Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with one half of the directing team behind the Narrative Spotlight film, We’ll Never Have Paris, Jocelyn Towne. Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?   Towne: Well, it’s a personal story, one that my husband/co-director [Simon Helberg] wrote about our disastrous engagement years ago. When he asked me to direct it with him I was excited, but nervous. I […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the executive producer of the Midnighter selection, Home.   Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?   Resnick: I had long been interested in working on an intelligent genre film that pushed the boundaries and elevates the genre especially one with a fundamentally all female leading cast. I also had a relationship with the producer/financier and wanted to do […]

Mary Pat Bentel makes anything possible. Sure, sometimes she’ll give you, the director, an experienced smirk that says “Are you serious?” But then, just like that, before you can even blink, your dream actor has agreed to meet with you for coffee, she’s found a financier who wants only to give money to the subject matter of the film you happen to be directing, and that helicopter shot you timidly asked for gets scheduled for next week. While I know this first-hand because Mary Pat produced a documentary feature of mine years ago, I also know it from that good […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of the SXGlobal documentary, Ukraine is Not a Brothel, Kitty Green. Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?   Green: Ukraine Is Not A Brothel is a feature documentary about the topless Ukrainian feminist movement FEMEN. The film follows these “titillating” activists as they wage a war against patriarchy in a corrupt and poverty-stricken Ukraine. I came […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of I Believe in Unicorns, Leah Meyerhoff. Leah Meyerhoff is the definition of “independent filmmaker.”  For her debut feature, I Believe in Unicorns, Meyerhoff cast rising talents Natalia Dyer and Peter Vack, moved her production to her childhood home in San Francisco, and sprinkled fairy pixie dust (figuratively and literally) all over her film set. Shot on a combination of Super16mm […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of the Documentary Competition film, Vessel, Diana Whitten. Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?     Whitten: At first I was compelled by the metaphor of a woman having to leave one realm of sovereignty to reclaim her own. I thought it was a rare and interesting example of the offshore being used not for crime […]

Following her “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this interview, she talks with Amy C. Elliott, the director and also d.p. of Wicker Kittens, screening in the Documentary Spotlight section. Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?   Elliott: When I first heard there was such a thing as competitive jigsaw puzzling, I just wanted to know more. And in particular, I wanted to know more about the specifics — how many […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of the Narrative Spotlight film, Kelly & Cal, Jen McGowan. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it?   McGowan: I loved the script. I loved the script and I loved the writer. And I could see it. I could see that I could do something special with it. This project originated at a USC alumni program called USC First Team which connected […]

 Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the writer/director of Honeymoon, Leigh Janiak. Honeymoon screens today in the Midnighters section. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it?   Janiak: My writing partner Phil and I had been writing together for years, and finishing a script is satisfying, but it’s never really a finished project… So I think it was sometime in 2010, after seeing Monsters and Tiny […]

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director of Augustine Frizzell, whose I Was a Teenage Girl premieres in the Texas Shorts program. Filmmaker: Why this movie?  Why did you decide to do it?   Frizzell: I started with the concept of three shorts about three separate pairs of girls, all around age 15, entering a period in their lives where the issues they’re faced with rapidly change from […]