Interviews
Cannes 2023 Roundtable Interview: Amat Escalante Talks LOST IN THE NIGHT
Amat Escalante returned to the Croisette, exactly 10 years after the premiere of Heli, for which he won the Best Director award at this prestigious festival. With Lost in the Night (aka Perdidos en la noche), Escalante continues to address...
Rotterdam 2023 Interview: Yuasa Masaaki Talks About The Last Nine Years
This winter saw the International Film Festival Rotterdam celebrate the work of Japanese animator Yuasa Masaaki, with a retrospective of the man's work and the Dutch premiere of his newest film Inu-Oh (which is excellent). Yuasa himself was present, finally...
SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING Interview: Quentin Dupieux Reveals How He Comes Up With Crazy and Funny Ideas
Quentin Dupieux made his statement of principles with the opening monologue in Rubber, his notorious self-aware movie starring a tire that comes to life and then uses its telekinetic powers to kill animals and humans. Paraphrasing said speech, for Dupieux...
LA CIVIL Interview: Teodora Ana Mihai on Dramatizing a Mother's Living Nightmare
Arcelia Ramírez stars in director Teodora Ana Miha's dramatization of a true story about a mother's living nightmare, caught up in the midst of the horrific Mexican drug war.
CALVAIRE Interview: Fabrice Du Welz Revisits His Remastered Nightmare
Director Fabrice Du Welz's horror nightmare, newly remastered, is now in theaters, ahead of its VOD release.
PACIFICTION Interview: Director Albert Serra Talks Creating Fascinating Images
"I put myself in the position that I don't have anything to say. I am here to create the most fascinating images possible."
ONE FINE MORNING Interview: Mia Hansen-Løve Says Filmmaking Saved Her Life
"That's why I say sometimes that cinema saved my life. Because cinema brought me back to the present. It made me enjoy the moments. It made me feel more rooted, thanks to the intensity of making films."
Interview: HOLD ME TIGHT Director Mathieu Amalric on Vicky Krieps and His Cinema of Gesture
"Cinema can amplify those parallel lives. In fact, we deal with it each moment in our lives - we either accept or we are scared of them."
Interview: MURINA Director Antonela Alamat Kusijanović on Her Complex Character Piece
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s debut feature, Murina, is set on a Croatian island, where the adolescent protagonist Julija (Gracija Filipovic) usually fishes underwater with her father Ante (Leon Lucev). The fact that Julija usually observes the young people who have fun...
Interview: FLUX GOURMET Director Peter Strickland Talks Noise-Bands, Gastrointestinal Distress, Ego, Witchcraft, Hats
“I do wonder sometimes if you are perpetuating an archetype of epicurean toxicity with all this culinary hysteria.” That arch line of dialogue can, and perhaps should, act as a litmus test on where you might, or might not, find...
Interview: NEPTUNE FROST, Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman on Their Afrofuturist Musical
Neptune Frost, an Afrofuturist musical directed by multidisciplinary American artist Saul Williams and Rwandan visual artist Anisia Uzeyman, is a stunning film that defies conventions in both content and form. When I saw it in a packed theater at the...
VORTEX Interview: Gaspar Noé on Making a "Cruel But Warm" Film About Aging, Illness and Death
If conception and birth are always present themes in Gaspar Noé's cinema, death is equally important for him: “When you write your sentence, you always put a dot at the end. Talking about death is just putting a dot at...
Interview: HATCHING Director Hanna Bergholm on Her Coming-of-Age Creature Feature
Hatching, the debut feature by Finnish director Hanna Bergholm, is a horror film that stands out for its creature feature and coming-of-age elements. The protagonist Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is a teenager who lives with her mother (Sophia Heikkilä), her father...
PARIS, 13TH DISTRICT Interview: Jacques Audiard, Lucie Zhang Talk Chinese Food, Covid Lockdown, The Internet
Jacques Audiard, known for his superb thrillers (Read My Lips, The Beat that My Heart Skipped), became the supreme purveyor of French outlier cinema, chronicling gritty immigrant experiences in an increasingly diverse nation with such films as The Prophet, Dheepan...
NITRAM Interview: Director Justin Kurzel and Star Caleb Landry Jones on Their Port Arthur Mass Shooter Drama
Director Justin Kurzel’s new work, Nitram, adds to the cinema inspired by real mass shootings, with an approach to the life of the perpetrator of the shooting in Port Arthur, Australia, where 35 people were killed in April 1996. The...
SXSW 2022 Interview: Patton Oswalt, James Morosini Talk I LOVE MY DAD
If the catfish film is defined by a character being duped by another through an online alias, then I suppose the honor of first entry goes to Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, who coined the term with 2010’s Catfish. But...
BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES Interview: Junta Yamaguchi on His Inventive Sci-Fi Comedy
In the midst of a pandemic, with limited resources and using an iPhone to shoot, Junta Yamaguchi and his team made one of the most ingenious movies in recent years: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes. The Japanese sci-fi comedy proves...
Sundance 2022 Interview: SIRENS Director Rita Baghdadi and Stars Lilas Mayassi, Shery Bechara Talk Metal
Allowing your life to become the subject of a documentary is a brave feat under the most comfortable of circumstances, yet in Rita Baghdadi’s Sirens, we’re treated to an intimate window into a badass band who dare to be themselves,...
Sundance 2022 Interview: MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM Directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and Author Lizzy Goodman Discuss
Considering the myriad of exciting topics and subtopics packed within the running time of Meet Me In The Bathroom -- Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s impressively dense adaptation of Lizzy Goodman’s loaded oral history of the New York music scene...
BELLE Interview: Director Hosoda Mamoru Provides Hope For The Future
To many anime lovers worldwide, Hosoda Mamoru probably doesn't need an introduction. For the past fifteen years, the man has had a regular output of excellent films, making him one of the current giants of the Japanese animation industry, and...
