TIFF 2018: The Sister Brothers Director & Co-Writer on Their Funny, Soulful Western

When Patrick DeWitt’s novel “The Sisters Brothers” was published in 2011, something new was afoot in its pages. A bloody western set during the gold rush, it had everything you’d expect; gunfights, whiskey, brothels, and ne’er-do-wells of all stripes lusting after the riches buried in the rivers and mountains of California. These genre tropes, expertly handled by DeWitt, were the grimy, gritty package in which he delivered the story’s real gold— the titular Sister brothers and their endless,

Writer/Director Boots Riley on his Staggeringly Original Sorry to Bother You

Sorry To Bother You is coming to a theater near you, courtesy of Annapurna Pictures, after being one of the most buzzed about films shown at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The directorial debut from Boots Riley, articulate troublemaker and frontman for the band The Coup, has had a bumpy but fascinating road making it to the screen. This satiric, decidedly trippy film is about a young, seemingly malleable telemarketer named Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) and his girlfriend,

Screenwriter Olivia Milch on Penning the Perfect Crime in Ocean’s 8

Ocean’s 8, Warner Bros.’ all-female crime caper headlined by Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna and Awkwafina, has arguably been one of the most anticipated films of summer 2018. What’s undeniable is the soaring success of the film’s co-writer Olivia Milch, touted by Variety as one of “10 Screenwriters to Watch” in 2016.

Milch collaborated with Ocean’s 8 director Gary Ross on the script,

Legendary Cartoonist & Screenwriter Jules Feiffer on the Mystifying Rituals of Male Friendship in Bernard and Huey

Bernard and Huey is a new film based on an old script. Jules Feiffer wrote the screenplay decades ago, but very little updating was needed for a beautifully performed (and partially Kickstarter-funded) movie that is almost a companion piece to Feiffer’s screenplay for Carnal Knowledge. Both films center on a long friendship between two men, one who has many short-term affairs with women and the other who, at least initially,

Writer/Director Ari Aster on his Terrifying Debut Hereditary

When critics bend over backwards to keep a movie’s secrets under wraps, presume that the title in question is a step beyond the norm and well worth seeing. That is the case with Hereditary. Writer-director Ari Aster’s feature debut caused festival goers at Sundance and South by Southwest to squirm, shudder and gasp out loud at what transpires onscreen. Starting on June 8, the public will get to witness this grandly operatic yet exceedingly unsettling horror thriller about a grieving family seemingly beset by sinister forces – if they dare.

Writer/Director Veena Sud on her Timely Netflix Drama Seven Seconds

A young detective, frantic because he cannot reach his pregnant wife, is driving through the snow, trying to reach her on his cell. He hears a sickening thud, but does not realize what he has hit – who he has hit – until he gets out of the car and sees the mangled bike under his wheel. A black teenage boy named Brent Butler was riding that bik,e and the cop is white.

When his colleagues arrive,

Writer/Director Bart Layton on his True Life Crime Caper American Animals

Writer/director Bart Layton has a long history of bringing true stories to the small screen. He created and produced the documentary series Locked Up Abroad and directed the television documentaries 16 for a Day and Becoming Alexander.

In 2012, he brought his unique skills to the big screen with the documentary The Imposter. The film earned critical acclaim and Layton won the BAFTA Film Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer,

Deadpool 2‘s Screenwriters on Living With Wade Wilson’s Voice in Their Heads

Armed with witty zingers from writing team Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, Ryan Reynold’s deformed, foul-mouthed, self-healing superhero Wade Wilson powered through the profanity-laced Deadpool to such crowd-pleasing effect that Marvel Studios’ 2016 action comedy became the top-grossing R-rated movie of all time. Working on Deadpool 2, which topped the box office last weekend with a $301 million worldwide opening, Reese and Wernick tuned out the pressure and delivered another blockbuster.

