Interviews
Interviews
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Terence Davies, The Deep Blue Sea
One of the United Kingdom’s most lauded stylists, Terence Davies has carefully crafted a body of work that fits squarely into the class-conscious, post-neorealist tradition of British cinema, working without much fanfare or regard for the exigencies of commercial filmmaking that the age and his stature would seem to demand. Now in his mid-sixties, Davies has in the last 30 years quietly established himself as one of the finest British filmmakers of his generation. He is not a cinephile and his lugubrious, sublimely photographed and insidiously hard-hearted narratives — such as 1988’s Distant Voices, Still Lives, which will screen as […]
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Director Nelson George on The Announcement
I sat down today with my old friend Nelson George to ask about his recent and past projects. We discussed his newly finished film The Announcement, about Magic Johnson 20 years after he made the announcement that he has the HIV virus. And then we worked backwards and discussed Good Hair, Life Support, and George’s path from journalist to filmmaker. The Announcement premiered on ESPN this month and continues to air; for upcoming screenings, including one this afternoon, visit the website. George’s documentary Brooklyn Boheme is now available on iTunes. Filmmaker: Tell me about The Announcement and how you came […]
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A Conversation with the Dardenne Brothers
The Kid with a Bike, the latest from the Belgian Dardenne Brothers, is opening this Friday, March 16, courtesy of Sundance Selects. The touching story already picked up the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes last year in addition to being nominated for a Golden Globe and Spirit Award. After his heartbreadking role in the Dardennes’ The Child, actor Jérémie Renier reprises his role as a deadbeat dad, Guy, who abandons his twelve-year-old son, Cyril, to be looked after by the local hairdresser, Samantha. She struggles to fill in the missing holes Cyril’s absent parents left behind while trying to keep him […]
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Five Questions with Leave Me Like You Found Me Director Adele Romanski
Producer Adele Romanski has built quite a filmography in a very short time. Last year, she opened David Robert Mitchell’s nostalgia-laced sleeper-hit Myth of the American Sleepover. And less than two months ago, she made a splash at Sundance with Katie Aselton’s Black Rock (which sold to LD Entertainment). Throw in a stint as a Sundance Producer’s Lab Fellow, plus several projects in development (including Mitchell’s Sleepover followup Ella Walks the Beach and Adam Bowers’ We’re A Wasteland) and it should become obvious that Romanski has been, to say the least, busy. So when did she find time to direct […]
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Five Questions with Girls Creator Lena Dunham
Is Lena Dunham about to change television? Recent years have seen big-screen critical darlings like Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Diablo Cody make the pilgrimage over to the small screen. But last year’s announcement that the 25-year old Tiny Furniture director would be masterminding a new series for HBO seemed a more direct link between the indie film and TV industries than had been attempted previously. And as if cementing this link, Girls premieres today with a special sneak preview screening at SXSW – the festival that initially launched Dunham’s career. Audiences are in for a treat, as Dunham’s wit […]
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Five Questions with Gayby Director Jonathan Lisecki
Jonathan Lisecki’s award winning short Gayby screened at over one-hundred festivals world-wide, and it’s easy to see why. Lisecki takes a potentially divisive premise – a single woman looking to become a mother commissions her gay best friend to knock her up – and explores it in a style that’s so frank, honest, and completely hilarious that it’s impossible not to be charmed. Anchored by wonderful comic turns from Jenn Harris and Matthew Wilkas (who reprise their roles in the feature version), the Gayby short is available now on the new Wholphin No. 15. Lisecki meanwhile has been preppng the […]
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Five Questions with Booster Director Matt Ruskin
Too often contemporary crime dramas binge on the crime and skimp on the drama. This is not the case with Booster, director Matt Ruskin’s debut narrative feature, and his followup to Sundance Channel documentary The Hip Hop Project. The story of Simon, a Boston-based petty thief forced to turn to serious robbery after his brother is arrested, Booster features stellar performances from a handful of Boston natives, as well as veteran character actor Seymour Cassel. Ruskin’s film wrestles with provocative moral issues, taking care to imbue even its most externally-loathsome characters with life and heart. Premiering in Narrative Competition today, […]
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Five Questions with Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters Director Ben Shapiro
Photographer Gregory Crewdson is renowned for his elaborately-staged photographs, huge in scope, size, and ambition. So filmmaker Benjamin Shapiro had his work cut out for him when he set out nearly a decade ago to follow Crewdson and demystify the artist’s process. But the biggest surprise of Shapiro’s long-awaited film is just how open, eloquent, and down-to-earth Crewdson is when discussing his art. Crewdson allows the audience unrestricted access to his shoots (not to mention his personal life), even taking us along as he searches for locations, subjects, and inspiration. Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters is a refreshingly frank look at […]
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Five Questions with The Sheik and I Director Caveh Zahedi
Caveh Zahedi is no stranger to boundary pushing. His filmography, a blend of narrative and documentary, has covered everything from drug tripping to sex addiction, all from a decidedly first-person perspective. But Zahedi’s latest, the bitterly-titled The Sheik and I, is perhaps his most flagrantly subversive (not to mention personal) work yet. Banned by the very government body that commissioned it, The Sheik and I finds Zahedi let loose on the Middle East. As he pushes boundaries in his attempt to “make a film about trying to make a film,” the resulting work, premiering at SXSW, promises to call into […]
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Kate Lyn Sheil Discusses Acting at SXSW
With a focused, intense, and somewhat mysterious screen persona, actress Kate Lyn Sheil has stood out in a number of recent independent films, including Silver Bullets by Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal’s Green. At SXSW this year she arrives with four titles, including Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine and Bob Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me. Here I talk with Sheil about how she got into acting, being a movie fan, her influences and the particular pleasures of independent film.
