Interviews
Interviews
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Film as a “Spiritual Memory”: Writer/Director Monica Peña on Her Miami International Film Festival Premiere, Hearts of Palm
Writer/director Monica Peña obliterates the notion of sophomore slump with her second independently produced feature film, Hearts of Palm, which will have its world premiere at Miami Dade College’s Miami International Film Festival tonight. With this movie, the Miami-based Cuban-American filmmaker has only advanced her avant-garde exploration of film narrative, which she first introduced us to with Ectotherms in 2014. Whereas her first film examined the lives of four Miami youths trapped in suburban anomie, her latest takes on a more personal subject: love turned sour. Both films are strongly rooted in Miami. The first contains allusions to the plight […]
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Emelie‘s Andrew Corkin on Becoming an Independent Film Producer
With over 30 assorted producing credits ranging from Martha Marcy May Marlene to An Oversimplification of Her Beauty to The Benefactor, Andrew Corkin is a constant figure in New York’s independent film scene. Uncorked, the production company he runs with partner Bryan Reisberg, has a filmography encompassing shorts, features, television and web, and the material ranges from auteur independent drama to so-called “elevated genre” pictures like Emelie, in theaters and on VOD platforms now from Dark Sky Films. Corkin’s most recent production, The Alchemist Cookbook, world premieres next week at SXSW. Last year I sat down Corkin for a public […]
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The Witch DP Jarin Blaschke’s Lens Tests (With Stills)
In conjunction with his interview regarding The Witch, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke shared with Filmmaker a series of frames taken from his preproduction lens tests. Here’s Blaschke’s thoughts on the tests, which were conducted at Panavision Hollywood with an Arri Alexa: I had used Cooke Panchro Series 2s [from the 1950s] on a couple smaller pieces and Super Baltars on the last short film with [The Witch] director Rob Eggers, Brothers. I liked them both for certain things, but never compared them side by side or alongside other vintage glass. I asked Panavision [Hollywood] about everything available pre-Panavised Zeiss and made a […]
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“The Original Pitch Couldn’t Be Said in Less than a Thousand Words”: Robert Greene and Kate Lyn Sheil on Kate Plays Christine
After winning the Special Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance, filmmaker Robert Greene and actress Kate Lyn Sheil arrived in Berlin for their international premiere of Kate Plays Christine. Of the 44 titles slated in Berlinale’s Forum, Greene’s documentary is one of only three American films to have been selected to screen. The film is described as a documentary, but the nature of the project has a complicated and multi-layered explanation. On one level, the film follows Kate preparing for a role, but the character she must assume isn’t written in a script. She’s researching to play […]
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“We Needed the Fresh Urine of a Nanny Goat”: DP Jarin Blaschke on The Witch
In the midst of my opening day viewing of The Witch, the screen went black. It wasn’t unexpected considering the multitude of perfectly timed ellipses that punctuate director Robert Eggers’ 17th century tale of a devout Christian family torn asunder. And this particular ellipsis seemed opportunely placed – coming just as the film’s hypothetical dread morphed into tangible terror. But this time, the darkness persisted. The theater’s projector bulb had burned out. Of course, the audience didn’t know that yet. At any other screening, the reaction would’ve been instantaneous. My fellow moviegoers and I would’ve turned to the projector and […]
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“Shooting the Interview Like a Game”: Kamilla Pfeffer on Who is Oda Jaune?
After seeing only one Oda Jaune painting in an art catalogue at a bookstore, Kamilla Pfeffer had found her next subject. Born in Bulgaria, Oda Jaune is a German painter currently based in Paris, and has had her work exhibited all over the world. The nature of her paintings and the process of her practice are the primary interests in Pfeffer’s documentary, Who is Oda Jaune?, but how to first engage with the introverted artist is Pfeffer’s requisite challenge. “Oda’s work has a way of speaking to my irrational side,” says German actor Lars Eidinger during his short interview with […]
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“The Vanity of Trans-People Versus the Humanity of Trans-People”: Sara Jordenö and Twiggy Pucci Garcon on KIKI
“One of my friends was killed over there,” says Christopher Waldorf, reflecting back to a scene from KIKI, the 66th Berlinale’s Teddy Award-winning documentary. In an early scene from the film, Waldorf is captured voguing down a dangerous street in Harlem. “The Trade are straight hood guys,” says Waldorf, explaining the threat of violence and harassment that the Trade inflicts on Voguers like himself. “The only reason we were able to joke around when we were filming there,” chimes in another featured subject in the film, Gia Marie Love, “is because we were with white people.” First-time documentary filmmaker Sara […]
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How to Assemble a Rough Cut Two Days After Shooting Wraps: Editor Phillip J. Bartell on Miss You Already
Catherine Hardwicke’s razor-sharp blend of comedy and tragedy, Miss You Already, arrives on Blu-ray, DVD, and a variety of VOD platforms March 1. The story of best friends (played by Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette) struggling to deal with the fact that one of them has terminal cancer, it’s a film that walks a tonal tightrope: silly, devastating, sexy, angering, and bittersweet, the movie’s diverse range of effects is a testament to Hardwicke, her actors, and an ambitious script by Morwenna Banks. Pulling all of the elements together is editor Phillip J. Bartell, whose superb work on 2014’s Dear White […]
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The Origins and Challenges of Cartel Land, Amy, What Happened, Miss Simone? and Winter on Fire
Few festivals do a better job of rounding up the year’s most enticing documentaries than the always charming Savannah Film Festival. During its 18th edition last fall, the festival — largely curated by publicist Steven Wilson and entertainment reporter Scott Feinberg on behalf of the Savannah College of Art and Design — brought many of the leading lights in documentary filmmaking to the northeastern corner of Georgia for its second annual “Docs to Watch” sidebar. The culmination of the program is a panel, moderated by Feinberg, that includes a smorgasbord of directors whose movies will figure prominently in the award season races to […]
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Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson on Diamond Tongues, Working with Tim Heidecker and Shooting Quickly in Toronto
Striving to become a professional actress is a lifestyle choice accompanied by feelings of extreme competitiveness and inadequacy. Each waking hour is a moment you could be attempting to improve your craft or desperately trying to secure more work. As endless auditions make way to too few callbacks, you may begin to reconsider the professional hell you’ve chosen for yourself, being judged as much for your skills as for your facial features and body type. It’s enough to make anyone grow a little bitter. Diamond Tongues, a dark Canadian comedy that premiered at last year’s Slamdance Film Festival, finds its […]
