KUCI: Film School

Bliss / Film School Radio interview with Director Henrika Kull

Director Henrika Kull’s new film BLISS drops us into a world where women and their femininity are considered a commodity. The story centers of two sex workers, Faye (Eva Colie) and Maria (Adam Hoya) fall in love with each other. Together - and yet each on her own - they experience the one moment when happiness seems possible - but their love is threatened by different ideas of life and their own personal abysses. Director, screenwriter, editor Henrika Kull (Jibril, Intimate Distance) joins us for a conversation on her inspiration for the story behind BLISS, shooting inside a working brothel, recognizing the workplace normalcy taking place there and weaving brilliant performances from her two lead actors, Katharina Behrens (Sascha) and Adam Hoya (Maria) into this raw and passionate film.
For more go to: flare-film.com/bliss

Bad Axe / Film School radio interview with Director David Siev

Director and son, David Siev leaves his apartment in New York City to head back to his rural hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan. His arrival comes at a time when the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is making itself felt across much of the Mid-West. In this insightful and intimate documentary, BAD AXE, Asian-American filmmaker, David Siev, documents his family's struggles to keep their restaurant open just as racialized fears surrounding the virus grow and deep generational scars dating back to his parent’s history in the Cambodian Killing Fields are unearth between the family's patriarch, Chun, and his daughter, Jaclyn surface. When the BLM movement takes center stage in America, the family uses their voice to speak out in their town where Trumpism runs deep. What unfolds is a real-time portrait of 2020 through the lens of this multicultural family’s fight to keep their American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and the trauma of having survived a genocide. The result is a real-time portrait of 2020 unfolds as an Asian-American family in Trump’s rural America fights to keep their restaurant and American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and generational scars from the Khmer Rouge era that ravaged Cambodia. Director and subject David Siev joins us to talk about his family’s resolve in the face of physical threats, balancing privacy with the importance of telling a story that ultimately reveals universal truths about the state of political discourse and community in a post-Trump world.
For updates and news go to: facebook.com/badaxefilm

A Love Song / Film School radio interview with Director Max Walker-Silverman

Faye (Dale Dickey) is a lone traveler biding her time fishing, birding and stargazing at a rural Colorado campground as she awaits the arrival of Lito (Wes Studi), a figure from her past who is navigating his own tentative and nomadic journey across the rugged West. Like the country music that has traditionally channeled the heartbreak and resilience of Americans in search of themselves     and others, A Love Song weaves a lyrical and ultimately joyful refrain out of the transformative act of being alone —and reminds us that the mysteries of love can transform us at any age. Director Max Walker-Silverman (Lefty/Righty) joins us for a conversation on how his homegrown film project became viable, his dream to get Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone, Leave No Trace) and Wes Studi (Last of the Mohicans , Dances with Wolves) to sign on to A Love Song, and striking a delicate balance in the film between the bittersweet notion of love lost, hope, tenderness and cosmic comedy.
For updates go to: bleeckerstreetmedia.com/a-love-song
For screenings go to: bleeckerstreetmedia.com/theaters-a-love-song

How To Please A Woman / Film School Radio interview with Director Renée Webster

Gina (Sally Phillips) is turning fifty and not feeling fabulous. When she is dismissed from her role in a liquidation company, she knows future job prospects for someone her age are slim. Gina despairs of what her future might hold. In this beguiling, sweet hearted comedy, HOW TO PLEASE A WOMAN, Gina is taken by surprise when for her fiftieth birthday a male sex worker, a gift sent by her girlfriends, offers to do anything she wants. She asks him to do for her what no one else will – she has him clean her house. Amused and delighted, her friends wish for a sexy cleaner themselves, sparking a new career for Gina who decides to employ the entire male removals team as house cleaners…with benefits. Written and directed by Renée Webster, and starring Sally Phillips (Bridget Jones's Diary, VEEP). HOW TO PLEASE A WOMAN is a precarious, often hilarious and revealing journey into the vulnerable world of what women really want and how hard it can be to get it right.
For updates and screenings go to: how-to-please-a-woman

My Old School / Film School Radio interview with Director Jono McLeod

MY OLD SCHOOL re-tells the unbelievable story of 16-year-old Brandon Lee. In 1993 Brandon enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. What followed over the next two years would become the stuff of legend. Brandon had been privately tutored in Canada while he accompanied his mother, an opera diva, on tour before her tragic death. The preternaturally bright student surprised teachers by blazing toward his goal of entering medical school, displaying a wealth of knowledge beyond his years. Brandon found friends despite his initial awkwardness, taking bullied students under his wing, introducing classmates to seminal retro bands, and even starring in the school's production of South Pacific. But then his unbelievable secret was revealed. Filmmaker Jono McLeod returns to his old school for a nostalgic look at the strange but true story of his former classmate, Brandon Lee. Utilizing playful, period-specific animation, a pitch-perfect soundtrack, the memories of students and teachers, and the talents of Alan Cumming to bring the tale to life, MY OLD SCHOOL offers more than one surprise along the way. With so many shocking twists and turns, MY OLD SCHOOL pushes the idea of documentary storytelling beyond a traditional lineage. 
For updates and screenings go to: magpictures.com/myoldschool

Queen of Glory / Film School Radio interview with Director /Writer / Lead Actor Nana Mensah

