Interview

By Amir Ganjavie. Reza Mirkarimi’s Today has been selected to represent Iran at the Oscars in 2015, after the film’s recent screening at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF). According to Jonathan Rosenbaum, “in some respects, the plot’s departure as well as the conclusion of Today may remind us the ‘first’ Iranian New Wave, Ebrahim […]

By Anna Weinstein. There are few documentaries about comic books and even fewer about women in comics. In fact, according to Marisa Stotter, the director of the new documentary She Makes Comics, her film is the first to explore women behind the “ninth art.” Stotter is a recent graduate of […]

By Jude Warne. Mariana Rondon is an expert articulator of youth. In her award-winning 2007 film Postcards from Leningrad she tackled elements of her own particular young person’s experience. Now in her latest release, Bad Hair, she offers up a tale of misunderstanding and miscommunication between one original and resilient […]

By Amir Ganjavie and Nojan Norouzi. Rakhshan Bani-E’temad officially represented Iran at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival with her film Tales, which has been harshly criticized in Iran by ultraconservatives who argue the film to be a dark and unrealistic portrayal of the nation. As a result, the film […]

By Paul Risker. In a recent interview with Rolf De Heer, on the subject of influences and inspiration he told me, “I always think I am the son of all the influences I have ever had, which is all the films I have ever seen, and all of the life I […]

By Matthew Sorrento. “Victim culture” was a loaded term long before the recent killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others at the hands of police or, in the first case, an armed wanna-be officer. Giving a new face to the victimized, these tragic events are fueled by […]

By Paul Risker. When writer-director Andrew Adamson set out to adapt Lloyd Jones’ novel Mr. Pip (2006) Adamson was no stranger to the literary bloodlines that run through the cinematic art form. As the writer/director of the fairytale-inspired Shrek films to the adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, Adamson’s oeuvre […]

By Yun-hua Chen. Mohammed Ali Atassi brought his second documentary, Our Terrible Country, co-directed with Ziad Homsi, to the Viennale 2014. The film follows the perilous journey of the Syrian intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh, at a time the country has been torn apart by the ongoing war. This road trip […]

By Paul Risker. David Fincher’s work features a compelling cast of characters. Working alongside the filmmaker to give these characters life on the screen, by lifting them off the page and placing them into the hands of actors, has been casting director Laray Mayfield. One of the many integral collaborative roles in […]

By Anna Weinstein. Documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy made history in 2012 when she became the first Pakistani to win an Oscar for her documentary Saving Face. She won an Emmy for her 2010 documentary Pakistan: Children of the Taliban, and to date she has made more than a dozen films […]