Rebecca Richman Cohen
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Rebecca Richman Cohen on Code of the West
In Code of the West, director Rebecca Richman Cohen chronicles the legislative machinations surrounding Montana’s endangered medical marijuana law. The debate, which was colored by outrageous, scaremongering claims about increased teen use and demonic possession, revolved around the possibility of an outright repeal of the initial 2004 law, which spawned an industry that became the ire of conservative politicians and family groups. During the vote on a proposed repeal, DEA agents raided 26 ostensibly legal cannabis growing sights across the state and put the state’s biggest caregivers out of operation, including one owned by Tom Daubert, the protagonist of Cohen’s […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 28, 2013 -
“WAR DON DON” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
While introducing War Don Don at last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, SXSW programmer Janet Pierson said that while many great documentaries were submitted to last year’s festival, there were few with the “clarity” of Rebecca Richman Cohen’s directorial debut. It was a sentiment later echoed by Raphaela Neihausen, the executive director of Stranger than Fiction who praised Richman Cohen for her ability to “break down a complex issue” but still keep the “nuance.” Three years in the making, War Don Don follows the UN Special trial of Issa Sesay, one of the leaders of the RUF, an incredibly violent rebel […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Nov 10, 2010 -
25 NEW FACES – PART 2
Jason Byrne When we caught up with filmmaker Jason Byrne to include him in this year’s “25,” it was via e-mail from Tanzania. At the sa me time Byrne’s hypnotic experimental documentary Scrap Vessel winds its way along the festival circuit, he is working as an audio/visual archivist for the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. “Living in East Africa for the last two years has been a deeply rich experience, and this job has been fascinating but psychologically difficult at times, especially when listening to the many graphically explained testimonies from witnesses to the genocide,” he writes. Byrne has […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 20, 2010 -
25 New Faces
Welcome to the 2010 edition of Filmmaker‘s annual survey of new independent film talent. Victoria Mahoney Writer-director Victoria Mahoney began her artistic career as an actress in theater and then film. “Shelly Winters was my teacher,” Mahoney says. “If you touched your hair too many times in her class, she’d come over and cut off your bangs. She taught me the gift of stillness.” After working off-off Broadway, Mahoney went to L.A., did a number of pilots, a few European films, and a season of Seinfeld (she played Gladys Mayo, owner of the clothing store Putumayo). But then there […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 20, 2010 -
Rebecca Richman Cohen
Early on in Rebecca Richman Cohen’s career in film she worked in the edit suites of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 as an assistant editor. But when the movie was over, rather than pursue film through further editorial work, she decided to go to law school. “I was ready to sink my teeth into something concrete,” she says. “Going to Harvard Law School was a tough decision because I loved film. But I felt that the law would ground me in social issues and add something substantive if I decided to return to film.” While in law school she worked one […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2010
