KUCI: Film School

Ali and Cavett: Tale of the Tapes / Film School interview with Dick Cavett

With its upcoming premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes directed by Robert S. Bader tells the extraordinary story of a famous friendship played out before a captivated national audience Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes, directed by Robert S. Bader, shares the rich history of the Muhammed Ali and Dick Cavett’s relationship that spanned decades and late night TV. From his 1960’s Olympic Gold Medal win, the heavyweight championship against Sonny Liston in 1964, to joining the Nation of Islam, refusing induction into the United States Army, and his legendarily epic battles in the ring with Joe Frazier and George Foreman, Muhammad Ali remained a unique and powerful force of nature in our popular culture. More than any sports documentary, this unique film deeply delves into hotly contended political and social matters that remain equally as relevant today. Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes Director Robert S. Bader produced the acclaimed documentaries Dick Cavett’s Watergate and Dick Cavett’s Vietnam for PBS. He is the writer and producer of the Warner Bros. documentary The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk, and the author of Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage. Legendary television host Dick Cavett joins us to talk about his 53-year relationship with “the greatest of all time,” Muhammad Ali.
Check out the SXSW screening schedule for Ali & Cavett: Tale of the Tapes

Oh Lucy! / FIlm School interview with Director Atsuko Hirayanagi

Oh Lucy! follows Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima in an Independent Spirit Award-nominated performance), a single, emotionally unfulfilled woman, seemingly stuck with a drab, meaningless life in Tokyo. At least until she's convinced by her niece, Mika to enroll in an unorthodox English class that requires her to wear a blonde wig and take on an American alter ego named "Lucy." This new identity awakens something dormant in Setsuko, and she quickly develops romantic feelings for her American instructor, John (Josh Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears from class and Setsuko learns that he and her niece were secretly dating, Setsuko enlists the help of her sister, Ayako and the pair fly halfway across the world to the outskirts of Southern California in search of the runaway couple. In a brave new world of tattoo parlors and seedy motels, family ties and past lives are tested as Setsuko struggles to preserve the dream and promise of “Lucy.” Director Atsuko Hirayanagi (Spirit Award nominee for Best First Feature) joins us for a conversation on the challenges of making her  multi-cultural comedy / drama and working with the film’s Executive Producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.
For news and updates go to: ohlucyfilm.com

Heroin(e) / Film School interview with Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon

Heroin(e) focuses on the once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, West Virginia. Huntington has become the epicenter of America’s modern opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the national average. This flood of heroin now threatens this Appalachian city with a cycle of generational addiction, lawlessness, and poverty. But within this distressed landscape, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Hollow) shows a different side of the fight against drugs -- one of hope. Sheldon highlights three women working to change the town’s narrative and break the devastating cycle of drug abuse one person at a time. Fire Chief Jan Rader spends the majority of her days reviving those who have overdosed; Judge Patricia Keller presides over drug court, handing down empathy along with orders; and Necia Freeman of Brown Bag Ministry feeds meals to the women selling their bodies for drugs. As America’s opioid crisis threatens to tear communities apart, the Netflix original short documentary HEROIN(E) shows how the chain of compassion holds one town together. Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a Peabody Award winning, Emmy nominated filmmaker and now Oscar nominated from West Virginia. HEROIN(E) was produced in association with the Berkeley-based Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), as part of a new initiative to support women filmmakers. In 2016, Chicken & Egg Pictures awarded her with the inaugural "Breakthrough Filmmaker" award. Sheldon was a 2013 Future of Storytelling Fellow, and named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2013 by Filmmaker Magazine and one of "50 People Changing The South" in 2015 by Southern Living Magazine. She has also contributed several shorts to The New York Times Op-Docs. She joins us to talk about her clear-eyed, bracing film that shines a bright and intimate light on an epidemic that is destroying large swaths of American society.
For news and updates go to: heroinethefilm.com
* 2018 Oscar nominated Documentary Short Program

Purdah / Film School interview Director Jeremy Guy

Being in a Muslim family in modern day India can sometimes be a struggle for 20-year-old Kaikasha and her two sisters. Their father wants them to wear burkas and to have arranged marriages, but these determined young women have dreams of their own. This beautiful and rousing story follows Kaikasha in her quest to be the first Muslim on the Mumbai women’s cricket team and then follows her into a corridor of uncertainty after a shocking turn of events changes the fate of her family. You’ll want to cheer for Kaikasha and her sisters as they courageously respond to the circumstances that threaten to undermine their dreams. Director Jeremy Guy joins us for a conversation on this insightful and inspiring story of female empowerment through sport, against a background of religious and cultural roadblocks.

