Directors
Interviews - Directors
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Five Questions with Union Square Director Nancy Savoca
Nancy Savoca’s True Love was an early high-water mark in the modern independent film movement. In fact, its storyline, newcomer casting and loose style is now the template for much current indie drama. So, it’s great to report that over 20 years later Savoca is back with another intimate drama realized on a low budget and entirely outside the industry. With a stellar cast (Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard and Patti Lupone), Savoca explores sister dynamics through the lens of a Canon 5D. The film, Union Square, premieres today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Filmmaker: What were the origins of […]
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Five Questions with Caprichosos Director Alison Murray
Several years ago director Alison Murray moved to Buenos Aires, where she danced tango competitively, married her tango partner, had two daughters and, now, has completed her fourth feature. Not surprisingly given these life changes, the film, Caprichosos, deals with dance. But instead of tango, Murray has focused on the murga — what she dubs “tango’s poor cousin.” Performed by groups of costumed dancers who rehearse their theatrical presentations for months before premiering them at Carnival, the dance is a local tradition suffused with beauty, drama, and a slight undertone of menace. Writes Murray in a director’s statement, “Unlike its […]
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Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
“Riveting” is an adjective quite frequently used by entertainment journalists when describing crime movies, thrillers, or really anything that might simply offer its fair share of violent and shocking surprises. After seeing Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, however, one must reevaluate this clear over usage. Refn’s film, for which he took home the Cannes Best Director prize, brings fresh meaning to the term as it regards to narrative cinema. I must emphasize: this is an absolutely engrossing entertainment, surely one of the most potent and unforgettably propulsive stories you’ll encounter on a silver screen this year. A simple recap of its […]
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Five Questions with The Patron Saints Directors Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky
Photographers-documentarians Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky use dark humor and unconventional storytelling techniques to look at patients living in a nursing home for their debut feature, The Patron Saints. Known for their Hurricane Katrina short God Provides and their photography highlighted on their site, piegonprojects.com (two reasons why we selected them for our 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2007), Cassidy and Shatzky’s unique eye of making the ordinary look extraordinary has us excited in seeing this premiere at TIFF. Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about? Cassidy/Shatzky: The Patron Saints is a hyperrealistic […]
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Five Questions with Habibi Director Susan Youssef
When we chose Susan Youssef for our “25 New Faces” list in 2009, the Brooklyn born filmmaker of Lebanese and Syrian parents was in post-production on her feature Habibi, which she had been working on since 2002. “I’ve been working on the film for eight years, continuously,” she said. “I’ve never fought for something so hard before — I’ve defined my whole existence around this film.” Fortunately for Youssef, her work has paid off. Habibi premiered last month to strong response at the Venice Film Festival and now plays Toronto before heading to Dubai. Based on an ancient Sufi parable, […]
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Girl Model Directors Ashley Sabin And David Redmon
In both narrative and documentary film, the character of the fashion model has long been a symbol of not only glamor but also a kind of post-modern alienation. Depicting a Russian teen model casting and one young girl’s travel to Japan for modeling work, Girl Model, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s absolutely riveting new documentary, is set in a morally adrift culture in which the image of childhood is a globally traded commodity. Nadya is an innocent-looking, blonde 13-year-old for whom modeling work is both a dream and way out of the poverty she’s grown up with in Siberia. But […]
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Five Questions with Crazy Horse Director Frederick Wiseman
Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman heads to the Toronto International Film Festival with his latest film on dance, Crazy Horse. Highlighting the famous cabaret in Paris, Wiseman uses his patented verite style to give an unprecedented look inside the work and lives of the women who makes the Crazy Horse legendary. Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about? Weisman: I Followed the day to day activities involved in the rehearsing and staging of a new show at the crazy horse, a parisian cabaret famous for its beautiful dancers and erotic dances. Filmmaker: Why a verite look […]
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Five Questions with The Loneliest Planet Director Julia Loktev
With The Loneliest Planet, the follow-up to her acclaimed feature Day Night Day Night, writer/director Julia Loktev builds a piercing drama around the contrast between a beautiful wide-open landscape and the ugliness of a momentary, possibly reflexive, moment of human behavior. In the film, an adventuring couple (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) trek through the Georgian mountains with a for-hire guide (Bidzina Gujabidze). A violent encounter changes everything. But in Loktev’s world, the hurt comes not from gunplay or kidnappings but from something more subtle. We asked Loktev about the relationship of landscape to story, about silence, and about […]
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Five Questions with Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
In the mid ’90s filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky traveled to West Memphis, Arkansas for a documentary they were making for HBO on the gruesome murders of three boys and the trial of the three teens who were charged. The film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, gave the trail nationwide interest as Berlinger and Sinofsky revelaed a case that was hardly open and shut. Coerced confessions as well as questionable evidence and testimony made viewers uncertain if the three defendants — Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin — were guilty and the fight to […]
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Five Questions with Paul Williams STill Alive Director Steve Kessler
As director Stephen Kessler notes in his documentary, Paul Williams Still Alive, in the ’70s, the tiny blond singer was everywhere. He could be found on daytime game shows (The Gong Show) and nighttime dramas (The Love Boat), on The Muppets as well as in the lead of a Brian DePalma film (The Phantom of the Paradise). And then he faded from the cultural limelight. How much of his disappearance can be explained by the simple fact that people — audiences and performers — get older? Or does the fade of Williams’ quirky and emotional star say something deeper about […]
