Damon Gameau was a successful actor branching out into directing. With an award winning short-film under his belt looking for a topic for his first feature film as a director when he discovered the over-sugaring of the population and THAT SUGAR FILM was on its way. Rather than take a earnest, pedantic approach, he decided… Read More »
Stephen Winter Re-discovers JASON AND SHIRLEY
Click here to listen to the interview. When Shirley Clarke made PORTRAIT OF JASON, she was doing more than exercising her creative impulse. The Oscar™-winning director had been all but shut out of Hollywood, and returned to New York to pursue a career as an indie filmmaker rather than deal with being marginalized by the… Read More »
David Cross Takes the HITS
David Cross was off coffee because of a stomach ailment when I talked to him on February 5, 2015 just before his film, HITS, kicked of SFIndieFest. Opting for tea, and overcoming his distaste for the bergamot in his Earl Gray, he was a lively conversationalist as we discussed his maiden effort writing and directing a feature film.… Read More »
Perry Blackshear, MacLeod Andrews & Evan Dumouchel Insist that THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE is a first-rate existential horror film, as well as a psychological thriller. I got the same vibe watching it that I had gotten watching PI and BRICK, the maiden efforts of Darren Aronofsky and Rian Johnson respectively. Writer/director Perry Blackshear understands more than just how to create evocative, even sumptuous, visuals, he knows… Read More »
Shlomi Elkabetz Records GETT: THE TRIAL OF VIVIANE AMSALEM
GETT, the Hebrew word for a bill of divorce, is the third film in a trilogy made by brother-and-sister filmmakers Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. The theme, as Shlomi explained to me on October 6, 2014, is freedom, specifically women’s freedom in the modern world. Inspired by their mother’s life, it’s a contemplation on the nature… Read More »
Greta Gerwig — The Woman Behind the HA
The first thing Greta Gerwig did upon sitting down for our interview on May 3, 2013 was to be attacked by her chair. Actually, she sat on her hand, which had a disarming charm to it. As the co-writer of FRANCES HA, along with director Noah Baumbach, it was the perfect indication of how close… Read More »
KINSEY
KINSEY opens with the face of Peter Sarsgaard in close-up looking directly into the camera and asking questions of a sexual nature. An offscreen voice stops him when he uses a euphemism for a sexual act. No, says the voice that we will shortly learn is Kinseys, it wont work unless you are completely straightforward,… Read More »
Bill Condon Studies KINSEY
A word of warning. Like KINSEY, the film he wrote and directed, Bill Condon is direct when discussing the research that his title character carried out on human sexuality. Also like the film, it’s done with erudition, insight, and spiced with a pointed wit. When we spoke on October 28, 2004, the converstation naturally turned to… Read More »
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Observes THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Das Leben der Anderen)
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck had always been fascinated by the Stasi, the East German secret police who took spying on the public to an almost absurd extreme. During his meticulous research about them for THE LIVES OF OTHERS, he became something of an expert on their procedures, consulting not only scholarly experts, but also by including on his… Read More »