Moviefone Editorial

Author: Marya Gates

Female Filmmakers in Focus: Haifaa al-Mansour on ‘The Perfect Candidate’

The Perfect Candidate (directed by Haifaa al-Mansour)

Mila Alzahrani in ‘The Perfect Candidate.’ Courtesy of Music Box Films

Haifaa al-Mansour broke out when her debut feature film ‘Wadjda’ made its world premiere at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, making her the first Saudi female director. Ever. Her father, poet Abdul Rahman Mansour, introduced her to movies via home video as there were no movie theaters in Saudi Arabia between 1983 and 2018. She received a degree in comparative literature at The American University in Cairo and a master’s degree in film studies from University of Sydney, Australia. She cut her teeth making shorts and a documentary before directing her debut narrative film, and has followed its success with several episodes of television, as well as three more feature films. Her latest, ‘The Perfect Candidate’ competed for the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival and was the Saudi Arabian selection for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, although it was not nominated.

‘The Perfect Candidate’ follows Dr. Maryam Alsafan, a rural doctor who, at first, yearns for a better position at a more urban hospital. When an issue arises with her travel papers on the way to a conference, she puts her name forth as a candidate for local office, mainly to get some face time with an official who might be able to help her. Now stuck running for office, Maryam overcomes prejudice from both the community and her family. Running on a platform that promises to fix the road heading toward the hospital, she is determined to show that she is not just the best candidate for the women in the community, but the best candidate for everyone.
5Bt37o6ycYxM4AH095NKR6
Moviefone spoke to Haifaa al-Mansour about her new film.

MovieFone: What drew you to this topic?

Haifaa al-Mansour: There are big, seismic changes taking place right now at home in Saudi Arabia, especially for women, and I felt like I really wanted to capture this moment and contribute to it with this film. We went through such a long period of time where nothing changed, where it seemed like even the slightest openings or relaxations of the cultural restraints we lived under seemed impossible, especially when it came to the lives of women. But now the pace of change is so fast that it is hard to keep up with, and the challenge now is to encourage people to go out and make the most of the opportunities they have. Especially for women, it will take a huge shift in thinking to fully understand and embrace the freedoms they now have the chance to explore.

MF: I love the way the characters are dressed so differently in their homes than they are out in public. Could you expand on how the costuming works into the themes of the film?

HaM: Clothing is a complicated issue for Saudi women, because our lives are so different in the public and private spheres. And we have had so few opportunities for creative expression in the past, so fashion was really a primary outlet for our expression. And for this film in particular I wanted to tell a story about a culturally conservative, traditional woman who decides to embrace the changes that are taking place and go out there and seize the moment in public. So she covers herself in public, which is still the way the vast majority of Saudi women dress in public. This presents a lot of challenges for her in “putting herself out there,” when ironically, this is something she has been taught to avoid her entire life.

So the reality of her journey, of stepping out of this very private world and into the public sphere, is that it will be difficult, and lots of people will be critical of her choices, but it will ultimately open up a whole new world for her. I want to stress to the women of Saudi Arabia how important it is to go out there and take a chance, even if you don’t have any experience in doing so. It is going to be hard for Saudi women to put themselves out there, and they are nervous about doing things they haven’t done before like driving, traveling, or uncovering their faces.

MF: Dr. Maryam Alsafan’s campaign, her insistence that her candidacy is good for everyone and not just women, and especially the very end of the film, with what the old man tells her, it feels a bit like there was some inspiration from the 2016 U.S. election. Was that at all an inspiration in this story?

HaM: Absolutely. It can be disheartening to see the struggles that women face around the world when it comes to positions of leadership and power. There are still very strong social forces and perceptions that make it difficult for women everywhere to take on roles they have earned and deserve. Through my films I always focus on female protagonists who want to work hard and do their job to the best of their abilities. For this film I wanted to create a character that is very much representative of the mainstream mentality of Saudi women. She covers her face and follows the cultural norms of the society, but ends up pushing boundaries because she wants to do her job well. The restrictions that keep her from performing her work in the ways that would best benefit the society frustrate her and force her to think outside the box. She is not a rebel for the sake of rebellion, she is someone that knows that her work can make the country a better place and simply wants to remove the barriers that keep her from accomplishing her mission. I believe strongly that this is the way that true change comes to a society, through hard-working people who simply want to be able to reach their highest potential.

MF: For the local politician’s YouTube ad that inspires her own filmed ad, did you study any specific local election ads?

HaM: I think politics is ultimately very local, and from the outside the representatives of any given area will seem somewhat absurd to people from somewhere else. It is important to understand that people face different challenges, have different fears, and have been raised with different values and dreams in other places. So they are not going to look for the same type of leaders that I might be looking for in my small town in Saudi Arabia. Although Maryam is a local in her town, where her family has lived for generations, she is an outsider as a candidate simply because of her gender. People look at her the same way they would look at a candidate from somewhere else. So I wanted to capture that sense of absurdity, in the way she is perceived by the people who should actually see her as one of their own.

MF: Can you talk about the film’s locations? Where did you shoot? Were there any difficulties?

HaM: Well a lot has changed since I made my first Saudi film! It was incredibly difficult to make a film in 2011, and people were still very hesitant to embrace any public form of artistic expression at that time. Film was especially seen as taboo, and the idea of opening theaters had become a red line that most of us thought would never be crossed. Of course now everything is different, and we have cinemas going up all across the Kingdom. But the larger issue of a lack of infrastructure in the film industry remains. We have a lot of work to do in building up the tools and resources necessary to make quality films. We don’t have many people with experience in the field yet, so putting together a crew and getting the right equipment is very difficult. Getting the proper training and education necessary to help craft and shape our stories is another key area that we need to develop. It is still a very challenging place to work, and a very closed, insular society, so it was a tough but worthwhile journey.

And for my first film I couldn’t work with the men in public so I had to direct from a van! Being allowed to fully mix with my crew and be fully immersed in the production was amazing. It was also very exciting to have so many enthusiastic young Saudis working on the set. They are the future of the industry, and to see them giving their all to contribute and be a part of making the film was very special for me. We still have a long way to go in building our local crews and expertise, but the enthusiasm is there to build upon. It is an exciting time to be a filmmaker from Saudi Arabia!

MF: Dr. Alsafan’s journey to embracing her community and her family as musicians is so inspiring. Were there any inspirations for that particular aspect of the character?

HaM: Yes, I wanted to pay tribute to all of the musicians that persevered through the tough decades, where music was prohibited in public and musicians were seen as evil and degenerate. The musicians who stuck with it, who found ways to practice their art despite the limitations, carried our culture with them and saved it from being destroyed or lost forever. The band in the film is actually made up of musicians who did just that. They weren’t ever rewarded for their effort so I was so honored to celebrate them and their contributions to our culture through this film.

MF: What do you hope people will take away from this film?

HaM: I want people to think about how hard change is, and what it truly takes to create change within a society. I believe it takes time, and lots of hard work, to truly change peoples minds and alter their values. We can get frustrated, and push for quick, extreme changes, but to truly evolve a society means building up an understanding of new values in people’s hearts.

I also wanted to take a moment to celebrate the strong artistic and cultural legacy of Saudi Arabia and tell a story that stresses how important it is that we build upon those traditions as the foundation for our societies development. So much our music, theater, stories, and all forms of artistic expression were almost erased from our culture entirely, so I felt like we needed a story that reminded people of the strong artistic traditions we have, and how they can help us as we move forward into an exciting future.

‘The Perfect Candidate’ is in select theaters now.

