Director Interviews

John Crowley, Is Anybody There?

MICHAEL CAINE AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR JOHN CROWLEY’S IS ANYBODY THERE? COURTESY STORY ISLAND ENTERTAINMENT. Along with Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, John Crowley is part of a recent wave of Irish theater influx into film. Born in 1969, Crowley is a philosophy graduate from the University of Cork in Ireland who first became involved in theater as a student, seeing it as a way to get into directing film. He began directing plays in Dublin in the early 90s and was successful enough that already in 1996 he was working in London’s West End. After a few years, […]

By Nick Dawson on Apr 17, 2009 Director Interviews
Jody Hill, Observe And Report

ANNA FARIS AND SETH ROGEN IN DIRECTOR JODY HILL’S OBSERVE AND REPORT. COURTESY WARNER BROS. In terms of the sheer number of great filmmakers it has produced recently, the North Carolina School of the Arts is pretty much untouchable, and its latest alum in the spotlight is writer-director Jody Hill. Hill, a native of North Carolina, attended the university along with a prodigious group of classmates including directors David Gordon Green, Craig Zobel and Jeff Nichols, as well as writer-actors Danny McBride and Paul Schneider, D.P. Tim Orr and soundman-turned-writer Chris Gebert. After graduation, Hill briefly worked in television in […]

By Nick Dawson on Apr 10, 2009 Director Interviews
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Tulpan

ASKHAT KUCHINCHIREKOV AND FRIEND IN DIRECTOR SERGEY DVORTSEVOY’S TULPAN. COURTESY ZEITGEIST FILMS. The image of Kazakhstan and its cinema took a hit recently with the unwanted attention of a certain Borat Sagdiyev, however the rise to prominence of the highly talented writer-director Sergey Dvortsevoy should help redress that national image problem. Dvortsevoy was born in the Kazakh city of Chimkent in 1962 and initially had no particular interest in film. After high school, he attended aviation college in the Ukraine and the Radiotechnical-Institut in Novosibirsk, Russia, in order to become a radio engineer for Aeroflot, the Russian aviation company, a […]

By Nick Dawson on Apr 1, 2009 Director Interviews
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Three Monkeys

YAVUZ BINGÖL AND HATICE ESLAN IN DIRECTOR NURI BILGE CEYLAN’S THREE MONKEYS. COURTESY ZEITGEIST FILMS. In film writing these days, superlatives like “visionary” and “genius” are thrown around all too often to describe directors, though few truly deserve them; Nuri Bilge Ceylan, however, is one of those few. The Turkish writer-director was born in 1959 in Istanbul, and started taking photographs in his mid-teens. He earned a degree in Engineering at Bo?aziçi University, but after graduating he moved on to study film, a newly discovered passion, at Mirnar Sinan University. After a ten-year period spent living in London (during which […]

By Nick Dawson on Mar 27, 2009 Director Interviews
Matt Tyrnauer, Valentino: The Last Emperor

ICONIC FASHION DESIGNER VALENTINO GARAVANI (CENTER) IN DIRECTOR MATT TYRNAUER’S VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR. COURTESY ACOLYTE FILMS. Having demonstrated significant talent as a print journalist, Matt Tyrnauer has shifted his focus and brought his great observational skills to bear on the big screen. Born in the late 1960s in Los Angeles, Tyrnauer grew up with entertainment all around him. His father was a TV writer on shows like The Virginian, Columbo and Murder, She Wrote (which he also produced), Tyrnauer was a regular visitor to LA’s favorite rep houses such as the Nuart and the New Beverley, and he was […]

By Nick Dawson on Mar 18, 2009 Director Interviews
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tokyo Sonata

KYÔKO KOIZUMI, INOWAKI KAI, TERUYUKI KAGAWA, AND YÛ KOYANAGI IN DIRECTOR KIYOSHI KUROSAWA’S TOKYO SONATA. COURTESY REGENT RELEASING. Over the past decade or so, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has established himself as one of the most interesting genre directors in world cinema. The Japanese writer-director was born in Kobe in 1955, and first made 8mm shorts while studying Sociology at Rikko University. He began directing features in the early 1980s, working on direct-to-video titles, including yakuza movies, and studied under the tutelage of directors Shinji Somai and Kazuhiko Hasegawa. He then had minor successes with films like the college-set drama The Excitement […]

By Nick Dawson on Mar 13, 2009 Director Interviews
Leos Carax And Michel Gondry, Tokyo !

DENIS LAVANT IN “MERDE,”DIRECTOR LEOS CARAX’SEGMENT OF TOKYO!. COURTESY LIBERATION ENTERTAINMENT. French directors Leos Carax and Michel Gondry – both born in the early 1960s, during the first blush of the Nouvelle Vague – so far have had markedly different career paths. Carax, a boy from the Parisian suburbs, became a film critic and short film director before announcing himself as a major talent with his first two features, Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Bad Blood (1986). Carax’s distinctive visual style, outsider sensibility and preoccupation with modern romance was also on show in his third film, Lovers on the Bridge […]

By Nick Dawson on Mar 6, 2009 Director Interviews
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 Director Interviews
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 Director Interviews
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 Director Interviews

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