Cult or Cultural Utopia? The Directors of Wild Wild Country Let Viewers Decide
You would be forgiven for having difficulty placing the term ‘Rajneeshpuram.’ The violent clash between the followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the residents of Antelope Oregon in the mid-1980s seems like the makings of a famous event, but it has somehow faded from cultural memory. Directors Chapman and Maclain Way admitted the incident did not ring a bell to them either when they began their research for breakout Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country.
Director & Cinematographer Warwick Thornton on his Outback Western Sweet Country
Growing up in the Australian outback, director and cinematographer Warwick Thornton wasn’t exposed to many big screen movies.
“We had a drive-in on Friday and Saturday nights. I remember Star Wars four or five years after was released; that’s how long it took that print [to travel to the outback],” says Thornton, 48. “So that’s the Hollywood cinema I grew up on. I never watched westerns in cinemas because [the cinemas played] just big,
Kay Cannon on her Hilarious Directorial Debut Blockers
If you’ve ever been a Teen Movie fan, the last several years haven’t really been for you. While the late 90s and early aughts had more than their fair share of teen movies (many now classics), it’s been few and far between for a studio coming-of-age flick. But in the last month, we’ve been blessed with not one, but two studio teen films: Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon and Kay Cannon’s Blockers—both that have made progressive new changes to the teen film formula.
Writer/Director Chloe Zhao on Her Tender Look at a Real American Indian Cowboy in The Rider
The Rider, a meditative half-fictional drama set on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation in South Dakota, first premiered at Cannes last year, where it won the Art Cinema Award. The second feature film from the Chinese director Chloe Zhao, it opened in wide release this past Friday. Zhao, who attended undergraduate and film school in the U.S., was living in New York before she decamped to South Dakota, where she made Songs My Brother Taught Me,
Director Brad Silberling’s An Ordinary Man Takes on a Notorious Bosnian War Criminal
Filmmaker Brad Silberling first became fascinated with natural-born monsters in 2008 when he learned about Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. Known as “The Butcher of Bosnia,” General Mladić commanded the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the Yugoslav civil wars. Following the atrocities, Maleic and politician Karadžić, aided by loyalists, hid from Hague-based International Criminal Court prosecutors for 14 years, shuffled about by loyalists through a succession of low-rent Belgrade safe houses. After reading testimony from Mladić‘s former body guards,
Ayşe Toprak on her Groundbreaking Documentary Mr. Gay Syria
The devastating Syrian civil war has made an impact on international film audiences largely thanks to two powerful documentaries: the Oscar-winning The White Helmets (2016) and the Oscar nominee Last Men in Aleppo (2017). Although director Ayşe Toprak’s new documentary Mr. Gay Syria tells its story against the backdrop of the civil war that’s killed 300,000 people since it began in 2011 and caused five million to flee and become refugees,
Master of Movement: Dance Loving Director Duane Adler on his new Film Heartbeats
Duane Adler is the man who brought us the original Step Up with Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan Tatum dancing and falling in cinematic real-life love on screen. His films are affectionate updates of the classic dance movies like Top Hat and An American in Paris, with gorgeously staged musical numbers that allow the characters to communicate and move the story forward. His latest film is Heartbeats,
The Death of Stalin Writer/Director Armando Iannucci On Finding Humor in the Horror of Politics
For some, politics is a horrific affair, but that’s not the case with writer/director Armando Iannucci. Throughout his illustrious career, Iannucci has found humor and humanity in the political world.
The auteur created the hit HBO comedy Veep, which has been making viewers cringe, laugh and marvel (it has somehow anticipated, with bracing, unfortunate clarity, our current bonkers political moment) since 2012. Before that, he produced the 2005 British television comedy The Thick of It,
Writer/Director/Producer Rosemary Rodriguez Continues on Continuing her Scorching TV Career With NBC’s Rise
Rosemary Rodriguez, the award-winning writer/director of the feature films Acts of Worship and Silver Skies, has been directing on the small screen for over a decade. She has helmed episodes on some of the best TV shows currently or recently part of the cultural conversation, including The Good Wife, Rescue Me, Law & Order, Empire, The Walking Dead, and Jessica Jones.