Knock Down the House (directed by Rachel Lears)

Director Rachel Lears (right) following Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while making ‘Knock Down the House.’ Courtesy of Netflix

For another film about women fighting to make their communities a better place by running for office I suggest checking out Rachel Lears’ 2019 film ‘Knock Down The House’. The Sundance hit chronicles the campaigns of four female Democrats running for Congress in the 2018 midterm election. All four women are running on progressive community-focused platforms with grassroots fundraising as they attempt to unseat long term incumbents. All four women are incredibly inspiring, but it’s the footage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that shines the brightest. You’ll probably need a box of tissues as you watch her win her seat by a landslide.
LL3lcPfLwDvBnonB1wdMS4

May 21, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Rock Docs ‘Rockfield’ & ‘Decline of Western Civilization II’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find recommendations for films directed by women to seek out each week. The new film this week is Hannah Berryman’s ‘Rockfield – The Studio on the Farm,’ and the recommended older film for the pairing is Penelope Spheeris’ ‘The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.’

Rockfield – The Studio on the Farm (directed by Hannah Berryman)

Ozzy Osbourne being interviewed for ‘Rockfield – The Studio on the Farm’

Hannah Berryman is a documentary filmmaker who specializes in contemporary historical documentaries. Her work is known for mixing new sit-down interviews, archival footage, and animation. She studied social and political science at Cambridge before turning her focus to filmmaking. She has produced and directed the documentaries ‘A Very English Education’ and ‘Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal’ for British television, and the feature documentary ‘Miss World 1970: Beauty Queens and Bedlam.’ The latter tells the story of the controversy-laden 1970 Miss World competition, which was also the basis for Philippa Lowthorpe’s 2020 film ‘Misbehaviour’ starring Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Jessie Buckley.

Berryman’s latest documentary ‘Rockfield – The Studio on the Farm’ tells the story of Rockfield Studios in Wales, known as the very first residential recording studio. The film traces how brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward turned their Welsh pig farm into the recording studio where rock bands like Black Sabbath, Queen, The Stone Roses, Oasis and Coldplay recorded some of their biggest hits. Berryman traces how the brothers first discovered rock and roll, a rather unfateful meeting with EMI’s George Martin, and their early attempts to soundproof part of their farm to record local Welsh bands. This early part of the studio’s history is brought to life through archival photography and imaginative animated sequences.

Along with spirited interviews with the studio’s founders, the film also features some incredible new interviews with many of the musicians who recorded albums on the farm. This includes delightful stories from Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne, whose accent has finally hit the nadir of charming yet unintelligible garble. Robert Plant shares how the farm helped him launch his post-Zeppelin solo career in the 1980s. As an Oasis fan, I particularly enjoyed the blunt and self-reflexive stories behind the recording of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? as told by Liam Gallagher and Bonehead (Paul Arthurs). Coldplay’s Chris Martin tells how recording there was like a balm for the band in the midst of chaos of putting out their first album Parachutes.

Another section I found particularly interesting was how the studio was beginning to struggle financially in the late-1980s and then The Stone Roses spent 14 months in residency recording their first and second albums. Gallagher tells of stealing a plow or something to sneak on the farm in an attempt to get a peek at the troublesome band.

Fans of any era of rock and roll are likely to find a parable or two about their favorite band somewhere in this doc, and will likely come away with a deeper appreciation for how this Welsh farm became instrumental in the creation of some truly iconic albums.
DoxenP8bKsUIqvLdAPNes2

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (directed by Penelope Spheeris)

Ozzy Osbourne in a scene from ‘The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years’

What can you even say about THE Penelope Spheeris? If you ever get the chance to see her at a Q&A before a screening of one of her films do not hesitate. I’ve seen her speak many times, and she is always a hoot, raw and unmerciless about her time in Hollywood. Spheeris put herself through UCLA film school working as a waitress at Denny’s and IHOP. She made short films and interstitials featuring Albert Brooks for SNL before making her feature-length debut with the punk-rock doc ‘The Decline of Western Civilization.’ She followed these up with a handful of films in the 80s, including the essential coming-of-age thriller ‘Suburbia.’ She’s probably best known today for 1992’s ‘Wayne’s World’ starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as their SNL characters Wayne and Garth. A filmmaker with an unwavering vision, despite much studio interference, Spheeris’ deeper cut films are well worth seeking out.

Inspired by Ozzy’s interview in ‘Rockfield’ – in which even with subtitles I had trouble deciphering his thick Birmingham, English accent, I suggest you pair the film with the second film in Spheeris’s Decline trilogy: ‘The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years’. In it Ozzy is interviewed while making eggs, and it is truly a delightful piece of documentary filmmaking. Other bands interviewed for this volume include members of Aerosmith, Poison, Alice Cooper, Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P., Paul Stanley from Kiss, Lemmy from Motörhead, and more. The film also features interviews with fans of the LA hair metal scene, an interview with L.A. club owner Bill Gazzarri, live performances by bands like Lizzy Borden, Faster Pussycat, and Megadeth, and some truly stunning looks at the nightlife of the Sunset Strip in the late-80s. A time capsule of an era like none other.
1008774

May 14, 2021
Mother’s Day Directors: How Pregnancy Inspired These Ten Filmmakers

As women make strides in the industry, the normalization of parenthood – and particularly motherhood – as a positive part of the process, rather than a derailment continues. In that spirit, here are ten women who found creative inspiration from their pregnancies, and how they channeled it into their work.

Amy Heckerling – National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985) and Look Who’s Talking (1989)

Director Amy Heckerling on the set of ‘Look Who’s Talking’

Coming off of her hit film ‘Fast Times At Ridgemont High,’, Heckerling became one of the first female filmmakers to work regularly in the studio system. Her third film was the second film in the Vacation series: ‘National Lampoon’s European Vacation’. Heckerling was pregnant during the post-production phase of the film. Her experiences with balancing motherhood and working on Hollywood inspired her next film ‘Look Who’s Talking’. A surprise hit, the film starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley became the 4th highest grossing film of 1989. Featuring Bruce Willis as the voice of baby Mikey, ‘Look Who’s Talking’ was a frank look at modern motherhood, spawning multiple sequels.
27113
28403

Kasi Lemmons – Eve’s Bayou (1997) and The Caveman’s Valentine (2001)

Director Kasi Lemmons on the set of ‘The Caveman’s Valentine’ just after the birth of her second child.

While in pre-production for her debut ‘Eve’s Bayou’, Kasi Lemmons says she had lucid dreams due to her pregnancy. One dream where she was flying and drowning at the same time became a monologue in the film, which was named the best film of 1997 by film critic Roger Ebert. Although she found inspiration in her pregnancy, there was also hardship. She recalls working a 13-hour day on set caused her milk to dry up. She then had her second child during the pre-production of her second film, 2001’s ‘The Caveman’s Valentine’. Lemmons made three more films, including the Oscar-nominated ‘Harriet’.
4575
9155

Kris Swanberg – Unexpected (2015)

Cobie Smulders and Gail Bean in ‘Unexpected,’ based on director Kris Swanberg’s own pregnancy.

‘Unexpected’ (2015) star Cobie Smulders was actually pregnant during the production of the film, in which she plays a pregnant teacher who connects with her student also dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. The film was based on Swanberg’s experience during her first pregnancy, when at six months pregnant a student shared she was also expecting. Swanberg was expecting her second child a few weeks after the film debuted in summer of 2015.
20065805

Marielle Heller – The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård in ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl.’ Director Marielle Heller became pregnant as the film wrapped production.

Heller told Vogue that before having her first child she spoke with several other women in the industry who said having a child during the post-production process was an easier feat. Although these things can’t really be planned, Heller indeed became pregnant as the filming on ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ wrapped. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the best first feature award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Heller has since directed two more features and a documentary.
20068042

Reed Morano – Meadowland (2015)

Olivia Wilde in ‘Meadowland.’ Director/cinematographer Reed Morano was pregnant during production.

