KUCI: Film School

Pay or Die / Film School Radio interview with Co-directors Scott Alexander Ruderman and Rachael Dyer

In their illuminating and infuriating documentary film, PAY OR DIE, filmmakers Scott Alexander Ruderman and Rachael Dyer, cinematically ask the question, how and why are nearly 2 million type 1 diabetic Americans are being held for ransom? Without insulin, they would all be dead in days. PAY OR DIE follows 3 families on the receiving end of these ransom notes, revealing the harrowing reality of life with chronic illness in the richest country in the world. From a mother-and-daughter struggling to rebuild their lives after losing their home when they had to spend their rent money on insulin, to a young adult diagnosed with type 1 diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic, to a Minnesota family thrust into the national spotlight when their 26-year-old son dies from rationing his insulin, PAY OR DIE lays bare the human cost of America’s insulin affordability crisis. Co-directors Scott Alexander Ruderman and Rachael Dyer join us to talk about their own personal connection to the scourge of diabetes, the misconceptions about the disease and the people who are infected by it and the film’s premiere and Grand Jury Prize nomination at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival.
For more go to: payordiefilm.com
You can help at: payordiefilm.com/get-involved
Find out the facts at: payordiefilm.com/facts

All the World is Sleeping / Film School Radio interview with Director Ryan Lacen

ALL THE WORLD IS SLEEPING follows Chama (Melissa Barrera), who as a young girl in New Mexico, strived to be different from her mother. Now in her twenties, she’s found herself falling into a similar cycle of generational addiction. This struggle then threatens her balance as a mother to her own daughter. As Chama tries to keep it all together, a harrowing accident will spiral her out of control, causing her daughter to be taken from her custody. With nothing left, she’ll have to confront her past in order to fight for a future — one that can either guide her closer to getting her daughter back or lead her deeper into this dangerous cycle. ALL THE WORLD IS SLEEPING centers the complex role of motherhood, addresses generational cycles of addiction and beautifully highlights a community that is not often represented in films. As a filmmaker whose own life has also been scarred by addiction, Director and writer Ryan Lacen joins us to talk about focusing a unique cinematic lens while shaping these stories to create a film that would feel both singularly raw and universally connected.
For more go to: alltheworldissleeping.com

The Night of the 12th / Film School Radio interview with Director Dominik Moll & Screenwriter Gilles Marchand

Dominik Moll’s brilliant new film, THE NIGHT OF THE 12th (La Nuit Du 12) is a contemplative look into the machinations of a confounding police investigation. It is said that all the investigators have a crime that haunts them. Without always knowing why the case starts spinning in their heads to the point of obsession. THE NIGHT OF THE 12th focuses on the young and ambitious Captain Vivés has just been appointed group leader at the Grenoble Criminal Squad when Clara's murder case lands on his desk. Vivés and his team investigate Clara's complex life and relations, but what starts as a professional and methodical immersion into the victim's life soon turns into a haunting obsession. It's clear that the attack was pre-meditated, and the violent nature of the crime suggests revenge. Vivés' team methodically digs through the details of Clara's life, uncovering her secrets in hopes of weeding out the killer. Certain their suspect is a scorned ex-lover, Vivés is confronted with another, more complicated question: which one? Posing uneasy questions about the male-dominated world of law enforcement, and their ability to handle the violent crimes routinely perpetrated against women victims. Winner of six César Awards (2023) including Best Film, Best Director (Dominik Moll), Best Adapted Screenplay (Gilles Marchand & Dominik Moll), Best Supporting Actor (Bouli Lanners), Best Sound (Francois Maurel, Olivier Mortier, Luc Thomas) and Most Promising Actor (Bastien Boullion) . Director and co-screenwriter Dominik Moll and Co-screenwriter Gilles Marchand join us to talk about the challenge of adapting the work of Pauline Guéna's book 18.3, and  the joy of working with an outstanding group of veteran and promising new actors.
For more go to: filmmovement.com/the-night-of-the-12th

