Interviews
Interviews
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Richard Rowley on Dirty Wars
Already a celebrated and polarizing figure in the world of war reporting and investigative journalism, Jeremy Scahill, whose incendiary 2008 bestseller Blackwater landed him on virtually every political news show in the business, returns to the spotlight this season with the unsettling, yet arguably vital, documentary Dirty Wars, a companion piece, of sorts, to his new doorstopper of the same name. A hit at Sundance, the film credits Scahill as co-producer and co-writer, and features him as both narrator and chief subject, but at the helm is director Richard Rowley, a veteran documentarian who’s worked with Scahill for more than […]
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“We’re All on a Downward Spiral, Right?” Calvin Reeder on The Rambler
Judging from the slick production values, the leading name actor, the eye-catching poster art, and the stock horror trailer, one might glean the false impression that The Rambler, Calvin Reeder’s sophomore film, might be a more commercial affair than his micro-budget 16mm debut, The Oregonian. But make no mistake, though The Rambler finds Reeder painting with a larger canvas, the film is just as bold, hallucinatory and unrepentantly experimental as any of his previous work. Based off the 2008 short of the same name, The Rambler follows a taciturn guitar-slinger (Dermot Mulroney, taking the role on from Reeder who played […]
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Geoffrey Fletcher on Violet & Daisy
An often stirring and certainly very odd meditation on the difficulties and ambiguities of love and friendship about a pair of female teenage assassins, Violet & Daisy is the debut feature of Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious). A tricky balance of near camp, New Wave aesthetic hijinks and earnest melodrama unfold in this three-handed chamber piece and are for the most part deftly pulled off by Fletcher and his collaborators, who have made a film that is reminiscent of both grindhouse cheapies (Danny Trejo is in it after all, albeit very briefly) and Godardian reveries. Ex-Gilmore Girl Alexis Bledel and Atonement‘s Saoirse Ronan play the title […]
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City World Director Brent Chesanek
Among the discoveries at the 2012 edition of CPH:DOX was Brooklyn-based Brent Chesanek’s City World, which is part magic realist children’s adventure tale and part austere landscape documentary. Over precisely framed tableaux shot in his hometown of Orlando, FL — nearly all of them completely absent of people — Chesanek drapes the narration of a young boy mulling the breakup of his family and subsequent move, with his father, to this Southern city. As in another recent film, General Orders No. 9, contemporary landscape photography is presented as historical residue meant to be both meditated on and explicated. Drained of […]
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“He’s Kind of Killed All of Them at This Point:” Adam Green on Holliston and Hatchet III
Imagine that you grow up to be a successful filmmaker? Cool, huh? Now imagine that you get to wake up (or continue the previous day’s all-nighter) and go to work with some of your best friends. Even better. Throw in the fact that you are good buddies with the lead singer of one of your favorite bands — who also happens to play your boss on your acclaimed sitcom — intergalactic, Hollywood-star-slaughtering monster/Gwar frontman Oderus Urungus plays your imaginary friend, you have become peers and collaborators with childhood idols and inspirations ranging from Chris Columbus (screenwriter of The Goonies and Gremlins) and […]
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Shooting in Snow and Ice with the Canon C100: Interview with Ben Pender-Cudlip
Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston-based documentary filmmaker who recently switched from shooting with a DSLR to the Canon C100. His first project shot on the C100 was a short that included a segment on ice climbing. In this second part of our interview with him about switching to the C100, Pender-Cudlip talks about the project and what it was like to use the camera in these conditions. Filmmaker: How did this project come about? Pender-Cudlip: It’s a film for a woman named Lauren Schaad. She approached me about shooting a TV pilot. She was looking to get into reality TV […]
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Switching from a DSLR to the Canon C100: Interview with Ben Pender-Cudlip
Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston based filmmaker who specializes in nonfiction work. His short film Sanjiban, which chronicles the passing of filmmaker Sanjiban Sellew, premiered at Hot Docs last year. Ben recently switched from shooting on a DSLR to the Canon C100. In part one of this interview he talks about his experience switching to the C100, and in part two he talks about the first major project shot with the camera: documenting an ice-climbing expedition. Filmmaker: What were you using prior to getting the C100? Pender-Cudlip: Before the C100 I was using a Canon 60D, which is sort of […]
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Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling on The East
Brit Marling recently gave the convocation speech for the 2013 graduating class of Georgetown University, the alma mater of the writer/producer/actress and her friends and collaborators Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij. Cahill directed Marling in Another Earth, a film she co-wrote, and Batmanglij has stood at the helm of Sound of My Voice and the new eco-thriller The East, both of which also credit Marling as co-writer and star. In her speech, a riveting address that was wonderfully articulate and rang deeply true, Marling offered fun anecdotes about her misadventures with Cahill and Batmanglij (Cahill, for example, once served as […]
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Five Questions with La Camioneta Director Mark Kendall
This interview originally ran at the time of the film’s world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival 2012, and is now being republished to coincide with with La Camioneta‘s theatrical release, which starts today at Brooklyn’s reRun Theater. Visit the official website of La Camioneta for dates of further theatrical screenings. Director Mark Kendall carries a spirit of adventurous, a keen eye for character, and a wellspring of ambition into his first documentary feature, La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus. Starting out at an auction in rural Pennsylvania for decommissioned school-buses, Kendall boards one of the buses sold and accompanies the […]
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Cannes 2013: Five Questions with Miele Director Valeria Golino
Never one to shy away from difficult topics, Italian actress Valeria Golino chose the subject of euthanasia for her feature directorial debut, Miele. Showing the human stories behind an issue few want to discuss, with Miele Golino succeeds in creating a film that is both touching and sincere. Playing in this year’s Un Certain Regard in Cannes, it tells the story of a young Italian women, Irene (Jasmine Trinca), who travels once a month to Mexico to buy over-the-counter barbiturates designed to put dogs to sleep. Back home, Irene goes by the name Miele, or “Honey,” delivering the drugs to terminally ill […]
