The Wizard of Oz
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The Pact: Miguel Gomes on Cinema and Tabu
Part realism and part fantasy, half 35mm and half 16mm, part post-colonial and part colonial, half a swooning love story and half a clear-eyed political assessment, Miguel Gomes’s Tabu functions, as he puts it in this interview, within a structure of oppositions. Simultaneously a rebuke – and vindication – of the concept that “the personal is the political,” Tabu is a carefully constructed film in two halves, each of which comments upon the absences articulated in the other. We start in present-day Portugal, with Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a middle-aged woman who works for an unidentified lefty non-profit. Pilar is of […]
by Zachary Wigon on Dec 26, 2012 -
Rian Johnson, The Brothers Bloom
ADRIEN BRODY, RACHEL WEISZ AND MARK RUFFALO IN DIRECTOR RIAN JOHNSON’S THE BROTHERS BLOOM. COURTESY SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT. When his first film was released in 2005, Rian Johnson became an overnight sensation; but, as is so often the case, that “overnight” success took many years of work to achieve. Johnson was born in 1973 in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up in Denver, Colorado, and San Clemente, California. He came from a family of film lovers and by the time he was in seventh grade he was making movies, taking his Super 8 camera with him whenever he could. When he […]
by Nick Dawson on May 15, 2009 -
Abby Epstein, The Business Of Being Born
AN EXPECTANT MOTHER IN DIRECTOR ABBY EPSTEIN’S THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN. COURTESY RED ENVELOPE ENTERTAINMENT. After years as a theater director, Abby Epstein has transitioned into being one of the most important new female voices in documentary film. Epstein began directing plays in the 1980s in Chicago where she started her own theater company, Roadworks Productions. In the late 1990s, she relocated to New York to helm the highly successful Broadway musical RENT. Notable amongst numerous other credits is her involvement with Eve Ensler’s seminal The Vagina Monologues, which she directed during its New York run as well as […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 9, 2008 -
David Stenn, Girl 27
DAVID ROSS AND PATRICIA DOUGLAS IN DAVID STENN’S GIRL 27. COURTESY RED ENVELOPE ENTERTAINMENT. In most people’s eyes, David Stenn’s first film as a director marks the start of his third career, but to him it’s a continuation of what he’s been doing all along: storytelling. Chicago native Stenn started writing for Hill Street Blues after graduating from Harvard, then moved on to more TV writing, most notably on teen guilty pleasures 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills 90210. In 1988, he published an acclaimed biography of 1920s film icon Clara Bow, and followed it in 1993 with an exhaustive […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 27, 2007
