Sundance 2018: Trans Filmmaker Luis De Filippis on Their Bracing Directorial Debut For Nonna Anna
Toronto-based filmmaker Luis De Filippis’ short film For Nonna Anna focuses on the intergenerational relationship between a trans grandchild and their aging, ailing grandmother. Selected for Sundance’s Shorts Program, For Nonna Anna is a tender, achingly wrought stunner in miniature, one told by a filmmaker of remarkable skill and compassion.
“It is imperative as Trans people that we tell our own stories on screen,” De Filippis explained in For Nonna Anna‘s press materials.
Director Greg Barker & Obama Advisor Ben Rhodes on the President Obama Documentary The Final Year
Well into Barack Obama’s second term, filmmaker Greg Barker began chronicling the actions of the president’s foreign policy team. The result is The Final Year, which spotlights Secretary of State John Kerry, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and speechwriter and adviser Ben Rhodes, along with a few powerhouse cameos by Obama himself. The documentary observes policy discussions, but turns more on poignant moments. These include an election night in which the Obama camp’s hopes for its legacy are dashed.
How a Scandal Director Pulled off the Most Explosive Episode of the Final Season
When Scandal first aired in 2012, it joined Grey’s Anatomy as must-see TV from prolific hit maker Shonda Rhimes, one of the most powerful and consistently excellent show creators in the business. Two years later, How to Get Away With Murder aired and ABC’s Thank God It’s Thursday lineup was born. Now in it’s final year, Scandal is going out with a bang. A crossover event with Murder was announced yesterday as stars Kerry Washington and Viola Davis swapped Instagram posts.
The Strange Ones Directors Play With Your Perceptions
Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein’s feature-length debut The Strange Ones is a slow burning, twisted coming-of-age story co-starring Alex Pettyfer and 14 year old James Freedson-Jackson, who won SXSW’s Special Jury Prize for breakthrough performance. He’s immensely deserving of the accolade, delivering a performance of almost unnerving poise for a 14-year-old actor. The film had begun its life as a short six years ago, but patience is a virtue in the filmmaking game,
Oscar Watch: Director Luca Guadagnino on his Lush, Lyrical Call Me By Your Name
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.
“Every movie is personal. This one connects me with my love for certain films,” says Guadagnino, citing French director Maurice Pialat’s À Nos Amours and the films of Italian auteur Bernardo Bertolucci as particular influences. “I was drawn to the possibility of telling this story through the lens of directors I love: Bertolucci,
Writer Extraordinaire Aaron Sorkin on his Directorial Debut Molly’s Game
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is famed for writing the words uttered by The West Wing’s imaginary president and the semi-fictionalized tech magnates of Steve Jobs and The Social Network. For his first film as a director, Sorkin scripted the dialogue of a criminal: Molly Bloom, a skier who turned to running big-money poker games after an injury ended her Olympic aspirations. Hardly a desperado, the title character of Molly’s Game is a thoughtful young woman played by Jessica Chastain.
Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.
Fans of Greta Gerwig know her as the go-to muse of indie filmdom’s mumblecore movement and for her collaborations with such notable directors as Joe Swanberg (LOL,
Writer/Director Edgar Wright Talks his Brilliant new Film Baby Driver
*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.
It’s is odd that British auteur and fan-boy fave Edgar Wright, 43, known for spoofing horror flicks (2004’s Shaun of the Dead), buddy-cop procedurals (2007’s Hot Fuzz) and sci-fi thrillers (2013’s The World’s End) has produced his most mature and satisfying spin on a popular genre – this time,
Writer/Director Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.
With his thrillingly raw new film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri just released, writer/director Martin McDonagh is happy to chat about the movie,
Alexander Payne’s Longtime Editor On Stepping into the Directing Chair for Crash Pad
If you’ve seen Sideways, About Schmidt, The Descendants, or Nebraska, you’re likely headed to the theater this weekend to see Alexander Payne’s newest project Downsizing. You have also seen the work of longtime collaborator Kevin Tent who has been the editor on all of those movies and more. After years of collaborating with Payne, Tent stepped out on his own to direct the neurotically funny Crash Pad this year.
