Interviews
Interviews
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Let Me Be Your Shelley Duvall: Stewart Thorndike on Bad Things
The haunted halls of a defunct Catskills hotel wreak psychological violence on a group of young, queer city slickers in Bad Things, the long-awaited sophomore feature from writer-director Stewart Thorndike. Arriving nearly a decade after Lyle, Thorndike’s sapphic take on Rosemary’s Baby starring Gabby Hoffmann, Bad Things similarly tackles plot points and thematic fixations of another scary movie staple—Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining—through a thoroughly queer and feminist perspective. Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) is debating whether or not to sell the now-derelict hotel her mother used to run years prior. With a decisive real estate meeting only days away, Ruthie assembles a […]
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Executive Director Anne Hubbell on the Provincetown International Film Festival at 25
Founded in 1999 and situated in the historic arts colony on the Massachusetts Cape, the Provincetown International Film Festival has been a bastion for independent filmmakers and their projects for a quarter of a century, with classics such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cameraperson and Coffee & Cigarettes appearing across its programming. PIFF has also long been known for its established rapport with queer directors (John Waters has returned annually to present awards and host events) and the the LGBTQ+ community that resides in the town year-round. PIFF’s 2023 edition, which begins today and runs through the 18th, is the festival’s […]
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“The Result of On-Camera Conversations Spanning 15 Years”: Christian Einshøj on The Mountains
Shockingly (as the films I adore usually fly under the radar) but deservedly, this year’s winner of the Best International Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs, first-time feature director Christian Einshøj’s The Mountains, proved to be a prime example of my mantra that the smaller and more specific the story, the more universal the reach. Influenced by Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (it thrills me just to type that), and also Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, the doc is equal parts oddball charming and emotionally devastating. As the (very specific) logline puts it: “Armed with 30 years of home video, 75,000 family photos […]
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“I’m the Little Boy Believing That There’s a Pony in a Pile of Shit”: Mark Duplass (Back To One, Episode 257)
Mark Duplass is the living patron saint of the indie filmmaker. Honest, simple, modest, positive, affirming about the work, Duplass, first with his brother Jay and now on his own, has become a household name in the film world for producing projects in a DIY style foregrounding authenticity, improvisational humor, and human connection. As an actor, both in his own productions and also series like The Morning Show, he finds a way to keep that homegrown genuineness alive in front of the camera. His latest film, Biosphere, which he co-wrote with director Mel Eslyn, is a true two-hander (with the wonderful Sterling […]
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“Authenticity is More Important than Anything Else”: Maria Fredriksson on Tribeca 2023 Premiere The Gullspång Miracle
Maria Fredriksson’s astonishing feature debut The Gullspång Miracle isn’t just stranger than fiction—it’s batshit insane. In the broadest of outlines, the doc stars two devoutly religious Norwegian sisters, Kari and May. May visits Kari in Gullspång, Sweden, where Kari now lives. They go to an amusement park where they take a ride inside a fake whale. May finds herself stuck in Sweden for many months, so the two decide to go shopping for an apartment, and end up buying one based on a divine sign they witness there. At the closing, they meet the seller Olaug (formerly known as Lita), […]
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“This Work is a Product of Survival”: Lea Glob on Tribeca 2023 Premiere Apolonia, Apolonia
[Editor’s note: Apolonia, Apolonia opens Friday, Jan. 12, at DCTV Firehouse.] Premiering in international competition at last year’s IDFA, where it took top prize, Lea Glob’s (2015’s Olmo and The Seagull) Apolonia, Apolonia is an intense character study of French figurative painter Apolonia Sokol. The Danish director met the artist, who is of Danish and Polish descent, while searching for the protagonist of her first doc while attending the Danish Film School, and then trailed her for the next 13 years. And while the bohemian free spirit, who was raised in a Paris underground theater founded by her eccentric parents (an […]
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“I Cried a Lot During the Edit”: Jude Chehab on Tribeca ’23 Premiere Q
Award-winning DP Jude Chehab’s cinematographic talents are on full display in her Tribeca-premiering feature debut Q, a haunting look at three generations of women whose lives were forever upended by a cult. In this case, the shadowy entity is the Qubaysiat—a matriarchal religious order founded in the Middle East, where the Lebanese-American filmmaker moved to from Florida at the tender age of 10—and eagerly joined upon arrival in Beirut, having fallen under the influence of a particularly devout member – her own mother. Filmmaker reached out to Chehab, a 25 New Faces 2021 alum, to learn more about her powerful cinematic […]
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“TV Shows are Like Better Funded Independent Films”: DP Larkin Seiple on Beef
In the new Netflix series Beef, a struggling contractor (Steven Yeun) and an affluent entrepreneur (Ali Wong) become embroiled in an escalating feud following a road rage incident. The series fits snuggly into a very specific quadrant of cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s wheelhouse— hard-to-classify A24 projects. Though his filmography includes sports biopics (Bleed for This), thrillers (Cop Car) and prestige dramas (To Leslie and Emmy-nominated work on Gaslit), Seiple’s most distinct work has come in A24’s Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once and now the studio’s Beef. With the full series streaming on Netflix, Seiple spoke to Filmmaker about Incubus clinching […]
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“At the End of the Movie You Have Nine Different Deliverables to Time”: Roger and James Deakins on Still Photography, LUTs and Previs
Cinematographer Roger Deakins—CBE, ASC, BSC and recently knighted—and his collaborator and wife, James Ellis Deakins, recently visited New York to talk about his book of still photographs. Byways, published by Damiani Books, is the first book from the two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer. It includes previously unpublished black-and-white photos spanning five decades, from 1971 to the present. North Devon farms, British seaside towns, the deserts outside Albuquerque: Deakins’s singular vision is apparent no matter what the subject. Deakins is known for his collaborations with directors like Denis Villeneuve, Sam Mendes and the Coen brothers. With his wife James he also hosts the […]
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“A Ukrainian National Awakening on Multiple Fronts”: David Gutnik on Tribeca 2023 Premiere Rule of Two Walls
David Gutnik’s Rule of Two Walls, its title a reference to the best place to be between during bombing raids, is a unique take on an exhaustively mined (some would say extracted) story—that of the current war in Europe. Combining doc and fiction, the film follows Ukrainian artists who have chosen to stay and fight for their homeland by making art and preserving culture as a means of resistance. And that includes those involved in the crafting of this very film. To learn all about this meta look at creation in a time of destruction, Filmmaker reached out to the Ukrainian-American writer-director […]
