By Jonathan Monovich. I find that the past lives in the present. Like Faulkner said, ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’…. Whenever there have been attempts to return to zero, they’ve amounted to nothing. —Kent Jones In the deeply personal My Voyage to Italy (1999), Martin Scorese […]
“Revival Means Giving Life”: Julia Marchese on a Decade of Out of Print and Repertory Theaters
By Ellie Dean. I wanted to show these wonderful indie cinemas that are fueled on pure film lust, and to hopefully bring back memories of the cinemas the audience attended in their lifetimes that were meaningful to them.” —Julia Marchese In 2014, Julia Marchese made her directorial debut with Out […]
Friendship Finding Its Way Home: Jeong Jae-eun on Take Care of My Cat (2001)
By Jenny Paola Ortega Castillo. At the heart of changing relationships may be changing environments. I wanted to portray the moment when people’s desires begin to diverge. I hoped audiences would not overlook the real struggles faced by young people on the threshold of independence.”–Jeong Jae-eun There are films that […]
“Much Better than Reality”: Julian Schnabel on In the Hand of Dante
By Jonathan Monovich. Some people only want to see what they expect to see, but I’m not that kind of person. Josef Von Sternberg was once told his movie didn’t seem very realistic, and he responded, ‘Of course not, it’s much better than reality.’” –Julian Schnabel In the truest sense […]
An Interview with A Useful Ghost: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
By Yun-hua Chen. I think it comes down to absurdity. I’m not sure it’s exactly a genre, but ‘absurd’ feels closest.” Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke The combination of the seemingly contradictory concepts in the title, useful and ghost, is the film’s most ingenious device. What happens when a ghost obsesses a vacume […]
Love and Frustration: Joseph McBride on I Loved Movies, But… and the Evolution of Film Education
By Jonathan Monovich. I’ve had good luck in my career by following my own interests/impulses. If you’re an ambulance chaser, you’re not going to be successful.” Born into a large Irish-Catholic family, Joseph McBride was raised by two newspaper reporters. Naturally, McBride followed in his parents’ footsteps to become a […]
What the World Needs Now: Olivia Wilde on The Invite
By Jonathan Monovich. Now that we spend so much time not speaking to each other in person and relationships have become something filtered through technology, we actually are fascinated by people interacting. I think audiences get a thrill from films about people having to struggle through the complexity of relationships.” […]
Larry Cohen in Conversation with Tony Williams: on Bone (From 2019)
Tony Williams
May 20, 2026
To celebrate the life of Larry Cohen (1936-2019), Film International will excerpt portions of Tony Williams’s interviews with the filmmaker from Larry Cohen: Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker, rev ed. (© 2015 Tony Williams by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandbooks.com). Larry Cohen (LC): With a little bit […]
Control and Improvisation: An Interview with Mohammad Shirvani
By Ali Moosavi. I design the concepts and then within those concepts I leave the actors free…. As Béla Tarr has said, with interesting people and interesting locations you can make a good movie. I like to frame interesting people.” —Mohammad Shirvani At the 2008 Abu Dhabi Film Festival I watched […]
Be Like Water: Writer-Director the RZA on One Spoon of Chocolate
By Jonathan Monovich. Some paths are rocky, some paths are uphill, and some are downhill. Unique’s path is hopefully what makes this film special.” – The RZA To the RZA, the Abbot of the Wu-Tang Clan, “hip-hop is moviemaking.”1 This should come as no surprise. The iconic first Wu-Tang Clan album, […]