Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Cannes 2013: Five Questions with Miele Director Valeria Golino
Never one to shy away from difficult topics, Italian actress Valeria Golino chose the subject of euthanasia for her feature directorial debut, Miele. Showing the human stories behind an issue few want to discuss, with Miele Golino succeeds in creating a film that is both touching and sincere. Playing in this year’s Un Certain Regard in Cannes, it tells the story of a young Italian women, Irene (Jasmine Trinca), who travels once a month to Mexico to buy over-the-counter barbiturates designed to put dogs to sleep. Back home, Irene goes by the name Miele, or “Honey,” delivering the drugs to terminally ill […]
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Margarethe von Trotta on Hannah Arendt
The most evocative and engrossing picture this writer has ever encountered about the life and times of a thinker is Hannah Arendt, German filmmaker and actress Margarethe von Trotta’s magnificent meditation on the incendiary political theorist. Reuniting with her Vision (2009) and Rosa Luxemburg (1986) star Barbara Sukowa, the ex-Fassbinder muse has delivered a titanic and highly unusual work, a film of rare intelligence that animates the life of a protean mind in a manner that is at once spartan, highly dramatic, and incredibly timely. Hannah Arendt focuses on the period immediately before, during and after Arendt’s famous coverage of the Adolf Eichmann […]
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Jen and Sylvia Soska on American Mary
Dead Hooker in a Trunk isn’t just a title. It’s also a warning shot, serving notice of the film’s intention to come out swinging and pull no punches. Sure enough, the 2009 debut feature from Canadian writer-directors Jen and Sylvia Soska made good on its promise, boasting beguiling swagger, badass one-liners (“Like dying could kill me”) and more gore than you might reasonably expect from a $2,500 budget. And while Dead Hooker capably illustrated The Twisted Twins’ appetite for exploitation and aptitude for tempering gruesomeness with biting comedy, it offered little hint that their next feature would be as accomplished […]
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Councilwoman Castillo: Margo Guernsey on Making Her Feature-Length Political Documentary
Margo Guernsey has produced promotional mini-docs and videos for a number of non-profits, but for her first feature-length project, “Councilwoman Castillo,” she is focusing on the story of a hotel housekeeper, Carmen Castillo, elected to the City Council in Providence, Rhode Island. The project will cover Castillo’s first three years in office starting with her election in November 2011. Guernsey spoke to us recently about how she became interested in the project and her strategy for shooting and funding this low budget, multi-year project. Filmmaker: What is the story? Guernsey: It’s a story about a hotel housekeeper elected to […]
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Cannes 2013: Five Questions with The Congress Director Ari Folman
It’s been five years since Ari Folman came out with the Academy Award-nominated Waltz with Bashir, an animated personal combat story. He’s back with an incredibly ambitious project, The Congress, that blends real life with fantasy in an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s celebrated book. The movie opens with actress Robin Wright being scolded by her agent, played by Harvey Keitel, for all the poor choices she’s made throughout her career. Faced with a sick child and no job prospects, she meets with Jeff, the studio head of Miramount, a daunting figure played impeccably by Danny Huston. Jeff is sick of […]
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Five Questions with Triumph of the Wall Director Bill Stone
Like many documentaries, Bill Stone’s Triumph of the Wall began its life as one thing and transformed into something else. Initially Stone sought to document the construction of a 1,000 foot dry-stone wall by Chris Overing, a young man with an impressively diverse resume that lacked one necessary skill for the project: masonry. Overing estimated the project would take two months and Stone decided to chronicle Overing’s effort. The filmmaker had at the time “a vague idea of the film exploring commitment.” But Overing underestimated a bit: eight years later he was still constructing the wall and Stone was still […]
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Rama Burshtein on Fill the Void
There are few more unlikely and inspiring filmmaking success stories than that of Rama Burshtein. The 46-year-old New York City-born, Israel-based writer/director of Fill the Void had previously made handful of films specifically aimed at Jewish Orthodox audiences, but had defined herself primarily as a mother and a wife. Now she has become the first Israeli Orthodox woman to direct a film intended for those outside the Orthodox community. After going through the Sundance Screenwriting Labs, Burshtein’s debut feature had a remarkable festival run last year, world premiering without much fanfare at the Jerusalem Film Festival but then going on to play at Venice (where […]
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Bobbito Garcia on Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball
By some estimates, over half a million people play pick-up basketball in the playgrounds of New York each year. In Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, filmmakers and pick-up basketball enthusiasts Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau set out to create the most comprehensive document of New York City’s summer, outdoor pick-up basketball scene by visiting 180 courts throughout all five of the city’s boroughs. Shot in a breakneck 75 summer days during 2011, their debut documentary has an immediacy and intimacy that speaks to its homemade vibe, even amongst former and current NBA players like Kenny Anderson and Brandon Jennings, […]
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“Lack of Access Made Us More Artful:” Alex Gibney on We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks
As a documentary subject, WikiLeaks couldn’t be in better hands than those of Alex Gibney. The Oscar-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side, whose other films include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Mea Maxima Culpa, has displayed an ongoing interest in exposing corruptions of power. WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website responsible for the largest leaks of classified documents in history, was founded on the same principle. Yet it is surprising that We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks explores the decline of the organization as it became a victim of its own beliefs. The documentary explores the […]
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Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from James Franco
There’s a trend in actor-turned-director helmed films at Cannes this year, an impeccable direction of the people on screen. You can tell there’s a sense of trust and cohesive goal to create something great. One of the clearest examples of this is James Franco’s new feature film, As I Lay Dying, based on the great American classic by William Faulkner, the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. The vivid characters have come to life on the big screen through Franco’s split-screen filmmaking, led by […]