In Nana Mensah’s beautifully realized feature film debut, QUEEN OF GLORY, Sarah Obeng (Nana Mensah), a doctoral student at Columbia University, a doctoral student at Columbia University, is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother dies suddenly. Her inheritance? A small, but beloved, Christian bookstore in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx where she was raised in the tight-knit Ghanian immigrant community. Tasked with planning a culturally respectful funeral befitting the family matriarch, Sarah must juggle the expectations of her loving yet demanding family while navigating the reappearance of her estranged father all while grappling with what to do with the bookstore. Aided by an only-in-New York ensemble of Eastern European neighbors, feisty African aunties and a no-nonsense ex-con co-worker, Sarah faces her new responsibilities while figuring out how to remain true to herself. Director / writer / lead actor Nana Mensah joins us for a conversation on her belated decision to tackle her multi-hyphenated roles in making the film, spotlighting Ghanian culture and assembling a very talented cast of actors able to do justice to the poignant portrayals that lift Queen of Glory into the realm of something truly special.
 
For updates and screenings go to: filmmovement.com/queen-of-glory

Murina / Film School radio interview with Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović latest film, MURINA, is set on a remote island along Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Seventeen-year-old Julija (Gracija Filipovic) spends her days diving for eel with her domineering father Ante (Leon Lucev) and watching other teens party on a nearby yacht. Julija bristles at Ante’s heavy handed cruelty and resents her mother Nela’s (Danica Curcic) passivity. She longs for independence but is unsure how to achieve it, until the arrival of the rich and mysterious Javier seems to offer a way out. Once Ante’s employer and Nela’s lover, Javier (Cliff Curtis) flirts shamelessly with Nela and Julija, setting off a subtle battle of hyper-masculine one-upmanship that pushes Ante to humiliate and control Julija even more. Flattered by Javier’s praise and stories of traveling the world, Julija sees him as the solution to all her problems. But does his affection portend freedom, or something more sinister? Winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, lensed by award-winning cinematographer Hélène Louvart (THE LOST DAUGHTER), and Executive Produced by Martin Scorsese, MURINA features a ferocious, star-making central performance by Gracija Filipović and the most sumptuous images of the Mediterranean since THE BIG BLUE. Equal parts fiery feminist outcry and stirring coming-of-age drama, the film announces director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović as a major new talent in world cinema.
For updates and screenings go to: kinolorber.com/film/murina
MURINA will open theatrically on Friday, July 8th at Metrograph in New York, and on Friday, July 15th at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles with rollout to select cities.

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down / Film School Radio interview with Co-directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen

Co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s latest documentary GABBY GIFFORDS WON’T BACK DOWN tells the extraordinary story of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, her relentless fight to recover following an assassination attempt in 2011, and her new life as one of the most effective activists in the battle for gun violence prevention and in promoting understanding of the language condition aphasia. Featuring extensive verité filming of Gabby and her husband, astronaut-turned-Senator Mark Kelly; interviews with President Barack Obama and other friends and colleagues; and exclusive access to stunning videos taken in the weeks following her near-death experience, this film is the story of a rising star transformed by an act of violence, and a close-up portrait of the marriage that sustains her. Co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West join us for a conversation on the indomitable spirit of a bright young woman who refuses to give up, the nexus of gun violence and American politics and their own commitment to using their journalism background to create compelling portraits of extraordinary people.
For screenings and updates go to: briarcliffentertainment.com

Good Madam / Film School radio interview with Director Jenn Cato Bass and Screenwriter Babalwa Baartman

The harrowing story of the GOOD MADAM, begins with the death of her grandmother, the woman who raised her, Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) and her daughter are forced to move in with Tsidi’s estranged mother, Mavis (Nosipho Mtebe), who has lived and worked in the wealthy suburbs of Cape Town for most of Tsidi’s life. Residues of apartheid-era domestic servitude confront legacies of colonial land theft in South African auteur Jenna Cato Bass’s daring horror-satire. Jenna Cato Bass (High Fantasy, Flatland) transforms the legacies of South Africa’s colonial land theft and Black domestic service to white bosses into a gutsy psychological thriller. Co-written with Babalwa Baartman, Mlungu Wam (Good Madam) grapples with the daily violence that haunts the nation’s most pressing political issues, long after the end of apartheid. Summoning horror-satire references from Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl to Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Bass and Baartman’s suspenseful descent into complex, searing allegory insists on reckoning with the enduring presence of traumas deceptively labelled “history.” Director Jenny Cato Bass and co-screenwriter Babalwa Baartman join us for a conversation on the inspiration for GOOD MADAM, impact and legacy on today’s South Africa, their on-going collaboration, and the superb cast of actors who helped them realize their vision.
For more on Good Madam go to: shudder.com

Apples / Film School Radio interview with Director Christos Nikou

Christos Nikou’s beguiling new film, APPLES, takes place during a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia in growing numbers. A middle-aged man, Aris (Aris Servetalis), finds himself in a hospital and later in a recovery program designed to help “unclaimed” patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery. Through images deadpan, strange and surreal, Greek writer-director Christos Nikou posits a beguiling reflection on memory, identity, and loss, exploring how a society might handle an irreversible epidemic through one man’s story of self-discovery. Are we the sum of the images we compile and display of ourselves, or are we something richer, and deeper?
For news and screenings go to: cohenmedia.net/apples