By Gary M. Kramer. What I needed from Pitanga was the history of the cinema in his body and his eyes. I needed to bring to the screen the ‘blood in his eyes.’” João Paulo Miranda Maria makes an auspicious feature film debut with Memory House, which had its World […]
No Escape from the “Rooms”: An Interview with Director Will Wernick
By Ali Moosavi. You don’t have to be a seasoned movie fan to predict the entire course of the film very early on in the proceedings.” Before watching No Escape (Will Wernick, 2020), I was not aware of the entities called escape rooms, which apparently are very popular all over […]
“Anything but this project, I would have been wary”: An Interview with Daniel Kraus on George A. Romero and Writing The Living Dead
By Tony Williams. I had no intention of sending off Romero in anything less than grand style.” As discussed in my review essay, novelist Daniel Kraus began conceiving The Living Dead (New York: Tor Books, 2020) with Romero at a time when creative frustration with the film industry began to […]
Solidarity in a New Era – An Interview with April Wright on Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story (2020)
By Yun-hua Chen. Stuntwomen really represent the larger picture of the ongoing struggle that women and people of color have had, just looking for a fair share in this industry.” Covering the span of film history, from The Perils of Pauline (1914) through Wonder Woman (1975) to Fast & Furious […]
“Sweetheart” Strikes Back: An Interview with Roseanne Liang on Shadow in the Cloud (TIFF 2020)
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Even though it’s set during a world war, it’s not a ‘lest we forget movie’, it’s not a past based thing. It’s a movie that is about the now….this dehumanization is universal.” – Roseanne Liang With its world premiere at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, Chinese-New […]
The Anti Rape-Revenge Film: Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli on Violation (TIFF 2020)
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There is something super cathartic about the idea of revenge, and what we recognised when first making the film is that really we’re making an anti revenge film. It’s like the film is designed to scare you not to seek revenge because of how it’s going to […]
Stuntwork over CGI: Filmmaker Brian Skiba on Directing The 2nd
By Ali Moosavi. Politics is a dirty game, no matter which side of the table you’re on.” –Brian Skiba There is a certain genre of film which, perhaps unkindly, can be called “Budget Action”. These are not the big budget action movies starring Keanu Reeves or Tom Cruise; or even […]
9000 Miles from Home and 30 Miles from Nowhere: An Interview with Caitlin Koller
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. If more work was done to showcase and embrace (the Australian) horror film past it could really help to foster awareness and hunger for local horror films.” How did emerging Australian filmmaker Caitlin Koller find herself in rural Illinois directing one of the most fun horror comedies […]
“We Like it When the Characters Fail”: Claes Bang on Bay of Silence
As an actor, you like when a character has both sides – when you actually are terrified but try to keep your calm.” By Gary M. Kramer. Claes Bang excels at playing suave, amoral men. His breakout performance in The Square, pivoted on his smug museum curator getting his comeuppance. […]
Art as Life Practice: Alejandro Jodorowsky on Psychomagic: A Healing Art
[Psychomagic] is an art, not a science. I make all the art.” By Gary M. Kramer. Chilean cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky has always been a cine-magician. He made his feature debut with the surrealistic Fando and Lis (1968) and then achieved worldwide attention for his cult films, El Topo (1970) […]