Five Questions
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Five Questions with The Birth of a Nation Director Nate Parker
For his debut as a feature film writer and director, Nate Parker has told the story of a personal hero: Nat Turner. The Birth of a Nation is also the first major fiction film about Turner, the leader of an infamous 1831 slave rebellion. Parker himself stars as Turner, having appeared in more than 20 films to date, including Red Hook Summer, The Great Debaters and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. Below, Parker speaks with Filmmaker about his film’s eye-catching title, Turner’s legacy and what he hopes modern audiences take away from this story. The Birth of a Nation premieres in the U.S Dramatic Competition at […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 25, 2016 -
TIFF 2015: Five Questions for Lace Crater Director Harrison Atkins
A world premiere in the Vanguard section at TIFF, Harrison Atkins’ Lace Crater traffics at the intersection of supernatural horror and that lo-fi millennial genre proliferated by its producer, Joe Swanberg. During a weekend trip to the Hamptons with friends, Ruth (Lindsay Burdge) has an unexpected dalliance with a burlap wrapped ghost, resulting in a strange STI that no doctor can diagnose. Ahead of Lace Crater‘s TIFF premiere tonight, Filmmaker spoke to Atkins about his interest in sci-fi tinged love stories, and his collaboration with Swanberg. Filmmaker: The geography of the house in the Hamptons is central to establishing the dynamics between your characters. Did you write […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 15, 2015 -
Five Questions with Pervert Park Directors Frida and Lasse Barkfors
First-ime feature filmmaking couple Frida and Lasse Barkfors set their sights on unraveling the taboo yet widespread condition of the sex offender in Pervert Park. At the Florida Justice Transitions trailer park in St. Petersburg, the film’s ostracized subjects work towards societal reintegration through group therapy and unflinching self-reflection. Filmmaker spoke to the Barkfors about building relationships with guarded subjects, objectivity, and how they first came across FJT. Pervert Park has its North American premiere in the World Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. Filmmaker: As Scandinavians, how did you come across Florida Justice Transitions, and what led […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 23, 2015 -
Five Questions with Mulignans Director Shaka King
Certain to be one of the most intelligent films at Sundance, Shaka King’s Mulignans is four minutes of biting, vicious satire that ably turns the tables on its viewer. A response to the casual and not-so-casual racism of your average gangster film, King and his cohorts commiserate from the stoop of their Bed-Stuy brownstone about the influx of white people in the neighborhood, in thick Italian accents, wild gesticulations and track suits. Even before King’s character is throwing his cigarette butt at a passing white boy or casually calling a white woman the n-word, you sense just how deeply absurd it is that […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 22, 2015 -
Five Questions with Five Star Director Keith Miller
A generational meditation on masculinity, Keith Miller’s sophomore film Five Star explores the relationship between Primo — a Blood since puberty — and his would-be protégé, John. Set against sun-scorched Brooklyn projects, the film folds a casual shooting style into heavier thematic territory. Maintaining an alternately protective and imposing arm, Primo struggles to reconcile his history with his paternal instincts as John is pulled deeper into the gang’s underbelly. Filmmaker spoke to Miller about the film’s non-fictional foundations and his collaboration with the leading “non-actors.” Five Star world premieres today in the World Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. Filmmaker: This is a world […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 17, 2014 -
Five Questions With Open Windows Director Nacho Vigalondo
Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo is criminally underappreciated in the States, dating back to his brilliantly circuitous 2007 debut Timecrimes. Hopefully that wrong rights itself with Open Windows, a film that manages to take place entirely within the screen of a consumer laptop. Elijah Wood stars as Nick, a sweet-cheeked fanboy who, through an online contest, wins a date with current It Girl Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey.) But she cancels. Instead, Nick gets a phone call from a fed-up admin for her website, who remotely connects Nick’s laptop to Jill’s cellphone, offering a bit of peep-show revenge as a consolation prize. This means […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Mar 15, 2014 -
Five Questions With Last Hijack Directors Femke Wolting and Tommy Pallotta
Femke Wolting & Tommy Pallotta’s experimental doc Last Hijack sees the venn-diagramming of a rigorous interview style and breakout swatches of rotoscoped animation, ala Waking Life (which Pallotta produced.) In lieu of philosophical digressions or convoluted dream sequences, the filmmakers use animation to depict the unfilmable: nailbiting raids by Somali pirates, led by one Mohamed Nura, who casually recounts his adventures to the filmmakers between mouthfuls of khat. Never feeling doctrinaire, the film takes an earnest stab at correcting the way the West considers seaside piracy, delineating a cycle of corruption and violence starting with Mohamed’s father. Wolting and Pallotta […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Mar 14, 2014 -
Five Questions With Evaporating Borders Director Iva Radivojevic
In recent years, the island of Cyprus has become something of an unforgiving melting pot. The often life-threatening emigration of Iranians and Syrians to the once predominately Greco-Turkish enclave presents a tense social fabric that is poetically probed in Iva Radivojevic’s debut documentary Evaporating Borders. Radivojevic adopts an aesthetically meandering and unique approach to the film, which is almost paradoxically structured into character-based chapters. Filmmaker spoke with the Yugoslavian-born Radivojevic about her personal connection to Cyprus, the process of voicing the film’s narrator and other traditionally fiction form elements at work in the film. Evaporating Borders premieres today in the Visions section at […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 11, 2014 -
Five Questions With The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz Director Brian Knappenberger
In a time of endlessly self-spawning bio-docs about the rich and prominent, Brian Knappenberger’s The Internet’s Own Boy carries a legitimate current-day charge. The film is both a dogged investigation in the tradition of Errol Morris or Josh Fox, and a hugely emotional oral history of Swartz’s life — which ended when the activist committed suicide in January 2013. Swartz was facing a federal investigation after he downloaded a cache of academic journals (including, but by no means limited to, JSTOR) from the main computer network at MIT, with a possible penalty of up to 35 years in prison. Indicted […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Mar 8, 2014 -
Five Questions With Fort Tilden Directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers
A comedy of errors through the borough of Brooklyn, Fort Tilden follows the aimlessly entitled Allie (Clare McNulty) and Harper (Bridey Elliott) on their quest for a day at the beach. What begins as a seemingly superfluous mission soon crumbles into a dismantling force on both the girls’ psyches and their relationship. Co-written and directed by feature first timers Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, Fort Tilden premieres today in the Narrative Competition at SXSW. Filmmaker: This was your first time working together as co-writer/directors. How did that come about and what was it like sharing a brain for X months/years? We’re you […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 8, 2014
