Director Shaka King Breaks Down the Magic Trick Behind “Judas and the Black Messiah”

Judas and the Black Messiah opened last month and quickly galvanized moviegoers with its fact-based story about Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, whose betrayal by an FBI informant led to his 1969 death by gunfire at age 21 while sleeping in his own Chicago apartment. The film racked up six Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Director Shaka King earned a nomination for co-writing the screenplay and steered co-stars Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield to their own Oscar nods in the Best Supporting Actor category.

“The Mauritanian” Director Kevin Macdonald on Telling Mohamedou Slahi’s Story

The Mauritanian director Kevin Macdonald has plumbed the depths of state-sanctioned terror before, notably in his riveting 2006 film The Last King of Scotland, featuring a ferocious performance by Forest Whitaker playing Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. His work in The Mauritanian might seem, on first blush, to be another trip to the dark side. Yet Macdonald’s film, led by stellar performances from Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch, and, most crucially,

International Women’s Day Profile: Director Tan Chui Mui

Pioneering Malaysian New Wave director Tan Chui Mui was on the final recce of her latest film, Barbarian Invasion, in a remote fishing village when the national lockdown news broke in mid-March last year following the World Health Organization’s declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Her shoot was about to start in early April, which would be after the end of the supposedly two-week lockdown. But Tan was fully aware of the severity of the situation in China.

“Lovecraft Country” Creator Misha Green on Confidence and Taking Risks in Hollywood

Name a vocation and Misha Green has probably done it. And if not in her own lifetime, then through the lives of the characters she creates.    

“My sister just reminded me the other day, she was like, ‘You actually got into UCLA for acting,’” Green said. “And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s RIGHT!’”

But ultimately, it was a life behind the camera that Green preferred. She decided to study television and film at New York University and a few years later landed her first industry job as a staff writer for FX’s Sons of Anarchy.

Writer/Director Anna Kerrigan & Jillian Bell on Making the Modern-Day Western “Cowboys”

A stirring, “stay with you” drama about family, tolerance, and rescue, Cowboys centers on the disparate reactions from newly separated parents Sally and Troy (Jillian Bell and Steve Zahn) upon learning their child, Joe (newcomer Sasha Knight), is transgender. While Sally remains in denial, Troy is determined to allow Joe to live authentically and runs off with him into the wilderness of Montana, with authorities not far behind. Ann Dowd plays the detective assigned to the case,

Writer/Director Tiller Russell on his Real-Life Crime Drama “Silk Road”

Writer/director Tiller Russell was ideally suited to take on the crime thriller Silk Road. As the director of The Last Narc and Netflix’s Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, Russell is no stranger to looking squarely at the darker corners of the human soul. For Silk Road, which was inspired by David Kushner’s Rolling Stone article “Dead End on Silk Road: Internet Crime Kingpin Ross Ulbricht’s Big Fall,”

“Star Trek: Picard” Director Hanelle Culpepper Charts a Diverse Path in Hollywood

America had its eyes locked on Mars this past week as the NASA rover, Perseverance, landed on the red planet and sent color photos back to Earth. It’s an optimistic step in space exploration that may expand human understanding of the Milky Way, but things don’t rest so peacefully in the galaxy on the first season of Star Trek: Picard.

The latest critically acclaimed series in the Star Trek franchise follows a synthetic attack on Mars that set the planet ablaze and propelled former admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) into retirement.

Writer/Director Jon Alston on His Impactful and Timely Short “Augustus”

Although it’s a short film, director Jon Alston’s Augustus tackles a monumental subject: human rights and the centuries-long injustice and racism faced by the Black community. Alston, a former record-setting linebacker in the NFL, served as an executive producer as well, along with the film’s writer and lead actor, Ayinde Howell.

The film plays from the point of view of Frederick Douglass, the noted abolitionist who escaped slavery. As Douglass suffers from nightmares depicting the death of his son,

Filmmaker Noah Hutton on his Slyly Scorching Feature Debut “Lapsis”

Writer/director Noah Hutton was due to make his narrative feature debut with his sci-fi film Lapsis at SXSW in March of 2020. You know how that turned out. Nearly a year later, Hutton’s slyly lacerating debut is now available on Virtual Cinema, VOD, and Digital. His low-budget feature debut is an impressive feat of world-building, cinematic wit, and a darkly funny critique of late-stage capitalism, specifically corporate greed and the exploitation of workers.