Reed Morano broke out after shooting the Oscar-nominated film ‘Frozen River’ in 2008. After taking calls with agents while pregnant with her first child and not hearing back, Morano was determined not to let this descrimination get to her. Then a photograph of her eight-months pregnant wearing a 50-pound camera on the set of the Sundance darling ‘Little Birds’ in 2011 sent shockwaves through the industry. Female cinematographers are rare, and the photograph showed that pregnancy was no barrier to work. Her eldest son Casey had a small role in her directorial debut ‘Meadowland,’ and she has since directed two more features and dozens of episodes of television including the pilot for Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
20071615

Deniz Gamze Ergüven – Mustang (2015)

A scene from ‘Mustang.’ Director Deniz Gamze Ergüven was pregnant during production.

Deniz Gamze Ergüven discovered she was pregnant just a week before securing financing for her debut film ‘Mustang’. Then her producer dropped out three weeks before production was set to start in her native Turkey. She scrambled to find a new producer and line production company that would work with her despite her pregnancy. In the end, the film was made and garnered an Oscar nomination in the Best International Film category.
20069376

Alice Lowe – Prevenge (2016)

Director and star Alice Lowe’s pregnancy directly inspired ‘Prevenge.’

Alice Lowe told Moviemaker Mag that once she became pregnant she knew she might never get to direct. Friends told her to keep her pregnancy a secret so she wouldn’t lose work as an actress. All this pressure led to the idea for ‘Prevenge,’ in which a woman is convinced her foetus is compelling her to commit murder. She was in her second trimester while directing and starring in the film, completing the post-production after giving birth. The black comedy went on to premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
20089891

Clare Scanlon – Set It Up (2017)

Director Clare Scanlon and Zoey Deutch on the set of ‘Set it Up.’

Clare Scanlon was seven months pregnant in the spring of 2015 when she directed an episode of ‘The Last Man On Earth’ – the first woman to helm an episode of the hit comedy show. A few years later she was eight months pregnant with her second child while directing her feature film debut ‘Set It Up’. That film, along with another female-directed film ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’, was cited as the beginning of Netflix’s romantic comedy renaissance.
PuRKmP5cKNABpziM7QvJ12

Greta Gerwig – Little Women (2019)

Saoirse Ronan & Greta Gerwig on the set of ‘Little Women.’

Gerwig became only the 5th woman ever nominated for best director at the Academy Awards for her debut film ‘Lady Bird’ (2017). She followed that up with an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic novel ‘Little Women’. She was six months pregnant during the shoot, but didn’t tell anyone on set. She gave birth 24 hours after delivering her rough cut to the studio. Although the film received a Best Picture nomination, Gerwig was pointedly snubbed for a second Best Director nomination.
BM0D1A7dhDRGq58ehrtdF1

Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman (2020)

Carey Mulligan, Emerald Fennell, and Laverne Cox on the set of ‘Promising Young Woman.’

Making history as one of only seven women ever nominated for Best Director – and in the first year when multiple women were nominated in the category – Emerald Fennell shot her divisive film ‘Promising Young Woman’ in 23 days while she was seven months pregnant. Of the shoot she told RogerEbert.com, “women do much harder things—much harder things—than direct films when they’re seven months’ pregnant.” The film debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, but due to the pandemic was pushed from a spring release to a Christmas release. The film ultimately received five Oscar nominations – three for Fennell herself as director, producer, and Best Original Screenplay. She won in the latter category – and accepted her award visibly pregnant with her second child. You love to see it.
Xgq3ZlMyGzQQt9Yvl96Ie7

May 8, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Gia Coppola on her new film ‘Mainstream’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features an interview with Gia Coppola about her new satire ‘Mainstream,’ plus a look back at ‘Zola’ director Janicza Bravo’s debut feature film ‘Lemon.’

Mainstream (directed by Gia Coppola)

Gia Coppola on the set of ‘Mainstream’ (Photo courtesy IFC Films)

Granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola and niece of Sofia Coppola, filmmaking is in Gia Coppola’s blood. She sharpened her cinematic skills making short films for fashion designers like Zac Posen, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Rodarte. She made her feature film debut adapting James Franco’s short story collection ‘Palo Alto.’ That film, starring Emma Roberts and Jack Kilmer, premiered at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival and was released in theaters in the spring of 2014. She continues to work in fashion photography, and has directed music videos in between feature film projects.

Her latest film ‘Mainstream’ is a social media satire starring Andrew Garfield as a mysterious street performer-turned influencer and Maya Hawke as the creator of his wildly popular YouTube show. The film also features cameos from real-life influencers like Patrick Starr and Jake Paul. Fans of Francis Ford Coppola’s films will also get a hoot out of long-time collaborator Colleen Camp as the skeevy owner of a magic-themed bar. Shot in and around Hollywood Boulevard, Coppola aims to skewer the Hollywood machine, expose the tarnish under the veneer of social media stars, and asks us to question what our current culture deems valuable.
C6DxapEdrF0IIbAMWcKem3

Moviefone spoke to Gia Coppola about her new film.

Moviefone: What inspired you to tackle the YouTube show culture?
Gia Coppola: I think for me, the internet is always evolving, so how do you make a movie about something that is rapidly changing? I felt like it’s more about the emotion of the story, it could be about any platform. It doesn’t really matter. Emotional scenarios have been part of our lives since cavemen, but it’s now extra amplified because it’s part of our everyday lives with the phone, and how do you find sanity and ground yourself in that environment?

MF: How did you choose the Hollywood locations?
GC: I have a special affection for Hollywood Boulevard. I was raised right above it. I still live right above it. I love to walk through it. It feels like such a metaphor for Hollywood and these sorts of dreams, and all these amazing characters, and our obsession with fame and why we find so much value in that. My uncle’s office is right on the boulevard, so I walk there from home. It’s sort of my hood, the strip there. The bar was a made up place, but I was inspired by The Magic Castle and the kooky bars that are on the strip.

MF: Can you talk a bit about inspiration for Andrew Garfield’s gonzo Hollywood Boulevard street performer?
GC: His character is exactly like these sorts of characters you see walking along Hollywood Boulevard. I’m so fascinated by them. What’s their story? Where did they come from? Why do they do what they’re doing?

MF: ‘Network’ seems like a big influence. Were there any other inspirations for the structure of the film?
GC: ‘Network’ was definitely a big inspiration for me. I had never seen it. I had seen ‘A Face In The Crowd,’ and I was blown away. When I got into this tone of satire and this commentary on the absurdity of our culture it led me down the path to ‘Network,’ which I think is a perfect movie. I could only kiss the toe of something that was made like that. I also like ‘Broadcast News.’

MF: I love the parallels between Andrew Garfield’s character in this and Andy Griffith in ‘A Face In The Crowd’. Do you think that society has changed in the 70+ years since that film premiered?
CG: I think as a collective we love to see a train wreck and the wheels to come off, and that’s when we actually pay attention and focus sometimes. I was playing with that idea. Do we embolden when that happens? Is it every man for himself or are we all in this together? I also wanted to play with the idea that what he is saying, there’s truth to it, but it’s also messy and conflicted and inappropriate. In the end, is what he says truthful to him or is it another attempt to get attention and likes?

MF: Did you always have Maya Hawke in mind for Frankie?
GC: She’s super special. I met her through a job. I was doing a photoshoot, and she was the subject. We had to spend two days together, and it was kind of an instant connection. We just got each other’s weirdness. We didn’t have to communicate with language; it felt kind of telepathic in a way. I knew when I saw her that the character had come alive, and then I couldn’t imagine anyone else but her. She did exactly that for me.

MF: How did you get real influencers to participate in the film?
GC: It was really fun to get to meet all these influencers and learn from them, about their experiences and their connection with their own fan base. They’re very sweet and intelligent and talented people. With that round table, it was figuring out different types of YouTubers or social influencers who have very different content.

