Interviews
Between fronting various rock bands, starring in ’80s B-Movies and baring it all for dinner guests in the Aloha state, Jon Mikl Thor has been existing on the fringes of American pop culture going on 5 decades now. The subject of the new documentary I Am Thor, my review of which you can read here, he is poised to come roaring back onto the heavy metal scene and beyond. Jon was gracious enough to take the time to speak with me about the documentary, his career, and all that lays ahead.
Elliot Grove’s life should be made into a film, virtual reality’s going to be the next big thing and Sacha Baron Cohen hasn’t always been funny. Those are just three of the things I discovered when I went along to interview Grove, founder of the Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards. Discovering Raindance I grabbed the chance to ask Grove for an interview at a recent Raindance Open House event, held to introduce filmmakers to Raindance and what it can do for them.
The Look of Silence, the harrowing companion piece to The Act of Killing, was released earlier this year to universal acclaim. With the film about to be released on streaming platforms in the US, with a ton of awards nominations heading its way (including a place in the shortlist for Best Documentary at the Oscars this year), Film Inquiry spoke to director Joshua Oppenheimer about the past decade in his life making these films, as well as the new form of documentary storytelling he has pioneered. Alistair Ryder for Film Inquiry:
Hanna Polak is a documentarian whose films have been screened the world over. It only took her two directorial efforts for her to be recognized by the Academy, as her memorable film Children of Leningradsky was nominated for Best Documentary Short in 2005. After spending some time as a director for hire, Polak is returning to the international documentary scene with an absolutely remarkable film over 14 years in the making, Something Better To Come (you can read my review here).
In 2007, I was a zombie and I was murdered by a man named Graham Clarke. Okay, I was actually a hungry film student in Los Angeles and I was working on a short film in which Graham played the hero. In student films, “working” also means being the token extra and that’s how I ended up doing my best zombie shuffle in Among the Dead.