Director Interviews

Scott Prendergast, Kabluey

SCOTT PRENDERGAST AND CHRISTINE TAYLOR IN KABLUEY. COURTESY REGENT RELEASING. Like his much buzzed shorts, Scott Prendergast’s debut feature brings to the screen his poignant outsider’s perspective and talent for creating vivid comic characters. Born in Galveston, Texas but raised in Portland, Oregon, Prendergast attended Columbia University and then pursued a career as a comic writer and improviser at L.A.’s Groundlings Theater. He went on to develop his own one man comedy improv show, UNman, which had a two-year run in NYC. In the late 90s, he started making short films – grounded as much in performance comedy as cinema […]

By Nick Dawson on Jul 4, 2008 Director Interviews
Catherine Breillat, The Last Mistress

ASIA ARGENTO IN DIRECTOR CATHERINE BREILLAT’S THE LAST MISTRESS. COURTESY IFC FILMS. Hated and loved in equal measure, Catherine Breillat is a filmmaker who could never be accused of being boring. The French writer director seems courting controversy since the beginning of her career: she was a literary sensation at the age of 17 when she published her first novel, L’homme Facile which was sufficiently racy to be forbidden reading for minors and her first cinematic involvement was acting in Bernardo Bertolucci’s sordid classic Last Tango in Paris (1972). She made her directorial debut in 1976 with an adaptation of […]

By Nick Dawson on Jun 27, 2008 Director Interviews
Cecilia Miniucchi, Expired

SAMANTHA MORTON AND JASON PATRIC IN DIRECTOR CECILIA MINIUCCHI’S EXPIRED. COURTESY MCR RELEASING. After observing and learning from some of the best directors around, writer-director Cecilia Miniucchi has put all her acquired wisdom to use in a distinctive and promising debut. Born in Rome, the multi-talented Miniucchi is notable for the number of mediums she has worked in: a prolific maker of documentaries and music videos, she has also written poetry, songs, plays and short stories, and is an accomplished photographer. While in Italy, Miniucchi worked with Federico Fellini and the Taviani brothers, and went on to serve an apprenticeship […]

By Nick Dawson on Jun 20, 2008 Director Interviews
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. For more than 40 years, Werner Herzog has been redrawing the map, both cinematically and geographically. He started making short films in the mid-1960s, and made an impact internationally with Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), the tale of a mad conquistador’s doomed jungle quest, the first of five collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski. Herzog and Kinski’s relationship was often turbulent and violent, but the ambitious, outlandish and usually unhinged films they made together over the course of the 70s and 80s […]

By Nick Dawson on Jun 11, 2008 Director Interviews
Martin Hynes, The Go-Getter

LOU TAYLOR PUCCI IN DIRECTOR MARTIN HYNES’S THE GO-GETTER. COURTESY PEACE ARCH RELEASING. Though best known for playing a legendary director on screen, Martin Hynes seems destined to become an auteur in reality as well. A native of Eugene, Oregon, Hynes studied history at Columbia before embarking on a career as an actor and sketch comedian. He then enrolled in the graduate film program at USC where he not only made the highly-regarded short Al As In Al (1995) but played the eponymous lead in Joe Nussbaum’s cult favorite George Lucas in Love (1999). He made his feature debut with […]

By Nick Dawson on Jun 5, 2008 Director Interviews
Stuart Gordon, Stuck

MENA SUVARI IN DIRECTOR STUART GORDON’S STUCK. COURTESY THINKFILM. Since the very beginning of his career, Stuart Gordon has set out to shock and disrupt. Gordon, a native of Chicago, began his assault on the public after developing a love of drama at the University of Wisconsin. He subsequently started the Screw Theater – which made national news in 1968 when they performed a nude, psychedelic version of Peter Pan – and went on in 1970 to found the Organic Theater Company in Chicago, where he was artistic director for 15 years. Over that period, Gordon worked with Roald Dahl, […]

By Nick Dawson on May 30, 2008 Director Interviews
Parvez Sharma, A Jihad For Love

GAY MUSLIM REFUGEES MEET IN DIRECTOR PARVEZ SHARMA’S A JIHAD FOR LOVE. COURTESY FIRST RUN FEATURES. After a distinguished career as a print and television journalist, Parvez Sharma has made a notable transition to documentary filmmaker. Born and raised in India, Sharma studied English at the University of Calcutta before gaining three film and journalism related masters degrees at universities in India, Britain and the U.S. He spent the nineties as a newspaper reporter in India and then moved on to working for his country’s premier news network, Star News Channel, using his position to draw attention to human rights […]

By Nick Dawson on May 21, 2008 Director Interviews
Georgina Riedel, How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer

AMERICA FERRERA, LUCY GALLARDO AND ELIZABETH PEÑA IN DIRECTOR GEORGINA RIEDEL’S HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER. COURTESY MAYA RELEASING. Like her friends Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo and Goran Dukic, Georgina Riedel is a distinctive new voice in American independent filmmaking. A first generation Mexican American who grew up in Arizona, Riedel studied film at the University of Arizona where she made a series of shorts. She gained her MFA at the American Film Institute, where she became friends with fellow directing students Jacobs, Naranjo and Dukic. Riedel’s graduation film, One Night It Happened (2002), a black-and-white romance about […]

By Nick Dawson on May 16, 2008 Director Interviews
Nick Broomfield, Battle For Haditha

ERIC MEHALACOPOULOUS IN DIRECTOR NICK BROOMFIELD’S BATTLE FOR HADITHA. COURTESY NICK BROOMFIELD. Immediately distinguishable by his understated good looks, laid-back, drawling English voice and, of course, the boom mike seemingly always in his hands, Nick Broomfield is an iconic figure in documentary filmmaking, as well as one of the form’s most talented artists. The son of English photographer Maurice Broomfield and a Czech refugee, Broomfield went to a Quaker boarding school before studying law at Cardiff University, political science at Essex University and finally film at the National Film School in his hometown of London. Combining his interest in sociopolitical […]

By Nick Dawson on May 7, 2008 Director Interviews
Garth Jennings, Son Of Rambow

WILL POULTER AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR GARTH JENNINGS’ SON OF RAMBOW. COURTESY PARAMOUNT VANTAGE. When you meet Garth Jennings, it is immediately apparent where much of the energy, enthusiasm and imagination in his films comes from. The effervescent Jennings, born in Essex, England in 1972, attended the Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in London where he met Nick Goldsmith with whom he formed the creative partnership Hammer & Tongs. Though the pair have always collaborated closely on everything, over time Goldsmith has taken on production duties while Jennings now directs. The pair are most famous for […]

By Nick Dawson on May 2, 2008 Director Interviews

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