5 Doctors / Film School interview with Co-Directors Matt Porter and Max Azulay

5 Doctors follows Spencer, a miserable young stand-up comedian and hypochondriac, convinced that he’s dying from a bizarre array of symptoms. After a few years trying to make it in L.A., he’s got nothing to show for his efforts except for a viral YouTube video and an indifferent agent who does most of her business via text. Out of options and armed with a binder full of WebMD printouts, Spencer takes drastic action: he flies cross-country to his quaint hometown in upstate New York to consult with his five childhood doctors in a single day, planning to take the redeye back to L.A. that night without seeing any of his friends or family. Spencer’s unwitting accomplice is Jay, who happily agrees to chauffeur him to his appointments. Tearing through town, eluding his loved ones, Spencer is prodded, dilated, and biopsied into accepting that the cause of his symptoms and his reasons for coming home may be more complicated than he thought. 5 Doctors stars: Matt Porter (“New Timers,”“Hasta La Vista”), Max Azulay (“Argyle,” “First Time”), Emily Walton (“Submission,” “Deliverance”), Bobby Moynihan (“Saturday Night Live,” CBS’ “Me, Myself & I”), Eddie Pepitone (“Old School,” “The Muppets”), Peter Friedman (“Love & Other Drugs,” “Single White Female”), Adam Dannheisser (“Down to Earth,” “Nine Minutes”), Jodi Long (“The Hot Chick,” “Splash”), Jeremy Shamos (“The Big Sick,” “Magic in the Moonlight”), Jordan Baker (“Escape from L.A.,” “Another Earth”),  and Annabelle Zasowski (“The Blacklist,”“Orange is the New Black”). The co-directors Matt Porter and Max Azulay join us to talk about their funny and touching debut feature.
Follow 5 Doctors:
For news and updates go to: https://www.5doctorsfilm.com/
Twitter.com/5doctorsfilm
Facebook.com/5doctorsfilm

The Young Karl Marx / Film School interview with Director Raoul Peck

At the age of 26, Karl Marx (August Diehl; INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, THE COUNTERFEITERS) embarks with his wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps; PHANTOM THREAD) on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris they meet young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske), son of a factory owner and an astute student of the English proletariat class. Engels brings Marx the missing piece to the puzzle that composes his new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and police raids, riots and political upheavals, they will preside over the birth of the labor movement, which until then had been mostly makeshift and unorganized. This will grow into the most complete theoretical and political transformation of the world since the Renaissance – driven, against all expectations, by two brilliant, insolent and sharp-witted young men. In his first film since the Oscar®-nominated documentary I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO, celebrated Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck (LUMUMBA) paints a vivid portrait of another of history’s most influential thinkers with THE YOUNG KARL MARX. A fervently intelligent chronicling of the blood, sweat and debate that went into the creation of a manifesto and a movement, the film premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. Director Raoul Peck joins us for a lively conversation on capturing the essence of a young Marx and Engels relationship, the relevance of Marxism today and the critical reaction to his film.
For news and updates go to: theorchard.tv/the-young-karl-marx
More on Raoul Peck and his films go to: velvet-film.com

Luba / Film School interview with Producer and lead actor Nicole Maroon

Pregnant and newly aware of her runaway husband’s crack addiction – what a fantastic start to motherhood! A young woman trapped in an impossible situation, Luba (Nicole Maroon) strives to turn her life around while juggling a floundering love-life, odd jobs, and custody with a recovering addict. As Luba tries to move forward, her past catches her off guard and pulls her back, farther than ever imaginable. Will she succumb? This powerful story about family bonds shines a bright light on the power of trust, with an unforeseen twist that will leave you speechless. Producer and lead actor Nicole Maroon stops by to talk about her compelling story of a woman running as fast as she can.
For news and updates go to: lubamovie.com
facebook.com/LubaMovie
CINEQUEST (World Premiere) - San Jose, CA
• Sat, Mar 3  4:30 PM  Century 20 Redwood City, CA

