KUCI: Film School

Anxious Nation / Film School Radio interview with Co-directors Vanessa Roth & Laura Morton

ANXIOUS NATION, a new documentary that takes a deep look into the crisis of anxiety and mental health in America, especially its crippling impact on kids and families, will host a worldwide, premiere livestream event on May 3, 2023. The riveting and introspective feature documentary is directed by Academy Award© winner Vanessa Roth (Freeheld), and co-directed, written and produced by 21-time New York Times Bestselling Author and first-time filmmaker, Laura Morton. This global rally uniting people around the world will include a film screening and important conversations with leading voices and experts of the mental health movement, including Executive Producer Kathy Ireland, Roth, Morton and cast members Tim Storey and Lynn Lyons along with other special guests to be announced. ANXIOUS NATION delves into the crisis of mental health and anxiety in America, while focusing on subjects ages 11-26 and their families. This unabashedly honest and insightful film provides audiences with a raw and intimate look into the lives of families and kids grappling with anxiety and the duality of how their parents are trying to understand and help. Co-directors Laura Morton, Vanessa Roth and Executive Producer Kathy Ireland, all moms themselves, tenderly share the vulnerability of these families in an effort to help others who are currently struggling with similar issues in private.
For more go to: AnxiousNation.com

Nomad / Film School Radio interview with Director & Founder of TXL Films Taron Lexton

Acclaimed writer/director and founder of indie production company TXL Films, Taron Lexton. Most recently, Lexton and TXL wrapped production on their most ambitious indie feature yet, NOMAD. Starring “White Lotus” Breakout Leo Woodall, the film was shot entirely on location across 26 countries with its 2 lead actors, using no sets, green screens or cinema lights and a traveling crew of just 8 people. NOMAD tells the story of a mysterious loner (Woodall) with a bizarre condition that takes him inexplicably to the ends of the earth. When he crosses paths with a stifled city girl (Sana’a Shaik), they are plunged into a fight for survival that takes them across every continent. This feature narrative encapsulates Lexton’s signature visual aesthetic and emotionally charged storytelling. Lexton founded TXL Films with the ethos to focus on unique and humanity-driven stories that connect us to each other and to the world. Since its launch in 2004, he and TXL have filmed in over 55 countries, including all 7 continents, been awarded by more than 100 film festivals, screened out of competition at Cannes, and Lexton’s personal humanitarian projects earned him the United Nations Award of Excellence. Director, producer. writer and cinematographer Taron Lexton joins us to talk about his interest in showcasing people and their stories from every corner of the world, inspiration that he has drawn from his mother’s work in protecting and expanding human rights across the globe, founding his own production company and his ambitious new project, NOMAD.
For more on NOMAD go to: taronlexton.com

32 Sounds / Film School Radio interview with Director Sam Green

32 SOUNDS is an immersive feature documentary and profound sensory experience from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground, A Thousand Thoughts) featuring original music by JD Samson (Le Tigre, MEN). The film explores the elemental phenomenon of sound by weaving together 32 specific sound explorations into a cinematic meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. Filmmaker Green takes the audience on a journey through time and space and into the world of experimental musician Annea Lockwood (her Piano Burning performance captured the sounds of a piano on fire) suggests -- as she records “wild” sounds from a marsh in New York — that we should be listening with the environment, rather than to it. A freewheeling exploration of how sound shapes and moves us, the film is “full to bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity...a uniquely mind-expanding plunge into a dimension of the human experience so many of us take for granted, a rare and rewarding sonic journey. 32 SOUNDS investigates the mysterious nature of perception and the subtle yet radical politics that arise from sensation and being present in one’s body. Director Sam Green known for such films as A Thousand Thoughts, and his Academy Award nominated film Weather Underground joins us for a conversation on his collaboration with electronic musician JD Samson, as well as how he went about gathering all the samples sounds, ranging from the sounds inside the womb, the mating call of a now-extinct bird, the audio effects created by a Hollywood Foley artist, the hush of snow falling in Japan, and John Cage’s famed piece, “4:33.”
For more go to: abramorama.com/film/32-sounds

