KUCI: Film School

Author: The JT Leroy Story: / Film School interview with Jeff Feuerzeig

On January 9, 2006 the New York Times sent shockwaves through the literary world when it unmasked "it boy" wunderkind JT LeRoy, whose tough prose about his sordid childhood had captivated icons and luminaries internationally. It turned out LeRoy didn't actually exist. He was dreamed up by 40­-year-­old San Francisco punk rocker and phone sex operator, Laura Albert. Director Jeff Feuerzeig’s AUTHOR: THE JT LEROY STORY takes us down the infinitely fascinating rabbit hole of how Laura Albert - ­like a Cyrano de Bergerac on steroids - breathed not only words, but life, into her avatar for a decade. Albert's epic and entertaining account plunges us into a glittery world of rock shows, fashion events, and the Cannes red carpet where LeRoy becomes a mysterious sensation. As she recounts this astonishing odyssey, Albert also reveals the intricate web spun by irrepressible creative forces within her. Her extended and layered JT LeRoy performance still infuriates many; but for Albert, channeling her brilliant fiction through another identity was the only possible path to self­-expression. Director Jeff Feuerzeig join us for a lively conversation on how Laura’s life, her traumas and innate brilliance made JT Leroy such a hugely fascinating saga, on and off the screen.
For news and updates go to: jtleroydocumentary.com
Author: JT Leroy Story Distributor Magnolia Pictures

100 Years / Film School interview with Director Melinda Janko

With the current coverage of the North Dakota Pipeline Protest, we are shown how the sacred lands of Native Americans in the United States are constantly being destroyed for capital and economic gain with the government failing to protect these tribal lands. In the new documentary 100 YEARS, we see another similar story come to the forefront when Elouise Cobell from the Blackfeet tribe in Montana discovers that the United States government has been mismanaging funds and the lands and exploiting the Blackfeet reservation. Many of the Blackfeet tribe members could see the oil being pumped out from their land on a daily basis. But they saw barely a few dollars from the millions that was being made from their land’s natural resources. It was with the fierceness and dedication that Elouise Cobell embarked on a 30 year fight with the U.S. government that lead her to file the largest class action lawsuit in the history of the United States Government. 100 YEARS is her story! Below is more information on the theatrical release of this important film and event in our own American history. Director Melinda Jenko joins for a conversation on the indignities and the injustice that Native Americans continue to suffer under an oppressive and unethical federal government.
For news and updates go to:100yearsthemovie.com

Cameraperson / Film School interview with Kirsten Johnson

What does it mean to film another person? How does it affect that person - and what does it do to the one who films? A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home: these scenes and others are woven into Cameraperson, a tapestry of footage captured over the twenty-five-year career of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Through a series of episodic juxtapositions, Johnson explores the relationships between image makers and their subjects, the tension between the objectivity and intervention of the camera, and the complex interaction of unfiltered reality and crafted narrative. A work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is both a moving glimpse into one filmmaker’s personal journey and a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world. Director and subject Kirsten Johnson stops by to talk about her career, what inspires her, the power of the image and often conflicting realities of documentary filmmaking.
For news and updates go to: camerapersonfilm.com

Little Men / Film School interview with Director Ira Sachs

When 13-year-old Jake's (Theo Taplitz) grandfather dies, his family moves from Manhattan back into his father's old Brooklyn home. There, Jake befriends the charismatic Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose single mother Leonor (Paulina Garcia, Gloria), a dressmaker from Chile, runs the shop downstairs. Soon, Jake's parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) -- one, a struggling actor, the other, a psychotherapist -- ask Leonor to sign a new, steeper lease on her store. For Leonor, the proposed new rent is untenable, and a feud ignites between the adults. At first, Jake and Tony don't seem to notice; the two boys, so different on the surface, begin to develop a formative kinship as they discover the pleasures of being young in Brooklyn. Jake aspires to be an artist, while Tony wants to be an actor, and they have dreams of going to the same prestigious arts high school together. But the children can't avoid the problems of their parents forever, and soon enough, the adult conflict intrudes upon the borders of their friendship. Director and co-writer Ira Sachs (Love is Strange, Keep the Lights On, Forty Shades of Blue) with his trademark humanism and insight, Little Men highlights the New York City landscape with a story of life-defining friendships in the midst of familial turmoil. He joins us for a conversation on his latest cinematic gem.
For news and updates go to:littlemenfilm.com

Operation Avalanche / Film School interview with Director Matt Johnson and Producer Matthew Miller

1967: the height of the Cold War, Tte CIA suspects there is a Russian mole inside of NASA, sabotaging the Apollo program. They send two young agents on a mission to go undercover, posing as documentary filmmakers to capture NASA’s race to the moon. The real mission – use their access and technology to hunt down the leak. But what they discover is far more shocking than soviet spies… Their government may be hiding a secret about Apollo that could define the decade, and the White House will stop at nothing to silence anyone who learns it. Operation Avalanche, Director Matt Johnson’s follow-up to the widely-acclaimed The Dirties, is another fake documentary film starring Johnson and collaborator Owen Williams, once again as young would-be filmmakers. This time, though, the DV cameras and school-shooting plot are swapped out for 16mm and the faking of the moon landing. Director Matt Johnson and Producer Matthew Miller join us for a conversation on the inspiration for Operation Avalanche , striking the right tone and the wide variety of reactions of filmgoers to the “conspiracy.”
For news and updates go to: operation-avalanche