MF: Can you talk about the way you shot the film?.
GC: [Cinematographer] Autumn Durald is one of my best friends, and she shot ‘Palo Alto,’ and I just trust her wholeheartedly. I try to focus on the narrative. Every once in a while I’ll have some input because I love photography, but I just trust her wholeheartedly to do what she wants to do and what she feels is right. We talked a little bit about how I wanted to incorporate this aesthetic of raw, candid, kind of janky ugliness in contrast to the more cinematic, beautiful, traditional way of telling a story.

MF: The use of emojis was really interesting.
GC: I always knew I wanted to add graphics and I felt like the way I’d seen it represented in most films didn’t feel the way I wanted to see it or that I felt like I related to it. I wanted to find a way to express emotionally what’s going on in a scene and embellish it in that way. It always stemmed from me feeling there was an overabundance of content, just in our life, and how do you escape it? Just that feeling of being inundated and bloated. I wanted to kind of emoji-vomit it out.

MF: Can you recommend another film directed by a woman for our readers to seek out?
GC: I’m really excited to see ‘Zola’, but I haven’t seen it yet. I know that team of people are really intelligent and have great taste and that story is super interesting. So I’m excited for that.

MF: Have you seen Janicza Bravo’s previous film ‘Lemon’?
GC: I have not, but I’ve gotten to know her a little bit through the process of having films come out during the pandemic. I admire her a lot, and I’m excited to see more of her work. I think her social media is hilarious.

Lemon (directed by Janicza Bravo)

Janicza Bravo (left) on the set of Lemon. (Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures)

Born in 1981 in New York City, Janicza Bravo spent much of her childhood living between the United States and Panama. She studied costume and set design for theater, as well as acting at NYU. She worked as a stylist before turning to filmmaking. She honed her unique cinematic voice directing seven short films, including the Sundance stand-out ‘Gregory Go Boom’ starring Michael Cera. She broke into the mainstream with the searing “Juneteenth” episode of Donald Glover’s hit television show ‘Atlanta’ in 2016. In 2017, she directed her first feature film ‘Lemon,’ starring her then-husband Brett Gelman. Premiering at the SXSW film festival, ‘Lemon’ follows a miserable middle-aged man named Isaac (Gelman) who is just never quite able to do the right thing. Although the film received mixed reviews after its release, Bravo’s distinctly absurd cringe humor was praised. Her next feature film is ‘Zola,’ is based on the viral Twitter thread. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and will be released this June.
ClRGQY4gIAF8tJiUwbHLZ5

May 7, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Shari Springer Berman talks ‘Things Heard & Seen’ and ‘Smithereens’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features an interview with filmmaking duo Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini about their new horror thriller ‘Things Heard & Seen,’ plus Berman on Susan Seidelman’s groundbreaking debut feature ‘Smithereens’

Things Heard & Seen (directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini)

Amanda Seyfried in ‘Things Heard & Seen’

Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini were both raised in New York City. They received master’s degrees in film from Columbia University. They married in 1994 and have alternated whose name comes first in the credits of their films ever since. After making several documentaries, Berman and Pulcini received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for their first narrative film ‘American Splendor’ in 2003.

Based on the novel All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage, ‘Things Heard & Seen’ stars Amanda Seyfried and James Norton as Catherine and George, a couple who move to a remote home in the Hudson Valley, New York. While George starts a professorship at a small liberal arts college teaching art history, Catherine has given up a promising career in art restoration to raise their daughter Franny. Things get a bit weird when both Franny and Catherine suspect they are not alone in their home. Both the novel and film are inspired by the theological writings of 18th century thinker Emanuel Swedenborg, who in turn inspired many of the painters from the area’s Hudson River School of painters in the mid-19th century. Unique in its use of Swedenborgian theory to create a sense of unease, the film also features stunning cinematography, and is anchored by a strong performance from Seyfried, fresh off her first Oscar nomination.
8jTK9ooM1FTXfomiBGkPH1

Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini spoke to Moviefone about their latest film.

Moviefone: How did you first get involved in this project?
Robert Pulcini: For decades now we have been talking about a movie to film in the Hudson Valley because we live there part time. We spent a lot of time talking about the light, the landscape, and the history of the Hudson River School of painters. All these things came together in this one book [‘All Things Cease to Appear ‘by Elizabeth Brundage] that I found.

MF: How did you discover the book?
RP: I was reading the local paper and there was a profile of the writer and it got a wonderful New York Times review, so I bought it. Once Shari signed off on it, we reached out. Elizabeth had been a fan of our movies.

MF: How did you find the locations in the Hudson Valley to shoot?
Shari Springer Berman: The real challenge of this movie was finding the right house. It’s a character in the story. We looked at hundreds of farm houses all up and down the Hudson Valley. We didn’t want it to look like your classic haunted, scary house. We didn’t want Second Empire. We didn’t want anything Victorian. We wanted something very simple, which was the way it was described in the book. It needed to be on a lot of land, somewhat in the middle of nowhere, or else there wouldn’t be this feeling of abandonment. It needed to have a big huge barn. We were really getting frustrated and then Bob sent me a text: “We’re going to go look at a house on Skunk’s Misery Road. I really think this is going to be it.” I thought it was a joke. The minute we got there, everybody knew this is our house.

MF: Before working on this project had you heard of Swedenborg?
SSB: I vaguely was aware of him, but after we read the book we went down the Swedenborg rabbit hole. There’s still a community of people who follow him. They do these tutorials online that are really amazing, but complex. You could spend hours and hours listening and studying his philosophy and his spiritualism. He was remarkable. We tried to make it more of a metaphysical movie, make it more about the continuum of life and death.
RP: You see a lot of horror movies that use a Catholic framework for their horror, but I’d never seen Swedenborgian spirituality in a story like this.

MF: Besides George Inness, were there any other visual references for the film?
SSB: One day when we got the green light to make the movie, I’m a member of the Met, so I was like “Let’s go to the Met!” They had a Thomas Cole exhibit. We felt like it was a weird Swedenborgian, like cosmic coincidence. Cole was a contemporary of Inness, and one of the founders of the Hudson River School.
RP: Also, we watched the movie ‘Barry Lyndon,’ even though it’s referencing a different style of painting, it’s the ultimate landscape painting movie. It’s miraculous. Oddly enough, that was the first movie our cinematographer Larry Smith worked on. He came up under Stanley Kubrick, so we talked a lot about how that movie was made.

MF: How did you achieve the Inness-like visuals?
RP: We wanted the landscape to be soft. We talked about how much detail we want to see. There was one painting in particular, called Kaaterskill Falls. We basically replicated it with exactly where Thomas Cole had stood when he painted it.
SSB: We sent the cinematographers out there. It was hard to get there. They had to hike up a mountain to get there. They were able to recreate the exact frame of the painting. It’s in the movie, we cut to the actual Kaaterskill Falls and then later when George is teaching one of the slides is the painting. Bob always says he thinks about what people will see the second time they watch a movie, so that’s the kind of thing you might catch on a second viewing.

MF: Can you talk about working with Amanda Seyfried and F. Murray Abraham?
SSB: I mean obviously ‘Mean Girls’ is like a revelation. I remember really way back she was in this HBO series called ‘Big Love’. She was brilliant in it and it was right after ‘Mean Girls’. She’s got endless talents. So, she was someone I always wanted to work with. Elizabeth, the writer of the book, when we told her that we cast Amanda she flipped out and said that was the face she had imagined when she wrote the book.
RP: One of things the novelist did so well is she presented this community of characters, and you really don’t know quite how to feel about them as you’re experiencing them. So, Murray has that kind of twinkle in his eye. He’s such a charismatic actor, aside from being such a fantastic actor, that I felt like he really fit the bill perfectly. I think what’s interesting is you end up sympathizing with people in the story that you don’t initially think you’re going to. He was just a dream to work with. He brought the gravitas that he brings to everything. It was just a perfect match.

