Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Interview with Viktoria Director Maya Vitkova
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Vitkova: I’d been working on a project as a 1st AD. At the end of the last shooting day, after almost 10 years of hard work as a 1st and 2nd AD, I promised myself I’d never do this thankless job again. The same evening I sat down and wrote an 18-page treatment, a story that had never really crossed my mind. Viktoria’s plot came easily, made me laugh while putting it into words, and then cry at the end. Viktoria has been very obsessive ever since, didn’t leave me until I completed […]
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Five Questions for Towheads Director Shannon Plumb
The following interview first ran on this site in January 2013 to coincide with the world premiere of Towheads at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. It is republished here to mark the theatrical run of Plumb’s film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York between January 23 and 29. Premiering in Rotterdam, the disarming and oddly delightful Towheads is the feature debut of artist and experimental filmmaker Shannon Plumb. Exploring and extending aspects of her short-form Super-8 work within a feature context, Towheads is, on the surface, a familiar story of a bored housewife whose creative aspirations are […]
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Interview with Lock Charmer (El Cerrajero) Director Natalia Smirnoff
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Smirnoff: Puzzle was a story about a woman. So after that, I was really interested in making a film about a man, putting [myself] in his skin. I know a lot of people, maybe me included, with emotional obstacles. And I think writing is a marvelous possibility to habit different human beings. All these things are related to the story of Lock Charmer. Exploring Sebastian, the main character from the film, was a wonderful exercise; I learned more about life. Always not judging but living with him. When you manage […]
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Interview with Web Junkie Director Hilla Medalia
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Medalia: As boundaries between reality and the virtual become increasingly blurred, we are beginning to see how reality is compromised and people are losing their footing. When Shosh [Shlam, the other director of Web Junkie] told me about this story of China’s attempt to stem internet addiction among its youth, I was immediately captivated and felt that this it expressed a current and increasingly global dilemma. I began to wonder if I myself was an addict? Had I become overly dependent on technology? And would these techniques to break the addiction among […]
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Sterlin Harjo on This May Be the Last Time
Though Sterlin Harjo is a familiar name in Park City – having premiered his narrative features Four Sheets to the Wind and Barking Water at Sundance in 2007 and 2008, and his short Goodnight, Irene in 2005 – this year’s visit marks the director’s documentary feature debut. This May Be the Last Time traces the events behind the never fully explained disappearance of the filmmaker’s grandfather in 1962, alongside the history of the Muscogee (Creek) hymns the Seminole community sang as it set out to find him. Filmmaker spoke with the Sundance vet about his very personal take on ethnomusicology […]
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Interview with Web Junkie Director Shosh Shlam
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Shlam: Internet addiction is both a personal and social phenomenon. It is a universal issue that is becoming progressively all encompassing as the boundaries between the real and the virtual become increasingly blurred. Through this process, we could not help but feel that something is lost in the physical, “real,” everyday lives of those living in the western world. This phenomenon, these feelings are what inspired us to take this journey. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Shlam: We were four women: two directors, one producer and one editor. Hiring […]
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Interview with Rich Hill Director Tracy Droz Tragos
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Tragos: I made my first documentary Be Good, Smile Pretty after discovering a picture of my father the day he was killed in Vietnam. The film was well received and won the Emmy Award for Best Documentary in 2004. It was difficult to find another film project with such a deep connection – and then came motherhood. I wanted to give my daughters a different childhood than I had had – with a mom who was fully present. That was my choice then – but sometimes I wonder if I […]
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Interview with Watchers of the Sky Director Edet Belzberg
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Belzberg: I read Samantha Power’s book A Problem From Hell when it came out and was just pulled towards the story of Raphael Lemkin in it. It didn’t feel like a choice — I had to tell his story. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Belzberg: Most of my crew on this film were women. It wasn’t intentional, but that is how it worked out. There are a few notable exceptions, but the vast majority of the people who worked on the […]
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Interview with Love Child Director Valerie Veatch
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Veatch: I am drawn to stories or characters that I feel have been misrepresented and I like the task of creating a more challenging, complex, layered depiction of stories that causally circulate our media scape. Love Child is the story of an infant who died as a result of neglect due to “Internet Addiction” while her young parents were raising an online virtual child. Her name was Sarang, which means “love” in Korean. I heard the story on the Italian news media while staying in Rome. The ruling in the […]
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Interview with Song One Director Kate Barker-Froyland
When I asked where the most film-related location for our photoshoot might be, director Kate Barker-Froyland suggested that we meet in Williamsburg. Her feature debut, Song One, starring Anne Hathaway, is a film about the love of music which weaves its story through Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, which are areas that Barker-Froyland herself frequents often. We met for breakfast at the Reynard Restaurant in the Wythe Hotel on an assaultingly cold winter’s morning. Still, Barker-Froyland was upbeat and ready to take to the city streets in just her sundress, wind chill notwithstanding, to get the right shot. While most filmmakers […]
