KUCI: Film School

The Same Storm / Film School Radio interview with Director Peter Hedges

Filmed using iPhones and laptops during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, THE SAME STORM is an intimate look into the lives of twenty-four characters as they journey through the spring and summer of 2020. With lockdowns, the Black Lives Matter movement and the looming 2020 elections as key backdrops, the film explores the necessity of human connection, family, love and the ability to find empathy during a fraught, untenable time. Featuring an all-star cast, including Sandra Oh, Mary-Louise Parker, Elaine May, Moses Ingram, Raul Castillo, Noma Dumezweni, Sandra Oh, Mary-Louise Parker, Elaine May, Moses Ingram, Noma Dumezweni, Raúl Castillo, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston, Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr,  Jin Ha, Judith Light, Joel de la Fuente, Raza Jaffrey, Brittany Bradford, and many more, writer/director Peter Hedges crafts a unique piece of hopeful filmmaking that demonstrates and celebrates the ability of art to connect us. Director and writer Peter Hedges joins us to talk about filming during the Covid pandemic using cell phones and laptops to capture their stories, collaborating with a superb cast, and his inspiration for this deeply humanistic, multi-layered tale.
For updates and screenings go to: thesamestorm.com

Becoming Frederick Douglass / Film School Radio interview with Co-director Nicole London and Stanley Nelson

BECOMING FREDERICK DOUGLASS is the inspiring story of how a man born into slavery became one of the most prominent statesmen and influential voices for democracy in American history. Born in 1818 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, he escaped from slavery in 1838 and went on to become the most well-known leader of the abolitionist movement. A gifted writer and powerful, charismatic orator, it is estimated that more Americans heard Douglass speak than any other 19th-century figure, Black or white. BECOMING FREDERICK DOUGLASS explores how Douglass controlled his own image and narrative, embracing photography as a tool for social justice, and the role he played in securing the right to freedom and complete equality for African Americans. Acclaimed actor Wendell Pierce is the voice of Frederick Douglass in both films. Co-director Nicole London joins us for a conversation on the heroic life and turbulent times of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
For more go to: becomingfrederickdouglass.org

I Didn’t See You There / Film School Radio interview with Director Alysa Nahmias

Director and cinematographer Reid Davenport reaches out through the lens of his camera as a visibly disabled person, determined to make a film about how he sees the world, from either his wheelchair or his two feet, without having to be seen himself. The unexpected arrival of a circus tent outside his Oakland, California apartment in leads him to consider the complicated history and legacy of Phineas Taylor Barnum’s or P.T. Barnum’s Freak Show and its lingering presence in his daily life in the form of gawking, lack of access, and other forms of ableism. Informed by his position in space, lower to the ground, Davenport captures indelible images, often abstracted into shapes and patterns separate from their meaning. But the circus tent looms in the background, and is reverberated by tangible on-screen interruptions, from unsolicited offers of help to careless blocking of ramps. Personal and unflinching, I Didn't See You There forces the viewer to confront the spectacle and invisibility of disability. Director Reid Davenport joins us to offer both a perspective and stylistic approach that are rarely seen, Reid brings an urgently needed storytelling eye to filmmaking with a documentary that is powerful and emotional, thoughtful and raw, intimate and political.
For updates & screenings go to: ididntseeyoutherefilm.com
I Didn't See You There at the Laemmle Monica Film Center October 14
Directing Award U.S. Documentary – Sundance Film Festival 2022 & Grand Jury Award – Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2022

Piggy / Film School Radio interview with Director Carlota Pereda

Director Carlota Pereda (Cerdita, There Will Be Monsters) debut feature film is a cinematic grenade of a tale about bulling, body shaming, sexual politics. PIGGY focuses on the life of Sara as she hides away in her parent’s butcher shop hoping to avoid the constant barrage of mockery, judgment, and abuse from the other girls in her village. A teenager whose excess weight makes her the target of incessant bullying, she flees a clique of capricious girls who torment her at the town pool, only to stumble upon them being brutally kidnapped by a stranger, who drives off with them in his van. Sara sees it all: the blood, the mud, the knife, and the van in which he has taken them. And the unknown man has seen her. A wordless pact that neither will betray. The pressure is suffocating and her guilt torments her. What if she is found out? What's happened to the girls? What if the unknown man returns? Director / screenwriter Carlota Pereda’s searing morality tale, PIGGY, poses many knotty questions around the social scourge of bullying. And in the process offers few easy options. Anchored by a confident, uncompromising performance by Laura Galán, Piggy is a psychological horror film like few others.
   
