Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Fatal Journey: Gianfranco Rosi on Fire at Sea
With his last film, 2013’s Sacro GRA, Italian Gianfranco Rosi became the first documentarian to win the Golden Lion at Venice. He was also the first doc director to win the Golden Bear at Berlin with Fire At Sea, a disciplined, urgent look at the migrant crisis anchored on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, whose proximity to the African coast has made it a target destination for those fleeing their countries. It takes a while before the migrants appear onscreen: initially, Rosi divides his attention among various islanders, including a radio DJ whose tunes are heard all over the island […]
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A Woman Above Everything Else
The camera pushes tight in on Natalie Portman’s distressed face, a layer of 16mm grain putting a slight filter on her perfect features. From the very beginning, we’re too close; the customary distance from an iconic first lady is gone. Also missing are biographical flashbacks, or early happy moments, or pretty montages locating Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy within the tapestry of her husband’s life and administration. No, Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, which follows the first lady in the days following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, begins in a kind of emotional media res, a heightened state accentuated by the dark chords of Mica […]
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Examined Life: Mia Hansen-Løve on Things to Come
There are only a few minutes of calm at the beginning of Mia Hansen-Løve’s fifth feature Things to Come. In a prologue two years before the film’s narrative kicks off, philosophy professor Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is on seaside vacation with longtime partner Heinz (André Marcon) and children, a stroll reminiscent of the family outing that kicks off her sophomore film, 2009’s The Father of My Children. In both films, this stroll prefigures much strife to come: shortly after Things’ opening, Nathalie — already frayed by the demands of looking after her elderly mother (Edith Scob) — finds out Heinz is […]
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High Tide: Kenneth Lonergan on Manchester by the Sea
“…If it is true to say that, in essence, the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity.” — Arthur Miller, “Tragedy and the Common Man” (The New York Times, Feb. 27, 1949) How should we grieve? When faced with inconceivable loss, most of us become amateurs, fumbling in the hope of recovery. Grief tends more to ugliness than elegance, and it has a nasty habit of overstaying its welcome. For Lee Chandler, […]
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From AD to UT: Keith Maitland on Tower
Racking up three prizes upon its premiere at SXSW 2016 (Best Documentary Feature, the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, and an audience award), Keith Maitland’s Tower debuted on home turf — which doesn’t mean that audiences knew the tragic details. A breathtaking retelling of the horrific 1966 University of Texas campus shooting that left 16 dead, Tower tirelessly recreates, through modern day interviews, archival footage, and meticulously crafted rotoscope animation, the life-or-death situation many found themselves unexpectedly thrust into. By having the viewer live through the experience while simultaneously listening to the stories of those affected by it, Maitland’s film emphasizes memory and shared experience. Impressively incorporating animation, Tower is […]
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Kelly Reichardt on Shooting Certain Women on 16mm, the Ugliness of the Day, and Making the Space Tell the Story
In the more than two decades since her stunning debut film River of Grass premiered at Sundance in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has managed to carve out a unique niche for herself in the independent film world. Her distinctive and uncompromising body of work includes Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and her latest, Certain Women, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Reichardt and based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, Certain Women stars Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone and René Auberjonois. Shot by frequent collaborator, DP […]
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Things to Come Writer/Director Mia Hansen-Løve on Pain, Acting, and Embracing Complexity
After winning the Silver Bear for Best Director earlier this year at her world premiere in Berlin’s 66th International Film Festival, Mia Hansen-Løve brings her latest picture, Things to Come, to the New York Film Festival’s main competition slate on October 14th. Starring Isabelle Huppert in an arresting performance as Nathalie, a Parisian philosophy professor, Hansen-Løve’s film follows Nathalie as she picks up the pieces of her life even as it is disassembling. While her mother is sick, her job is compromised, and her husband is leaving her, Nathalie forges ahead, carving a new, albeit unfamiliar course for her future. In […]
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Mechanical Dreams Uses VR to Amplify Diverse Voices
As Hollywood is rightfully called out on its underemployment of women, virtual reality companies like Mechanical Dreams Virtual Reality (MDVR) are actively courting underrepresented voices. The Seattle-based virtual reality content company housed by the University of Washington and the start-up incubator CoMotion is producing six innovative 360 films, five of them directed by women. The company’s first production, Tracy Rector’s Ch’aak’ S’aagi (Eagle Bone), one of the first VR pieces ever by a Native American filmmaker, was recently selected as one of five VR projects to screen at TIFF as part of its inaugural POP VR section at the festival. MDVR is currently raising money on […]
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Kurt Kuenne on Shooting his First Television Episode, From Shadowing to Editing
I first became aware of Kurt Kuenne’s work when I saw his 2011 feature Shuffle on the festival circuit; that film, an audacious psychological thriller about a man who finds himself waking up each morning at a different stage of his life, was an extraordinary fiction debut for a director who, I later discovered, had also made one of the most powerful documentaries of recent years. Dear Zachary (2008) begins as Kuenne’s tribute to a murdered friend and develops into an excruciating portrait of a legal system gone horribly wrong; it’s touching, enraging, devastating, and inspiring in equal measures. Last year’s […]
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Gabe Klinger on Shooting Porto on Multiple Film Gauges, Approaching Sex Scenes and Manoel de Oliveira’s Influence
After taking home the Best Documentary prize from the Venice Film Festival for Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater, critic-turned-director Gabe Klinger’s first scripted feature is the fractured, woozy love story, Porto. Set in the titular Portuguese city, it dramatizes in non-linear fashion the shared experiences of a rail-thin American nomad, Jake (Anton Yelchin, in a hypnotic parting performance), and a charming local woman, Mati (Lucie Lucas, making her feature starring debut). Porto debuted at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in late September and followed with showings at the Zurich Film Festival, where I was able to catch up with him […]
