ANDREW BUJALSKI’S BEESWAX. COURTESY CINEMA GUILD. Every film movement has its (sometimes reluctant) leader or trendsetter, and in the case of mumblecore, that person is Andrew Bujalski. The soft-spoken writer-director and sometime actor was born in 1977 in Boston, where both his parents worked in business. His mother had previously been an artist, and Bujalski seemed to inherit her more creative inclinations, which lead him to study film at Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. Bujalski was particularly fortunate to have the legendary Belgian filmmaker Chantal Ackerman as his thesis […]

By Nick Dawson on Aug 7, 2009 Director Interviews
Jean-Pierre And Luc Dardenne, Lorna’s Silence

ARTA DOBROSHI IN LUC AND JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE’S LORNA’S SILENCE. COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. From Auguste and Louis Lumière onwards, filmmaking partnerships with last names like Coen, Duplass, Hughes, Maysles, Polish, Quay, Wachowski, Taviani, Zellner and Zucker – just to name a few – have been proving that siblings and cinema go well together, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are certainly no exceptions. The Belgian filmmakers, born in Liège in 1951 and 1954 respectively, have been making films as a duo since 1975, when they formed the production company Dérives. After a decade of making documentaries, they shifted to doc-style fiction […]

By Nick Dawson on Jul 31, 2009 Director Interviews
Armando Iannucci, In The Loop

PETER CAPALDI AND JAMES GANDOLFINI IN DIRECTOR ARMANDO IANNUCCI’S IN THE LOOP. COURTESY IFC FILMS. Scottish writer-director Armando Iannucci has made a slow and steady progression toward becoming a film director. The Glasgow-born Italian Scot originally was planning to become a priest (like Martin Scorsese) but the lure of the entertainment world won out over the less glamorous prospect of a life of piety and celibacy. Iannucci attended the University of Glasgow then studied English at Oxford University, where he discovered his passion for comedy. He next got a job as a radio producer on comedy shows for the BBC, […]

By Nick Dawson on Jul 24, 2009 Director Interviews
Eileen Yaghoobian, Died Young, Stayed Pretty

POSTER ARTIST ROB JONES IN DIRECTOR EILEEN YAGHOOBIAN’S DIED YOUNG, STAYED PRETTY. COURTESY NOROTOMO PRODUCTIONS INC. Eileen Yaghoobian, as she puts it, loves making pictures, and over the years, the Iranian-born, Canadian-based artist and filmmaker has put her energies into doing that in a number of different ways. She first discovered her creative impulse as a fresh-faced teenager when she saw Antonioni’s Blow Up and was inspired to take up photography. She then earned an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she gained experience in filmmaking, 3D animation and theatre as well as […]

By Nick Dawson on Jul 17, 2009 Director Interviews

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