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,

Berlinale 2018: Storyboard Artist Jay Clarke on Drawing Wes Anderson’s Canine Showstopper Isle of Dogs

On Sunday evening an audience of a couple hundred people, almost all of whom appeared to be under thirty, filed into an auditorium at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer. It was the third day of the Berlinale, but the crowd wasn’t here for a premiere or a Sundance leftover (the big complaint at this year’s festival), but to hear a talk given by the lead storyboard artist from the Berlinale’s opener, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation feature Isle of Dogs.

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.

Black Panther Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Creating the Iconic Panther Suit

Part of Black Panther costume designer Ruth E. Carter‘s many responsibilities included steeping the characters of the fictional world of Wakanda in a wardrobe that spoke to the real Africa, while retaining the mythic quality that the reclusive, technologically advanced nation required. We saw this in her work on the bald, beautiful and bad ass Dora Milaje, the elite, all-female fighting force at the heart of the film. In part two of our interview,

Writer/Director Ziad Doueiri on Earning Lebanon’s First Ever Oscar-Nomination With His Film The Insult

When writer/director Ziad Doueiri got word that his film The Insult earned an Oscar nomination in the foreign language category, the first time that a movie from Lebanon was recognized with that honor, he felt joy.

“It is a beautiful present for a tiny country that’s never been to the Oscars. It’s like Jamaica winning the bobsled at the Olympics, remember?” says Doueiri, who is now an American citizen living in Paris.

Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Designing Black Panther‘s Fierce Dora Milaje

Bald, beautiful, and ferocious, Black Panther‘s elite, all-female fighting force the Dora Milaje are quickly becoming some of the most iconic characters in Marvel history. Lead by Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Danai Gurira’s Okoyoe, and Florence Kasumba’s Ayo, the Dora Milaje are the protectors of the titular Black Panther, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), whose ascendence to the Wakandan throne is the central storyline in Black Panther. Survival won’t be easy (Michael B.

How the Black Panther Production Designer Rooted the World’s Most Advanced Nation in African Culture

Everyone on the set of Black Panther felt the weight of being a trailblazer. Realizing Wakanda for the screen meant reclaiming a painful history, honoring a rich heritage, and imagining the hope of the future right now. It also has the potential to confirm the demand for more diverse storytelling. It was a challenge that would require the greatest talents of our time to come together. Miraculously, it seems they did.

Watch How They Made the Thunderbird, Obscurus & More in This Fantastic Beasts VFX Breakdown

It takes a small army (or sometimes a middle-sized one) to make a film like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. When you have a wizard losing a briefcase full of magical creatures in Jazz age New York City, you’re going to need a really good visual effects company. Thankfully for Warner Bros., director David Yates and his screenwriter J.K. Rowling (the original creator of the entire Wizarding world, of course) they had Double Negative Visual Effects. 

The Breadwinner‘s Oscar-Nominated Director on Her Animated Film About a Girl Who Outsmarts the Taliban

When Irish director Nora Twomey auditions actors for her animated movies, she does not look at them. She listens. And when 10-year old Saara Chaudry tried out for the starring role in The Breadwinner, Twomey liked what she heard. “I put up drawings on the wall and look at the pictures of the characters to see if they match what I’m listening to,” says Twomey. “Saara had so much range and depth I immediately felt ‘This is Parvana.'”

Billy Zane on Playing the Evil King Balek in Samson

Samson’s tyrannical King Balek is not the first time Billy Zane has played the bad guy. He is probably best remembered as the arrogant Caledon Hockley in the Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic. And he played a villain in the thriller Dead Calm. But he also was a quintessential “cool dude” in Zoolander, and his roles have ranged from a singing lawyer (in Chicago on stage) to an ex-demon on Charmed.

Oscar-Nominated Disaster Artist Screenwriters on the Art of Adaptation

Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter have a history of bringing character-driven stories to the big screen. They co-wrote the 2009 drama (500) Days of Summer together and they’ve successfully adapted several beloved books into screenplays.

In 2013, their cinematic adaptation of Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now arrived in theaters to rave reviews. A year later, their adaptation of John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars opened to critical and commercial success.