Director Fran Kranz & Editor Yang-Hua Hu on Their Heartbreaking Film “Mass”

Mass, which recently premiered to much acclaim at Sundance, is the screenwriting and directorial debut of actor Fran Kranz. It’s a tense, claustrophobic, dialogue-driven film that explores the long-term aftermath of a school shooting, and essentially takes place in one room. Its success rests heavily on the shoulders of the cast, and Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, and Ann Dowd, who form the quartet at the center of the story,

“The Investigation” Writer/Director Tobias Lindholm on Rethinking the Police Procedural

The police procedural has been a staple on television since its inception, and writer/director Tobias Lindholm felt it was time to shake things up. The Investigation, Lindholm’s six-episode miniseries currently playing on HBO, delves into one of the most sensational crimes in recent Danish history — the 2017 murder of journalist Kim Wall. And it turns the genre on its ear.

Wall went missing after meeting with an interview subject on his private submarine.

“Clarice” Producer/Director DeMane Davis on Seizing the Moment

DeMane Davis, co-executive producer/director of the new CBS series Clarice which premieres February 11, calls her career “incredibly fortunate.” But Davis was ready when opportunity arose in the form of Ava DuVernay. When DuVernay opened the door for women directors on her groundbreaking series Queen Sugar, Davis burst through it. On crutches.

“I had broken my ankle and I’d had surgery; the cast had just come off and I was still on crutches,” recalls Davis in a phone interview from Toronto where she is shooting Clarice.

Director Sam Pollard on the Legacy of Black Art in his New HBO Documentary

HBO viewers likely know the names Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, the artists who painted Barack and Michelle Obamas’ respective official portraits. The network’s latest documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light, an expansive, joyous 90-minute look at art history directed by Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Atlanta Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children) and executive produced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,

“Miss Juneteenth” Writer/Director Channing Godfrey Peoples on Her Potent Feature Debut

Writer and director Channing Godfrey Peoples‘ feature debut Miss Juneteenth is a subtlety powerful lesson in compassionate observation. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, with a theater degree from Baylor University (just a 90-minute drive south from Forth Worth on the I-35), Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth is a moving portrait of her hometown, and, more to the point, the tight-knit community of mostly Black people she grew up with. After graduating from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (where she met her husband and creative partner,

Sundance 2021: Writer/Director Carey Williams on his Romeo & Juliet Adaptation “R#J”

In partnership with producer Timur Bekmambetov, who is known for the innovative film style Screenlife as exampled by Unfriended and Searching, co-writer and director Carey Williams offers his feature debut with a modern and of-the-moment adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” R#J, told entirely through social media and smartphone screens. Using an entirely Black and Brown cast, and blending text messages and Instagram posts with timeless Shakespearian language,

Documentarian Sam Pollard on his Must-See New Film “MLK/FBI”

A couple of days after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his era-defining “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, J. Edgar Hoover’s second in command at the FBI penned a memo describing him as “The most dangerous Negro in America.” As documented in Sam Pollard‘s new film MLK/FBI (On Demand and in select theaters), that 1963 memo launched the Bureau’s obsession with discrediting America’s foremost civil rights leader by tapping his phones and bugging the hotel rooms he stayed in.

Best of 2020: The High Note Director Nisha Ganatra on the Importance of a Diverse Cast & Crew

We put together our annual “Best Of” list with an eye towards the conversations that weren’t just about our particular area of interest—how films and TV shows are made and the people who make them—but delved into broader discussions that were unavoidable in this historic, often heartbreaking year. These conversations include our chat with Laverne Cox about her role in Netflix’s Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen,  Lovecraft Country cinematographer Michael Watson on filming during a pandemic,

Madison Hamburg on His One-Of-A-Kind HBO Doc “Murder on Middle Beach”

As the title suggests, Murder on Middle Beach, the four-part HBO documentary, revolves around a tragedy. On March 3, 2010, Barbara Hamburg was found stabbed to death outside her home in Madison, Connecticut, an unassuming beachfront town. An unlikely victim, police were unable to find a suspect. But what makes this unsolved murder story even more compelling is that it is being told by Madison Hamburg, Barbara’s son.

Madison was 18 years old at the time and a film student in college.

Documentarian John Dower on “The Mystery of D.B. Cooper”

In 1971, a Boeing 727 flying out of Portland, Oregon was hijacked by a single middle-aged man, operating under the name Dan Cooper. Clad in black, wearing dark sunglasses, and using a bomb in a briefcase as leverage, Cooper demanded four parachutes but only $200,000, and he let the flight’s passengers go in Seattle, where the cash and parachutes were brought aboard. After demanding the pilots fly to Mexico City, he opened the aircraft’s back door over the woods in Washington State,

Documentarian Nathan Grossman Captures a Teenage Icon in “I Am Greta”

Swedish documentarian Nathan Grossman made a leap of faith in 2018 when he decided to film an unknown 15-year-old with a sign staging a one-person strike outside the Stockholm Parliament in order to bring attention to the global climate crisis.

Over the course of 18 months of filming, Greta Thunberg became an international figure and an icon to an increasingly energized youth movement around the world demanding immediate action to address climate change.