Writer/Director Atsuko Hirayanagi on Synchronicity & Inspiration in her Feature Oh Lucy!
Originally, writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh, Lucy! was written and produced as a short, winning the Jury Prize for International Fiction at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Now she has expanded it into a full-length feature, and Oh, Lucy! has just been released across the country to universally positive reviews.
Shinobu Terajima, an A-list actress in her native Japan, was nominated for a Best Female Lead Independent Spirit Award for her role as Setkuko,
Marrowbone Director Sergio G. Sanchez on Finding the Light in the Darkness
After writing the scripts for two international successes, The Orphanage (2007) and The Impossible (2012), both directed by fellow Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona, Sergio G. Sanchez knew he was ready to direct one of his scripts. Marrowbone marks his fitting directing debut; it will be familiar to fans of the gothic The Orphanage, yet it stretches the filmmaker by ambitiously working on the level of both ghost story and family drama.
Oscar-Nominee Aaron Sorkin on his Directorial Debut Molly’s Game
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin is nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay) alongside James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name), Scott Neustadter & Michael Weber (The Disaster Artist), Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green (Logan), and Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound).
Oscar-Nominee Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Martin McDonagh is nominated in the Best Picture and Writing (Original Sreenplay) category. The full list of the nominees can be found here.
Oscar-Nominee Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Greta Gerwig is nominated in two categories; Directing and Writing (Original Screenplay) for her work on Lady Bird. She joins Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) in the Directing category.
Oscar-Nominated Director Luca Guadagnino on his Lush, Lyrical Call Me By Your Name
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Luca Guadagnino is nominated in the Best Picture category, alongside his producers Peter Spears, Emilie Georges and Marco Morabito. The other Best Picture nominees are Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s lush and luscious love story Call Me By Your Name is an homage to the director’s love for cinema.
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part II
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In Part 2 of an interview with Darkest Hour director Joe Wright and star Gary Oldman, who has been receiving glowing reviews for his portrait of Winston Churchill in the film that opens November 22,
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part I
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In a film career that spans four decades,
How Writer-Director James Mangold Snagged Historic Oscar Nom for R-Rated Logan Script
Logan made Oscar history this year as the first comic book-based screenplay nominated for an Academy Award. The distinction’s due in no small part to director/co-writer James Mangold‘s extreme aversion to superhero clichés, which he wearily recites from his office on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles. “Some new alien arrives with a new power that somehow challenges our heroes; our heroes are fractured among each other so they have to learn how to band together or get over whatever romantic scars they have between them to focus on the fight ahead of them;
Oscar-Nominated Heroin(e) Director on Documenting the National Opioid Crisis
Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a native of West Virginia and saw the consequences of opioid addiction in her own community.
In her short documentary Heroin(e), which is now streaming on Netflix, she takes a closer look at the crisis while focusing on three female leaders who are making a difference on the ground.
The feature is set in Huntington, West Virginia. In the movie’s opening moments, the film notes that Huntington “has been called the overdose capital of America” and “its overdose death rate is 10 times the national average.”
Instead of focusing on the community’s pain,
Oscar-Nominated Doc Maker Steve James on his Gripping Immigrant’s Story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Chicago filmmaker Steve James has a fraught history with the Oscars dating back to 1994, when his critically acclaimed box office hit Hoop Dreams failed to get nominated for an Academy Award. The snub outraged late movie critic Roger Ebert, prompted an Entertainment Weekly expose and inspired changes in Academy voting procedures. Cut to 2011, when James made The Interrupters, a gritty group portrait of reformed gang members fighting to stop murders on the streets of Chicago.
