Directors
Interviews - Directors
-
Five Questions with My Brother the Devil Writer/Director Sally El Hosaini
Sally El Hossaini’s My Brother the Devil finally arrives in U.S. theaters on the back of a celebrated festival run that started at Sundance 14 months ago, and continued throughout 2012, as the film picked up prizes not only in Park City but at the Berlin and London Film Festivals and also the British Independent Film Awards. This debut feature from Welsh-Egyptian writer/director El Hosaini, a former documentarian who’s been working in film for many years, is set in the East London neighborhood of Hackney and concerns the relationship between two first generation British Egyptian brothers, gang member Rashid (James Floyd) and […]
-
Ana Piterbarg on Everybody Has a Plan
A self-assured feature debut from Argentine writer/director Ana Piterbarg, the moody identity-swap thriller Everyone Has a Plan features a remarkable turn by Viggo Mortensen, working in Spanish, as both Agustín, a preternaturally depressed Buenos Aires physician, and Agustín’s identical twin Pedro, a rural beekeeper who suddenly shows up at Agustín’s, dying of cancer and suggesting euthanasia. Seeking a way out of his staid, bourgeoise existence, defined by his unwillingness to adopt a child with his seemingly long-suffering wife, Agustín chooses to take his brother’s place, relocating to the Tigre delta, an evocative and historically rich backwater where Pedro lived. After assuming the dead […]
-
Five Questions with Orc Wars Director Kohl Glass
Microbudget film doesn’t venture into the expensive world of science fiction too often, and certainly not the brand that features hordes of orcs and other fantasy creatures. But that’s exactly where Emmy-winning director Kohl Glass, whose short film Der Ostwind played at Sundance in 2007, wanted to go with his debut feature, Orc Wars. The film, which has wrapped and is currently gathering its finishing funds on Kickstarter, features ex-Marine John Norton (Rusty Joiner) who buys an isolated western ranch that turns out to contain a portal to another world; when orcs use it to threaten an elf princess (Masiela Lusha) […]
-
Matteo Garrone on Reality
In the follow-up to his widely acclaimed 2008 international breakthrough Gomorrah, 44- year-old Italian auteur Matteo Garrone tells the partially comic, mostly tragic story of Luciano (Aniello Arena), a Neapolitan fishmonger whose simple life and aspirations are turned upside down when the possibility of instant fame and fortune as a contestant on the Italian iteration of Big Brother goes from mere dream to tangible reality. As his increasingly delusional family cheer him on, he chases the stardom that his friend and former roommate Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante) has already won, but with less than stellar results. As things go from bad to worse […]
-
Five Questions with Maladies Director Carter
Having established himself as a painter, photographer, and sculptor, Carter continues to expand his art repertoire with his newest feature film, Maladies. After working with James Franco on his directorial debut, Erased James Franco, Carter decided to write another film with Franco in mind. Maladies follows the relationship of a former actor who befriends a family of artists. All equally eccentric, their interactions explore the struggle artists often have with creativity. The movie also stars Catherine Keener, David Strathairn, and Fallon Goodson, who also acted as a producer. Maladies premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February and makes its North American debut […]
-
Five Questions with Philip Roth: Unmasked Director Livia Manera
Livia Manera and William Karel don’t take many stylistic chances in their new documentary. But why would they? Granted extraordinary access to Philip Roth, one of the world’s greatest living writers and a man who’s never granted an abundance of interviews, the directors simply sat their subject in front of a camera and let him talk. Philip Roth: Unmasked finds the decorated author reflecting on every major development in his long career, from his prizewinning 1959 debut Goodbye, Columbus to the stardom that followed the publication of 1969’s Portnoy’s Complaint to the remarkably fruitful spell which has seen him publish […]
-
Five Questions with Swim Little Fish Swim Directors Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis
In Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis’s Swim Little Fish Swim, Lilas (Bessis) defiantly flees her coddled Parisian life for a nomadic walkabout in New York. An aspiring visual artist, desperate to strike out from the shadow cast by her famous mother (Anne Cosigny), Lilas falls in with Leeward (Dustin Guy Defa), his wife (Brooke Bloom), and their daughter (Olivia Costello). Quick to align herself with Leeward and his band of musicians, Lilas’ presence as an added distraction for her hapless husband unnerves Bloom’s breadwinning nurse. Amar and Bessis spoke to Filmmaker about the method to their collaboration in advance of […]
-
Five Questions with We Always Lie to Strangers Directors AJ Schnack and David Wilson
Tucked away in the middle of the Ozarks, far away from the bright lights of the coasts, lies Branson, Missouri, a place that has been dubbed “the live music capital of America.” The opposite of hip, its theaters feature a wide variety of traditional family entertainers such as the comedian Yakov Smirnoff and the singer Andy Williams who are neither gone nor forgotten by the 7.5 million tourists who visit each year. It’s the type of place where a lively game of bumper boats might be followed by a dinner and a rodeo show at the Dixie Stampede Theater. Five […]
-
Five Questions with The Network Director Eva Orner
When President Obama announced in the State of the Union that the war in Afghanistan would effectively end by 2014, the news was greeted with little more than a collective shrug. That thing was still going on? But what is very far away for most Americans is very close for all Afghans, a fact made clear in the SXSW-premiering documentary, The Network. The feature directorial debut of the Academy Award-winning producer Eva Orner, The Network tells the story of TOLO TV, Afghanistan’s first independent television network. Granted complete access by Saad Mohseni, the founder of the network (dubbed the “Rupert […]
-
Five Questions with Snap Directors Youssef Delara and Victor Teran
Quickly after premiering Filly Brown at Sundance in 2012, filmmakers Youssef Delara and Victor Teran moved into production on their newest feature, Snap. As close collaborators for many years on other films, Delara and Teran teamed up again to co-direct and produce Snap. Set in the explosive world of underground dubstep, the film explores the dangerous psyche of a young man as a social worker and her mentor try to uncover his secrets before his violent past erupts. Snap stars Jake Hoffman (Barney’s Version), Nikki Reed (Thirteen, Twilight), Scott Bakula (American Beauty, TV’s Quantum Leap), and Thomas Dekker (Kaboom), and makes its world premiere tomorrow at SXSW in […]