Therapy Dogs / Film School Radio interview with Director Ethan Eng

Inspired by Matthew Miller and Matt Johnson’s THE DIRTIES, teenage angst, and a certainty that last thing people remember about high school is lesson plan, Ethan Eng’s hurls itself head first into everything else that makes high school memorable in his award winning debut film, THERAPY DOGS. Ethan and his best friend Justin are students trying to make sense of their high school existence. In what will be the last chapter of their teenage lives and the beginning of adulthood and beyond, they decide to make the ultimate senior video in the search for answers. Exploring teenage suburbia in a no-brakes adventure, questions arise whether there’s more to their lives than simply growing up. Director, writer and lead actor Ethan Eng joins us for a conversation on the remarkably accomplished debut film that masterfully blends together documentary, narrative, skater punk and high school “senior project” elements to create something wholly unique and compelling, as well as how his collaboration with fellow lead actor and producer Justin Morrice and enlisting Matthew Miller and Matt Johnson (The Dirties, Operation Avalanche) to be THERAPY DOGS executive producers.
For more go to: therapydogs.world

I Got a Monster / Film School Radio interview with Director Kevin Abrams

Based on an explosive true story, I GOT A MONSTER retells in highly dramatic fashion one of the nation’s biggest police corruption scandals. In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the Federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins, a highly decorated super-cop and leader of the Baltimore Police Department’s elite Gun Trace Task Force along with six other members on racketeering charges. In a city plagued by racial tension and violence, plain-clothes detectives from the Gun Trace Task Force had been celebrated for holding the Thin Blue Line, but in fact were terrorizing Baltimore’s Black community. These dirty cops were stealing and reselling millions of dollars of drugs while brazenly planting evidence and falsifying police reports. However, they didn’t plan for a campaigning defense attorney or a secret FBI wiretap operation to end their crime spree and expose decades of criminality inside the police department. I GOT A MONSTER takes viewers around every twist and turn of a real-life cat-and-mouse game where cops are also robbers and those meant to protect our safety turn out to be the ones jeopardizing it. Director Kevin Abrams (Left at the Rio Grande, Indirect Actions) joins us for a conversation on the depth and scope of police corruption within this decorated unit, as well as the havoc that was visited upon people, mostly, people of color, guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place, the flawed rationale behind the formation of “Special” police units and the citizens who stood up to the corruption and intimidation.
For more go to: greenwichentertainment.com/i-got-a-monster

HAULOUT / FIlm School Radio interview with Directors Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev

Co-directors Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev (a sister-and-brother filmmaking team) are native filmmakers who document a remarkable event of global significance in their Arctic homeland in the Academy Award nominated documentary short film HAULOUT. This urgent film follows a marine biologist living in the Siberian Arctic as he chronicles the planet’s largest walrus haulout. The gathering of thousands of these marine mammals is a consequence of climate change; warming seas have forced the walruses to congregate on land, where stampedes and trampling can result in fatalities. Co-director Evgenia Arbugaeva (Maxim Arbugaev) join us for a conversation on how they met and then decided to follow marine biologist Maxim Chakilev, the challenges of living at the site where Maxim was collecting data on the walruses and the moment Evgenia and her brother Maxim found out that they were the first Yakutian filmmakers to be nominated for an Academy Award.
For more go to; gonella-productions.com/haulout
Watch HAULOUT at: newyorkeryoutubesub

What We Do Next / Film School Radio interview with Director Stephen Belber

When Elsa Mercado (Michelle Veintimilla) is released from prison after serving 16 years for killing her father, New York City Councilwoman Sandy James (Karen Pittman) and corporate attorney Paul Jenkins (Corey Stoll) are forced to grapple with their involvement in the original crime. WHAT WE DO NEXT is a timely emotional thriller sitting at the intersection of race, class and criminal justice. WHAT WE DO NEXT features a superb cast that includes Corey Stoll (Billions, House of Cards), Karen Pittman (The Morning Show, And Just Like That), Michelle Veintimilla (The Good Wife). Director, writer, and playwright Stephen Belber joins us to talk about the challenges working on a very tight shooting schedule, staging it on Zoom before an on set production, recruiting actors with a strong stage background and bringing in a cinematographer with an extensive documentary resume.
For more go to: stephenbelber.com/film

