Festivals 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...
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...
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...
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...
Interview: Noomi Rapace and Valdimar Johannsson Dish Up LAMB
For those who have already seen Lamb, an interview with its star, Noomi Rapace, and its director, Valdimar Jóhannsson, may provide welcome clarification. For those who haven't, said interview might provide a warning. Lamb is not casual cinema. Its odd...
Interview: Timur Bekmambetov Talks PROFILE and ScreenLife Filmmaking
Timur Bekmambetov, the prolific Kazakh director, screenwriter, and producer, knows what he wants and knows how to go about getting it. He blew into Western genre awareness with a howl and a bang in the early aughts with his...
SXSW 2021 Interview: SWAN SONG Star Udo Kier and Director Todd Stephens on Their Melancholic, Joyful Gem
In Swan Song, the first feature film in 13 years by Todd Stephens, German actor Udo Kier builds an essential character within a prolific and legendary filmography: more than 250 credits and collaborations with such greats as Paul Morrissey, Rainer...
SXSW 2021 Interview: CLERK Director Malcolm Ingram On Pop Icon Kevin Smith
In 1992 a young man from New Jersey, US, traveled to Vancouver, Canada to study film and pursue his dream. Since he was little, his father instilled in him a love for movies. Then a particular film, Richard Linklater's Slacker,...
SXSW 2021 Interview: WE ARE AS GODS Directors Jason Sussberg And David Alvarado On The Man Who Wants To Revive The Mammoth
The documentary We Are As Gods focuses on Stewart Brand, a fascinating man whose main current obsession is de-extinction. Brand supports the idea of bringing back various extinct species and restoring ecosystems. His most ambitious project involves the woolly mammoth,...
SXSW 2021 Interview: LUCHADORAS Directors Paola Calvo And Patrick Jasim On Lucha Libre, Feminism And Ciudad Juárez
One of the most violent Mexican cities since the first years of the so-called "drug war" is Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In 2010, the most violent year in its history, there were more than 3,000 murders. The case of "the dead...
Interview: Sensei Sono Sion Talks RED POST ON ESCHER STREET
When Sono Sion broke out into international acclaim at 40 years old for his attention-grabbing cult favorite, Suicide Club, in 2001, his success may have seemed sudden. But when looking over his life’s work of almost impossibly immense output, it...
Sundance 2021 Preview: Words from Sono Sion to Get You Psyched for PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND
After cramming what must be hundreds of hours of Japanese cinema into his brief 59 years on this planet, poet Sono Sion is on the brink of releasing his first entry into the American cinematic landscape. Callooh! Callay! Prisoners of...
Morelia 2020 Interview: Director Rodrigo Reyes on 499, A Docufiction About Mexico's Violent Past And Present
2021 will mark the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire. No doubt this landmark is going to be a much-discussed topic in Mexico. Director Rodrigo Reyes has ready a film that by thinking...
Nightstream 2020 Interview: FRANK & ZED Director Jesse Blanchard On His Joyous Puppet Horror Comedy
Frank & Zed enjoyed its world premiere as part of the virtual film festival Nightstream. It's an irresistible movie, a cocktail of horror, gore, humor, mythology and values, such as friendship, starring puppets. A couple of centuries ago, a castle and...
Fantasia 2020 Interview: Lloyd Kaufman On #SHAKESPEARESSHITSTORM and Challenges of Independent Filmmaking
Even though Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment and director/star of #ShakespearesShitstorm, has a new movie to promote, his mind is always on the problems that American independent cinema has faced for years. “The independents in America don’t have any...
Fantasia 2020 Interview: Director Sidharth Srinivasan Talks KRIYA, Death Rituals and Male Guilt
India’s representative at this year’s (virtual) Fantasia International Film Festival was Kriya, written and directed by Sidharth Srinivasan. At a nightclub party, the DJ, a young man named Neel (Noble Luke), ends up hooking up with a girl (Sitara, played...
Interview: Hubert Sauper Talks EPICENTRO, Intimate Documentary on Cuba
Filmmaker Hubuert Sauper turns his attention to Cuba in his new documentary.
