By Tom Ue. In 1976, Gordon Korman’s seventh grade track-and-field coach-turned English teacher had given the class time to write: he completed what became This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (1978, updated in 2003), the first installment in his Macdonald Hall (Bruno and Boots) series (1978-1995). The novel appeared two […]
An Interview With Gayle Kirschenbaum: Look At Us Now, Mother!
By Anna Weinstein. Gayle Kirschenbaum ’s 2004 documentary A Dog’s Life: A Dogamentary, which premiered on HBO, explores the bond between dogs and humans, told through her relationship with her Shih Tzu, Chelsea. Her documentary short, My Nose (2007), was a festival favorite and became the inspiration for her most recent […]
“A Strange, Organized Mixture”: David Farr on The Ones Below
March 15, 2016
By Paul Risker. David Farr’s directorial feature debut The Ones Below (2016) reflects ambition stemming from the storyteller’s youth, before his career in theatre that held back work in film. As Farr explains: “I came out of university in the early to mid-nineties and it was just a very difficult environment in those […]
A Conversation with Marco Berger
March 11, 2016
By Mark James. Argentinean director Marco Berger first gained notoriety for his 2009 Berlin Film Festival hit, Plan B—a film that explored modern gay romance in an ironically authentic Buenos Aires where nothing is as it appears on its surface. In the film Berger fuses genuine erotic suspense with romantic comedy […]
Keeping it Bleak, and Feminist: Gilles Paquet-Brenner on Dark Places
February 27, 2016
By Paul Risker. Neither is the final version of a film nor the path of the filmmaker a collection of exclusive deliberate creative choices. Writer/director Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s breakthrough came with Sarah’s Key (2010), a story that follows one woman’s journey into the past that has subsequently been echoed by Dark Places […]
A Look Back at Edge of Seventeen
February 25, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer Edge of Seventeen is writer Todd Stephens’ seminal and semi-autobiographical 1988 coming out film. Directed by David Moreton (after Stephens stepped down), the film concerns Eric (an excellent Chris Stafford), who comes to terms with his sexual identity in 1984 Sandusky, Ohio. Eric’s best friend is […]
Beyond the Myths of Mt. Everest: Jennifer Peedom on Sherpa
February 16, 2016
By Paul Risker. “I feel like it was a risk and I feel proud that I pulled it off,” says Jennifer Peedom of her Everest expose Sherpa (2015). The documentarian’s intentions are certainly noble, adopting the medium to capture a view of a world dramatised in fiction, explored in other documentaries, […]
“Like a Runaway Train”: Ariel Kleiman on Making Partisan
February 1, 2016
By Paul Risker. Partisan (2015) is the directorial feature debut of Australian filmmaker Ariel Kleiman, who already has a humorous take on the filmmaking process. Ask him about how the experience of making a film changes you and he will list a series of statements of no more than a few […]
The Negotiation of Morality: Radu Muntean on One Floor Below (2015)
By Amir Ganjavie. Radu Muntean’ s new, critically acclaimed Romanian film One Floor Below recently won a Special Citation by the National Society of Film Critics, USA. It is a story of family man who decides to stay quiet after seeing the prelude to a murder. It’s difficult to explain this brilliant, slow-burning thriller, which […]
Debuting with a Vengeance: Adam Stephen Kelly on Kill Kane
January 21, 2016
By Tom Ue. Adam Stephen Kelly is the author of over 700 articles, interviews, features and reviews, and he has been read by a worldwide audience in the millions. He is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone and he has conducted interviews with Sir Roger Moore, Simon Pegg, and ‘Stone Cold’ […]