Writer/Director Paul Schrader on Seeing The Light in First Reformed

Perhaps best known for writing such Martin Scorsese films as Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ, Paul Schrader has also directed more than 20 movies. These include 1980’s American Gigolo, a commercial hit, although Schrader’s style and subject matters rarely attract a mainstream audience. His latest film, First Reformed, is a stark tale of personal despair and environmental crisis. Ethan Hawke plays Toller,

Writer/Director Ramin Bahrani on the Spooky Timeliness of his Fahrenheit 451 Adaptation for HBO

We’re living in times that are increasingly concerning. Okay, that’s a massive understatement. After the election of Donald Trump, dystopian novels became increasingly popular again with reissues of novels like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The latter novel, which is now a bleak and hugely popular Hulu series, is a good example of the types of stories audiences have been looking to turn to in confusing and trying times.

Book Club‘s Creators on How Fifty Shades of Grey Inspired Their Dream Project

Whatever you did to celebrate Mother’s Day probably wasn’t as great as Bill Holderman’s gift to his mom in 2012. The final book in the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy had just been published, and the Book Club director, co-producer, and co-screenwriter sent the entire set to his mother.

“As sons do, right?” Holderman joked.

Book Club co-producer and co-screenwriter Erin Simms worked with Holderman at a production company at the time and heard about the plan.

Sweetbitter Creator Stephanie Danler on Adapting her Award-Winning Novel for TV

Sweetbitter portrays a side of restaurants not often seen in mainstream media—delicate, sensual, feminine. The Starz TV show, based on Stephanie Danler’s award-winning novel of the same name, premiered Sunday, May 6.

As executive producer, Danler trades her lyrical sentences for powerful visuals. States of loneliness, intoxication and longing are portrayed in many ways, though most perceptively on star Ella Purnell’s face, best known for her role in Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

Writer/Director Chloe Zhao on Her Tender Look at a Real American Indian Cowboy in The Rider

The Rider, a meditative half-fictional drama set on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation in South Dakota, first premiered at Cannes last year, where it won the Art Cinema Award. The second feature film from the Chinese director Chloe Zhao, it opened in wide release this past Friday. Zhao, who attended undergraduate and film school in the U.S., was living in New York before she decamped to South Dakota, where she made Songs My Brother Taught Me,

Beirut Screenwriter Tony Gilroy on Writing, Waiting, and Rocky Receptions

Tony Gilroy might have made his screenwriting debut with the 1992 cult ice-rink romance The Cutting Edge, but for much of his long, illustrious run in the business, he has focused on thrills and action. As both as a writer (the first four chapters of the Bourne franchise, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Great Wall) as well as directing (Michael Clayton,

The Death of Stalin Writer/Director Armando Iannucci On Finding Humor in the Horror of Politics

For some, politics is a horrific affair, but that’s not the case with writer/director Armando Iannucci. Throughout his illustrious career, Iannucci has found humor and humanity in the political world.

The auteur created the hit HBO comedy Veep, which has been making viewers cringe, laugh and marvel (it has somehow anticipated, with bracing, unfortunate clarity, our current bonkers political moment) since 2012. Before that, he produced the 2005 British television comedy The Thick of It,

Chatting With Call Me By Your Name‘s Legendary Screenwriter James Ivory

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing brand new interviews with nominees. James Ivory is nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay), alongside The Disaster Artist’s Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber; Logan’s Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green; Molly’s Game Aaron Sorkin; and Mudbound’s Virgil Williams and Dee Rees.

Oscar-Nominee Aaron Sorkin on his Directorial Debut Molly’s Game

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin is nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay) alongside James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name), Scott Neustadter & Michael Weber (The Disaster Artist), Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green (Logan), and Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound). 

Oscar-Nominee Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Martin McDonagh is nominated in the Best Picture and Writing (Original Sreenplay) category. The full list of the nominees can be found here.

Oscar-Nominee Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Greta Gerwig is nominated in two categories; Directing and Writing (Original Screenplay) for her work on Lady Bird. She joins Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) in the Directing category. 

How Writer-Director James Mangold Snagged Historic Oscar Nom for R-Rated Logan Script

Logan made Oscar history this year as the first comic book-based screenplay nominated for an Academy Award. The distinction’s due in no small part to director/co-writer James Mangold‘s extreme aversion to superhero clichés, which he wearily recites from his office on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles. “Some new alien arrives with a new power that somehow challenges our heroes; our heroes are fractured among each other so they have to learn how to band together or get over whatever romantic scars they have between them to focus on the fight ahead of them;