Screenwriters
Interviews - Screenwriters
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“I Had Given Up on this Film”: Payal Kapadia on All We Imagine as Light
All We Imagine is Light
On a dull white piece of archival paper measuring 39.3 x 27.3”, ghoulish figures in wispy gray and red stenciled figures are engaged in various jousting poses. Text is sandwiched between the figures: “One day the streets all over the… Read more
“It’s Punk Rock to Be Hopeful These Days”: Harley Chamandy on His Self-Distributed Feature Debut Allen Sunshine
Allen Sunshine
The somber existence of a reclusive electronic musician is the focus of Allen Sunshine, the feature debut of 25-year-old Harley Chamandy. The eponymous character (played by Vincent Leclerc) resides in a charming lakeside cabin in Quebec, yet the idyllic nature… Read more
“Don’t Call It ‘Magic Realism'”: Andrea Arnold on Returning to Narrative Cinema with Bird
Nykiya Adams in "Bird," courtesy MUBI. (Photograph by Atsushi Nishijima)
Shot and set in Gravesend, a town in Kent, England, Andrea Arnold’s new film Bird, starring newcomer Nykiya Adams alongside Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, is a portrait of a young girl coming of age under chaotic circumstances. Twelve-year-old Bailey,… Read more
Hawai’i International Film Festival 2024: Zoë Eisenberg on Chaperone
Mitzi Akaha in Chaperone
A chance encounter with a teenage Lothario who thought she was still in high school inspired Zoë Eisenberg to begin writing her solo directorial debut, Chaperone, which premiered at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival and won the Breakouts Grand Jury… Read more
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Hawai’i International Film Festival 2024: Alika Tengan on Molokai’i Bound
I first learned of Alika Tengan (then Alika Maikau) when his short Mauka to Makai (co-directed with Jonah Okano) screened at the 2018 Hawai’i International Film Festival, where I was a member of the Made in Hawai’i jury. The film’s naturalism, commitment to its characters and refusal of easy melodrama demonstrated a maturity far beyond the young filmmaker’s age; our jury gave it the Best Film award. It turned out to be just the first of several Made in Hawai’i Best Film awards for Tengan; he also won for his 2019 short Molokai’i Bound, and this year won it again […]
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“I Actually Feel Like the Firefly Was Caught in the Jar”: Tyler Taormina on His Cannes-Premiering Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
The below interview was originally published May 20, 2024, during the Cannes Film Festival, where Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point premiered in the Directors Fortnight section. It is being republished today, as the film is released nationally by IFC Films, including at New York’s IFC Center. — Editor Whether the sprawling fantasia that is Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point proves heartwarmingly reflective or personally destabilizing in its near-ethnographic study of American holiday ritual will depend, largely, on the composition and size of your own Xmas memories. It’s a strength of the film, however, that Taormina’s expansive […]
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Tokyo International Film Festival 2024: Tsuta Tetsuichiro on Black Ox
Telling the story of a small, subsistence farming mountain community whose few remaining members keep drifting away to nearby cities, Tsuta Tetsuichiro’s second feature, 2013’s The Tale of Iya, drew upon his background growing up in rural Japan. “I was actually born near there,” he explained. “As I observed the lifestyle of the people of Iya, the idea came to me naturally to make a film set there.” After shooting his first feature on 16mm film in black-and-white, Tetsuichiro upgraded to 35m color for Iya, whose physicality throughout the seasons overwhelms with brutally immersive snowstorms and epic mountain panoramas. For his […]
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“This is Going to Be the Most Circuitous Interview”: Alan Rudolph on Breakfast of Champions
25 years ago, Alan Rudolph’s Breakfast of Champions left theaters as quickly as it arrived, barely making a blip during a landmark year in American cinema save for a litany of negative reviews that all but celebrated its failure. (Luc Moullet might have been its sole admirer upon release.) Adapted from the Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name, Breakfast captures a cross-section of American archetypes on the brink of a collective nervous breakdown; correspondingly, the film also feels like it’s also losing its mind. Rudolph, cinematographer Elliot Davis and editor Suzy Elmiger imbue Breakfast with a manic, comically grotesque […]
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“There’s an Inherent Absurdity to the Lengths She Goes”: Josh Margolin on Thelma
When Josh Margolin first heard that his grandmother had nearly become the victim of a phone scam — in which someone pretending to be Margolin attempted to score thousands of dollars from the elder — he immediately felt ill at ease and violated on her behalf. But it didn’t take long for the writer-director to recognize a great story: What if his grandmother had given away her money and, upon realizing the scam, set out to get revenge? The result is Margolin’s feature debut Thelma, starring June Squibb in the eponymous role as a 93-year-old Los Angeles resident who doesn’t […]
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“When I’m a Director, I’m a Painter”: Titus Kaphar on Exhibiting Forgiveness
Titus Kaphar’s artwork can be found across the nation at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Yale University and the Mississippi Museum of Art; his painting Yet Another Fight for Remembrance might be his most recognizable, as it was commissioned by TIME Magazine as a response to the Ferguson unrest following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer. The MacArthur Fellowship recipient continues to examine contemporary Black life in his feature film debut, Exhibiting Forgiveness. Actor André Holland stars as Terrell, an acclaimed painter living with his singer-songwriter wife Aisha (Andra Day) and young son […]
