SXSW 2025: Tapping Into Texas’s Vast Potential to Become the Next Cinematic Frontier
This year’s SXSW film festival in Austin blew into town with a considerable tailwind of enthusiasm for the Lone Star state’s film and TV future. Every state in the union can claim unique cultures, geographies, and mythologies, but there’s no disputing that Texas looms very large in our collective cultural imagination. It’s a state that ...
From “Elf” to “Blue Bloods”: Veteran Producer Santiago Quiñones on the Unique Advantages of Filming in New York
Santiago Quiñones was a co-executive producer on Blue Bloods, CBS’s long-running police procedural that followed the Reagan family through their dynastic run within the NYPD. Quiñones, a born and bred New Yorker, joined the show assuming that, like previous projects, he might be moving on after a little while for another opportunity. Instead, he stayed ...
Producer Joseph Patel Explores Sly Stone’s Life & Legacy in “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)”
Prodigiously gifted songwriter/singer/arranger/producer/bandleader/keyboardist/guitarist Sly Stone gets his well-deserved close-up in documentary makers Joseph Patel and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson‘s SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius). After earning an Academy Award for Summer of Soul, producer Patel and director QuestLove decided to deep-dive into the life and music of the man whose multi-racial band once ...
Oscar-Nominated Producer Maria Carlota Bruno on Recreating a Transcendent Heroine in “I’m Still Here”
In 1964, a coup d’état overthrew Brazilian president João Goulart, initiating a military dictatorship that lasted until 1985. The former congressman Rubens Paiva went into self-exile at the time of the coup but returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1970, where he settled into a pleasant household near Leblon Beach with his wife, Eunice Paiva, ...
“The Brutalist” Producers on the Demands and Delights of Building a Masterpiece
“Everybody was paddling in the same direction to support Brady’s vision, from the producers, the cast, the crew,” says The Brutalist producer Nick Gordon. “It’s a very special movie, and we’re glad it’s connecting with audiences in the way that it is.” On a call with Gordon and fellow producer Trevor Matthews, the tandem behind ...
Oscar-Nominated “Elvis” Producer Schuyler Weiss on What’s Right About Korea’s Filmmaking Industry
Schuyler Weiss is not long back to his home on Australia’s Gold Coast and so he is still mulling over the takeaways from his trip to the 29th Busan International Film Festival when he sits down to talk. The experience certainly sounds like an eye-opener. The Oscar-nominated producer of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was making his ...
From “Kill Bill” to Martin Scorsese to “Shōgun”: Producer Eriko Miyagawa on Her Hero’s Journey
A lucky break followed by a realization that the road ahead still won’t be a smooth march toward success is a pattern recognizable by many in the entertainment industry and beyond. The fortuitous happenstance for Eriko Miyagawa came in the form of an email saying that Quentin Tarantino was shooting in Beijing and looking for ...
Regional Sustainability Advisor Clara George on Greening Netflix’s “Virgin River”
A film or TV set is usually powered almost exclusively by diesel generators. These generators were loud, hot, large, environmentally unfriendly, and often used at such a low capacity that they were practically idling. They weren’t just bad for the environment; they were wasteful and highly unpleasant. This is increasingly no longer the case, as ...
Crime, Crazy Rich Rom-Coms, and More: Producer Janice Chua on Bringing Asian Stories to the World
Raised in a working-class Chinese family in Singapore, Janice Chua says, “Like every Asian person, I grew up with Hong Kong martial arts movies that inspired so much of my imagination. There was a sense of excitement and pride in those action-heavy films with crazy sound effects.” But her world changed when she encountered Ang ...
From Mumbai to Batam: The Unexpected Journey of Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man”
Actor-turned-director Dev Patel, best known for his breakthrough role in Slumdog Millionaire, received a well-earned standing ovation for his directorial feature debut, Monkey Man, at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin Texas this past March. His thrilling, kinetic debut went on to win the Headliners Audience Award. The fight-filled action epic produced by Get ...