I, Tonya Director Craig Gillepsie on Revisiting the Second Most Surreal Sports-Related Crime in the ’90s
Back in 1994, when tabloid TV shows such as “Hard Copy” and “Inside Edition” became the rage and CNN fed the public’s hunger for 24-hour news coverage, two crime-related stories revolving around sports figures would provide ample sustenance. One involved the arrest of football hero O.J. Simpson for the lurid murders of wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. The other was a good vs. evil scenario that pitted skating princess Nancy Kerrigan against the less-polished, more athletic Tonya Harding.
Writer/Director Dan Gilroy on Bringing Roman J. Israel, Esq. to Life
Writer/director Dan Gilroy “can’t conceive of directing a movie I didn’t write.” Although Gilroy has written a number of scripts for other directors — from 2012’s The Bourne Legacy to 2017’s Kong: Skull Island — he says that the ones he chooses to direct himself tend to be more personal.
“If I’m going to spend a year of my life on something it’s got to be personal,” he told The Credits.
Talking to Director Bharat Nalluri About The Man Who Invented Christmas
Director Bharat Nalluri says that in a very personal way, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol taught him the meaning of Christmas. His new film, The Man Who Invented Christmas, is the story of the six weeks Dickens, under enormous professional, financial, and family pressure, wrote and published the book, which sold out its entire printing within a week after publication. Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast) plays the author and Christopher Plummer plays the Scrooge he imagines as he creates the story.
Talking to Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part II
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, they discuss the physical part of his performance, a few noteworthy props and why the actor who brought to life everyone from Sid Viscious to Beethoven on the big screen has only been nominated once for an Oscar.
Talking to Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part I
In a film career that spans four decades, actor Gary Oldman, 59, has displayed a chameleon-like ability to play a multitude of far-ranging roles. That includes punk pioneer Sid Vicious, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Count Dracula, classical composer Beethoven, Harry Potter wizard Sirius Black and John le Carre’s spy guy George Smiley.
Writer/Director Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
With his thrillingly raw new film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri just released, writer/director Martin McDonagh is happy to chat about the movie, which has received critical acclaim and film-fest accolades, including Best Screenplay at Venice and People’s Choice at Toronto.
Writer/Director Richard Linklater on his Timely, Devastating Last Flag Flying
Richard Linklater originally tried to get war veterans’ drama Last Flag Flying off the ground 12 years ago, shortly after reading Daryl Ponsican’s novel of the same. “The timing wasn’t right,” he says. But the timing for the now-completed movie, which opened this past Friday, couldn’t be much more attuned to national concerns. Shot last fall, the film gained unexpected resonance two weeks ago when White House chief of staff John Kelly described the exact same process dramatized in Last Flag Flying,
Man Goes Ape in Director Ruben Östlund’s Surreal Satire The Square
Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund probed a family man’s ethical quandaries in acclaimed 2014 avalanche drama Force Majeure. In his new satiric drama The Square (opening Friday) the writer-director-moral philosopher critiques “civilized” people running amok in Stockholm’s art scene. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or, the movie chronicles everything that can possibly go wrong when museum curator Christian (Claes Bang) commissions a square-shaped public installation as sanctuary for citizens in need of help from passing pedestrians.
Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
Fans of Greta Gerwig know her as the go-to muse of indie filmdom’s mumblecore movement and for her collaborations with such notable directors as Joe Swanberg (LOL, Nights and Weekends) and Noah Baumbach (Greenberg,
Writer/Director Margaret Betts on her new Film Novitiate
What happens when a Manhattan socialite turned filmmaker (The Carrier, a 2011 doc about the AIDS pandemic in Africa) makes an impulse pre-flight purchase of a biography about Mother Teresa that contains revealing letters about her passionate relationship with God?
If you are Margaret Betts,