Damon Cardasis on Bringing Authenticity to His Coming-of-Age LGBTQ Musical Drama Saturday Church

From interning for a casting director in Los Angeles, to working with producer Scott Rudin back in his native New York, to serving as an on-set assistant and post supervisor for and later as a co-producer with producer/director/writer Rebecca Miller, Damon Cardasis has experienced the in and outs of the filmmaking business. He is perhaps best known for producing Maggie’s Plan, starring Greta Gerwig and Ethan Hawke, through the production company he formed and still operates with Miller called Round Films — until now that is.

The Costume Designer Who Made Olivia Pope and Annalise Keating The Best Dressed Women on TV

The dreamiest clothing on TV lives on ABC’s Thursday night lineup. Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) gorgeous suits and capes started a frenzy on Scandal and Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) is the most suave dressed lawyer in any room on How to Get Away With Murder. Legendary costume designer Lyn Paolo created Olivia Pope’s iconic look and has taken over Annalise’s wardrobe. Paolo has a knack for signing onto long running shows with huge fan bases.

Watch Tom Cruise’s Insane Helicopter Stunt in Mission: Impossible – Fallout

We’ve written plenty in the past about Tom Cruise’s death wish. Or, to put it another way, Tom Cruise’s incredible dedication to pulling off increasingly insane stunts in his films, primarily in the Mission: Impossible series he’s been starring in for 22 years. We also wrote about how Cruise spent a year prepping for a stunt in the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Fallout, 

I, Tonya‘s Oscar-Nominated Editor Tatiana S. Riegel on What Makes a Scene Work and Why

One could make a case that the most competitive category in the upcoming Oscars isn’t for best picture or best director, but for film editing. Your nominees represent a fantastic cross section of genres and styles—Baby Driver‘s insanely perfect music-to-mayhem editing; the gorgeously cut, perspective-swapping World War II epic Dunkirk; the feverish revenge drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and the perfectly paced, dreamy and dread filled The Shape of Water.

Talking Frank Capra and Marmalade Addiction with Paddington 2 Director Paul King

Paul King, the director behind Paddington 2 is 100% lovely. Fitting for a gent who created a film with 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, right?

For the sequel to 2015’s hit Paddington, King collaborated with writer Simon Farnaby on the script and reunited the core cast of Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins and Ben Whishaw. This go around, he adds Hugh Grant to the mix,

Cinematographer Neville Kidd on Visualizing Netflix’s Epic New Sci-Fi Series Altered Carbon

In sci-fi series Altered Carbon (streaming Friday, Feb 2, on Netflix), the streets of San Francisco 350 years in the future teem with pulsating 3D ads, flying cop cars, prostitute holograms and “sleeves,” formerly known as human bodies, embedded with “cortical stacks” of consciousness that enable rich people to live forever. Inhabiting one of those sleeves is recently resurrected rebel soldier Takishi Kovacs (Joel Kinnamen of The Killing),

Actress Daniela Vega & Writer/Director Sebastian Lelio on Their Oscar-Nominated Film A Fantastic Woman

Chile-bred, Berlin-based director Sebastian Lelio has become an international filmmaker who moves between styles and countries. He’s also exceptionally prolific, with not one but three movies awaiting release. First up is A Fantastic Woman, one of this year’s five foreign-film Oscar contenders, which will be released today, Feb. 2, in the U.S. It’s the tale of a transgender woman, played by Daniela Vega, who fights for her right to grieve her older lover after his sudden death.

Early Man Co-composer on Collaboration & Finding The Right Caveman Yells

To soundtrack fans, British composer Tom Howe may not be a household name, but he’s been clocking eighteen hour workdays for over a decade, and has over sixty IMDB credits to his name. He believes some of the most rewarding and successful projects on that list have been collaborations. Howe got on the international radar by creating theme music for The Great British Bake-Off. In 2017, he scored the music for Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and created additional music on the blockbuster Wonder Woman itself.  

Costume Designer April Napier on Crafting Early Aughts Authenticity in Lady Bird

It’d be an understatement to say Lady Bird has taken the country by storm. After quietly positive bows at Telluride and TIFF earlier this year, Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut has gone on to become one of the best-reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes (until a certain someone got the score lowered from a perfect 100 to a near-perfect 99), score five Oscar nominations in a heavily competitive year and stack up a $40M+ box office against a shoestring budget.