|
December
23, 2008
FROZEN RIVER
An
interview with COURTNEY
HUNT the director of FROZEN
RIVER — the story of Ray Eddy, an upstate New York trailer mom
who is lured into the world of illegal immigrant smuggling when she meets
a Mohawk girl who lives on a reservation that straddles the US-Canadian
border. Broke after her husband takes off with the down payment for their
new doublewide, Ray reluctantly teams up with Lila, a smuggler, and the
two begin making runs across the frozen St. Lawrence River carrying illegal
Chinese and Pakistani immigrants in the trunk of Ray's Dodge Spirit. Hunt
holds an MFA from Columbia University’s Film Division. Her thesis
film, ALTHEA FAUGHT, a short about the American Civil War, which she wrote
and directed, was purchased by PBS in 1996 and aired on American Playhouse.
It screened in film festivals including the Tribeca First Look Series,
Edinburgh International Film Festival, Montreal Festival des Film du Monde,
and the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The film also won Colombia’s
first Prize in Directing from New Line Cinema. FROZEN RIVER was originally
Hunt's second short film. It premiered in the New York Film Festival in
September, 2004. The feature version won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008
Sundance Film Festival.
December
16, 2008
WONDERS ARE MANY
An
interview with JON ELSE the
director of WONDERS ARE MANY:
THE MAKING OF DOCTOR ATOMIC — the
story of making a grand opera about the atomic bomb. This behind-the-scenes
documentary follows composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars over
the course of a year as they work to forge the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer
into a music drama like no other: the strange and beautiful “Doctor
Atomic.” As creation of the opera unfolds, as Sellars and Adams
struggle to make high art from the most savage weapon in history, the
film also explores the unnerving 60 year history of nuclear weapons. It
shows the real events behind the drama on stage, and the unintended consequences
of actions (and inactions) of men working on the first nuclear device.
Weaving together the intense and sometimes hilarious process of making
an opera with striking newly declassified historical film, Wonders Are
Many focuses on the 48 hours leading up to the Trinity atomic test in
July of 1945. Else’s film The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer
and the Atomic Bomb was described by Tom Shales in the Washington Post
as “the best film ever made about living intimately with doom of
our own design.” Winner of the first-ever documentary prize at the
Sundance Film Festival in 1980, it has been broadcast repeatedly in virtually
every developed country over the past 20 years. It is used widely in schools,
universities, and institutions as varied as the Pentagon, the CIA, and
the Union of Concerned Scientists. Wonders
are Many will premier on PBS Tuesday, December 16.
December
2, 2008
I.O.U.S.A.
An
interview with PATRICK CREADON the
director of I.O.U.S.A. — an
examination of the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences
for the United States and its citizens. Burdened with an ever-expanding
government and military, increased international competition, overextended
entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming
impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an
economic disaster of epic proportions. Creadon interweaves archival footage
and economic data to paint a vivid and alarming profile of America's current
economic situation. The ultimate power of I.O.U.S.A. is that the film
moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer potential financial scenarios
and propose solutions about how we can recreate a fiscally sound nation
for future generations. Creadon began his career as one of the youngest
cameramen in the history of PBS, shooting and producing cinema-verite
style stories for the critically acclaimed series "THE 90's".
As a cameraman his work has appeared on every major network, including
NBC, CBS, ABC, MTV, VH1, and ESPN. He has also done work for Paramount
Pictures, Warner Brothers, Sony, Universal Studios, and Disney. Wordplay,
Creadon’s feature-length directorial debut, is a documentary film
about The New York Times crossword editor and National Public Radio personality
Will Shortz. Wordplay became only the fourth documentary ever to be awarded
the "Golden Tomato" from Rottentomatoes.com for "Best Reviewed
Documentary of The Year."
November
25, 2008
DEAR
ZACHARY
An
interview with KURT KUENNE the
director of DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER
TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER. On November 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby was
murdered in a parking lot in western Pennsylvania; the prime suspect,
his ex-girlfriend Dr. Shirley Turner, promptly fled the United States
for St. John’s, Canada, where she announced that she was pregnant
with Andrew’s child. She named the little boy Zachary. Kuenne, Andrew’s
oldest friend, began making a film for little Zachary as a way for him
to get to know the father he’d never meet. But when Shirley Turner
was released on bail in Canada and was given custody of Zachary while
awaiting extradition to the U.S., the film’s focus shifted to Zachary’s
grandparents, David & Kathleen Bagby, and their desperate efforts
to win custody of the boy from the woman they knew had murdered their
son. What happened next, no one ever could have foresee. Kuenne is an
award-winning filmmaker and composer of both fiction and documentary films.
November
18, 2008
PRAY
THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL
An
interview with ABIGAIL
DISNEY the producer of PRAY
THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL — a film chronicling the remarkable story
of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil
war and bring peace to their shattered country. Thousands of women - ordinary
mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim
- came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside
of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage
of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s
civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement
during the stalled peace talks. Disney is is also the Founder and the
President of the Daphne Foundation, a progressive, social change Foundation
that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working
with low-income communities in New York City.
