Screenwriters
Interviews - Screenwriters
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Getting Friends and Strangers to Watch Your Short Film: Frank Mosley and Hugo De Sousa on Good Condition and The Event
Good Condition is an eight-minute meditation on loneliness, technology and new beginnings. It marks the second collaboration between filmmakers Frank Mosley and Hugo De Sousa after their 2022 comedy short film, The Event, in which a filmmaker wakes up his roommate in the middle of the night to ask why he hasn’t watched his short film. This time, they embark on an eerie trip to the suburbs, following a melancholy man named Barry (Hugo De Sousa) trying to complete a transaction with a ghostly figure who keeps evading him. Good Condition premiered at Aspen ShortFest and Fantasia earlier this year, and […]
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“Literally Filmed Within Two Miles of My House”: Larry Fessenden on Blackout, Streaming and His Role in Killers of the Flower Moon
Reviewing a boxset of writer-director Larry Fessenden’s work in 2015 for Filmmaker, I began by noting that “Fessenden can frequently be found on the outskirts of the New York filmmaking community, using his production company Glass Eye Pix as an outlet of support for fellow filmmakers.” While my summation of the celebrated horror auteur’s altruism remains accurate (the company turns 40 in 2026), Fessenden’s own films have grown tougher to get off the ground. A new film by him is therefore a major event, albeit one that happens quietly. Having made its world premiere at the 27th Fantasia International Film […]
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From 50 Crew Members to Five: Director Eddie Alcazar on Divinity
“Unfortunately, because aging is so common and natural, we tend to think of it as destiny or something we should accept,” says biologist and researcher David Sinclair. And while the scientist’s work on aging and epigenetics is tied to discoveries in biology from the mid-20th century onwards, within the arts the theme of immortality goes back centuries. Filmmaker Eddie Alcazar, who appeared on our 25 New Faces list in 2011, is the latest to tackle man’s search for eternal life, doing so at a time when interest in longevity and even avoidance of death is contemplated by tech community thinkers […]
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“The Price of Making a Movie is That I Have to Direct It”: Todd Solondz on Happiness
Todd Solondz’s indelible Happiness was released 25 years ago today. Filmmaker is reposting here its interview with Solondz, the cover story of our Fall 1998 issue. — Editor Winner of the Critic’s Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Todd Solondz’s startling new Happiness is not only one of the most challenging and invigorating independent films of the year, it’s also, by virtue of the strange politics of its release, a talking point for prognosticators everywhere concerned with the co-option of indie-film attitude by corporate-controlled majors and mini-majors. Ambitiously weaving five separate tales of modern alienation, romantic woe, and shocking […]
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Risk On: Chloe Domont on Fair Play
With credits on high-profile TV series like Suits, Star Trek: Discovery and Billions, writer-director Chloe Domont had experiences in the entertainment industry where she felt like she had to adapt to the boys club. Those experiences, as well as the fear of all she could lose if she didn’t play along, were front of mind when she was crafting Fair Play, an intense, high-stakes and increasingly nerve-wracking relationship and workplace drama with notes of ’90s erotic thrillers. But in no way did Domont want to use the film industry as a backdrop for her masterful feature directorial debut. “That would […]
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“It’s Disturbing to Me How Relevant They Are”: Gregg Araki on New Restorations and His Teen Apocalypse Trilogy
In the late 1980s, Gregg Araki began making movies. He made films on a shoestring budget with a do-it-yourself mindset–not due to any kind of loyalty to the auteur theory, but the constraints of what he had at his disposal. In 1992, he made The Living End, a tale of two HIV-positive gay men, a loner and a film critic, who set off on a bloody, ferocious adventure. The film was dedicated to “the hundreds of thousands who’ve died and the hundreds of thousands more who will die because of a big white house full of republican fuckheads.” From there, […]
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“If We’re All Gonna Die…Then Why Wouldn’t You Take a Risk as an Artist?” Onur Tukel (Back To One, Episode 265)
Onur Tukel is a boldly independent writer-director-actor who, for more than a decade, has been making cutting edge comedies in New York City that sometimes land in the horror category, sometimes social satire, are often absurd, mostly hilarious and always thoughtful—Catfight, Applesauce, Summer of Blood, The Misogynists, Scenes From An Empty Church, to name just a few. His latest, Poundcake, about a serial killer who only targets straight white men, is maybe his boldest yet, which says a lot. In this hour, he talks about his reluctant approach toward acting in his own films, the ways he has navigated low […]
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Punching Down: Emma Seligman on Bottoms
The following interview was published in Filmmaker‘s Summer 2023 issue and is being reposted today as Bottoms arrives in theaters via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Bottoms, the sophomore feature from Shiva Baby writer-director Emma Seligman, takes the concept of blood and guts in high school to a queer, campy pinnacle. Co-written by Seligman and Rachel Sennott—who starred in Shiva Baby and returns to act in Bottoms alongside frequent comic collaborator Ayo Edebiri—the project embraces a streak of absurdist satire that’s been present in Sennott’s sensibility since launching her highly popular, if now infrequent, Twitter presence. Coupled with Seligman’s directorial desire to “always do […]
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“What ‘Motherhood’ Really Means”: Laura Moss on birth/rebirth
The following interview was originally published during our Sundance 2023 coverage and is being republished today ahead of birth/rebirth hitting theaters via IFC Films and Shudder this weekend. — Editor The narrative kernel of birth/rebirth, Laura Moss’s debut feature, was originally planted in the writer-director’s mind 20 years ago. The filmmaker (and former EMT) was creatively stirred after reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and feeling that its interest in unnatural procreation could translate well to an all-female retelling. As the decades passed, Moss began negotiating integral facets of their identity—namely coming out as non-binary and becoming increasingly convinced they would never have […]
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“This Movie Could Only Happen at This Budget in New York City”: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz on Mutt
A breakout at Sundance, Berlinale and New Directors/New Films this year, Chilean-Serbian writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s debut feature Mutt is as scrappy and charming as its canine title. Following a frenzied 24 hours in the life of New York trans man Feña (Lío Mehiel, the first trans actor to win the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance), Mutt explores the constant micro-aggressions that trans people face daily—even in a supposedly hyper-tolerant locale, especially from loved ones—and the connections and community that make these encounters sting a little bit less. Even when Feña faces his capricious ex-boyfriend, moody tween […]