For updates and screenings go to: magnetreleasing.com/piggy

Last Flight Home / Film School Radio interview with Director Ondi Timoner

Behind a white picket fence, on an unremarkable suburban street, we discover 92-year-old Eli Timoner, who founded Air Florida, the fastest growing airline in the world in the 1970s. During his final days, we discover his extraordinary life filled with incredible success and devastating setbacks and, most importantly, the innate goodness that won him the enduring love and support of his family. Through stunning footage recorded by his middle child, LAST FLIGHT HOME takes audiences on an unforgettable ride through Timoner’s life, illustrating a modern-day success story built on the power of human connection. Two-time winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize (DIG!, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC), Ondi Timoner has created her most personal film yet, which intimately portrays her family’s challenging journey to find closure and invites us into a rare and honest confrontation and conversation with mortality. LAST FLIGHT HOME is not only a unique and open display of the process of death, without inhibition or sanitization, but also a humanization of the journey of a family ‘midwifing’ a patriarch through his final days. Director Ondi Timoner joins us for a conversation on her elegant verité tribute to family, how and why she decided to share the Eli Timoner’s inspiring coda with outside world.
For updates and screenings go to: interloperfilms.com/lastflighthome

Vesper / Film School Radio interview with Co-directors Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper

Set after the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem, VESPER follows the titular headstrong 13-year-old girl (Raffiella Chapman), who uses her survival skills to subsist in the remnants of a strange and dangerous world with her ailing father, Darius (Richard Brake). When Vesper finds a mysterious woman, Camellia (Rosy McEwen), alone and disoriented after an aerial crash, she agrees to help find her missing companion in exchange for safe passage to the Citadel, – the dark central hub where oligarchs live in comfort thanks to state-of-the-art biotechnology. Vesper soon discovers that her brutal neighbor, Jonas (Eddie Marsan), is searching for Camellia, who is harboring a secret that could change all of their lives forever. Forced into a dangerous adventure, Vesper must rely on her wits and bio-hacking abilities to unlock the key to an alternate future. After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed father, meets a woman with a secret who will force her to use her wits, strengths and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of having a future. Co-directors Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper join us to talk about their beautifully rendered “future” world that seamlessly blends high-tech with ancient / indigenous lo-tech ingenuity, how they found perfectly cast Raffiella Chapman to play Vesper and how their work points to a radicalized vision for our collective future.
For info and updates go to: vespermovie.com
Where to watch at: vespermovie.com/watch-at-home

To Leslie /Film School Radio interview with Director Michael Morris

Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) is a West Texas single mother struggling to provide for her son (Owen Teague) when she wins the lottery and a chance at a good life. But a few short years later the money is gone and Leslie is on her own, living hard and fast at the bottom of a bottle as she runs from the world of heartbreak she left behind. With her charm running out and with nowhere to go, Leslie is forced to return home to her former friends Nancy and Dutch  (Allison Janney, Stephen Root).  Unwelcome and unwanted by those she wronged, it’s a lonely motel clerk named Sweeney (Marc Maron) who takes a chance when no one else will. With his support, Leslie comes face to face with the consequences of her actions, a life of regret, and a second chance to make a good life for her and her son. Director Michael Morris joins us for a conversation on his riveting film about a woman in free fall, love and self-loathing, working with an amazing cast, his second project with Andrea Riseborough and Owen Teague and how silence can say so much.
For info and updates go to: momentumpictures.net/to-leslie
In Theaters & On Demand October 7

