By Matthew Sorrento. Like many child actors, Jackie Earle Haley faded from the spotlight as he reached maturity. He was relaxed on camera, which helped him exude cool as a lost youth finding a talent in The Bad News Bears (1976) and a teen making steps to adulthood in Breaking Away (1979). Curtis Hanson’s Losin’ It (1983) offered Haley the […]
Pasolini Revisited, in the Context of Contemporary Turkey: An Interview with Deniz Gamze Erguven
December 7, 2015
By Amir Ganjavie. In her first feature film, Mustang, director Deniz Gamze Erguven beautifully demonstrates how living in a closed totalitarian society impacts young Turkish women since everything is reduced to their sexuality and every act is defined through that filter. Taking place in a remote village in Turkey, the […]
An Artistic “Journey”: Filmmaker Matthew Leutwyler on Uncanny
By Paul Risker. Cinema, or more specifically science fiction, has a long established fascination with the future of human civilisation: the quest as well as the hypothesis of a potential future reality. Director Matthew Leutwyler and writer Shahin Chandrasoma’s passion project Uncanny (2015) continues the storyteller’s and as an extension […]
“Never Say We’re Making It Up”: An Interview with Marc Lahore on The Open
November 24, 2015
By Tom Ue. Marc Lahore grew up between a mountain of VHS and a heap of comics. He became a voluntary projectionist, then a TV editor, pursuing at the same time a university course in English language and culture. He directed a series of quite different, often strange, short films (the […]
Where Nobody Looks Into the Camera: A Conversation with Frederick Wiseman
By John Duncan Talbird. Frederick Wiseman is one of the most important and influential American documentary filmmakers, living or dead. In a career that spans nearly a half-century, he has directed forty documentaries, exploring all manner of human institutions from the mental institution to the welfare office, from a high […]
On Leaning into Emotions: An Interview with Catherine Hardwicke
By Anna Weinstein. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has directed six features since her award-winning debut Thirteen in 2003. Her most recent film, Miss You Already, is now in theaters, starring Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore and written by British screenwriter and actress Morwenna Banks. It’s unlikely anyone can escape this film without […]
The Impossibility of Anti-Montage: Sebastian Schipper on Victoria (2015)
November 7, 2015
By Amir Ganjavie. Various contemporary filmmakers like Aleksandr Sokurov and Shahram Mokri have tried to make features through single continuous takes, introducing creative ways to establish the relationship between digital technology, time, and cinema. Sebastian Schipper is among the latest generation of young directors who has entered the field with Victoria […]
Lensing 20th-Century Britain: An Interview with Sir Sydney Samuelson CBE
November 5, 2015
By David A. Ellis. Sydney Wylie Samuelson CBE was born on 7th December 1925 and is the son of film pioneer, producer and writer George Berthold Samuelson (1889-1947), who created Worton Hall and Southall Studios. Worton Hall in Isleworth housed one of the earliest film production companies in the UK. Sydney […]
Diva Directors Around the Globe: Spotlight on Anne Fontaine
October 25, 2015
By Anna Weinstein. French filmmaker Anne Fontaine has written and directed fourteen films since her debut in 1993. Her films, Dry Cleaning (1997), How I Killed My Father (2001), and Coco Before Chanel (2009) brought her international attention as a writer-director, and her film Nathalie (2003) was adapted into Atom […]
When a Room is No Longer Just a Room: An Interview with Eric Khoo
October 21, 2015
By Amir Ganjavie. Eric Khoo’s latest film, In The Room, is a tapestry of stories that all take place over several decades in Room 27 of the Singapura Hotel. Sex is the common thread of the tales and through the individual guests of the hotel we can observe all the facets […]