Directors
Interviews - Directors
-
SXSW: Five Questions for In a Valley of Violence Writer/Director Ti West
SXSW and Ti West have been to each other over the years. The Austin festival premiered his debut feature (The Roost) before going on to play Trigger Man and then breakthrough picture The Innkeepers, which landed West on our Winter, 2012 cover. Now he returns to Texas with, certainly, his starriest movie to date, and one that steps outside of the horror genre he’s best known for. Produced by his usual team alongside Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Pictures, In a Valley of Violence is a revenge western starring John Travolta, Ethan Hawke, Taissa Farmiga and Karen Gillan and set […]
-
“I Love Everything About Exorcism”: Five Questions for Another Evil Writer/Director Carson Mell
Multi-hyphenate Carson Mell has been known in the independent film world for some of the most subversively entertaining animated shorts of recent years, including Bobby Bird: The Devil in Denim. He’s acted, appearing recently in Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl. And he’s now an established television writer, having written for the series Eastbound and Down and Silicon Valley. Which is all to say that the subject matter of his first feature would have been anyone’s guess. Beating a comedy about alcoholic astronauts to the punch is his SXSW-premiering, IFP Narrative Lab selection, Another Evil, a comedy about […]
-
SXSW: Five Questions for Hunter Gatherer Writer/Director Josh Locy
Virginia-born Josh Locy makes his feature debut at SXSW with Hunter Gatherer, a drama about forty-something African-American-man beginning life anew after prison — and after the support network he thought he had fail to reengage with him in his new life. Locy originally planned to become a Baptist minister, but a detour led him to the director David Gordon Green, for whom he worked, and the job of art director, which he now practices on various independent and studio films. Below, he discusses the origins of his story, what he learned from Green and how working in the art department […]
-
In a Valley of Violence DP Eric Robbins on Shooting Ti West’s New Film in 35mm
Don’t let the title mislead you: In a Valley of Violence is only Ti West’s second non-horror film. This time around, West tackles the Western with a tonal twist. In an inspired bit of expectation-reversing casting, this classic saga of a violent town on the frontier has John Travolta as the good guy and Ethan Hawke as the villain. The film premieres tomorrow at SXSW. In advance, cinematographer Eric Robbins answered some questions about shooting on 2-perf 35mm, lighting in the desert and his longtime collaboration with West. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? […]
-
Writer/Director Benjamin Dickinson on Making his Social Satire Set in the World of Augmented Reality, Creative Control
Opening in theaters today from Amazon Studios and Magnolia Pictures is Creative Control, Benjamin Dickinson’s wickedly intelligent social satire set in a near-future advertising world enamored with the latest thing: augmented reality. The New York-based writer/director’s second feature, following 2012’s lo-fi apocalyptic drama, First Winter, Creative Control is an impressive leap forward. Realized on a modest budget, the film won a special jury award at last year’s SXSW for “visual excellence,” and, indeed, Dickinson and his collaborators incisively riff on the very plausible possibilities of augmented reality rigs like Google Glass and Magic Leap to imagine a world where avatars, […]
-
“Seven Hours’ Worth of Movie over Three Years”: Francis Lawrence on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part Two
Four years ago this month, one of the most successful series in recent film history was launched when director Gary Ross helmed his adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel The Hunger Games. An instant phenomenon, the movie turned Jennifer Lawrence into a superstar and provided a bleaker, more political alternative to the Twilight franchise. Ross didn’t return for the sequel, Catching Fire, so the producers entrusted the series to director Francis Lawrence, who stayed on for two more films. In Lawrence’s hands the allegorical aspects of the series grew more pronounced, the visual style more diverse and elaborate, and the emotional […]
-
Film as a “Spiritual Memory”: Writer/Director Monica Peña on Her Miami International Film Festival Premiere, Hearts of Palm
Writer/director Monica Peña obliterates the notion of sophomore slump with her second independently produced feature film, Hearts of Palm, which will have its world premiere at Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival tonight. With this movie, the Miami-based Cuban-American filmmaker has only advanced her avant-garde exploration of film narrative, which she first introduced us to with Ectotherms in 2014. Whereas her first film examined the lives of four Miami youths trapped in suburban anomie, her latest takes on a more personal subject: love turned sour. Both films are strongly rooted in Miami. The first contains allusions to the plight […]
-
“The Original Pitch Couldn’t Be Said in Less than a Thousand Words”: Robert Greene and Kate Lyn Sheil on Kate Plays Christine
After winning the Special Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance, filmmaker Robert Greene and actress Kate Lyn Sheil arrived in Berlin for their international premiere of Kate Plays Christine. Of the 44 titles slated in Berlinale’s Forum, Greene’s documentary is one of only three American films to have been selected to screen. The film is described as a documentary, but the nature of the project has a complicated and multi-layered explanation. On one level, the film follows Kate preparing for a role, but the character she must assume isn’t written in a script. She’s researching to play […]
-
“We Needed the Fresh Urine of a Nanny Goat”: DP Jarin Blaschke on The Witch
In the midst of my opening day viewing of The Witch, the screen went black. It wasn’t unexpected considering the multitude of perfectly timed ellipses that punctuate director Robert Eggers’ 17th century tale of a devout Christian family torn asunder. And this particular ellipsis seemed opportunely placed – coming just as the film’s hypothetical dread morphed into tangible terror. But this time, the darkness persisted. The theater’s projector bulb had burned out. Of course, the audience didn’t know that yet. At any other screening, the reaction would’ve been instantaneous. My fellow moviegoers and I would’ve turned to the projector and […]
-
“Shooting the Interview Like a Game”: Kamilla Pfeffer on Who is Oda Jaune?
After seeing only one Oda Jaune painting in an art catalogue at a bookstore, Kamilla Pfeffer had found her next subject. Born in Bulgaria, Oda Jaune is a German painter currently based in Paris, and has had her work exhibited all over the world. The nature of her paintings and the process of her practice are the primary interests in Pfeffer’s documentary, Who is Oda Jaune?, but how to first engage with the introverted artist is Pfeffer’s requisite challenge. “Oda’s work has a way of speaking to my irrational side,” says German actor Lars Eidinger during his short interview with […]
