Screenwriters
Interviews - Screenwriters
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“I Absolutely Cannot Stand the Present”: Ted Geoghegan on Period Horror Film Brooklyn 45
Post-WWII national anxieties offer a glimpse into our current tolerance for totalitarianism in Brooklyn 45, writer-director Ted Geoghegan’s latest horror effort. Presented as a real-time film in a bottle setting, the film takes place during the immediate aftermath of the war as a group of veterans meet at one of their Brooklyn (by way of Chicago) abodes to reconnect and (attempt to) mend fresh wounds. Clive “Hock” Hockstatter (Larry Fessenden) hosts the group, who assemble in part to support their old friend after his wife’s recent suicide. Rounding out the guest list is Marla Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), who worked as […]
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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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“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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“Directing Is Being a Professionally Passionate Person”: Celine Song on Past Lives
A lived-in, swooning memory piece on the intersection of roads taken and missed, Celine Song’s Past Lives is as confident as filmmaking debuts come. “I needed to invent the way that this movie should be made. I wanted it to be the first movie of its kind to be made,” Song tells me recently during an interview at the Madison Square Park—one of the locations of her film—over a picnic of petits fours and sparkling lemonade. “I think that every filmmaker pursues this when they approach a new project,” she continues. “I needed this to be something that stands on […]
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“It Really Does Take a Village”: Ted Schaefer on Giving Birth to a Butterfly
Our projected identities—and the constant performance inherent in presenting ourselves—fuel the surrealist philosophy of Ted Schaefer’s Giving Birth to a Butterfly. The filmmaker’s directorial debut, from a script he co-wrote with author Patrick Lawler, delves into a psychedelic psychology of what truly constitutes “the self” (very fitting for a collaborative duo who met through a mutual therapist). Giving Birth to a Butterfly largely consists of a roadtrip odyssey shared by Diana (Annie Parisse), a pharmacist stuck in an unfulfilling marriage to aspiring chef Daryl (Paul Sparks), and Marlene (Gus Birney), a heavily pregnant young woman who’s dating Diana’s son Drew […]
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“I Had Three Art Directors and Two Cinematographers”: Rodrigo Moreno on The Delinquents at Cannes 2023
It’s the rare three-hour film that has as light a touch as The Delinquents while keeping a deft hold on the audience. That’s partly down to its surefire bank heist plot, borrowed somewhat from Hugo Fregonese’s 1949 Argentine noir Hardly a Criminal: a longtime clerk steals enough money to retire on, stashes it, then goes to jail, planning to recover the loot upon release. Morán (Daniel Elias) is the nebbishy thief in Rodrigo Moreno’s new film, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes to general delight. But his accomplice on the outside, Román (Esteban Bigliardi), gets distracted by another […]
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“Giving Birth to Ourselves”: Kira Kovalenko on Unclenching the Fists
Unclenching the Fists, the sophomore feature from Russian director Kira Kovalenko, is set in Mizur, a small mining town in North Ossetia, one of seven autonomous republics in the perpetually unsettled constellation that is the North Caucasus. The liminal setting—at once vertiginous and cramped, as though a town sprouted up from the bottom of an avalanche—is key to the film’s moods, swinging from yearning to resignation and back. We root for the film’s young central character, Ada, played by Milana Aguzarova in a remarkable debut, to free herself from these shadows upon shadows—her brute father, her lapdog brother, a pile-up […]
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“I Wanted You To Feel Like These Kids Need a Tetanus Shot By the End of It”: Weston Razooli on His Cannes-Premiering Neo-Fairy-Tale Adventure, Riddle of Fire
Weston Razooli’s debut feature, Riddle of Fire, premiering in the Cannes Film Festival’s Director’s Fortnight, begins with a charming and clever premise. After we watch a trio of masked kid adventurers steal a video game console from a warehouse, escaping from the pursuing security guard on their dirt bikes, they’re unable to play it. One of their moms has placed a parental lock on the TV, and, recovering from an illness, she’ll only give them the password if they get her a blueberry pie — something her own mom used to give her when she was sick as a child. […]
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“I Observe Human Behavior With Such Pleasure”: Nicole Holofcener on You Hurt My Feelings
It’s no surprise that Nicole Holofcener prides herself in thinking that she can always tell when people are lying to her about her work. After all, she’s as observant as writer-directors come, able to portray even the slightest nuances in idiosyncratic human behavior across the likes of Please Give, Friends with Money, and Enough Said. “There are certainly some tells,” she says, during a recent Zoom interview with Filmmaker on her latest feature You Hurt My Feelings, centered on the white lies we tell loved ones about their work in order to, well…not hurt their feelings. “The bad ones are […]
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Three Bullets in the Gun: Paul Schrader on Master Gardener
If a screenplay packs a big reveal, in which everything you think you know about the lead character is immediately upended, does the film live and die by its twist? Or is it even considered a twist when said reveal arrives 20 minutes into a 112-minute feature? Paul Schrader’s latest, the intentionally provocative but surprisingly gentle (for a Paul Schrader movie) Master Gardener, is not a film that lives or dies by what you know going into it, but, as is the case with most of his offerings, I’d advise you to not look up more than your local showtimes. […]