November
11, 2008
STRANDED
An
interview GONZALO
ARIJON the director of STRANDED:
I HAVE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS — a documentary
that details the October 12th, 1972 crash of a passenger airplane carrying
a team of amateur rugby players in the Andes. For 10 days the search and
rescue teams sent out by Argentina, Chile and Uruguay could find no trace
of the plane and its passengers. Particularly heavy snow falls had all
but buried the white-roofed wreck of the plane, making it almost invisible
from the air. Nobody believed that there was any hope of finding any of
the 45 crash victims. Ten weeks later, a shepherd herding his flock in
a high Andean valley saw the outline of two men in the distance, waving
their arms to attract his attention. After the rescue, at a noisy press
conference, the survivors admitted that they had been obliged to eat "the
bodies of our friends" in order to survive. The world’s media,
gathered to hear their story, was stunned. How did they survive the appalling
conditions at 4.000 metres? How did they organize their daily lives during
the ordeal? How did two of them manage to get out of there on foot to
fetch a rescue party? This is a story that transcends the personal, a
philosophical tale about the importance of friendship and solidarity in
extreme situations. Arijon was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and lives in
France since 1979. He's both, uruguayan and French. He studied anthropology
and film-making and for the past 15 years has directed numerous documentaries.
November
4, 2008
BALLAST
An
interview with LANCE HAMMER writer,
director, editor, and producer of BALLAST the
story of a single
mother and her embattled son who struggle to subsist in a small Mississippi
Delta township. An act of violence thrusts them into the world of an emotionally
devastated highway store owner, awakening the fury of a bitter and longstanding
conflict. With the boy's future hanging in the balance, the two adults
must reckon with the past while together searching for a new way forward. Hammer
was born in 1967 in Ventura, California. He graduated from the University
of Southern California with a degree in Architecture and worked as an
art director in the studio film system. He resides in Los Angeles. Hammer
was awarded the Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance ’08 for BALLAST,
his first feature as a writer and director.
October
21, 2008
LET
THE RIGHT ONE IN
An
interview with TOMAS ALFREDSON director
of LET
THE RIGHT ONE IN - arguably one of the finest vampire films ever made.
A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his
stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy's wish for
a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next
door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes
out at night and doesn't seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding
with Eli's arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders.
One man is found tied to a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten
in the neck. Blood seems to be the common denominator – and for
an introverted boy like Oskar, who is fascinated by gruesome stories,
it doesn't take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. Swedish
filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into
a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender
tableau of adolescence. The feature is based on the best-selling novel
by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
October
14, 2008
SECRECY
An interview with PETER GALISON and ROBB
MOSS co-directors of SECRECY — a
film about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified
secrets, the government's ability to put information out of sight if it would
harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a
nation, and our ability to function as a democracy. From extraordinary rendition
to warrant-less wiretaps and Abu Ghraib, we have learned that, under the veil
of classification, even our leaders can give in to dangerous impulses. Secrecy
increasingly hides national policy, impedes coordination among agencies, bloats
budgets and obscures foreign accords; secrecy throws into the dark our system
of justice and derails the balance of power between the executive branch and
the rest of government. Moss's recent film, The Same River Twice, premiered at
the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for a 2004 Independent Spirit
award, and played theatrically in more than eighty cities across North America.
As a cinematographer he has shot films in Ethiopia, Hungary, Japan, Liberia,
Mexico, Turkey-on such subjects as famine genocide and the large-scale structure
of the universe-and many of these pieces were shown on Public Television. He
was on the 2004 documentary jury at the Sundance Film Festival and has thrice
served as a creative advisor for the Sundance Institute documentary labs. He
is the past board chair and president of the Association of Independent Video
and Filmmakers and has taught filmmaking at Harvard University for the past 20
years. Galison
is Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at
Harvard. His film on the moral-political debates over the H-bomb, "Ultimate
Weapon: The H-bomb Dilemma" has been shown frequently on the History Channel.
October
7, 2008
MOMMA'S
MAN
An interview AZAZEL JACOBS writer
and director of MOMMA'S MAN which
chronicles the increasingly anxious dilemma of Mikey (Matt Boren), a young husband
and father who stops off at his parents’ loft during a business trip to
New York and finds himself emotionally unable to leave. One of the most acclaimed
films of this year's Sundance Film Festival, Jacobs' third feature is both a
tribute to his parents (avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and painter Flo Jacobs,
who play Mikey’s mother and father) and an acutely perceptive, slyly humorous
take on a universal experience: the fear of growing up. Jacobs' theses film,
Kirk and Kerry, won Best Short Film at the 1997 Slamdance Film Festival. Filmmaker
Magazine named him among the "25 Directors to Watch."
September
30, 2008
BOOGIE
MAN: THE LEE ATWATER STORY
An interview with STEFAN FORBES writer
and director of BOOGIE MAN: THE LEE ATWATER
STORY - a gripping political thriller about Lee Atwater, a blues-playing
rogue whose rambunctious rise from the South to Chairman of the GOP made him
a political rock star. He mentored George W. Bush and Karl Rove while leading
the Republican party to historic victories, helping make liberal a dirty word,
and transforming the way America elects our Presidents. In eye-opening interviews
with elite Republicans and friends of Atwater, Boogie Man sheds new light on
his crucial role in America's shift to the right. To Democrats offended by the
1988 Willie Horton controversy, Atwater was a remorseless political assassin
aptly dubbed by one Congresswoman "the most evil man in America." But
he remains a hero to many Republicans for his irreverent sense of humor, his
deep understanding of the American heartland, and his unapologetic vision of
politics as war. This film builds to a moving portrait of a cynic's desperate
deathbed search for meaning.
VISIT
MORE FILMSCHOOL ARCHIVES
| |
![](graphics/frozen-river.gif)
![](graphics/wonders-are-many.jpg)
![](graphics/iousa.jpg)
![](graphics/dear-zachary.jpg)
![](graphics/pray-devil.jpg)
![](graphics/stranded.jpg)
![](graphics/ballast.jpg)
![](graphics/let-the-right-one-in.jpg)
![](graphics/secrecy.jpg)
![](graphics/mommasman.jpg)
|
|