Lana Wilson
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“In New York, You Create Your Own Family” | Lana Wilson, Look Into My Eyes
Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively? Look Into My Eyes takes place in New York City. It was always a New York movie for me, even before the pandemic started, but the experience of being in New York City throughout the pandemic made me extra-committed to the setting. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 22, 2024 -
“Is There a Difference Between Theater Improv and Doing a Psychic Reading?”: Lana Wilson On Her Sundance-Premiering Look Into My Eyes
It was 2016, the day after the presidential election, when filmmaker Lana Wilson (Miss Americana, After Tiller, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields) was filming an omnibus film about the election night in Atlantic City, NJ. To her, the night was like living in a horror movie. It was when she was waiting for her ride back to New York that she noticed a sign that said, $5 Psychic Readings. “I was feeling depressed, sad, confused and really frightened of the future,” Wilson tells Filmmaker recently, before the Sundance premiere of her latest film, Look Into My Eyes. “Without even thinking, I […]
by Tomris Laffly on Jan 22, 2024 -
Director Lana Wilson Talks Gaining Trust, Valuing Life and Her Wise, Empathetic Suicide Prevention Doc, The Departure
One of the major discoveries of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, Lana Wilson’s The Departure is a beautiful, wise and deeply empathetic immersion into one fascinating character’s unique approach to suicide prevention. Ittetsu Nemoto is a former punk rocker turned Buddhist priest who, in quietly wrenching group sessions, counsels the suicidal while facing down his own demons. Working in a small, remote temple in Japan, he constructs spare, philosophical rituals for his patients and then, separately, bonds with them in more personal, emotionally intimate ways. Following Nemoto both within his practice and outside of it, The Departure initially grabs hold […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2017 -
Do No Harm: Lana Wilson and Martha Shane on After Tiller
While making After Tiller, Lana Wilson and Martha Shane struggled to get support from granting agencies cautious about supporting a film about such a hot-button topic as third-trimester abortion. In response to the pair’s bid for support, one major film grant organization said, “We’re waiting to see where this movie comes down.” Or, in other words, “We can’t support the film unless we support the way you depict this contentious issue.” The genius of After Tiller is that it doesn’t “come down” anywhere. It doesn’t make a case or take sides. At a time when documentaries about major political and […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 18, 2013
