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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 world will be empty. From every tomb I’ll learn all we imagine of light.” The 2016 painting by Nalini Malani, one of India’s foremost video artists, is titled All we Imagine of Light. Years later, her daughter Payal Kapadia would ask to borrow and rework the title for her film All We Imagine As Light, which would eventually go on to win the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Festival and play at festivals including New York Film Festival before… 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 of his surroundings is tempered by inconsolable grief over his wife’s recent death. As a big-name musical talent in her own right, the solitary Allen is pained by the fact that his grief is not just his own; though he deeply adored her and produced most of her music, it’s clear that fans, both rabid and casual alike, feel equally entitled to a piece of their relationship. The only people who seem to genuinely care about Allen’s wellbeing—and don’t simply… Read more
Failure as Creative Inspiration: How I Shot — and Recorded — My Christmas-Set Musical Long December in 12 Days
Shooting "Long December" (Photo: Joshaun Anderson)
In 2015 I directed my first feature. It would be six years before I was able to direct my second. But once I had completed the first draft of that script, we had the film in the can within six months. It was a breakneck pace making Long December, a Christmas-set musical drama about a singer/songwriter chasing his dreams of stardom. Its process was complicated further by my choice to not only fill the story with musical numbers performed by the cast but to capture those performances live on-camera — with no lip-syncing or back-tracking. Pulling it off took a community of artists — musicians, first-time actors, recording engineers and sound designers. It was a wonderful way to spend the… 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, played brilliantly by Adams, is bound by poverty and a dearth of options to her unstable father, Bug (Keoghan); she seeks solace in whatever independence she can find. When a mysterious stranger (Rogowski) appears on her doorstep, an uncanny bond is formed between them, altering the course of her life. Bird is currently in theaters from MUBI. Filmmaker: Your narrative work tends to have a sort of freewheeling structure, but these pieces always feel like they bring the viewer full circle,… Read more
History Repeats the Old Conceits: Johan Grimonprez on Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, by Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, is an essay film of many dimensions: the high tensions of the Cold War, the activism of the Black Civil Rights movement in America and its solidarity with the independence movements that were sweeping across Africa, the power grab between the East and West for control over minerals and resources in the Congo and the relentless espionage attempts to undermine those efforts, including the CIA sending jazz ambassadors to covertly gain intelligence. Plunging viewers into the historical events surrounding Congolese National Movement leader Patrice Lumumba’s leadership and assassination at the start, Grimonprez doesn’t always present actions chronologically. But there is an associative, time-skipping logic to the film. It’s… Read more
Flowers and Songs: The Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF) At 44
Standing Above the Clouds
Hometown premieres of several long-anticipated local films galvanized this year’s edition of the Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF), now in its 44th year. Last year, fewer films debuted due to pandemic shooting delays; “just wait until 2024” was the common refrain. But now, 2024 is here, and those awaited works have finally arrived. Showcasing the rising talents of the region’s film scene and its sheer diversity of topics and genres, films played to not only sold-out houses, but often to two or three sold-out houses simultaneously—the festival had to keep adding screenings to keep up with demand. HIFF’s decision to take over all the screens of its Consolidated Theaters Kahala venue proved invaluable, both for accommodating audience fervor and generating… Read more
“I Actually Feel Like the Firefly Was Caught in the Jar”: Tyler Taormina on His Cannes-Premiering Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
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 canvas allows for — and incorporates — the whole range of emotions that the theater of Christmas can produce, from the… Read more
“This is Going to Be the Most Circuitous Interview”: Alan Rudolph on Breakfast of Champions
Bruce Willis in Breakfast of Champions (photo by Joyce Rudolph)
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 tone that mirrors the director’s feelings about advertising, politicians and a country that prefers to keep up appearances rather than… Read more
