Welcome to Studio Babelsberg’s Rainbow Stage—A Tribute to Lana and Lilly Wachowski
“I’ll show these people what you don’t want them to see. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.” Neo (Keanu Reeves), The Matrix, 1999
To honor the groundbreaking filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski and simultaneously promote a message of tolerance, respect, and diversity, Germany’s Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam recently renamed its largest sound stage the Rainbow Stage (its previous title was number 20 of 21).
Writer/Producer’s Ron Leshem on His Groundbreaking HBO Max Series “Valley of Tears”
Writer/producer Ron Leshem has gained international recognition as the creator of the Israeli TV series Euphoria and executive producer of its U.S. adaptation. Along with his longtime collaborator Amit Cohen, Leshem is also known for creating the series The Gordin Cell, Allegiance, and No Man’s Land. But for a decade, the Israeli-born duo have been wanting to produce a story about one of the most important moments in their homeland’s history — the Yom Kippur War.
Producer Brad Feinstein Moves Audiences With Dramas “Jungleland” and “Dreamland”
Although only a few years old, Romulus Entertainment already boasts an admirable slate of what founder and CEO Brad Feinstein describes as “socially conscious prestige dramas and action thrillers” — City of Lies, Driven, and American Woman, to name just a few. The roster is also a lengthy one: At the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Feinstein noted in an interview that the company had produced 12 films in just 24 months.
“Raised By Wolves” Line Producer Cheryl Eatock on Building Ridley Scott’s First TV Series
As one of film’s most innovative directors, Ridley Scott is a master at transporting us to worlds unlike any we’ve seen before. So it comes as no surprise that Raised by Wolves, his first foray into directing episodic television, promises to be a unique, multilayered vision as ambitious in theme and scope as Alien, Blade Runner, and The Martian.
Unspooling in 10 installments on HBO Max,
“Brave New World” VFX Supervisor & Producer Thomas Horton on Peacock’s Ambitious New Series
For visual effects supervisor Thomas Horton, Peacock’s new series Brave New World, which premiered on July 15, presented a serious challenge. Horton was tasked with overseeing the streaming channel’s ambitious adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s legendary sci-fi novel, which despite being published in 1932 still contains so many unkillable themes and foundational science fiction tropes it remains fresh today. Huxley’s vision of a futuristic dystopia ordered by an intelligence-based hierarchy is equaled only by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in terms of cultural impact.
“Cursed” Director/Producer Zetna Fuentes on Remixing Arthurian Legend for Netflix
Cursed, which premieres today on Netflix, reframes the King Arthur legend to center on the mysterious Lady of the Lake and fae, Nimue, played by Katherine Langford. The show is created by Tom Wheeler and Frank Miller, based on their illustrated novel. The Credits spoke to Zetna Fuentes, who executive produced and directed the pilot and second episode of the series. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
A Conversation With Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox serves as the guide of director Sam Feder’s crucial new documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen. The film offers a vivid, frankly startling history of the portrayal of transgender lives on screen, and Cox (also an executive producer) captains a compelling cast of influential trans creators, cultural critics, and thinkers. They include The Matrix creator Lilly Wachowski, Pose star Mj Rodriguez,
Director/Producer Dawn Porter on Capturing a Legend in “John Lewis: Good Trouble”
Director/producer Dawn Porter’s documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble is an inspirational look at the life and career of the legendary Georgia Democratic representative and civil rights activist John Lewis. Congressman Lewis, now 80 years old, has been instrumental in creating foundational change in the United States, from voting rights to equal rights for all Americans. To this day, he continues to be a voice for positive change.
The Credits spoke to Porter about the film,
“Welcome to Chechnya” Producer & Editor on Their Immersion in High-Stakes LGBTQ Reportage
Few westerners took notice in 2016 when the Russian republic of Chechnya began persecuting gay, lesbian, and transgender citizens. But after Oscar-nominated documentarian David France read a New Yorker article detailing how Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime has tortured, imprisoned, and executed LGBTQ residents, he traveled to Moscow. There, France and his crew documented the Russian LGBT Network and Moscow Community Center for LGBTI+ Initiatives as they provide temporary sanctuary for refugees eager to gain asylum in friendly countries.
