By Nathaniel Bell. More important was the fact that I changed my attitude toward creation. I was enthusiastic again. Young, fresh, and ready for experiments and risks.” –Jerzy Skolimowski Au hasard Balthazar is the only film that made Jerzy Skolimowski cry. In 1966, having recently completed his second feature, the […]
A Dead-End World: Olmo Schnabel on Pet Shop Days (2023)
By Jonathan Monovich. The story was so grounded in referencing other stories, other films, or other filmmakers, and I just wanted it to feel like something that’s existed for a long time. I didn’t necessarily want it to feel like something new.” Olmo Schnabel’s writing/directorial debut, Pet Shop Days (originally […]
Collective Movements: Lav Diaz on Essential Truths of the Lake
By Yun-hua Chen. In Philippines, we still have very responsible cultural workers, social workers and foundations. We are still fighting. Even in other parts of the world, there are still responsible people. We need this kind of collective movements so that we can mitigate all these nuances of destruction.” In […]
Policies of Migration: Sylvain George on Nuit obscure – Au revoir ici, n’importe où (2023)
By Yun-hua Chen. I don’t want to make a film about political discourses. I don’t want to preach to people. My purpose as a human being is to define and redefine my position in the world. How can we live with absolutely beautiful and totally awful things at the same […]
No Fear of the Boring: Trần Anh Hùng on The Taste of Things/La passion de Dodin Bouffant
By Jonathan Monovich. When you’re making a film, you’re showing characters’ lives and if it’s important, you have to actually show it. You shouldn’t be afraid that you’re going to be boring.” (At the 59th Chicago International Film Festival) For the last thirty years, Trần Anh Hùng has been writing […]
Never Getting Over This: Miles Joris-Peyrafitte on The Good Mother
By Ali Moosavi. [Hilary Swank’s character] is not a person who’s grieving the way that we think she should when we meet her…. It’s very easy for us to think that’s not how she should be feeling and grieving. I think in a movie about grief that was a compelling […]
Ukraine, Pre-Invasion: Maryna Vroda on Stepne
By Yun-hua Chen. The shooting took place before the full invasion by Russia and just before the pandemic started. When we arrived in Kiev, we had to go through special pandemic control measures. Everything was shut down. We were lucky to be able to finish the shooting, but then for […]
For the “God Jean-Luc”: Thomas Imbach on Say God Bye
By Yun-hua Chen. I was already under the spell of Godard. I thought, why not just start in my home country as a self-taught filmmaker?” From his teenage years, Swiss filmmaker Thomas Imbach was ensnared by Godard’s allure. Say God Bye, his latest documentary, chronicles his journey embarked upon with […]
Rescuing Girls from the Taliban: Marie Margolius on Ayenda (Future)
By Ali Moosavi. For these girls it was such an intense month of failed attempts, sleepless nights, terrifying moments that at the end was sort of a blur. While they have memories of how they felt in those moments, it was on me to figure out the timeline. I had […]
Starting from Scratch: Asmae ElMoudir on The Mother of All Lies (Kadib Abyad)
By Yun-hua Chen. For the story that I wanted to tell, there were no pictures and no proofs of what happened. I just started with one picture, and I finished with 500 hours of footage. I wanted to tell the story, but how I tell this story should be different.” […]