As two, aunt and nephew Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala hope to disperse the ego of the moviemaking machine. They split the single mindedness of the one-director show and harness twice the fighting power in their creative battles against the industry’s business end. Moving to a US production for their sophomore feature: The Lodge, the two saw the ugly head of commerce rear itself more than it ever dared in Austria, where they shot their debut Goodnight Mommy. The Lodge begins with a bias for its young siblings Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh) who have lost their mother […]

Austrian filmmaker Severin Fiala accused me of being a sexist. We were in Poland, and it was the night his film, Goodnight Mommy, won the Audience Award at the New Horizons Film Festival. I found his accusation horrifying, tantalizing and ultimately not inaccurate. In the last year, I’ve interviewed 57 women and zero men. My intention wasn’t to disregard men, but rather, to hear from women. My goal wasn’t to create a ghetto whereby the marginalized are defined by their gender, but to try and normalize standards from which the male-dominated industry was built and still prevails today. I wanted […]

Now in its nineteenth year, the Fantasia International Film Festival is known as one of the premier destinations for exciting genre cinema. With a focus primarily on horror, Asian genre fare, and more indescribable film art, this three-week Montreal festival annually takes over Concordia University and other venues to entertain in provocative fashion. And while there are many goings-on taking place concurrently within the city (such as the massive Just For Laughs comedy fest and Osheaga’s live music performances), Fantasia always seems to hold a special place in the province of Quebec. “We’re not a subtle event,” co-director Mitch Davis noted […]