Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for National Bird Director Sonia Kennebeck
“Detached, inhuman and unreal” — that’s how Sonia Kennebeck describes the act of killing via Predator drones. An emblem of American foreign policy in the Obama era, so-called unmanned aerial vehicles allow nations to monitor and assassinate their enemies from thousands of miles away. Kennebeck interviews the operators and survivors of drone warfare in National Bird, her whistle-blowing documentary executive produced by Errol Morris and Wim Wenders. Below, Kennebeck discusses the ethical dilemmas of drone warfare, drones as a cinematic tool and how she found her remarkable subjects. The film screens this week at the Tribeca Film Festival and has been picked up by FilmRise for distribution. Filmmaker: […]
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Is Acting Really Just Being the Drunk Uncle Who Shows Up On the Couch with the Bag of Fritos? Andrew McCarthy on Directing TV
Two things distinguish director Andrew McCarthy’s television work: exceptionally loose, naturalistic performances, and a rigorously elegant sense of framing and blocking. An actor’s director in the best sense, in that he treats behavior as one component of a fully integrated, visually expressive whole, McCarthy’s episodes of any given series are almost always that program’s most emotionally and cinematically layered. Even on a show like The Blacklist that already has a strongly established visual style, McCarthy is able to integrate his own preoccupations with the preexisting framework to both serve the franchise and deepen it. (He also elicits delightful effects from […]
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Directors Leo Chiang and Johnny Symons Talk Screening LGBT Doc Out Run in Boycott State North Carolina
Ironically launching at the stellar Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina right as the anti-LGBTQ HB2 legislation hit the fan, S. Leo Chiang and Johnny Symons’s Out Run follows the Ladlad Party in the Philippines — the only LGBT political party in the world — in the run-up to what could be a history-making election. An artistic political doc, Out Run is both riveting and familiar, as the leaders (including Bemz Benedito, a trans woman who serves as the face of the party) deftly employ campaign strategies that include everything from transforming beauty parlors into headquarters to […]
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Tribeca 2016: Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill on their VR Piece The Ark
One of the most moving exhibits in New York last year was a lone Galapagos tortoise in a corner of the American Museum of Natural History. Lonesome George was the last Pinta Island tortoise in the world, and after he died in 2012 the only way to encounter this entire species was to view his mounted form through glass in a museum. With a mass extinction at least as great as the one that killed the dinosaurs happening all around us, many other species will soon be visible only in the same way. But now Kel O’Neill and Eline Jongsma, a […]
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“What About the First Time I Got Drunk?” Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton on All This Panic at Tribeca
In their impressively fleet debut All This Panic, the personal/professional partnership of Jenny Gage (director) and Tom Betterton (DP) train their gaze on a group of teenage girls growing up in Brooklyn. Tracking Lina, Ginger, Dusty and Delia as they transition from 16 to 19 (with older and younger outliers), the film unfolds in a 79-minute blast, articulately speeding through years of teen not-quite-turmoil. Impressively locked in, edited for speed and emotional impact, and exponentially more complex than most depictions of contemporary teen girls in either fiction or non-fiction filmmaking, All This Panic is an empathetic rush translating their experiences into something […]
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for Equals Director Drake Doremus
Emotions are a disease. In the world of Equals, responsible humans have eliminated them from their daily lives. That means no more romantic hangups, no more depressive spells, no more sexual tension. People are productive; unchained from their irrational impulses, they lead quiet lives in solitude. Within this universe, director Drake Doremus explores what a budding romance might look like between two office drones, Nia (Kristen Stewart) and Silas (Nicholas Hoult). Executive produced by Ridley Scott, the film represents a leap for Doremus, who has previously directed smaller, character-driven films. Doremus speaks below about his intention to create a sci-fi film that allows […]
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for Women who Kill Writer/Director Ingrid Jungermann
After creating, directing and starring in two acclaimed web series — The Slope, a collaboration with Desiree Akhavan, and From F to 7th — Ingrid Jungermann makes her feature debut with the Tribeca Film Festival selection Women Who Kill. It’s a zeitgeist-y murder mystery set in the world of true-crime podcasts, but, like all of Jungermann’s work, it’s also a relationship story drawing inspiration from her own life. Below, Jungermann, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces, talks about her favorite ’80s serial killer books and movies, why working in genre allows her to be more personal, and now “Serial” inspired the film. […]
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for For The Love of Spock Director Adam Nimoy
Along with Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and James Bond but few others, Star Trek is that rare pop-culture franchise that spans generations. And while Zachary Quinto may have taken over the role of Mr. Spock, the half-human character’s DNA originates from Leonard Nimoy, who played the character in the original TV series as well as early movies. Having its premiere last night at the Tribeca Film Festival, For The Love of Spock is son Adam Nimoy’s tribute to the character of Spock, Star Trek fandom and his dad. The film also happens to be one of the most successful […]
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for The Ticket Director Ido Fluk
The Ticket, premiering today at the Tribeca Film Festival, is Israeli filmmaker Ido Fluk’s first American film, dubbed a “morality fable” exploring all the various behaviors that manifest in a blind man who mysteriously, one day, gains his vision. Dan Stevens plays the suddenly social-climbing, newly-sighted man, and Malin Akerman is the old-model wife who may no longer be enough for him. Writer/director Oren Moverman is one of the film’s producers, and, below, Fluk talks about how that collaboration came to be and how he visualized a movie about a man new to vision. Filmmaker: What inspired this story of a blind […]
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for Kicks Director Justin Tipping
The Tribeca Film Festival kicked off on April 14 with the opening night premiere of Justin Tipping’s Kicks, an ambitious coming-of-age film set in an inner city enclave in Northern California. Though it’s Tipping’s feature debut, he’s far from a novice filmmaker, having already won a Student Academy Award and the Lexus Short Film competition. The semi-autobiographical Kicks focuses on 15-year-old Brandon (newcomer Jahking Guillory in a breakout performance), who buys himself a sweet new pair of “kicks.” But when the local hood snatches them, Brandon goes on a mission to retrieve his new stolen sneakers with his best buddies’ help. Along the […]