Sansón and Me / Film School Radio interview with Director Rodrigo Reyes

Set in rural California and Mexico’s Pacific coast, director Rodrigo Reyes' documentary, Sansón and Me, is a moving portrait of the unlikely friendship of two Mexican migrants, told within the frame of the dramatic clash between systemic forces and personal choices that envelop young, incarcerated men of color in America. Sansón’s life is defined by borders—between Mexico and the United States, between freedom and incarceration, between fact and fiction. While serving two life sentences for first-degree murder in Pelican Bay State Prison, Sansón grapples with the ways he has traversed these borders, moving from country to country, from rural California to solitary confinement, and from the truths of his life to the mythologies he’s created. A tale told through dramatic re-enactments,  Sansón and Me recreates a life of multilayered border crossing as told by Sansón to his interpreter-turned-friend, filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes. Director and producer joins us to talk about his vividly portrayal of Sansón’s life from orphaned Mexican child to American prisoner, focusing on one man’s attempt at reconciling the things that have happened to him and the things he has brought on himself. 
For more go to:itvs.org/sanson-and-me
For more on the work of Rodrigo Reyes go to: rrcinema.com

Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History / Film School radio interview with Director Stephen Ives

For generations, Monopoly has been America’s favorite board game, a love letter to unbridled capitalism and — for better or worse — the impulses that make our free-market society tick. But behind the myth of the game’s creation is an untold tale of theft, obsession and corporate double-dealing. Part detective story, part sharp social commentary and part pop-culture celebration, Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History presents the fascinating true story behind America’s favorite game. Contrary to the folksy legend spread by Parker Brothers, Monopoly’s secret history is a surprising saga that features a radical feminist, Lizzie Magie. a community of Quakers in Atlantic City, America’s greatest game company, and an unemployed Depression-era engineer. According to the official origin story, during the Great Depression, an amateur inventor named Charles Darrow sketched out the now-famous Monopoly board on a piece of oilcloth on his kitchen table. His game became a best-seller, Darrow became a wealthy man, and Parker Brothers was saved from bankruptcy. It was a classic American success story. But it wasn’t true. The real story behind the creation of the game might never have come to light if it weren’t for the determination of an economics professor and impassioned anti-monopolist named Ralph Anspach. Director and writer Stephen Ives joins us to talk about his own journey to unlock the vault of obfuscation and corporate greed regarding the forgotten history of this distinctively American rite of passage / iconic board game.
To watch go to: pbs.org/americanexperience/ruthless-monopoly
Written and directed by Stephen Ives and executive produced by Cameo George, Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History premieres on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on Monday, February 20, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS App.

he Integrity of Joseph Chambers / Film School Radio interview with Producer / Lead Actor Clayne Chambers

Robert Machoian’s latest drama, The Integrity of Joseph Chambers recounts the riveting and morally convulsive drama an an insurance salesman and family man Joseph Chambers (Clayne Craawford) wants to acquire the skills to be able to take care of his family in case of an apocalypse. He decides to go deer hunting by himself for the first time ever, despite his wife’s objections. Setting out into the mountains with a borrowed rifle, Joe roams the woods aimlessly in his search for deer. His boredom is short-lived, however, when in the blink of an eye, Joe undergoes a traumatic experience. What starts as an experiment to prove himself as a capable father and husband turns into a nightmare as Joe finds himself faced with a terrible choice that he must make. Lead actor and Executive Producer Clayne Crawford (The Killing of Two Lovers, Convergence) joins us for a conversation on the inspiration for the troubling tale, juggling the in-front-of and behind the cameras as actor and producer and collaborating again with the brilliant writer and director Robert Machoian.
For more go to: gravitasventures.com/the-integrity-of-joseph-chambers