Girl Asleep: An Interview with Director Rosemary Myers

By Anna Weinstein. Described by Variety as a “strange, savvy, big-hearted teen adventure,” Rosemary Myers’ debut film, Girl Asleep, is the story of a young girl navigating the frightening forest of adolescence. Myers describes this forest as “a place where characters go into the wild,” where they’re forced to confront […]

Fan A(Fic)ionados Unite!: Clay Liford on Slash

By Tom Ue. Clay Liford’s new film Slash (2016) centers on high school freshman Neil (Michael Johnston) and his slightly older fellow student Julia (Hannah Marks), both of whom write fanfic online. The process of writing for a public provides the introverted Neil with an outlet but it also pushes […]

Bringing Horror to Slovenia: Tomaž Gorkič on Killbillies

By Sotiris Petridis. Killbilllies (original title: Idila, i.e., Idyll), a harrowing tale of abduction, violence and hoped-for survival, is Slovenia’s first ever horror movie. It features a group of fashionistas from the city, including models Zina (Nina Ivanisin) and Mia (Nika Rozman), make-up artist Dragica (Manca Ogorevc) and photographer Blitcz […]

And Then I Was French: An Interview with Claire Leona Apps

By Tom Ue. Canadian-born Claire Leona Apps was raised in Hong Kong and Indonesia before relocating to Britain. She graduated in Pure Mathematics at Imperial College and then completed an MA at the London Film School, graduating as a director. For a decade her work has been fuelled by a vivid […]

Creating the Vision: An Interview with Cinematographer Billy Williams

By David A. Ellis. Retired cinematographer Billy Williams (born on 3 June 1929 in Walthamstow, London) began working in documentaries at age fourteen (his father, Billy senior, was also a cinematographer) and then graduated to television and feature films. He had Oscar nominations for Women in Love (1969) and On Golden Pond (1981) and had several […]

A Formidable Presence Onscreen: A Conversation with Salma Monani on Ecocinema

By Rayson K. Alex and S. Susan Deborah. Salma Monani is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, United States of America, and currently a Carson Fellow at Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany. As an environmental humanities scholar, Monani’s primary research in ecocinema studies is informed […]

In the Season of the Witch: Victor Matellano on Vampyres

By Sotiris Petridis. Set in an English manor inhabited by two lesbian vampires and a man imprisoned in the basement, Vampyres enlivens the familiar territory with pulsating raw eroticism, wicked sado-masochism and bloody, creative gore. The lives of the vampires are upended when a trio of campers come upon the […]

“Just a White Dot, Remember?”: An Interview with Justin S. Lee

By Tom Ue. Justin S. Lee is a Student Academy Award-nominated writer/director with an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His storytelling roots began at an early age in childhood, when he grew up in the foreign cityscape of Taipei, Taiwan. Unable to speak its language and truly fit in, he […]