Writer/Director Felix van Groeningen on Music, Catharsis, and Crafting Beautiful Boy

Known for his critically-acclaimed film Broken Circle Breakdown, which was the Belgian entry for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, writer/director Felix van Groeningen has been courted for years by Hollywood producers to helm his first English language film. He found the perfect project in Beautiful Boy, based on two bestselling memoirs by writers David and Nic Sheff. David’s book, from which the film gets its title, is about his journey dealing with his crystal meth and drug-addicted son Nic.

Elizabeth Chomko on her Bittersweet & Beautiful Directorial Debut What They Had

Writer and first-time director Elizabeth Chomko’s What They Had is a searingly personal film that still manages to make you laugh (a lot, actually) through your tears. The story centers on the irrevocable slide into dementia of Ruth (Blythe Danner) and her family’s attempts—conflicted, confused, and often at odds with one another—to figure out the best way to handle it.

The film opens with Ruth wandering, as if in a daydream,

Ike Barinholtz on his Funny/Terrifying Directorial Debut The Oath

In a future that seems as if it could arrive tomorrow, American citizens are instructed to pledge their loyalty not to their country, but to the president. That’s the premise of The Oath, the first feature directed by Ike Barinholtz. The comic actor, known from such series as madTV and The Mindy Project, also wrote the satire, which begins as a family gathers for Thanksgiving dinner.

Barinholtz plays the host,

Nicole Holofcener on Adapting & Helming The Land of Steady Habits

She doesn’t really rehearse, shoots a limited number of takes and prefers not to watch dailies. While such an approach to filmmaking may seem a bit impractical to some, for writer/director Nicole Holofcener, it defines a decisiveness that has enabled her to produce a body of highly realistic and instantly relatable work.

In her past films — Walking and Talking, Lovely and Amazing, Friends With Money,

White Boy Rick Director Yann Demange on Capturing Detroit’s Decline With Fresh Eyes

Detroit, the most American of cities, home of Ford and Motown, had by 1984 been, in many ways, been abandoned by America. It took an outsider, Paris-born, London raised director Yann Demange, to see this American story with fresh eyes and bring it to the screen in White Boy Rick.

“I didn’t know the history of Detroit. I had just moved to America. I was blown away as I read about the history of the most prosperous city;

TIFF 2018: The Sister Brothers Director & Co-Writer on Their Funny, Soulful Western

When Patrick DeWitt’s novel “The Sisters Brothers” was published in 2011, something new was afoot in its pages. A bloody western set during the gold rush, it had everything you’d expect; gunfights, whiskey, brothels, and ne’er-do-wells of all stripes lusting after the riches buried in the rivers and mountains of California. These genre tropes, expertly handled by DeWitt, were the grimy, gritty package in which he delivered the story’s real gold— the titular Sister brothers and their endless,

Bo Burnham and Elsie Fisher Discuss the Social Media Influences that Shaped Eighth Grade

When writer-director Bo Burnham set out to make Eighth Grade, his acclaimed new account of middle-school anxiety, he had plenty of reasons to be anxious himself. He’d never directed a feature film before, and his subject was a 13-year-old girl, something he’d never been. But any apprehension was balanced by his relief at not being in front of the camera.

“I was very aware of my limitations,” Burnham told The Credits recently while in Washington with his star,

Marina Zenovich on Going Inside Robin Williams’ Mind in Her New HBO Doc

In making Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, premiering July 16 on HBO, director Marina Zenovich celebrates the life and comedic talent of the legendary performer who committed suicide in 2014, using Williams’s voice to tell much of his story as well as interviews with his first wife Valerie Velardi, son Zak Williams and many friends, including Mork & Mindy co-star Pam Dawber, David Letterman, Billy Crystal,

Jennifer Morrison On How Acting Prepared Her for Her Moving Directorial Debut Sun Dogs

Jennifer Morrison has created some of the most lovable characters on film. Dr. Allison Cameron in House, Emma Swan in Once Upon a Time, and Winona Kirk in Star Trek are all strong and captivating women we love to watch on screen. Now, Morrison is shaping compelling new characters from behind the lens in her feature film directorial debut Sun Dogs.