Smithereens (directed by Susan Seidelman)

Susan Berman in ‘Smithereens’

MF: Can you recommend another film directed by a woman for our readers to seek out?
SSB: This is a love letter to New York, Susan Seidelman’s first movie ‘Smithereens’. It’s like New York in the late-70s/early-80s. New York is completely a mess. It’s the very beginning of independent filmmaking. It’s just a movie that inspired me to want to be a director. A woman made it. It was the New York that I grew up in. It was very inspiring and real. I remember seeing that movie, and it really did inspire me to want to be a director, or to think that I could be a director. It made me think, “Oh, I could do that!” I met her once, and I was fangirling like crazy. I was like, “Oh my god, you have no idea.” and she seemed so lovely. I told her she really inspired a lot of people, a lot of women of my generation to become directors. She deserves her props.
12726

‘Things Heard & Seen’ is now available on Netflix.

April 30, 2021
How Joan Micklin Silver Paved the Way for Chloé Zhao & Other Women Directors Today

The films of the late Joan Micklin Silver

One of the first celebrity deaths to hit in 2021 was that of filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver. Not as well-remembered by the public today as she was at the height of her career – Silver was not included in the In Memoriam video that played at this year’s Oscars – she left a legacy that can be found in the careers of the women directors who came after her.

This week Chloé Zhao’s third feature film ‘Nomadland’ was awarded three Oscars- including two for Zhao herself. She became the first woman of color, the first Asian woman, and only the second woman ever to win the award for Best Director. This success follows her previous critically-acclaimed features ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’ (2015) and ‘The Rider’ (2017). Later this year Zhao’s highest-profile film – Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ – will finally make its debut after being pushed back from 2020 due to the ongoing pandemic.

Zhao’s rise from the world of independent cinema to an Oscar-winning film to a big budget Marvel film like ‘Eternals’ recalls the similar rise to prominence from Ava DuVernay, whose feature film debut ‘I Will Follow’ she self-distributed, and whose third film ‘Selma’ made her only fifth woman nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes (and first Black woman to be nominated), as well as the first Black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (though she was pointedly not nominated for Best Director at the Oscars that year). She followed that up with ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, which made her the first Black woman to direct a live-action film earning $100 million.

But before both of these women smashed through the celluloid ceiling there was Joan Micklin Silver. In the 1970s, when there were so few women directors, women only made up 0.05% of all working directors (in 2020 they made up 12% of directors of the highest grossing films), and Silver fought like hell to forge a career in Hollywood.

Like DuVernay, she self-financed her debut film, 1975’s ‘Hester Street’, which told the story of Jewish immigrants living on the titular Hester Street in the Lower East Side of New York City at the end of the 19th century. The film would go on to play at the Cannes Film Festival and its star Carol Kane received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Prior to making her directorial debut, Silver had worked as a writer in Hollywood, even selling a script called ‘Limbo’, a collaboration with Linda Gottlieb, to Universal Pictures in 1972. The film, directed by Mark Robson, follows the lives of women whose husbands are missing in action in Vietnam. Gottlieb would later write the screenplay that would become the basis for ‘Dirty Dancing.’ (The history of how her screenplay became the finished film is an entirely different story.)

Silver reflected that she “had absolutely no chance of getting work as a director,” within the studio system and even after her success with ‘Hester Street’ she was told by a studio executive that, “feature films are very expensive to mount and distribute, and women directors are one more problem we don’t need.”

She followed up ‘Hester Street’ with another self-financed film, 1977’s ‘Between The Lines,’ a prophetic look at the lives and loves of the staff at an alt-weekly that launched the careers of many actors including John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Gwen Welles, Bruno Kirby, Joe Morton, Marilu Henner, Lane Smith, and Jeff Goldblum. Although the film played the Berlin International Film Festival and spawned a short-lived sitcom, it was largely hard to find until a recent restoration and revival from Cohen Media Group.

Her next film ‘Chilly Scenes of Winter’, a biting romantic dramedy about an unfulfilled man named Charles (John Heard) whose infatuation with a woman named Laura (Mary Beth Hurt) becomes an unhealthy obsession, was produced in association with United Artists. Before the film’s release UA insisted Silver alter the film’s bleak ending to something happier and changed the name to ‘Head over Heels’. It bombed. In 1982 Silver convinced them to re-release the film with its original title and ending, to much better acclaim and box office success.

Silver also found success working in television, like DuVernay’s ‘Queen Sugar’ and ‘When They See Us’. In 1976, she directed an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ starring Shelley Duvall and in the 1980s she directed ‘How to Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days’ for PBS and ‘Finnegan Begin Again’ for HBO.

1987 saw Silver’s biggest hit to date: the romantic comedy ‘Crossing Delancey’ starring Amy Irving and Peter Reigert, an adaptation of the stage play by Susan Sandler. Irving plays Izzy Grossman, an independent 30-something who works at an upscale bookstore whose bubbe (Reizl Bozyk) hires a marriage broker (Sylvia Miles) to find a nice young Jewish man for her granddaughter. Izzy rebels against the match at first, but slowly finds herself falling for the most charming pickle salesman (Reigert) you’ll ever see on screen. The film had a rocky start as studios told Silver the film was “too ethnic,” which in an interview with the New York Times she said was a euphemism “for Jewish material that Hollywood executives distrust.” Eventually the film found its way to distribution by Warner Bros. thanks to a push from Irving’s husband at the time – Steven Spielberg.

‘Crossing Delancey’ received rave reviews and made more than four times its budget, but Silver’s next few films – 1989’s ‘Loverboy’ starring Patrick Dempsey, Kirstie Alley, Carrie Fisher, 1991’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ starring Hillary Wolf, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Lewis, and ‘A Fish In The Bathtub’ starring Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara – received mostly mixed reviews and were box office disaster. She continued to direct films for television throughout the next decade; her last credit was 2003’s ‘Hunger Point’ starring Barbara Hershey and Christina Hendricks.

Silver passed away at the age of 85 from vascular dementia on December 31, 2020.

What was so remarkable about Silver’s career was her commitment to her vision and her voice, despite struggling against both sexism and anti-semitism within the industry. She paved the way for filmmakers like Zhao and DuVernay, who themselves have fierce voices and unique visions for what film can do. As more women break through in Hollywood and women helming multiple films becomes the rule rather than the exception, it’s important to remember the trailblazers like Joan Micklin Silver who paved the way.

April 28, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Director Marilyn Agrelo on her ‘Sesame Street’ documentary

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features the new documentary ‘Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street,’ plus an interview with director Marilyn Agrelo and her picks Haifaa al-Mansour’s ‘Wadjda’ and Nadine Labaki’s ‘Capernaum.’

Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street (directed by Marilyn Agrelo)

Marilyn Agrelo on the set of ‘Sesame Street’

Director Marilyn Agrelo’s debut documentary, 2005’s ‘Mad Hot Ballroom’ became one of the highest grossing documentaries at the time after its 24-week theatrical run. Her documentary shorts have played around the world in international film festivals. Her latest film ‘Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street’ had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Based on Michael Davis’s 2008 book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, the documentary focuses on the origins of ‘Sesame Street.’ It follows the three main forces behind its creation: co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney, puppeteer Jim Henson, and original head writer Jon Stone. Their goal was to take the techniques of catchy commercials to bring educational content to children. When it premiered, ‘Sesame Street’ was described as what television would be if it loved people, instead of trying to sell to people. Blending rare behind-the-scenes footage, archival interviews, and new interviews with those who know the show best, ‘Street Gang’ soars when it highlights the emotions behind what propelled the creation ‘Sesame Street.’ I recommend bringing some tissues with you.
cp13PDd63PQFhrja5Vsw34

Marilyn Agrelo spoke to Moviefone about her involvement in the project and what she hopes audiences come away with after they watch it.