The Rewards of the Craft: Emmy Nominees on the Joys & Challenges of Television
We had the pleasure of hosting two panels this year—check out our second panel here— ahead of the 2024 Emmy Awards, which will be held live on ABC on Sunday, September 15, from 8-11 ET. Like last year, we sat down with some nominees from some great, disparate, challenging shows. In our first panel, Planet ...
All the World’s a Stage: The Team Behind “Sing Sing” on Crafting a Powerful Human Drama
Sing Sing screenwriters Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley are unusual, even in the world of indies. They immerse themselves in the world of the story they want to tell for years, in this case a drama program in a maximum-security prison. They surround professional performers like Colman Domingo in the case of Sing Sing, with ...
“Fancy Dance” Producer Heather Rae on Putting Together Erica Tremblay’s Moving New Film
For Heather Rae, it’s all about heart. The award-winning producer of Frozen River, Wind Walkers, and Tallulah, and the director/producer of the acclaimed documentary Trudell, believes her place is at the heart of a production. And just as important, Rae is driven to make films with heart. Fancy Dance, Rae’s latest film, now streaming on ...
“Silo” Creator Graham Yost Unseals the Secrets of Season 1
Graham Yost had his work cut out for him when he set out to tackle author Hugh Howey’s apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy series “Silo,” all of which are set in the titular structure (none of Howey’s books are actually titled “Silo”) and deal with the society that lives within it’s 144 heavily monitored floors. The denizens ...
“Shakespeare but with football”: Director Matthew Hamachek Unpacks “The Dynasty: New England Patriots”
Director and executive producer Matthew Hamachek calls The Dynasty, the 10-part docu-series now streaming on Apple TV+, “Shakespeare but with football.” He’s not overstating it. As Dynasty charts the rise and fall of the six-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots over the course of 20 years, dazzling on-field highlights are deftly layered with the ...
Pioneering Producer Auchara Kijkanjanas on Animating Thailand’s Entertainment Industry
A pioneer of animation in Thailand, producer Auchara Kijkanjanas is no stranger to copyright infringement. The founder and head of Big Brain Studio produced the nation’s first big animation hit, which was pirated shortly after it was released. Hence, Kijkanjanas takes both personal and professional satisfaction from witnessing the changes in attitude and behavior toward ...
“Under the Bridge” EP/Director Quinn Shephard on Lily Gladstone & Riley Keough’s Twisty Murder Mystery
In 1997, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to a party and never came home, then became front page news around the world when a tight-knit circle of girls and one troubled teenage boy were implicated in her murder. Journalist Rebecca Godfrey wrote about the crime in her acclaimed book “Under the Bridge”, and now Hulu’s narrative ...
Taiwan Based Producer Sam Yuan on His Netflix Series “Shards of Her” & More
In a career that spans over two decades, Taiwan-based producer Sam Yuan has been involved in a variety of productions, from critically acclaimed GF*BF and box office megahit Our Times in his early days to the more recent, Golden Horse-winning My Missing Valentine and Netflix hit series Shards of Her. He is currently the secretary ...
Game On: Zendaya & Co. Reveal Why “Challengers” Will Be Your New Obsession
From the warm embrace of Call Me By Your Name to the eerie thrill of Bones and All, Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Challengers, is a culmination of the better parts of all of his earlier work, ending in an explosive (and sweaty) finale. The film centers on a love triangle, set in the world of high-stakes ...
From “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” to “Bullet Train,” Producer Georgina Pope Has Her Eyes on Japan
Georgina Pope has been the go-to producer for overseas projects shooting in Japan for decades. She’s navigated the country’s cultural, logistical, and technical landscape and film industry to help bring a panoply of projects to fruition. As head of production at Twenty First City in Tokyo, her list of credits includes Earthquake Bird, Bullet Train, ...