Taming the Garden / Film School Radio interview with Director Salomé Jashi

From the opening shot of this striking environmental tale, TAMING THE GARDEN, captures a otherworldly vibe, embodied by a tree as tall as a 15-story building floating on a barge across the vast Black Sea. Its destination lies within a garden countless miles away, privately owned by a wealthy and anonymous man whose passion resides in the removal, and subsequent replanting, of foreign trees into his own man-made Eden. With astonishing cinematic style, TAMING THE GARDEN tracks the surreal uprooting of ancient trees from their Georgian locales. With each removal, tensions flare between workers and villagers. Some see financial incentives – new roads, handsome fees – while others angrily mourn the loss of what was assumed an immovable monolith of their town’s collective history and memory. With a steady and shrewdly observant eye, Jashi documents a single man’s power over Earth’s natural gardens: how majestic living artifacts of a country’s identity can so effortlessly become uprooted by individuals with no connection to the nature they now claim as their own. Director Salomé Jashi stops by to talk about the clash of immense wealth and political power and a rural, farming community with neither. The meditative tone of TAMING THE GARDEN allows the audience to reconcile the contrasting the people’s relationship with the powerful political class that has held sway over them for centuries.
For info and screenings go to: bigworldpictures.org/tamingthegarden

Young Plato / Film School radio interview with Co-director Neasa Ni Chainian (Declan McGrath) and Subject Kevin McArevey

An inspiring documentary from the filmmakers of School Life, YOUNG PLATO charts the dream of Elvis-loving school headmaster Kevin McArevey – a maverick who is determined to change the fortunes of an inner-city community plagued by urban decay, sectarian aggression, poverty and drugs. The all-boys primary school in post-conflict Belfast, Northern Ireland, becomes a hot house for questioning violence, as the headmaster sends his young wards home each day armed with the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers. The boys challenge their parents and neighbors to forsake the prejudice that has kept this low-level civil war on the boil for decades. YOUNG PLATO hums with the confidence of youth, a tribute to the power of the possible. Co-director Neasa Ni Chainian (Declan McGrath) and Subject Kevin McArevey join us for a lively conversation on why Neasa focused her attention in Holy Cross, her won relationship to the “troubles” of Belfast, where did headmaster McArevey pick up his affinity for philosophy, when did he realize it has the power to elicit the most important lesson a young mind can learn - how to think!
For updates and screenings go to: youngplato.com
Young Plato will be opening at the Laemmle Monica Film Center on Friday October 7
For all screenings go to: youngplato.com/screenings

Anvil! The Story of Anvil / Film School Radio interview with Director Sacha Gervasi

ANVIL! THE STORY Of ANVIL follows Canadian heavy-metal band Anvil as they delivered a highly influential 1982 album Metal on Metal that would inspire the likes of Anthrax and Metallica, and then dropped off the map to begin what would become decades of toiling in obscurity. Director and former Anvil roadie Gervasi follows guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner as they stumble through a harrowing European tour and reflect on failure, friendship, resilience and the will to follow even the most impossible of dreams. ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (2009) received widespread critical and public acclaim following its release by Abramorama and features appearances by an array of heavy metal icons, including Metallica's Lars Ulrich, Guns N' Roses' Slash, Motörhead’s Lemmy, Anthrax's Scott Ian, and Slayer's Tom Araya. The film is tied for 6th place as one of the highest rated documentaries of all time on Rotten Tomatoes with a 98% certified fresh rating, and a 90% audience score with over 5000+ votes. It was named one of 2009's best documentaries by the International Documentary Association, the Online Film Critics Society, and the National Society of Film Critics. It also made the year-end Top 10 lists in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Village Voice, and many others. Director Sacha Gervasi (My Dinner with Herve, The Terminal, Hitchcock) joins us to talk about the unbelievable “making of” The Story of Anvil, as well as the remarkable journey his scrappy little film has been on for the last 13 years and all of the doors it has opened for him.
For updates and screenings go to: anvilthefilm.com
For VOD go to: anvilthefilm.com/watch-at-home