When Two Worlds Collide / Film School interview with co-director Heidi Brandenburg

In this tense and immersive tour de force film, When Two Worlds Collide, audiences are taken directly into the line of fire between powerful, opposing Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing to keep their respective goals intact. On the one side is President Alan Garcia, who, eager to enter the world stage, begins aggressively extracting oil, minerals, and gas from untouched indigenous Amazonian land. He is quickly met with fierce opposition from indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whose impassioned speeches against Garcia’s destructive actions prove a powerful rallying cry to throngs of his supporters. When Garcia continues to ignore their pleas, a tense war of words erupts into deadly violence. Co-director Heidi Brandenburg (Mathew Orzel) joins us to talk about the physically arduous and personally dangerous challenges they faced in making this dynamic and compelling film.
For news and updates go to: whentwoworldscollide.com
Opening Friday, September 16th at the Laemmle Monica Film Center

The If Project / Film School interview with director Kathlyn Horan

n 2008, Seattle police detective Kim Bogucki walked through the gates of the Washington Corrections Center for Women, intent on asking a group of mothers for permission to work with their school-aged daughters in a Girl Scouts Beyond Bars troop for girls with incarcerated parents. On that day, Bogucki asked the mothers a critical question: “If there was something someone could have said or done that would have changed the path that led you here, what would it have been?” For one of the inmates in particular, this question struck a chord; Renata Abramson, a repeat offender serving a nine-year sentence. In the days that followed, Renata took it upon herself to answer that question inthe-if-project-kim-and-renata writing, and invited her fellow prisoners to do the same. When Bogucki returned to prison a month later, Renata handed her a stack of raw and poignant essays and The IF Project was born. In the United States, there are over 6.8 million people in prison, jail, on probation or parole. That is 1 in every 35 adults. Perhaps even more alarming is that women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, increasing at nearly double the rate of men since 1985. Director Kathlyn Horan joins us for a conversation on the challenges, the disappointments and the rewards that have been part of the 8-year odyssey behind the making of The If Project.
BROADCAST PREMIERE: Premiering on Logo on Wednesday, September 14 at 8pm ET/PT,
For news and updates go to: theifprojectmovie.com

Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering / Film School interview with Director Eric Merola

The War On Cancer, launched in the early 1970s, set the stage for a massive influx of new ideas in fighting the disease of cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Americas leading cancer research center at the time, was assigned the task of testing an unconventional therapy called Laetrile in an effort to curb the publics false hope in the alleged quack therapy. Ralph W. Moss PhD, a young and eager science writer, was hired by Sloan-Ketterings public relations department in 1974 to help brief the American public on the centers contribution to the War On Cancer. One of his first assignments was to write a biography about Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the Centers oldest and leading research scientists as well as the original co-inventor of chemotherapy. While meeting with this iconic scientist to pen a biography on his 60-year career at Sloan-Kettering, Moss discovered that Sugiura had been studying this quack remedy in laboratory mice, and with unexpectedly positive results. Director Eric Merola stops by Film School to talk about what happens when money, power and idealism converge.
Director Eric Merola will participate in Q&A's after the 6 and 8 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, September 5 and 6, and after the 4:05 and 6 PM screenings on Sunday, September 7 at the Laemmle Music Hall 3 in Los Angeles.

Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny / Film School interview with co-directors Louis Black and Karen Bernstein

Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny takes the viewer from the Academy Awards for the acclaimed, Boyhood, and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Linklater’s latest film, Everybody Wants Some. Throughout the film, Richard Linklater himself addresses his own life at mid-career point, at times while embarrassed and shy. He tells of the influential array of filmmakers, playwrights and criminals that continue to form his own independent work, and the philosophical modalities which have guided the path; all in conversation with Louis Black, an Austin-based journalist who has known him since the 1980’s. Other interviews include Ethan Hawke, Jack Black, Jonathan Demme, Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Adair and Julie Delpy, members of the Linklater family, Clark Walker and more. Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny was produced for PBS’ American Masters series is an unusual look at a fiercely independent style of filmmaking that arose from Austin, Texas in the 1980s/ early 90’s. It is an unconventional look at how Linklater’s films of that period, Slacker, Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise, sparked a low budget, in your own backyard movement in this country and around the world. Co-directors and co-producers Louis Black and Karen Bernstein joins us for a spirited conversation on what makes Richard run, the early days of the Austin film scene and how Linklater has influenced and mentored many of the independent film world’s brightest talents.
For news and updates go to: linklaterdoc.com

Abortion: Stories Women Tell / Film School interview with director Tracy Droz Tragos

In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade recognized the right of every woman in the United States to have an abortion. Since 2011, over half the states in the nation have significantly restricted access to abortions. In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year sees more restrictions. Awarding-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue with a focus not tracy-droz-tragoson the debate, but rather on the women themselves – those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue hoping to sway decisions and lives. Tragos’ illuminating documentary Abortion: Stories Women Tell offers an intimate window into the lives of these women through their personal stories. Some are heartbreaking and tender some are bleak and frightening; some women, on both sides of the issue, find the choice easy to make due to their own circumstances and beliefs, while others simply inform us of the strength and capacity of women to overcome and persevere through complicated and unexpected circumstances. Director and producer Tracy Droz Tragos joins us for a conversation on one of the most contentious and intractable issues facing women and her beautifully balanced, heart wrenching and moving documentary.
For news and updates go to: storieswomentell.com