Arielle Kilker On Assembling a Largely Female Crew to Create Her Netflix Series Cheer
Arielle Kilker brings pretty much everything she’s learned in her career to bear in her Netflix‘s Cheer, the series she co-created, co-directed, edited, and produced. That includes the Emmy-nominated work she put in as editor on Chef’s Table and a supervising editor on the Peabody nominated Last Chance U. She’s also edited and written crime docuseries on projects for MSNBC, A&E, and PBS. For Cheer,
Director & Executive Producer Lesli Linka Glatter on Filming Homeland’s Series Finale
Lesli Linka Glatter has spent the last several years being alarmed by what she’s heard in intelligence briefings. This doesn’t just set her apart from many of the current apparatchiks in Washington, but also from many of her fellow directors. Not because her colleagues lack the capacity to be alarmed, but because her work as a director and an executive producer on Showtime’s Homeland would bring her, on an annual basis, to something that series creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa would call “Spy Camp,” in the D.C.
Producer Daniela Taplin Lundberg on Pushing Boundaries With Harriet and Honey Boy
She has produced more than 25 feature films that have moved audiences and in many cases also earned industry accolades. Indeed, Daniela Taplin Lundberg has demonstrated a knack for bringing to the screen soulful stories that deftly explore the human condition — all while keeping budgets in check and quality high.
Armed with filmmaking insights gleaned early on from her parents, producer Jonathan Taplin (Mean Streets) and actress Rosanna DeSoto (Stand and Deliver),
Avengers: Endgame Executive Producer Trinh Tran on Capping Off a Decade’s Worth of Work
Last spring, Avengers: Endgame wrapped up Marvel’s Infinity War saga. The three-hour epic spanning space to Wakanda and back again impressed the critics, exceeded audience expectations, and raked in $2.78 billion in gross global earnings. The movie’s length was only one unusual development within the world of superhero fare, with Endgame representing the culmination of 11 years’ worth of work, bringing about the deaths of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.),
Super Producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff on Pulling Off The Irishman and Joker
As a producer, Emma Tillinger Koskoff is eminently searchable, or IMDB-able, with her name affixed on projects ranging from The Departed (as an associate producer) to Hugo, to executive producer on HBO’s Vinyl, and upcoming projects like Roosevelt.
A glance reveals a particularly impressive autumn-into-winter, as she has producer credits on two of the season’s most anticipated films: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman,
Edward Norton on Redefining Heroism in Motherless Brooklyn
Edward Norton brought Motherless Brooklyn, his long-gestating passion project, to the Motion Picture Association’s brand new theater last night for a special screening and Q&A moderated by professor Yanick Lamb, Director of Media Studies at Howard University. Norton’s film, which explores institutional racism built into the very foundations of New York City, was inspired as much by Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of “master builder” Robert Moses, “The Power Broker,”
The Creators of Netflix’s Unbelievable on Their Urgent New Series
Buzz for the new true-crime drama Unbelievable, which is now streaming on Netflix, is getting pretty intense, and for good reason. Inspired by real events covered in a Pulitzer Prize-winning article from The Marshall Project and ProPublica called, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” and a This American Life episode called “Anatomy of Doubt,” it tells the story of a teen named Marie (Kaitlyn Dever) who reports a sexual assault,
How Yesterday’s Producer Made the Beatles-Themed Film Come Together
The nobody-knows-who-the-Beatles-are high concept driving Yesterday (opening Friday) may not have originated with producer Tim Bevan, but the Working Title co-chairman responsible for five Oscar-nominated movies knew exactly how to take the idea and run with it. American humorist Jack Barth created the fantastical scenario about a busker who wakes up from a bike crash and discovers that he’s the only one in the world who remembers the music created by John,
Mindy Kaling & Nancy Meyers on Writing, Producing & More
With a history just over a decade old, the “Produced By” conference in L.A. is a gathering that promises, if not exactly unfettered access, at least a chance to be in the same room with many accomplished producers, and hyphenates: producer-actors, producer-directors, etcetera.
Run by the Producers Guild, and currently hosted on the Warner Brothers backlot (an “above the line” analog to the Cine Gear show held at Paramount, the week before),
How Smart Instincts Led Booksmart Producer to Actress-Turned Director Olivia Wilde
The original Booksmart script started making the rounds in Hollywood ten years ago after writers Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins imagined two straight-A high school girls gone wild the night before graduation. By the time producer Jennifer Elbaum came on board four years ago, the story had been acquired by producer Annapurna Pictures boss Megan Ellison with Short Term 12 star Kaitlyn Dever attached to co-star as wry, gay, Columbia University-bound Amy.
Qualified Director Jenna Ricker on Indy’s Pioneer Janet Guthrie
“This is my first documentary,” says producer/director Jenna Ricker, of Qualified, a look at the life of Janet Guthrie, the first woman—in that pre-Danica Patrick/Pippa Mann era—to ever drive a car at the Indianapolis 500.
The doc is part of ESPN’s 30 For 30 series, in celebration of the cable pioneer’s 30th anniversary. But you have to go farther back than that, to 1977, to find Guthrie in the cockpit of a racer at Indianapolis.
