Director Interviews
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“I Needed to Honor Mamie’s Decision To Have the World See What Happened to Her Son”: Chinonye Chukwu on Till
The lynching of Emmett Till—a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was murdered in 1955 after having an “inappropriate” encounter with a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi—has long served as a testament to the odious racism endemic in American culture. As such, Emmett Till has been posthumously considered an icon of the then-burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, but director and co-writer Chinonye Chukwu’s biopic Till is particularly invested in documenting the aftermath of Till’s murder as experienced by his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley (played by Danielle Deadwlyer). In Chukwu’s sophomore film, the audience follows her journey after this life-altering tragedy […]
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“We Often Speak of the Film as a ‘Making-of-a-Ghost’ Story”: Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer on God’s Creatures
The brackish waves of the Atlantic are a source of livelihood and peril for the inhabitants of a coastal Irish fishing village in God’s Creatures, the directorial work of Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer. Aileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) is the manager of a local fishing plant, tasked with sifting through daily catches of oysters and haddock on a whirring conveyor belt and preparing them for market. She is diligent yet warm, providing a maternal presence for many of her employees, namely young Sarah (Aisling Franciosi, The Nightingale). During an ordinary shift, Aileen and a handful of other employees witness […]
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On‘s Team on IP Development at Gotham Week 2022
Several years back, Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp traveled with friends to attend an out of town wedding. Opting to scrimp on lodging costs, the duo shared a crowded hotel room with four other friends. Slate just happened to be the only girl in the group, which led to her adopting a “teeny-tiny” voice to communicate her comparative petiteness to the other men in the room. The voice, a running joke for the rest of the weekend, became the eventual creative spark that would launch a web series, children’s books and feature-length film released by A24. Soon thereafter, the first […]
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“Emotional Heartbreak Can Be Dangerous”: Ti West on His Technicolor X Prequel Pearl
Pearl, Ti West’s prequel to the 70s slasher-inspired X, is a far more claustrophobic study of psychological ruin and bodily decay than it is a gory exercise in picking off victims one by one. Unburdened by the heavy prosthetics and dual role that defined her performance in X, star and co-writer Mia Goth, that film’s de facto villain, gives a gloriously unsettling performance as the now titular character depicted during her early 20s in 1918. Pearl lives under the domineering thumb of her German mother Ruth (Tandi Wright), cares for her Spanish flu-stricken father (Matthew Sunderland) and desperately yearns for […]
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“What if the Worst Thing That Could Happen Actually Happened?”: Director/Co-writer Christian Tafdrup on Speak No Evil
Two European families—one Danish, one Dutch—meet during a picturesque Italian vacation in Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil. Their bond is immediate, and soon enough the Dutch couple enthusiastically invite the Danes to visit them in Holland. The gesture is friendly enough, but the sincerity of the statement isn’t necessarily taken at face value. Shortly after the Danes—Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louisa (Sidsel Siem Koch) and their daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg)—return to their well-kept abode, they receive a postcard in the mail. As it turns out, the Dutch family was completely serious about their offer, inviting them to visit their home in […]
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“Cops and Prosecutors Truly Work the Same Side”: Ingrid Raphaël and Melissa Gira Grant on Their FOV Doc They Won’t Call It Murder
When 16-year-old Julius Tate, Jr. was killed during a SWAT raid by undercover Columbus police officers in December of 2018, citizens swiftly gathered to protest the unjust killing of a child. One year later, during an anniversary vigil mourning Tate’s loss, Ingrid Raphaël, co-creator of No Evil Eye and Film Futura, and Melissa Gira Grant, a New York-based reporter covering police brutality, came together to co-direct and collaborate on They Won’t Call It Murder, a documentary short from Field of Vision that captures the enduring grief and activism that surviving families of police violence undertake. The film, embedded above, makes […]
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“The Stories I Tell Are Just a Way To Get To Know My True Self”: J. Sean Smith on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner #Whitina
Issues of identity and immigration take Instagram by storm in #Whitina, director J. Sean Smith’s short film, originally helmed as her thesis for the University of Southern California’s Film & Television Production MFA program. The film’s title references the conflict between protagonist Genesis’s (Inde Navarrette) Latinx heritage and her mannerisms and interests, which more closely reflect those of her white classmates. This disconnect has caused a palpable resentment among her culturally rigid Latinx peers, who write off Genesis as a white girl wannabe and an assimilationist snob. However, this tune quickly changes when Genesis helps her former friend (and current […]
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“I Believe That Filmmaking Is a Dream Capturing Machine”: Jorge G. Camarena on His Student Short Film Showcase Winner Spaceship
Fusing harsh realities with otherworldly wonders, Jorge G. Camarena’s short film Spaceship is an adept blend of melancholy and magical realism. An MFA graduate of the AFI Conservatory’s directing program, Camarena had a robust career in music video and commercial work before pursuing his postgraduate studies. The visual slickness of his commissioned work coupled with a desire to tell stories of people living on the margins (or as he describes, “hidden in plain sight”) makes for a final product that is both sharply focused and totally vulnerable. This description also feels apt for Spaceship’s protagonist, a trans woman and single […]
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“Film Can Be a Powerful Medium for Disrupting Assumptions About What Is Normal”: Evan Bode on His Student Short Film Showcase Winner Thine Own Self
Currently a candidate for an MFA in Syracuse University’s film program, Evan Bode recently pursued a cinematic undertaking that is staggeringly bold in its sheer gumption. Though he had never formally dabbled in helming animated films, Bode decided to use the newfound creative freedom of film school to make Thine Own Self, a 5-minute, dialogue-free animated film that utilizes desk drawer clay, green poster paper and the filmmaker’s own hands as its principal storytelling devices. The film begins by introducing the viewer to a sect of colorful entities that exist in whimsical tranquility, floating above the horizon without qualm. That […]
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“To Be a Good Director Is To Be a Good Listener”: Jun Hee Han on His Student Short Film Showcase Winner Uncle
The shattered illusions of childhood innocence are comedically contrasted with a run-down Seoul porn theater in Jun Hee Han’s short film Uncle. A graduate from UCLA’s MFA program in film directing, Han had an unlikely catalyst for his filmmaking career. After studying philosophy as an undergraduate at Rice University in Houston, Texas, Han was tapped for mandatory military conscription in his birthplace of South Korea. Feeling disconnected from his heritage while growing up in the U.S., his time in the army ignited a passion to tell stories connected to his home country—an artistic pursuit that directly resulted in Uncle, which […]