Surviors Guide to Prison / Film School interview with Director Matthew Cooke

You’re more likely to go to prison in the United States than any other country in the world, so in the unfortunate case it happens to you, this is the Survivors Guide to Prison. Narrated by Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon, the nonstop film chronicles the stories of two men who spent decades behind bars for murders they did not commit. With additional commentary by activist celebrities like Danny Trejo, Patricia Arquette, Jesse Williams, Ice T, RZA, Busta Rhymes, Tom Morello, Macklemore, B-Real, Deepak Chopra, Warren G and more joining forces to change this broken system, Survivors Guide exposes a failed “punishment model.” Gripping testimony from inmates, guards, staff, police, analysts, lawyers and reformers lend further credibility as documentarian Matthew Cooke examines the system cell by cell and by contrast, the dramatic programs proven to work. Director Matthew Cooke joins us for an honest conversation on a broken and brutal criminal justice system that continues to incarcerated and warehouse use millions of Americans with little to no genuine oversight.
FACEBOOK: @survivorsguidetoprison
TWITTER: @surviveprison
HASHTAGS: #survivorsguidetoprison #cut50

Days of Power / Film School interview with Producer and Writer Michel Grey

Days of Power tells the story of a Swiss pop star who disappears while on tour, along with her assistant, backup singer, and drummer; they find themselves kidnapped, hidden within a concealed puppy mill industry. The film, written and produced by Michel Grey (“Trinity Rising,” “Foreclosure Dogs,” and “Beyond The Bombs”), and the directorial debut from Jason Pagnoni, was inspired by actual events.  The film has received incredible support from multiple rescue groups and animal rights organizations around the country including: Rescue Ohio English Bulldogs, Pacc911, Paws New England, Barcs, Faithful Friends Animal Society, and SPCA of Tennessee. Days of Power stars: Oscar®-nominee Eric Roberts (“The Dark Knight,” “Runaway Train”), Eliza Roberts (“Animal House,” “Doctor Who”), Simone Reyes (”Running Russell Simmons,” “Cemetery High”), award-winner Jenny Hutton (“Boderna Fluff,” “Forgotten Kingdom: Genesis”), award-winning musician/actors Paul Lewis (“Radio Gods,” “Foreclosure Dogs”) and Keaton Simons (“The Legends of Nethiah,” “Feast”). Writer and producer Michel Grey joins us for a conversation on modern horror filmmaking and the hidden scourge of puppy mills.
Follow Days of Power
For news and updates go to: daysofpower.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/daysofpower

Michael Rabehl / FIlm School interview with 2018 Cinequest Film Festival Director of Programming

Cinequest has led the world in its showcase and implementation of the innovations that have revolutionized film making, exhibition and distribution. Over 100,000 attend CQFF, yet the three-block proximity of its state-of-the-art venues along with Cinequest’s renowned hospitality, makes the festival experience as warm and personal as it is electrifying. Cinequest presents over 90 World and U.S. premieres with groundbreaking innovations by 700+ participating filmmakers from over 50 countries each year. Set in the home of the world’s most influential media technology companies (Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, LinkedIn etc.) CQFF showcases premier films, renowned and emerging artists, and breakthrough technology—empowering global connectivity between creators, innovators and audiences. Michael Rabehl has been a member of the Cinequest team since 1994. As the Director of Programming he manages the film selection process for the festival and supervises the programming teams to create a world class line up of films and guests every year. In his role as the Associate Director he is directly involved with the strategic planning of the festival. Michael joins us to talk about the 2018 Conquest film and virtual reality line-up.
For news and updates go to: cinequest.org
Cinequest Film and Virtual Reality Film Festival February 27 – March 11, 2018