Directors
Interviews - Directors
-
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 3)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. SUSAN YOUSSEF AND MAN KIT LAM, MARJOUN AND THE FLYING HEADSCARF Synopsis: With her father imprisoned on dubious terrorism related charges, a Lebanese-American teenager in Arkansas searches for identity in the headscarf and a motorcycle. This feature is an extension of the short by the same name that screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf is the first […]
-
Director John Henry Summerour on Sahkanaga
The following Q&A is an excerpt from a conversation between filmmaker John Henry Summerour and John DeVore, a writer for The Pulse, Chattanooga’s weekly alternative. (DeVore’s Pulse feature on Summerour can be found here.) Summerour discusses the importance of his personal relationship with the South in making his newest film Sahkanaga (“Great Blue Hills of God” in Cherokee), which is inspired by the Tri-State Crematory scandal. In 2002, it was discovered that over 300 bodies that had been committed to the crematory in Georgia for proper disposal were never cremated and instead buried or left in a shed and the […]
-
Five Questions with The Fitzgerald Family Christmas Director Edward Burns
Fifteen years after winning the 1995 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for The Brothers McMullen, Edward Burns proves with The Fitzgerald Family Christmas that you can always return home. In his newest feature film, the Long Island native revisits the joys and trials of an Irish-American working-class family — fertile ground that helped him to stand out as a director and writer of independent film all those years ago. At first, Burns was hesitant to dip again into the well, but The Fitzgerald Family Christmas stands on its own. Two generations of actors with ties to Burns over his 15 years in film reunite […]
-
Game Changers Part 4: Planning and Shooting
In this fourth episode of a series on the making of the low-budget independent film, Game Changers, director Rob Imbs and cinematographer Benjamin Eckstien discuss audio recording, communication between director and cinematographer, and how to plan out shooting a multi-day, multi-location project. Earlier parts consisted of an overview and then discussed fundraising, casting, camera and lighting gear. Filmmaker: What is the size of your crew? Eckstein: We typically have two people in our sound department every day, though there were some scenes or times of day where we had one person. We typically had an AC and another PA. On […]
-
Five Questions with Drivers Wanted Director Joshua Z Weinstein
New York City’s taxi drivers are as ubiquitous as they are invisible. In his new documentary Drivers Wanted, Joshua Z Weinstein takes the passenger seat — often literally — and trains his camera on the men at the wheel, as well as the gristly mechanics and staff who work behind the scenes at a Queens-based taxi company. Though this may be a niche community, larger economic forces are clearly at play: many of the drivers are bankrupt, broke, or struggling to support their families. From the bustle of the garage, full of camaraderie and occasional conflict, emerge several key characters […]
-
Five Questions with Hecho én Mexico Director Duncan Bridgeman
Upon discovering his “inner hippie” many years ago, Duncan Bridgeman left a successful career in music production — for artists like Paul McCartney, no less — and committed himself to “taking things out of their boxes,” he said in a recent conversation with Filmmaker. His desire to challenge musical convention introduced a new artistic medium altogether to his work: film. Bridgeman joined forces with Jamie Catto, from the electronica band Faithless, to create the multimedia project “1 Giant Leap.” True to their name, the pair traveled to over 20 countries, where they shot film of musical performances and interviews that […]
-
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 2)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. DANIEL GROVE AND REZA SIXO SAFAI, A BETTER PLACE THAN THIS Synopsis: A happy-go-lucky prison guard, Para Dastur has a charismatic demeanor that hides a very grim truth: he is Singapore Changi Prison’s resident hangman. Not just an anonymous executioner, Dastur takes it upon himself to console the condemned and help them come to terms with fate, shepherding them until he utters the final […]
-
Five Questions with California Solo Director Marshall Lewy
In California Solo, the latest film from writer/director Marshall Lewy (Blue State), Robert Carlyle plays Lachlan MacAldonich, a former Britpop star, now an alcoholic working as a farmhand in California. After he is caught driving drunk one night, MacAldonich’s legal right to remain in the country is challenged, and he is forced to revisit his former life. Carlyle delivers a wonderful performance, quiet, thoughtful and an altogether different alcoholic than Begbie, the Trainspotting role that shot him to stardom. After premiering at Sundance, California Solo played festivals worldwide (including its European premiere, at Edinburgh where one audience member, and Carlyle […]
-
Five Questions with Wagner & Me Director Patrick McGrady
Early in Wagner & Me, a new documentary about the music and legacy of Richard Wagner, English actor and writer Stephen Fry says he’d like to time travel to the 19th century. Once there, Fry continues, he would start a letter-writing campaign, urging the composer to rethink his infamously anti-Semitic essay Jewishness in Music: “I say to him, ‘Listen, you’re on the brink of becoming the greatest artist of the 19th century, and future generations will forget that, simply because of this nasty little essay that you’re writing, and because of the effect it’ll have.” Wagner, of course, did not […]
-
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 1)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. RYAN COOGLER, FRUITVALE Synopsis: Based on a true story, Fruitvale follows Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on New Year’s Eve 2008. Bio: Ryan Coogler is a 26-year-old filmmaker based in the Bay Area. He earned his MFA at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 2011, where he made several short […]