Moviefone: How did you first get involved with this project?
Marilyn Agrelo: I was hired to direct a little video for Sesame Street. It was a music video with Ernie. I was so excited to work with The Muppets. After the shoot I posted a picture of myself with Ernie on Facebook. Trevor Crafts who had optioned the book and was looking for a director saw my post. We had been friends for over twenty years, so it was this wonderful coincidence.

MF: Were you already a fan of The Muppets and Sesame Street?
MA: Yeah. I mean, of course The Muppets, as with most people, were something that I loved. I was a fan of Sesame Street before, but once I became involved with this project I became a fan in a totally different way. I learned so many things I had not known before that were so interesting. Like that it had come out of the Civil Rights Movement. It really took on another dimension.

MF: What was the research process like in using so much archival footage?
MA: Several of my main characters had died, so it was impossible to have interviews with them. It was really through their families that I got archival pictures. Like with Jon Stone, for example, I got some home movies. Also, we had an archival producer named Rich Remsberg, who did an amazing job of finding a lot of obscure pieces of footage from the time. Like the public service announcement that was shot in Harlem that gave Jon Stone the idea for the brownstone setting. The footage of the Sesame Street show itself was the easiest because that we got directly from the Sesame Workshop. Back in 1981 somebody from the crew had started to make a documentary about Sesame Street, so there was already like 15 hours of 16 mm beautiful behind-the-scenes footage. The stuff when you see Jim Henson and Frank Oz working with the puppets, when you see the puppeteers working, a lot of that came from that amazing footage that nobody had seen before.

MF: What was the editing process like?
MA: The first cut of the film was probably about four hours long. But that’s the process, right? Even before starting the project it was so massive, so a few decisions were made. We’re going to structure this from the three main characters: Joan Ganz Cooney, Jim Henson, and Jon Stone. And keep it very focused, like every story thread comes from one of those three. The biggest decision was to limit the story to the first twenty years of Sesame Street. So it goes from the inception to like 1990, right after Jim Henson died. That way it wasn’t this super unwieldy thing. And then there were a few themes: racial justice, working with inner city kids, what it did for their families.

MF: How did you source the early Henson commercials featured?
MA: We got in touch with the Henson Company, because they hold all the archives of everything Henson has done. He had done some art films that were beautiful, but since the storyline was about teaching kids using the methods of commercials we honed in on that. You could almost see Kermit and some of the later Muppets in the face of these little puppets he had in these early commercials. So we found a few that were just kind of hilarious. They were violent. I can only imagine what people thought of them in the 60s when these coffee commercials came on and these puppets were hitting each other over the head to sell coffee. But they were a hit!

MF: What do you hope people take away from this film?
MA: To me the biggest message of this movie is that art, in all of its forms, has the power to really change the world. In the case of ‘Sesame Street’, they set out to use music, puppets, animation, little films, all of these things to reach kids that really needed them. Their whole mission was to go to the inner city, and really to reach Black kids in the inner city, and they used this medium of television and creativity to change the world. I think that when ‘Sesame Street’ came out they really needed this because it was a moment in our country when everything was in turmoil. The Vietnam War was on, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, protests. Now we’re sort of in the same place. We’ve had all these Black Lives Matter protests, the pandemic, and it feels like we’ve lost our way again. I feel so fortunate that this movie is coming out now just to remind us to get back to that place that ‘Sesame Street’ brought out fifty years ago.

MF: Can you recommend another film directed by a woman for our readers to seek out?

Wadjda (directed by Haifaa al-Mansour) and Capernaum (directed by Nadine Labaki)

‘Wadja’ (left) and ‘Capernaum’ (right)

MA: I really love some of the work of directors that are coming out of countries where women are having a really hard time. There was a great film by a Saudi director about a girl who wanted a bicycle. Haifaa al-Mansour’s ‘Wadjda’ (2012). There’s another film out of Lebanon by Nadine Labaki about a little boy called ‘Capernaum’ (2018). Those two films are great examples of that.

MF: They fit very nicely with this documentary and the importance of stories for children.
MA: There’s something about the lens through which kids see things that is so pure. It’s such a special thing. In my first documentary ‘Mad Hot Ballroom’ it captures this moment in time when you’re not jaded yet. You’re still open to everything really. I think for that and for many reasons I feel happy that this film, ‘Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street,’ is finally hitting theaters. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been working on this film for quite a while. The pandemic was a big obstacle, as it was for everyone, I’m just thrilled to get it out there.
smUbSlMaCfu09mnSQ1aXQ3 XzcTI9bOXYGUj1wLhMLtV3
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street is now in theaters.

April 24, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Jeanne Jordan, Steven Ascher talk ‘Our Towns,’ plus ‘Harlan County, U.S.A.’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features the new documentary ‘Our Towns,’ an interview with co-directors Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan, and a suggestion to pair it with Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning doc ‘Harlan County, USA’.

‘Our Towns’ (2021) – Co-Directed by Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher

Journalists Deborah and James Fallows in ‘Our Towns’

After getting her start in public television, Jeanne Jordan founded West City Films with her husband Steven Ascher. Together they produce moving and deeply humanist documentaries about the American experience. The filmmaking duo received an Academy Award nomination for their 1995 film ‘Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern,’ which follows Jordan’s family’s struggle to save their Iowa farm.

Based on the nonfiction book of the same name by journalists James and Deborah Fallows, ‘Our Towns’ sets out to paint a portrait of modern small town America. The documentary follows the Fallows as they set on a journey that takes them from the sun soaked hellscape that is the Inland Empire in California to the wettest and most remote part of Maine. The cities vary in size from a population of 216,000 all the way to one that is only 1,300, and what’s most fascinating about the documentary is the way they are able to show how despite the size differences, the struggles of these towns share commonalities. They explore how the economic recession, immigration restrictions, and even automation have affected the populations and job markets in these areas. One tidbit I found particularly interesting was the assertion that the number of breweries in a town was a good gauge on how well it is doing economically. Those who grew up in a small town (hello) will find themselves nodding their heads a lot, and the rest of you might get some insight and information that changes how you look at small town America.

‘Our Towns’ is available on HBO and HBOMax
xkLfqjwikJcsczpzAblwn6

Read on for an interview with ‘Our Towns’ co-directors Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher

Movifone: How did you get involved in this project?
Steven Ascher: James and Deborah Fallows wrote a book called ‘Our Towns’ and HBO optioned it. They called us and asked if we’d like to try to make a film from it. We had been longtime admires of their writing and when we met them we thought they were terrific. So we set off to try to express it as a movie.

MF: Did you have any specific kind of cameras or lens that you used to capture the vibrancy of some of these locations?
SA: We had a whole range of cameras. Bryan Harvey and I shot it together, and we used Sony FS7s for some of it. Bryan has a Mōvi rig, which is a stabilizer, which allows him to move around very fluidly on the ground. We also used a drone to get higher altitudes. We used Go-Pro cameras that we could attach inside the plane and outside the plane. We really had quite a lot of tools at our disposal.

MF: Can you talk about how the editing process helps you take all the footage you have and make it into something cohesive?
SA: One of the trickiest things in this film was to take all these disparate stories in different towns and try to make it feel like it had a flow, that these ideas moved from one to the other and that there was a kind of logic to the film. Always one of the hardest things in documentaries is to take the footage, and you have a reason for shooting it, but once you see it in the edit each thing has to build on the thing before. That takes a while. This film took about a year to edit.
Jeanne Jordan: There were much longer cuts than we ended up being able to put on the air. We knew that people only have a certain tolerance for how long a documentary should be. We were really trying to keep it to the point where you would constantly be interested but you didn’t feel like you’d been watching for too long. We had to lose some unbelievable stories in doing that. Which is the hardest part of editing, especially when people have given you so much of their time. Ending on the “cutting room floor” is not where we want anyone to end up. It was a very difficult decision making process.