Cadejo Blanco / Film School Radio interview with Director Justin Lerner

Award-winning filmmaker Justin Lerner’s latest work, CADEJO BLANCO, takes a deep dive into the world of Guatemala’s clicas, small disorganized gangs of young people who engage in illegal activity (robberies, drug dealing, violence) in order to survive. CADEJO BLANCO unfolds through the eyes of a Sarita, who lives with her sister Bea and mother, in a working-class neighborhood in Guatemala City. One night after a party, Bea doesn’t come home. Convinced that her disappearance has something to do with Andrés, her sister’s dangerous ex, Sarita manages to befriend him and infiltrate his gang. Narrowly avoiding death at every turn, and with an unwavering determination in the face of the men who underestimate her, Sarita becomes increasingly involved with Andrés and the ruthless, violent world of his gang. As she searches for answers about what happened to her sister, she realizes that the truth is a lot more complicated than she could have imagined. In writing the screenplay, for CADEJO BLANCO director, producer, and co-editor Justin Lerner talks about how he relied heavily on the biographies of the young people he met from the gangs of Puerto Barrios. Much of the story is based on their real experiences as they were told to Lerner: their daily conflicts, the dangers in joining a clica, losing friends to violence and crime. We also discuss his casting of Karen Martinez into the complex role of Sarita and how she was able to deliver a superb, multi-faceted performance.
For more go to: filmmovement.com/cadejo-blanco

SISU / Film School Radio interview with Director Jalmari Helander

Director Jalmari Helander drops us into all the murder and mayhem of the last desperate days of WWII. It’s there that we meet a solitary prospector (Jorma Tommila) as he crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. In the northern wilderness of Lapland a Finnish veteran Aatami Korpi is digging for gold while the war rages around him. Eventually, he hits a huge lode and starts journeying south with his riches. However, he quickly runs into a platoon of Nazis led by an SS officer Bruno Helldorf, who realize what he's carrying and try to take the gold for themselves. What follows is a brutal struggle and chase across the Lapland wilderness as Aatami, himself an established commando, uses every trick he knows to keep hold of the fortune he has earned. When the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with no ordinary miner.  While there is no direct translation for the Finnish word “sisu”, this legendary ex-commando will embody what sisu means: a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds.  And no matter what the Nazis throw at him, the one-man death squad will go to outrageous lengths to get his gold back – even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path. Director Jalmari Helander (Big Game) joins us to talk about the film(s) that provided the inspiration for SISU, working with Jorma Tommila, and the way in which SISU has dramatically impacted his film career.
For more go to: lionsgate.com/movies/sisu

Dry Ground Burning / Film School Radio interview with Co-director(s) Joana Pimenta (Aderley Queiros)

DRY GROUND BURNING follows a fearsome outlaw Chitara in Sol Nascente, Brazil, who leads an all-female gang that siphons and steals precious oil from the authoritarian, militarized government. Just released from prison, Léa (Léa Alves Silva) returns home to the Brasilia favela of Sol Nascente and joins up with her half-sister Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado), the fearless leader of an all-female gang that steals and refines oil from underground pipes and sells gasoline to a clandestine network of motorcyclists. Living in constant opposition to Jair Bolsonaro’s fiercely authoritarian and militarized government, Chitara’s women claim the streets for themselves as a declaration of radical political resistance on behalf of ex-cons and the oppressed. Inventing its’ own cinematic language as it oscillates between a hard-edged documentary realism and dramatized explosive fantasy, DRY GROUND BURNING reunites filmmakers Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós (Once There Was Brasilia) presenting their unique vision of a post-apocalyptic afro-feminist matriarchal future. Co-director, co-writer and cinematographer Joana Pimenta joins us for a conversation on the film’s complicated shooting schedule, working with a blend of professional and non-professional actors, casting two sisters in the lead roles, working in Brazil as the country began to move away from the authoritarianism of Bolsonaro toward a more democratic future and her role as the Director of Film Study Center at Harvard University.
For more go to: grasshopperfilm.com/dry-ground-burning

Joyland / FIlm School Radio interview with Director Saim Sadiq

Director Saim Sadiq’s stunning debut feature explores the many sides of love and desire in a patriarchal society. It follows the gentle and timid Haider (Ali Junejo) who lives with his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq), his father, and his elder brother’s family in Lahore, Pakistan. Following a long period of unemployment, Haider finally lands a job at a Bollywood-style burlesque, telling his family that he is a theater manager, when he is in fact a backup dancer for a captivating and strong-willed trans woman, Biba (Alina Khan), whom he soon becomes infatuated with. As the steadfast traditional dynamics of his household are shaken up, Haider begins to break out of his shell, while his connection with Biba opens his eyes and ultimately his worldview. Director, co-writer (Maggie Briggs) and co-editor (Jasmin Tenucci) Saim Sadiq joins us for a conversation on his decision to work with professional and non-professional actors, creating the space in the telling of this family’s story where complex subjects involving forbidden love, desire, societal expectations, and patriarchy are handled with loving respect and tenderness.
Opening at the NuArt on Friday, April 21
For more go to: joyland.oscilloscope.net

