interview
With the DVD/Blu-Ray release of The Invitation, I was able to snag a quick interview with the film’s director, Karyn Kusama. Taking place in a Beverly Hills mansion in L.A over the course of an evening.
Last week, I had the pleasure to talk with Emily Best, who founded the company called Seed&Spark, a crowdfunded film studio. Seed&Spark helps independent filmmakers crowdfund their films, produce them and distribute them. In their own words:
We spoke with David Farrier about his weird but great documentary Tickled, how he pitched it and how about how the post-production was.
A while ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the members of the legendary band Green Jelly, Matt Groopie. I had originally planned on speaking with Matt about the small Canadian tour that Green Jelly had taken in the beginning of May, but my plans changed quickly after experiencing what I considered to be one of the most entertaining live shows I had ever seen. That being said, I should make it clear that I’ve been to hundreds of shows and concerts.
Varda Bar-Kar’s latest documentary Big Voice follows the lives of a Santa Monica school choir over the course of a year, under the instruction of their inspirational yet no-nonsense teacher. Mr Huls, teacher extraordinaire, is an intriguing character – full of passion and with motivation to make the choir bigger and better than ever before. Whilst Mr Huls is certainly the driving force in the documentary, it is Bar-Kar’s interviews with the students which are arguably most interesting.
In this third episode of The Power of Film, I spoke with the lovely Samantha Shada. She is a director, hosts the screening series Seeking Our Story, and she works at one of the big studios – a busy lady who has a lot of unique insights into the world of film! We spoke about a lot, from film in general and symbolism in film, the status quo of the studio system (and, very interesting, the current state of film marketing) to film preservation.
PJ Woodside and her partner, Steve Hudgins at Big Biting Pig Productions in Madisonville, KY are creating quite a stir in the independent horror scene. They’ve put out a film a year for the last decade. Their most recent film, Frances Stein, was recently released on Amazon Prime and has been getting a steady stream of five star reviews.
I’m incredibly proud to bring to you the very first episode of the all new Film Inquiry podcast, THE POWER OF FILM. In an episode of The Power of Film, I, Manon de Reeper (Editor in Chief of Film Inquiry) will be interviewing someone active in the film industry; filmmakers, directors, producers, actors, screenwriters… You name it!
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down (via Skype) with director Deborah Kampmeier after a special preview screening of her newest film, SPLit. The film is premiering at the Sarasota Film Festival this year, so if you can go see it, get yourself down. Until you get the chance, check the trailer out here.
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:
Cady McClain is an award-winning daytime TV actress, but she has another side: as a director. She has completed two short award-winning films, Flip Fantasia and World of Albert Fuh, and the comedy web series Suzy F*cking Homemaker, and is currently in production on a new documentary about women directors called Seeing Is Believing:
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.