Now on Netflix,

Writer/Director Boots Riley on his Staggeringly Original Sorry to Bother You

Sorry To Bother You is coming to a theater near you, courtesy of Annapurna Pictures, after being one of the most buzzed about films shown at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The directorial debut from Boots Riley, articulate troublemaker and frontman for the band The Coup, has had a bumpy but fascinating road making it to the screen. This satiric, decidedly trippy film is about a young, seemingly malleable telemarketer named Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) and his girlfriend,

How Director Kevin Macdonald Uncovered Bombshell Allegations in his Whitney Houston Doc

Before he shot Whitney, Scottish documentarian Kevin Macdonald did not consider himself a particularly avid Whitney Houston fan. The Oscar-winning director (One Day in September) preferred The Clash back in the day when Houston dominated pop music with her unmatched vocal power. “I was not into that kind of mainstream poppiness,” he says. “At the time you couldn’t avoid her music, but it was kind of unhip to like Whitney Houston.”

Pose Guest director Tina Mabry On the Groundbreaking Show

Though the month of June is Pride month, Hollywood should ideally be celebrating the LGBTQIA experience year-round, in the name of diversity.

Luckily, a new show on FX, Pose, has premiered to great acclaim, and week by week is gathering an appropriately rabid fanbase.  Creator/writers Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy (Murphy also directs two episodes) have built a story which takes place in 1987,

Writer/Director Ari Aster on his Terrifying Debut Hereditary

When critics bend over backwards to keep a movie’s secrets under wraps, presume that the title in question is a step beyond the norm and well worth seeing. That is the case with Hereditary. Writer-director Ari Aster’s feature debut caused festival goers at Sundance and South by Southwest to squirm, shudder and gasp out loud at what transpires onscreen. Starting on June 8, the public will get to witness this grandly operatic yet exceedingly unsettling horror thriller about a grieving family seemingly beset by sinister forces – if they dare.

Writer/Director Veena Sud on her Timely Netflix Drama Seven Seconds

A young detective, frantic because he cannot reach his pregnant wife, is driving through the snow, trying to reach her on his cell. He hears a sickening thud, but does not realize what he has hit – who he has hit – until he gets out of the car and sees the mangled bike under his wheel. A black teenage boy named Brent Butler was riding that bik,e and the cop is white.

When his colleagues arrive,

Ibiza Director Alex Richanbach on Mixing the Perfect Comedic Cocktail

For his sophomore directing gig, Alex Richanbach (We Are Young) opted for a little quirkiness, a lot of romance and a whole load of laughs. The film is Ibiza, streaming now on Netflix and starring Gillian Jacobs, Vanessa Bayer, Phoebe Robinson and Richard Madden. Jacobs plays Harper, a thirty-something New Yorker who jumps at the opportunity to travel to Barcelona for an important business meeting. When her pals,

Writer/Director Bart Layton on his True Life Crime Caper American Animals

Writer/director Bart Layton has a long history of bringing true stories to the small screen. He created and produced the documentary series Locked Up Abroad and directed the television documentaries 16 for a Day and Becoming Alexander.

In 2012, he brought his unique skills to the big screen with the documentary The Imposter. The film earned critical acclaim and Layton won the BAFTA Film Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer,

Queen Sugar Showrunner Kat Candler Leads the Charge for Ava DuVernay’s Game Changing Show

It’s no exaggeration to say that Queen Sugar, the popular OWN series, is changing television. From the beginning, creator Ava DuVernay committed to hiring only female directors, which has led to a number of other shows seeking women for their roster of directors and other below-the-line roles. This season, writer/director/producer Kat Candler has been given the challenge of maintaining this great forward momentum for women working behind the camera,

The Gospel According to Andre Director Kate Novack on the Man Behind the Fashion Icon

As a fan of fashion documentaries, director Kate Novack knew Andre Leon Talley as the larger-than-life, high priest of haute couture. As a journalist- turned-filmmaker, she knew there was more to him than that.

“I’ve been watching Andre in many fashion docs since Unzipped in 1996, which is around when I was getting out of college,” Novack says. “It was always always this over-the-top [depiction] where he’d steal the scene but he was always an enigma.

Documentarian Morgan Neville on Revealing Mr. Rogers in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which premiered 50 years ago on PBS, is undergoing a bit of a renaissance of late. Although host Fred Rogers died at age 74 in 2003, his effect on the lives of adoring preschoolers and beyond is still being felt. Earlier this year, PBS aired It’s You I Like, a tribute show named after one of Rogers’ many self-penned songs that he performed on the series. The U.S. 

Writer/Director Paul Schrader on Seeing The Light in First Reformed

Perhaps best known for writing such Martin Scorsese films as Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ, Paul Schrader has also directed more than 20 movies. These include 1980’s American Gigolo, a commercial hit, although Schrader’s style and subject matters rarely attract a mainstream audience. His latest film, First Reformed, is a stark tale of personal despair and environmental crisis. Ethan Hawke plays Toller,