MF: Did you always know you would end in Bend, Oregon?
SA: Bend is an interesting town because it was a very successful timber town and then in the 80s timber crashed and they had the highest unemployment rate in the country. They then reinvented themselves as a tourist town. So we wanted to really look at them at the end of the journey as a kind of success story. They are what a lot of other towns wish they were. But also to look at how success has benefits and costs. Bend is grappling with growth and high real estate prices and how that affects the community. So we knew that Bend was going to be the last stop.

MF: You show the resilience of these towns, but also how many of them are losing their character to strip malls. How did you come to that as an ending?
SA: Traveling around the country to do this film was a constant reminder of both how incredibly beautiful this country is and also how ruined a lot of the landscape has become. Also, how individual the towns are and then how uniform they can be with the strip malls. The contradictions there really hit you when you travel around. We really wanted to honor the beauty of the landscape, but also note that if we aren’t careful we’re going to destroy that.
JJ: It was really important to us to not just tell one side of the story, but to really give a full picture of what is actually in our country.

MF: Can you recommend another film directed or co-directed by a woman for readers to seek out?
SA: Since it’s in discussion right now, ‘Nomadland’ is such a wonder film. What is particularly interesting is that it kind of blends fiction and documentary. There is so much of real life and real people’s lives infused in the storytelling there. Chloé Zhao, who directed it, didn’t create a new format but really blended documentary and fiction in a beautiful way.

Harlan County, USA (1976) – Directed by Barbara Kopple

A scene from ‘Harlan County, U.S.A.’

Since I’ve covered Zhao’s films a few times now, I thought I’d throw in a recommendation for Barbara Kopple’s timeless Oscar-winning masterpiece ‘Harlan County, USA.’ Shot on a shoestring budget, the documentary follows the 1973 Brookside Strike against the Duke Power Company’s Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, Kentucky. Kopple and her crew embedded in the community, which included 180 workers and their wives, for over a year as the strike continued. The stirring footage includes everything from miners suffering from black lung to strikers being shot on the picket line. Special emphasis is put on the strength of the women in the community to keep families together, but also to push the strike in the direction it needs to go. Kopple also features folk music from the area, crafting a film that is not only a potent piece of political filmmaking, but also an ethnography for a region and its people. As labor issues and union-busting continue to be a huge problem in this country, ‘Harlan County, USA’ remains as vital now as it ever was.

‘Harlan County, USA’ is available on HBOMax and The Criterion Channel
20527

April 16, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Charlène Favier’s ‘Slalom’ & Chloé Zhao’s ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features a look at the new film ‘Slalom’, plus an interview with director and co-writer Charlène Favier.

‘Slalom’ (2020) – Directed and co-written by Charlène Favier

Noée Abita as Lyz in ‘Slalom’

At age 24 Charlène Favier started a production company called Charlie Bus Production. She studied acting at the Jacques Le Coq School in London and directing at the Astoria Studio in New York. She has directed four narrative shorts and a documentary. ‘Slalom’ is her first feature film.

Selected for the cancelled 2020 Cannes Film Festival, ‘Slalom’ follows Lyz, a 15-year-old girl who is training to become an Olympic athlete specifically a slalom skier. With her father out of the picture and her mother starting a new job in Marseilles, Lyz lives alone. She struggles to balance her schoolwork with her intense training. Finding a mentor in her trainer Fred (Jérémie Renier), their relationship escalates in a way that Lyz is not prepared for and does not fully understand. Anchored by Noée Abita’s first performance, ‘Slalom’ is an empathetic look at the struggles of teenage girls, as well as a searing condemnation of the way in which adults often take advantage of uneven power dynamics.

‘Slalom’ is out now in virtual cinemas through KinoMarquee.com. It is also playing at the Quad Cinema in New York City and Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica and Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.
QbRCMIOozsI4VCLRGJbLG

Read on for an interview with ‘Slalom’ director/co-writer Charlène Favier

Moviefone: What was the initial inspiration for this film?

Charlène Favier: The story came from my memories and experiences. It was really a necessity to make this film. It was also a therapy for me, this five year process of writing and shooting and editing. Telling this story was really important to me. I was in a writing workshop in La Fémis cinema school, which is a cinema school in Paris. I knew a little bit of what I was writing because I always tell the same story in my short films. Not about sexual abuse, but about resilience, about a young heroine who tries to find her identity. The sexual abuse story came afterwards. I was very shy to talk about that, but the students around me and my teacher, and later my producer told me, “you are telling a story about sexual abuse in sports.” I was really, really afraid of this idea. I didn’t realize what I was writing. It was really just coming out of me on my computer. I couldn’t keep it in me. When I started to write about that, I had to tell everything.

MF: How did you cast Noée Abita?

CF: I discovered Noée Abita who plays Lyz in ‘Ava‘ [directed by Léa Mysius]. She had the wild side I was looking for. She was shy, she was fragile and at the same time she was really powerful. That’s what instinctively saw in her. Before shooting my feature, because we didn’t have the money to shoot it right away, I decided to shoot a short film [‘Odol Gorri’]. I asked Noée to pay Eva in it, a character that was very similar to Lyz. It was a way for me to test out how directing would be, the mise-en-scène, and a way for me to test out filming the abuse scene. We became straight away like sisters. It was a really powerful relationship we built making that short. It was very natural for us to meet. It was something cosmic. Something from the universe to bring us together and tell this story.

MF: Can you talk a little about casting Jérémie Renier as Fred?

CF: Jérémie I knew for a long time. I love his work. I think he really acts with his body. He is able to really enter into his characters. He transforms himself the way American actors do, which I don’t see enough with French actors. So he is able to play contradictory characters. With this character there are some sides to him which are teenage like, and yet are also so grave and so harsh. For Noée it was the same thing, so the three of us we became really a trio. We were like brothers and sisters, like siblings.

MF: How did you shoot the skiing sequences?

CF: It was all from the point of view of Lyz. On the skis I really wanted to be with her. I want to film the sensation; the vertigo and fear, but also the joy of sliding on the snow. We had cameramen who followed Lyz and ski next to her, filming the movements. There was also a lot of work in post-production to get this feeling because it has a lot to do with the sound. The sound of the ski, the sound of the breeze, the breathing. I really wanted the viewers to be with her.

MF: Were there any visual inspirations for the film?

CF: Mostly I looked at art and photography for the light, like Edward Hopper and Todd Hido or Bill Viola, but his is more experimental visual art. I am more inspired by photography and art than cinema, but I have to say I am very inspired by Jane Campion. Her cinema that puts emotion next to nature is very organic and instinctual. That is something that inspires me a lot.

MF: What do you hope audiences take away from the film?

CF: I think it’s very important that the viewer experience this story through Lyz’s eyes. I want them to feel what a 15-year-old girl goes through so that they will understand the importance of being able to say no, to be able to respect oneself, to be able to then tell the world who you are. I didn’t want to pass any judgement. I want for people to be able to get into Lyz’s body and to be with her as goes through these experiences.

MF: Can you recommend a film directed by a woman that readers should seek out?

CF: I’m always going to recommend Jane Campion. ‘The Piano‘ is a fantastic movie that I could watch over and over. I also love her television show ‘Top of the Lake.’ I adore it. It’s magnificent. A few other unique films that I adore I saw at the Deauville Film Festival a few years ago, the first two films of Chloé Zhao: ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’ and ‘The Rider’.

‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’ (2015) – Written and Directed by Chloé Zhao

Irene Bedard, John Reddy, and Jashaun St. John in ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’

Zhao’s debut film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, before screening at the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival that same year. Set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the film follows teen siblings Jashaun Winters (Jashaun St. John) and Johnny Winters (John Reddy), whose father has just died in a house fire. At his funeral they discover he had 25 children with nine different women. Johnny is counting down the days until he graduates from high school with plans to move to Los Angeles with his girlfriend, while Jashaun comes of age observing the struggles of those around her. Zhao uses non-professional actors to tell her story, partnering with cinematographer Joshua James Richards to capture the wild beauty of western skies. ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’ is a lyrical, emotionally rich debut from a visionary talent.

You can learn more about Chloé Zhao in this previous column about her most recent film, the Oscar-nominated ‘Nomadland’.
20073040

April 9, 2021
Female Filmmakers in Focus: Emma Seligman’s ‘Shiva Baby’ & Carly Stone’s ‘The New Romantic’

Welcome to Female Filmmakers in Focus, where you will find a recommendation for films directed by women to seek out each week. This week features a couple of films about sugar babies: Emma Seligman’s coming-of-age comedy ‘Shiva Baby’ and Carly Stone’s romantic comedy ‘The New Romantic’. Plus an interview with writer-director Emma Seligman.

What is a sugar baby? Well, essentially a younger, financially in need person enters a dating-like relationship with an older, more financially well-off person for money, gifts, trips, and other material benefits in exchange for their companionship. With the rise of student loan debt, sugaring is a growing phenomenon among students to pay for secondary education.

‘Shiva Baby’ (2020) – Written and Directed by Emma Seligman

Rachel Sennott in ‘Shiva Baby’

Emma Seligman began her work in film as a critic while she was a teenager. She then attended films school at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Her thesis film, the short version of ‘Shiva Baby,’ was a selection of the 2018 SXSW film festival. She developed the short into a feature film, which debuted at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. It also won Best Screenplay at Outfest. She is currently shopping around a queen teen comedy with Rachel Sennott attached, and developing a television show about sugar babies.

‘Shiva Baby’ follows recent college graduate Danielle (Rachel Sennott), a Jewish bisexual who made up her own degree and hasn’t yet figured out what she plans to do with her life. While sitting shiva for a friend of her parents (Fred Melamed and Polly Draper), she runs into her sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari), his wife Kim (Dianna Agron), and her ex-high school sweetheart Maya (Molly Gordon). This screwball comedy plot is played like a horror film, highlighting Danielle’s mounting claustrophobia. This tension is aided by Ariel Marx’s plucky violin score and cinematographer Maria Rusche’s masterful close-ups. It’s ramped up further by Seligman’s acute observation of interpersonal relationships as revealed through body language, subtle glances, and the subtext that drips from the character’s innocuous dialogue. ‘Shiva Baby’ distills the anxiety of the post-college life crisis into one delightfully bad day.

‘Shiva Baby’ is out now on VOD.
hLPoE0sY2NfojUSGpGXSV3

Read on for an interview with ‘Shiva Baby’ writer/director Emma Seligman

Moviefone: How did you decide to set a story around sugaring?

Emma Seligman: I thought about the two polar opposite ends of my life being represented. One of them being a child at a family event and the other would be the time I tried sugaring. College is sort of permeated now with hookup culture and not having control, wanting someone to commit who won’t, and feeling really invalidated. No one in my generation knows how to communicate. No one wants to be vulnerable; they want to keep the power and be the one who cares less. I think that a sugar relationship was a good way to give a clear picture of those sexual dynamics over one day.

MF: Can you discuss her casting of Rachel Sennott as Danielle?

ES: She was in a bunch of my friends’ thesis films and I watched some sketches she wrote and acted in. I thought she was really funny. She looked like someone really familiar to me, like someone I would run into at a family event. She was a huge reason why the feature happened in terms of her motivation and commitment to making it happen.

MF: How did you come to cast Fred Melamed and Polly Draper?

ES: I offered the role to Fred because of ‘A Serious Man’ and everything else, and he said yes. My mom was always like “Polly Draper must play me!,” and I was like “It’s not you, but sure.” Polly and Fred were friends from Yale School of Drama, which brought this whole other chemistry and relationship to the parents. Polly improvises a lot; Fred doesn’t improvise. It worked between the two of them because they felt so comfortable with each other.

MF: Can you talk a bit about working with Dianna Agron?

ES: She suggested a couple of things, like when they’re questioning if she’s Jewish or not, how Jewish she is, or her dad being Jewish. Diana as a Jewish person has often had her Jewishness questioned because of her looks and because her mom converted.

MF: Ariel Marx’s score sets a distinct horror movie vibe. How did you two arrive at that?

ES: I wanted to make sure that the score allowed the audience to understand that we should just be with Danielle and her anxiety. Score can lead into drama and the emotions, or it can lean into comedy or romance; I wanted it to lean into just her anxiety. I kept saying the word anxiety, so Ariel sent me a library of violin sounds. I picked my favorite, and she told me that everything I chose put together was a horror score.

MF: Were there visual references you discussed or specific lenses used to achieve Maria Rusche’s claustrophobic cinematography?

ES: I showed her movies that I thought were really claustrophobic and anxiety inducing like ‘Krisha,’ ‘A Woman Under The Influence,’ ‘Opening Night,’ and ‘Black Swan.’ She suggested we should shoot on anamorphic lenses. Basically they curve the frame in a way that sometimes makes it feel like a fun house it’s so clear it’s distorted. The ones that she chose just delicately distort the frame. They make it look like the walls are caving in just slightly, while still being able to see everything in the frame and have everything in focus. Those made a significant difference in achieving that look.

MF: What do you hope audiences take away from the film?

ES: Beyond being entertained in a really dark time, I hope young women feel seen in the contrasting and conflicting pressure put on them. I hope other people understand that it feels like a horror movie sometimes to be a young woman.

‘The New Romantic’ (2018) – Written and Directed by Carly Stone

Jessica Barden in ‘The New Romantic’

Inspired by the work of Nora Ephron, Sofia Coppola, and Joey Soloway (Transparent), writer-director Carly Stone attended the American Film Institute. She worked as a writer on the Canadian sitcom ‘Kim’s Convenience’ before making her directorial debut with ‘The New Romantic’. Shot in just 18 days, the film had its world premiere at the 2018 South by Southwest film festival where she was awarded a Special Jury Recognition for First Feature. Stone is currently in pre-production on an adaptation of Cea Sunrise Person’s memoir ‘North of Normal’ with Margaret Qualley attached to star.

In the ‘The New Romantic’ college student Blake (an irrepressible Jessica Barden) writes a column on dating for the school newspaper called The Hopeless Romantic. That is until it’s cancelled for being “too boring.” Out one night with best friend Nikki (Hayley Law), Blake accidentally swaps her ID with a fellow student Morgan (Camilla Mendes), who she learns is a sugar baby. Jealous of fellow journalist Jacob (Brett Dier), who has entered a contest for gonzo journalism, Blake interviews Morgan and then decides to try sugaring herself. While these new experiences invigorate her column, shenanigans ensue as Blake balances life with her sugar daddy, a wealthy older professor named Ian (Timm Sharp), and her newfound feelings for Jacob. The film’s trio of women each give game performances showing that there are many facets to the female college experience. Mike McLaughlin’s cinematography, a contrast of brightly lit days and neon-filled nights, fits the film perfectly into Gen Z instagram aesthetics. Writer-director Carly Stone uses rom-com tropes to explore the complexities of journalistic ethics, contemporary sexual mores, and the age-old pursuit of accepting one’s true self.

‘The New Romantic’ is available on Netflix.

April 2, 2021