Interview

By Paul Risker. Following the success at Raindance with his 2003 directorial feature debut Nate Dogg, filmmaker Thomas Farone has once again stepped behind the camera to direct his sophomore feature Aftermath (2013). More than a decade after his first dalliance with feature filmmaking he constructs a cause-and-effect narrative that’s infused […]

By Amir Ganjavie. Rams (2015), an Icelandic drama directed by Grimur Hákonarson, received the prize for the best movie in the Certain Regard category of Cannes Film Festival. The movie tells the story of two peculiar, single brothers who have spent forty years not talking to each other, despite being neighbors […]

By Matthew Sorrento. Naming Criterion’s new DVD/Blu-ray collection of films by Les Blank (1935-2013) Always for Pleasure was a given. In borrowing the name of Blank’s 1978 documentary on New Orleans, the set contains that film and several others radiating the feeling. Though Blank is known for his works with […]

By Paul Risker. The outset of Wei Hu’s filmmaking journey has taken the form of small steps, although the burgeoning young filmmaker admits that his two short films Le Propriétaire (2012) and Butter Lamp (2013) have infused him with a passion and belief in cinema. He explains, “I am confident […]

By Amir Ganjavie.  Claudia Paz y Paz, a highly respected criminal law expert and judge with over eighteen years of experience, was the former Attorney General of Guatemala. As the first woman to hold such a high position in Guatemala, she was at the forefront of different fights to bring […]

By Anna Weinstein. Irish writer-director Kirsten Sheridan has directed three features and five shorts since 2001. Her screenplay for In America (2002), which she co-wrote with her sister Naomi Sheridan and her father Jim Sheridan, was nominated for a WGA award and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Her film August Rush (2007), starring Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Freddie Highmore, and the late […]

By Gary M. Kramer.  Tumbledown, directed and written, respectively, by the husband and wife team of Sean Mewshaw and Desi Van Til, premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. The film has Hannah (Rebecca Hall) meeting cute with Andrew (Jason Sudeikis) who wants to write a book about the former’s […]

By Paul Risker.  From Pascal Chind’s short film Extrême Pinocchio (2014) to a contemporary retelling of Cinderella in After the Ball (2015), if as wisdom suggests there are only a limited number of archetypal stories to be told, then these two films frame storytelling as being comparable to the game […]

By Gary M. Kramer. Crocodile Gennadiy is Steve Hoover’s compelling documentary—executive produced by Terrence Malick—about the charismatic Gennadiy Mokhnenko, a Ukrainian pastor who rescues drug-addicted kids off the streets and places them in his rehab center, Pilgrim Republic. A combination prison/hospital and police station, the center is a place for […]

By Gary M. Kramer. Necktie Youth is a gorgeous black and white drama writing and directed by Sibs Shongwe-La Mer. Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, the film opens with Emily (Kelly Bates) live streaming her suicide. The effect this action has on a handful of characters plays out throughout the […]