Interviews
Interviews
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“Each Film Speaks with its Own Voice”: An Interview with Composer Nathan Halpern
It’s been quite a year for composer Nathan Halpern. He had four films at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival—the feature-length documentaries After Parkland and One Child Nation and the narrative features Goldie and Swallow—and while he hasn’t slacked in his new output, all four of these projects have gone on to impressive post-festival activity. One Child Nation (directed by Nanfu Wang, a previous collaborator of Halpern’s) premiered at Sundance in 2019, and was acquired by Amazon Studios for a theatrical run in August; it’s now streaming on Amazon Prime. And three of the films are hitting theaters right now: After Parkland (directed by Emily Taguchi and Jake […]
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“I Think the Public Deserves More Transparency”: Brian Knappenberger on His Horrifying Netflix Docu-Series, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez
The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is a six-part Netflix docu-series from Brian Knappenberger (Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press) that delves into one of the most horrific crimes to hit Los Angeles headlines in recent years — the death of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend after years of physical torture and emotional abuse. Taking as its starting point the courtroom drama of death penalty defendant Isauro Aguirre (after one too many outbursts from Gabriel’s mom Pearl Fernandez the accused murderers are ultimately tried separately), the series soon becomes something else entirely — a […]
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Jennifer Lyon Bell and Stoya Talk “Blue Artichoke Films Presents: Adventures In Intimacy” (and Sex Positivity)
Taking place on Friday, February 28th in Amsterdam (or via a live stream near you), “Blue Artichoke Films Presents: Adventures In Intimacy” will be, according to the event’s press release, “a celebration of sex-positive, p*rn-positive, queer-friendly culture as explored by p*rn performers, scientists, and sex educators in their own work.” Organized by the feminist force behind Blue Artichoke Films (which will simultaneously celebrate its platform launch) Jennifer Lyon Bell, the evening’s quartet of speakers, including the host herself, are an international array of notable thinkers on the subject of erotica in cinema. The Netherlands Ellen Laan, a sexologist and “pleasure […]
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“No One Was Willing to Sign the Check”: Rashaad Ernesto Green and Zora Howard on Premature, Shooting 16mm and Self-Financing
Included in the 2010 edition of 25 New Faces of Independent Film, director Rashaad Ernesto Green has been sitting with his intricate story of love had and love lost, Premature, for quite a while now. The original short film, made while Green was a film student at NYU Tisch, was described in his 25 New Face profile as being “classically built,” telling the story of a “teenager who, having found no support for her pregnancy from either her disaffected family and brutal community, resorts to drastic, near-tragic measures to free herself of responsibility.” Green’s leading lady in the short, his […]
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“War Is a Source of Human Nature”: Kantemir Balagov on His Women-Centered Period Two-Hander, Beanpole
Exquisitely grueling yet fiercely humane, Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, an astounding Russian period drama, cements the artistically mature director as a prodigy of international cinema moving towards an auspicious career. At age 28, Balagov has had his first two features premiered at Cannes with both earning prizes in the Un Certain Regard section. Situated in 1945 Leningrad among the ashes of World War II, Beanpole, which was also shortlisted for the Best International Film Academy Award, explores the harsh aftermath of the conflict through the tortured friendship between Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) and Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), two women who served in the […]
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“Power and Organizational Pressure Win Over Logic”: Kazuo Hara on Reiwa Uprising at Rotterdam 2020
Kazuo Hara has always aligned himself with the political left, but it was nevertheless surprising to hear about his latest film, Reiwa Uprising, which depicts the ascent of Japan’s newest left-wing political party, Reiwa Shinsengumi, from grassroots agitators to seated parliamentarians during the 2019 election. It is not unusual for Hara, best known for Extreme Private Eros (1974) and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987), to take almost a decade or even longer between films, yet Reiwa Uprising follows Sennan Asbestos Disaster by just two years. That expedited time to completion was largely out of necessity: Reiwa Shinsengumi was […]
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“An Auteur’s Cinema in Spite of the Violence”: Patricio Guzmán on The Cordillera of Dreams
Patricio Guzmán is indefatigable. For over 50 years, the Chilean director has chronicled his country’s political trauma—namely, the military coup d’état coup and brutal reign of Augusto Pinochet—with a commitment and passion that is unparalleled. Propelled by a period of tumultuous unrest in Latin America in the 1960s, Guzmán helped forge a radical-left documentary movement, most famously with his momentous trilogy The Battle of Chile (1974-1979), an epic verité street-level account of his nation’s CIA-backed right-wing takeover. But for the last decade, Guzmán may be more recognized for a different type of triptych: Starting with Nostalgia for the Light (2010), and then […]
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“Can’t Tell That to the Landlord”: Abel Ferrara on The Projectionist, Tommasso and Crack City Terminator
Abel Ferrara is a hurricane. And like a hurricane, it is close to impossible to anticipate where he’s going to go at any given time. More than that, any hope of influencing the outcome of either is well beyond the limits of human control. Admirers with the good fortune to spend some time with the man can attest that getting Ferrara to stick to the script is largely a fool’s errand. In my case, it was because he had two new movies (The Projectionist, Tommasso) playing at consecutive festivals (Doclisboa, the Viennale) I happened to attend. At a certain point […]
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“Sometimes Directing is Not Saying Anything and Just Putting Vodka Shots in Front of People”: Luis López Carrasco on El Año del Descubrimiento at Rotterdam 2020
At a festival as big as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, early screenings are essentially shots in the dark. There is no buzz yet, and most films have little written about them or are by filmmakers whose previous works have received relatively little exposure. I opted on the second day to give Luis López Carrasco’s El Año del Descubrimiento a shot partly because I had heard of his previous feature, El Futuro, but mostly because its 200-minute runtime helped it to stand out amid a slate of films I knew next to nothing about. From the very beginning, its use […]
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“…We Wanted Our Cameras to Listen and Play Witness”: Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman on After Parkland
On Valentine’s Day 2018 the community of Parkland, Florida was irrevocably transported into the headlines. That was the day when a 19-year old gunman walked into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and took the lives of 17 of its students. In the aftermath of the horrific event news crews descended as grieving parents and children struggled to find footing in a new reality. And while a great many reporters packed up once the soundbites ran out, veteran journalists Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman stayed behind — and got to truly know the fathers and mothers and siblings, the significant […]
