Jonás Cuarón Talks About his Savagely Intense Film Desierto
Desierto, Mexico’s official submission as Best Foreign Language Film to the next Academy Awards, doesn’t seem a likely inspiration for Gravity, which won seven Oscars in 2014. But when young filmmaker Jonás Cuarón showed the first draft of the script to his father Alfonso nearly 10 years ago, the elder Cuarón said he wanted to make a movie like it — in space.
“Like Gravity,
Talking to the Director Robert Kenner & Writer Eric Schlosser About Command & Control
In September 1980, a Titan II missile bearing a nuclear warhead caught on fire in a Air Force silo near Damascus, Arkansas. The incident was reported at the time, but the full implications of the conflagration weren't widely known until Eric Schlosser's book, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, was published in 2013.
The author interviewed Harold Brown, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense;
Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson Creates Cinematic Memoir From Outtakes
Sifting through outtakes from some three dozen documentaries she shot over the years, cinematographer Kirsten Johnson initially came up with a cinematic memoir she now calls the "trauma cut." Johnson, whose credits include Fahrenheit 9/11 and Oscar-winning Citizenfour and, says "I reached out for material that had been the most haunting to me."
The New York filmmaker had plenty of disturbing stuff to pick from,
Talking to Veep‘s Emmy-Nominated Director About Art Imitating Life
Veep Assistant Director Dale Stern has been the creative right hand man to show creator Armando Iannucci for four seasons, steering the series toward critical and audience acclaim. In the fifth season, Stern took over the directing chair for a single episode that was so brilliantly executed it earned him an Emmy nomination. In mid-season standout Mother, Stern took on some of the darkest material the show has tackled and it turned out to be some of the funniest.
YouTube-Inspired Director Used GoPro Cameras to Capture Ben-Hur Chariot Action
Before Timur Bekmambetov shot a single frame of the new Ben-Hur, he wanted to find out exactly what it felt like to be in the kind of four-horse chariot race that propelled its 1959 predecessor to 11 Academy Awards.
So the Russian director got behind the reins himself.
"I asked our stunt coordinator to let me ride the chariot, which was absolutely illegal because it's dangerous,"
Chatting With Kent Jones About his HBO Documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut
Airing Monday, August 8 on HBO, director Kent Jones’ documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut reveals the archival footage behind the titular directors’ legendary, weeklong series of interviews in Hollywood in 1962. A young Truffaut, who had only recently transformed his own career from film critic to filmmaker, traveled to Los Angeles to interview Alfred Hitchcock. He idolized the director, but at the time, Hitchock was widely perceived more as a popular entertainer than the visionary he is considered today.
Talking to Little Men Director & Co-Writer Ira Sachs
Like his 2014 film Love is Strange, director/co-writer Ira Sachs’ new film Little Men is a touchingly realistic examination of the relationships between people thrown together by circumstance. In Love is Strange, the economics of life in New York force a recently wed gay couple (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) to live separately after Molina’s character loses his job. In Little Men, a struggling actor (Greg Kinnear) inherits a Brooklyn building from his father and moves his own family there.
Chatting With Writer/Director Patricia Rozema About Into the Forest
From her 1987 debut feature I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing to Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), writer-director Patricia Rozema makes films with women characters that drive the action. But what’s unusual is how sanguine Rozema is about the always-looming issue of the dearth of central women’s roles and the financing obstacles most female-led films face, if they are not about Ghostbusters.
“You just never know what’s plain old getting-a-film-together difficultness and what’s because-it’s-girls difficultness.
Inspired by the Late Muhammad Ali, Gleason Doc Maker Captures an Athlete and His Disease
Documentary maker Clay Tweel first saw Steve Gleason on TV in 2005 when the feisty New Orleans Saints defensive back blocked a punt to win the team's first post-Katrina home game. Nine years later while promoting his film Print the Legend at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Tweel saw Gleason on screen again but this time, the former athlete faced the camera from the confines of a wheelchair. The clip documented the ravages of neuromuscular disease ALS and reduced Tweel to tears.
Writer/Director Matt Ross on Captain Fantastic
Matt Ross is best known as an actor; besides dozens of films on his resume, he’s currently winning laughs and legions fans as narcissistic CEO Gavin Belson in the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley. Before that, Ross was a standout on HBO’s Big Love, playing Alby Grant, the creepy son of the polygamist cult leader played by Harry Dean Stanton.
