Interviews
Interviews
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Dreams of Cinema with Apichatpong Weerasethakul at Qumra
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors who are receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. Far more than a masterclass, attendees at Qumra were treated to a personal journey through history, life and cinema with Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It opened in a standard format with Richard Peña moderating, but then Joe went solo and pulled […]
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“I’ve Left Countless Messages on His 1-800 Number…”: Tommy Avallone and Max Paolucci on their SXSW Doc, The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man”
New Jersey-based filmmaker Tommy Avallone is gathering serious buzz at SXSW for his The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man, a doc charting Bill Murray’s impromptu drop-ins on “the regular folk” — encounters seem closer to urban legends than actual experiences. Even Bill Murray himself said at ComicCon in 2015 that the stories — such as his bartending at the Shangri-la bar in Austin during SXSW 2010 or his showing up at a birthday party in South Carolina after a basketball game or his washing dishes at someone’s house party in St Andrews, Scotland — weren’t […]
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Five Questions with Amber Sealey, Director of No Light and No Land Anywhere
After having premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival, Amber Sealey brings her new feature, No Light and No Land Anywhere, to theaters today. The Factory 25 release screens at the IFC Center, with Sealey doing Q&As at all the evening shows. Tickets and information can be found here at the link. And, below, read Paula Bernstein’s interview with Sealey conducted just prior to the film’s festival launch. Five years after her last feature, writer-director-actor Amber Sealey returns with No Light and No Land Anywhere, a psychosexual drama executive produced by Miranda July. Starring British stage actress Gemma Brockis […]
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“I Went Through Two Marriages But I Still Have the Same Editor”: Gianfranco Rosi’s Qumra Masterclass
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors who are receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. After earning the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for Fire at Sea (2016), an unconventional exploration of the refugee crisis’s impact on the island of Lampedusa, Italian filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi has become one of the most talked about documentarians in the world. Speaking […]
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Mélanie Laurent on Galveston, Affordable Song Rights and Directors (Not) Working with Actors at SXSW 2018
The movie: Galveston The Plot: On the run from a New Orleans mobster (Beau Bridges), a dying hit man (Ben Foster) and a sex worker (Elle Fanning) hit the road for the titular location. Based on the novel by True Detective author Nic Pizzolatto. The Interviewee: Writer/director Mélanie Laurent. This is the French filmmaker’s first English-language feature as director. As an actress, she has appeared in Inglorious Bastards, Beginners and By the Sea. Filmmaker: There’s an interesting quote from you in the press notes that says something like “This is a story that maybe wasn’t meant for me, but I […]
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“You Must Be Reactive in the Face of Danger”: Dieudo Hamadi on Kinshasa Makambo
Having world premiered at the Berlinale, played True/False and now proceeding to Cinéma du Réel, Dieudo Hamadi’s extraordinary Kinshasa Makambo has a shot at becoming one of the major political documentaries of 2018. The film follows two young activists, Ben and Jean-Marie, organizing for an end to the reign of Joseph Kabila, current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While Kabila assumed the presidency in 2001 after the assassination of his father (US-backed autocrat Laurent-Désiré Kabila), Hamadi’s film centers on their dismayed responses to the government’s decision in 2016 to suspend elections until further notice — upturning a […]
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“How Do You Communicate Backstory, Motivation and Theme Without Dialogue?” A Quiet Place Screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck at SXSW 2018
The movie: A Quiet Place, which served as the opening night film of the 25th South By Southwest Film Festival The plot: A family struggles to survive in silence on a rural farmstead amid a flock of sonically acute creatures that attack upon hearing the slightest sound. Starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who also directed. The interviewees: Screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, who grew up in Iowa together and have been making films as a team since junior high. I met them while working in the camera department on their most recent directorial effort Haunt, which wrapped production […]
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“Think of Me as a Glorified Member of the Art Department”: Tilda Swinton’s Qumra Masterclass
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters,” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. Kicking off a series of impressive masterclasses at the fourth edition of Qumra, Tilda Swinton took the stage in a revealing two-hour conversation with TIFF’s Artistic Director, Cameron Bailey. Q&As with big talent are typically geared towards a relatively broad audience formed of […]
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“Where Are the Men I Can Imagine on a Horse?”: Valeska Grisebach on Western
Given the sense of suspended time often pervading the narratives and atmospheres of classic westerns, perhaps it’s appropriate that the wait for Valeska Grisebach’s own Western was a protracted one. Arriving eleven years after her previous film, the understated Sehnsucht (Longing, 2006), the third feature by the German filmmaker (and Berliner Schuler constituent) sacrifices none of the depth and focus of her previous work. With a plot following a group of German construction workers in Bulgaria, the film is in some ways far removed from the vast plains and Monument Valley iconography we identify with the Hollywood western tradition, while at […]
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DP Rachel Morrison on Black Panther, Scaling Up for Marvel and 10-Hour Days
I’ve never interviewed a cinematographer who thought they had enough time or enough money — not once, no matter how big or how small the movie. With Black Panther, Rachel Morrison moved from the indie world to the gilded soundstages of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” a land of $150 million budgets and 100-day shooting schedules. So did the recent Oscar nominee feel like she had everything she needed? “No, not even close,” laughs Morrison, who earned the Marvel gig after her work on Fruitvale Station, Dope and Mudbound. “I had the naive expectation that once you get to that level […]