Personality Crisis: One Night Only / Film School Radio interview with Co-Director David Tedeschi (Martin Scorsese)

In an extraordinarily intimate feature documentary premiering Friday April 14, on SHOWTIME, Martin Scorsese’s Personality Crisis: One Night Only reveals the many faces of David Johansen. Continuing his vibrant and invaluable documentaries about iconic American artists and musicians such as George Harrison: Living in the Material World, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, and the Fran Lebowitz portrait Public Speaking, Scorsese, with an assist from co-director David Tedeschi, turns his camera on another beloved New York institution: the singular David Johansen. Equally celebrated as the lead singer-songwriter of the androgynous ’70s glam punk groundbreakers The New York Dolls and for his complete reinvention as hepcat Buster Poindexter in the ’80s, the chameleonic Johansen has created an entire genre unto himself, combining swing, blues, and rock for something at once mischievous and deeply personal. In Personality Crisis: One Night Only, Scorsese and co-director David Tedeschi (The 50 Year Argument), with the help of cinematographer Ellen Kuras (American Utopia), luminously capture the entertainer’s January 2020 Cafe Carlyle set, where he performs as Poindexter singing the Johansen songbook, bringing downtown irreverence to this storied uptown joint. Presented alongside new and archival interviews, the concert is marvelously intimate and a testament to both a lost New York and a performer who remains as fresh and exciting as ever. Co-director David Tedeschi, Co-writer, Editor (Rolling Thunder Revue) joins us to talk about his personal recollections on the meteoric rise of the Dolls, what makes David Johansen such an compelling storyteller and performer and his 20-year long working relationship Martin Scorsese.
For more go to: sho.com/personality-crisis-one-night-only

My Architect Director / Film School Radio interview with Director Nathanial Kahn

MY ARCHITECT, is a deep dive into the life and times of world-famous architect Louis Kahn. Louis Kahn’s son Nathaniel always hoped that someday his father would come and live with him and his mother, but Kahn never left his wife. In 1974 Kahn was found dead in a men's room in Penn Station when Nathaniel was only 11years old. Kahn left behind a brilliant legacy of intensely powerful and spiritual buildings – geometric compositions of brick, concrete, and light, that in the words of the Los Angeles Times “change your life.” He is considered by many architectural historians the most important architect of the second half of the 20th century. Kahn’s dramatic death laid bare a complex personal life of secrets and broken promises: he led not a double, but a triple life. In MY ARCHITECT, Nathaniel travels the world visiting his father's buildings and haunts in this film, meeting his father's contemporaries, colleagues, students, wives, and children. He sets out to reconcile his father’s life and work. I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, and Philip Johnson speak movingly of Kahn’s accomplishments (the Salk Institute, the Exeter Library, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Capital Complex of Bangladesh) and the women and children in his life shed light on this secretive, peripatetic man—a dynamo who gave selflessly to his art – but whose relationships were left on the drawing board, only to find completion in MY ARCHITECT. Director, Producer, narrator and son, Nathaniel Kahn joins us for a conversation on his current view of his father’s life, his collaboration with MY ARCHITECT cinematographer, Bob Richman, and the opportunity to share his compelling journey with a new audience through this newly restored and remastered version of his groundbreaking documentary.
For more go to: myarchitectmovie.com
For theatrical and VOD go to: abramorama.com

The Sun Queen - Director Amanda Pollak & Writer Gene Tempest

From the filmmaking team of Amanda Pollak and Gene Tempest comes the illuminating documentary film, THE SUN QUEEN. For nearly 50 years, chemical engineer and inventor Mária Telkes applied her prodigious intellect to harnessing the power of the sun. She designed and built the world’s first successfully solar-heated modern residence and identified a promising new chemical that, for the first time, could store solar heat like a battery. And yet, along the way, she was undercut and thwarted by her boss and colleagues — all men — at MIT. Despite these obstacles, Telkes persevered and, upon her death in 1995, held more than 20 patents. She is now recognized as a visionary pioneer in the field of sustainable energy. An unexpected and largely forgotten heroine, Telkes was remarkable in her vision and tenacity — a scientist and a woman in every way ahead of her time. Her research and innovations from the 1930s through the ‘70s continue to shape how we power our lives today. Director / Producer Amanda Pollak and Writer / Producer Gene Tempest stop by to talk abut the life and times of Maria Telkas, her scientific and engineering acumen, the battles with institutional sexism, the enthusiasm she brought to the implementation of solar technology and the immense power of the fossil fuel companies to strangle the nascent solar power movement before it could gain public acceptance.
To watch: pbs.org/the-sun-queen/American Experience
For more go to: insigniafilms.com