Interviews
Interviews
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“The Military System and a Movie Set are Similar”: Rachel Lang on Baden Baden
Described as the most daring section of the Berlinale, Forum aims to straddle art and cinema. Launched in the late ’60s to diversify the festival, Forum still showcases perhaps the most progressive and experimental films of the 400 total that are slated in Berlin’s beast of a festival. There were 44 titles selected for Berlinale’s Forum program this year, and of the 34 world premieres and 9 international premieres, several played at Berlin’s arthouse Arsenal cinema in the festival’s wake. Though this year’s program was focused on the Arab region, Forum is known for its dissidence and commitment to presenting unpredictable and unconventional lineups. This year, the […]
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“I’m Like a Flare Hunter”: DP Natasha Braier on The Neon Demon
With the fantastical levels of post-production digital alchemy now possible, there’s an increasing trend toward not committing in-camera. But not when you’re working with director Nicolas Winding Refn, as cinematographer Natasha Braier discovered on The Neon Demon. “Most of the time directors love all the radical things I try to do in-camera, but then they’ll still say, ‘Just in case, let’s do a safe version.’ Nic doesn’t do that. He’s not scared to not have that safety net,” said Braier. “Instead, Nic says, ‘Give me that times 10. If you’re going to jump, let’s jump even higher.’ That’s why it’s […]
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“That Feeling Inside You That Never Explodes”: Lucile Hadžihalilović on Evolution
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution is her long-awaited sophomore feature; her first, Innocence, premiered in 2004. At the time of Evolution‘s premiere, I wrote: Innocence followed a group of young women being schooled in etiquette, beauty et al. at a vaguely sinister private institution, preparing themselves to be sexualized for a lifetime before an implicit male gaze; Evolution gender-switches the sexual fears attendant to puberty. The setting is, again, an isolated incubation facility, this one for the grooming of young boys. Nicolas (Max Brebant) is one of many interchangeable blond youths (the vibe is very Village of the Damned) being raised by an equally interchangeable group of orange-haired mothers (?) in […]
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The Red Turtle Director Michaël Dudok de Wit on Silent Metaphors, Charming Flaws, and Takahata’s Influence
Spoken language is direct and concise, but the most necessary messages are never successfully conceived or delivered through words. Silent gestures, decisive actions, and tangible kindness construct the most vivid memories of an individual’s existence. Michaël Dudok de Wit’s heart-rending masterpiece The Red Turtle engages in conversation with the core of the human condition without ever uttering a single sentence. A man with no name, past, religion or even nationality becomes a castaway after a brutal storm. Alone on an island, the man battles solitude, desperation, fear, and anger with only nature as witness. The existential grandeur of Terrence Malick’s works is […]
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A One-Camera Show: DP James Laxton on Moonlight
Moonlight traces the path from childhood to young adulthood of a black gay man named Chiron growing up in a poor part of Miami. For me, it’s a film about identity and how that malleable construct shifts as a reaction to the world around us and the people in our lives. Unfolding as a triptych, each section of Moonlight places a different actor in the lead role, allowing the audience to see a physical embodiment of Chiron’s transformation as those close to him drift in and out of his world — Chiron’s troubled mother (Naomie Harris), surrogate father figure Juan (Mahershala […]
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“You Gotta Be Ready for Anything”: DP Kris Kachikis on Shooting Christopher Guest’s Mascots
After a decade’s hiatus from feature-length faux documentaries, Christopher Guest returns to his enthusiastically delusional dreamers and kitschy subcultures with the Netflix original Mascots. Set in the world of competitive mascottery, Mascots finds the globe’s preeminent purveyors of plushy entertainment descending upon Anaheim in hopes of winning the World Mascot Association’s highest honor – the Golden Fluffy. The usual suspects from Guest’s repertory company fill out the cast – Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Parker Posey. But behind the camera is a new face in cinematographer Kris Kachikis. Kachikis talked to Filmmaker about choosing the Sony F55 over […]
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“Young People More and More Dream of Making Films”: Claire Simon on Le Concours
The French state film school La Fémis is the closest thing to a state-sanctioned religion under the secular French administation. Situated in Paris, it is the French temple of cinema, the film school that has educated more Cannes, Berlin and Venice prizewinners than any other faculty in the world. To go to La Fémis has become a badge of honor; the only trouble is that it’s seemingly impossible to get accepted into it. The entrance exam involves a critical written essay on a film clip, a presentation of a potential film project with research, and a discussion on film during a meeting […]
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DOC NYC: Five Questions for The Guys Next Door Directors Allie Humenuk and Amy Geller
Shot over three years, The Guys Next Door looks at what the filmmakers, Allie Humenuk (Shadow of the House) and Amy Geller (For the Love of Movies) dub “a real Modern Family” — a gay male couple parenting a child and forming an extended family with that child’s surrogate mother. Premiering today at DOC NYC, and co-presented by NewFest, the film catches its principal characters at a time when their commitments to each other are challenged by circumstance, geography and subtle changes in our society. Filmmaker: First, how did the two of you — Amy and Allie — wind up […]
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DOC NYC: Five Questions for City of Joy Director Madeleine Gavin
World premiering last night at DOC NYC, City of Joy tells the story of a center for young women in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo dedicated to helping them overcome the aftermath of rape, abuse and traumatic violence. Directed by Madeleine Gavin, well known in the independent film world for editing films like Mean Creek, Meadowland and, most recently, Nerve, the film documents the relationship between the center’s three founders — Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congo doctor; The Vagina Monologues playwright and actress Eve Ensler; and Congolese human rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver — while also […]
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“This is a Show about Dread”: Nick Antosca on the SyFy Series, Channel Zero
Although the Netflix series Stranger Things has received more mainstream attention, the Syfy series Channel Zero is arguably more unsettling and less predictable, and executed with a more determined vision. With six episodes this season (“Candle Cove”) and six in production for 2017 (“The No-End House”), the series has more in common with the French horror series Beyond the Walls (Shudder) in terms of its willingness to allow for slowness and its non-clichéd approach to characters. Both shows suggest the increasing prominence of, for lack of a better term, “weird fiction” — stories that treat horror as a kind of […]