A Juilliard School graduate, Ross made his feature film debut at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival with 28 Hotel Rooms.
Actress & Director Catherine Corsini on Summertime
French actress and director Catherine Corsini’s most personal film to date, Summertime (the more accurate French title is La Belle Saison) manages the impressive feat of portraying early feminist and gay rights activism as an intoxicating adventure. Set in France in 1971, it captures the heady 1970s and its erotically charged atmosphere of liberation through the passionate romance between Delphine (Izïa Higelin), who moves to Paris from her conservative parents’
Chatting With Legendary Filmmaker James Schamus at the Provincetown Film Festival
James Schamus has been responsible for some of the best films of the last 20 years. The award-winning screenwriter, producer and CEO of quality film juggernaut Focus Features has put his stamp on modern cinema with a slew of stylish, intelligent independent films, which has included producing some of the most respected filmmakers in the industry. These filmmakers have included Todd Haynes, Nicole Holofcener, Michel Gondry, Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola, and the Coen Brothers. His creative partnership with Ang Lee has been a quiet,
Husband & Wife Filmmakers on GMO Thriller Consumed
Husband and wife filmmaking team Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, who also collaborated on 2012’s Lola Versus, have joined forces again to tackle the murky world of GMOs to create the thriller Consumed. The film is directed by Wein and stars Lister-Jones as a mother with a sick child who is propelled into a dangerous world when she believes GMOs might be the cause of his mysterious illness.
Talking to Weiner Directors Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg
When co-directors Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg started making Weiner in 2013, two years after their subject had resigned from the U.S. Congress because of a sexting scandal, Anthony Weiner seemed to be a comeback kid. He was making a second run for mayor of New York, and this time the polls predicted success. Then more embarrassing e-mails and inappropriate cellphone photos surfaced, and Weiner's campaign hit a wall of media derision and voter disgust.
Ryan Coogler on his Black Panther Film & More
Chadwick Boseman's turn as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War was one of the most satisfying parts of the film. While a lot of the buzz post Civil War has focused on Tom Holland's Spider-Man and the incredible second act climax that featured Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) doing something huge, we've seen these characters before. Boseman turn as Black Panther was the first time the character has been seen on the big screen,
Writer/Director Whit Stillman on his Jane Austen Comedy Love & Friendship
Most of the characters in Metropolitan, writer-director Whit Stillman's 1990 debut, are wealthy young Manhattan sophisticates with an enthusiasm for the artifacts of a refined past — notably, the novels of Jane Austen. Stillman's movie just happened to be followed by a rush of Austen adaptations.
Now the filmmaker has made his own Austen movie, Love & Friendship, which opens in limited release today, May 13.
The Lobster Continues Director Yorgos Lanthimos’s Singular Path
Yorgos Lanthimos has come far since his film debut 15 years ago, with his name now a veritable indie-film buzzword after creating such cinematic oddities as Alps and Dogtooth. The director is set to make his English-language debut with the Colin Farrell-starring The Lobster, but the Greek native has been making films for fifteen years now, establishing a backlog of films worth a closer look.
Captain America: Civil War Directors Joe & Anthony Russo
As the much-anticipated third installment of Marvel’s Captain America franchise hits theaters today, we catch up with directors Anthony and Joe Russo. The brothers discuss how they addressed the challenge of cramming so many of Marvel’s superheroes into Captain America: Civil War, how they subverted the genre by creating a film with no clear villain and playing good cop bad cop on set.
Captain America: Civil War is getting great reviews.
The Good Wife director Rosemary Rodriguez Talks About the Show’s End
When The Good Wife premiered in 2009, it was a different type of show. It had many of the elements of a procedural — weekly court cases and stand-alone proceedings — but it also featured a strong premise that helped the show build intriguing long-term storylines, strong relationships and truly memorable characters. Even when cable and premium shows began dominating many of the major Emmy categories, CBS’ The Good Wife stood out and was the last network show to be nominated for best drama at the Emmys (a feat it accomplished in 2011).
Chatting With Elvis & Nixon Director Liza Johnson
In December 1970, Elvis Presley decided he wanted to become a federal anti-drug agent, and that the right man to give him the badge was no less than President Richard Nixon. As a much-reproduced photograph proves, the meeting really did happen. Elvis & Nixon, director Liza Johnson's third feature, reconstructs the event, with Michael Shannon as the King and Kevin Spacey as the Prez. The cast also includes Colin Hanks and Evan Peters as Nixon aides Egil Krough and Dwight Chapin,
