KUCI: Film School

Viet Film Fest / Film School Radio interview with Artistic Director Eric Nong

Viet Film Fest is the largest international Vietnamese film festival in the world, Viet Film Fest (VFF) showcases the best creative work by and about Vietnamese people. Viet Film Fest was created in 2003 with a small audience in auditoriums at University of California, Irvine and UCLA. Situated in the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam, the festival features films by persons of Vietnamese descent or productions that focus on the Vietnamese experience. Now running successfully for over a decade, Viet Film Fest (VFF) has expanded to draw an annual onsite audience of over 5,000 and a global fanbase. Viet Film Fest has drawn Academy Award nominated directors from France and Canada, as well as films from Israel, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, and Germany. Through the universal language of film, Viet Film Fest brings together multiple perspectives to expand the scope and horizons of Vietnamese cinema. The Viet Film Fest Artistic Director Eric Nong joins us for a conversation on this year’s film line-up, special events, film premieres, special guests and the growth of Vietnamese filmmaking.

Godspeed, Los Polacos! / Film School Radio interview with Director Adam Nawrot

The unbelievable story of Godspeed, Los Polacos! begins during the Cold War, Poland’s youth looked for any way to break away from the monotony of life under Communist rule. In the City of Krakow, a group of university students formed a kayaking club as a tool to explore their local rivers and avoid participation in Communist parades and rallies. After experiencing the thrill of Poland’s one and only class III rapid, club members Andrzej Pietowski, Piotr Chmielinski (who would go on to be the first person to paddle the Amazon river source to sea), and Jurek Majcherczyk set their sights on the impossible - leaving the Eastern Bloc to paddle whitewater. Godspeed, Los Polacos! tells the story of five university students on the edge of adulthood who skillfully pull the strings of the Soviet system, and find themselves on a kayaking expedition in the Americas with a six-wheeled military truck, homemade equipment, and little to no whitewater skills. The story follows their epic two-year journey that culminates in the record-breaking first descent of the world’s deepest canyon, and finds the kayakers in Soviet cross-hairs after they leverage their new found fame to fight for democracy in the Eastern Bloc. Director Adam Nawrot joins us for a conversation on the story behind the journey of fellow travelers who refused to accept the life they were being told by a soulless government they had to live setting out on an unbelievable trek around the world.
For news and updates go to: /sourlandstudios.com
Watch Godspeed, Los Polacos!

Convergence: Courage in a Crisis - Director Orlando von Einsiedel & Hassan Akkad

An epic collaboration that spans eight countries and 9 individual stories, Convergence reveals the power of compassion and community in the face of a crisis. Beginning at the onset of the pandemic, the documentary follows everyday citizens across the globe as they rise to the challenges of this upheaval in extraordinary ways — from a Syrian refugee fighting the UK government to include hospital cleaners and porters in bereavement pay to a doctor committed to serving Miami’s homeless community. But as this generation defining crisis begins to unmask deep-rooted flaws and inequities worldwide, their diverse journeys tell a more unified narrative about our common humanity and how, by coming together, great change can emerge from chaos. Featuring the work of filmmakers from around the world including; Hassan Akkad (UK), Amber Fares (US), Alexander “Lali” Houghton (Peru), Guillermo Galdos (Peru), Juhi Sharma (India), Lieven Corthouts (Belgium), Mauricio Montiero Filho (Brazil), Mohammad Reza Eyni (Iran), Sara Khaki (Iran) Wenhua Lin (China), as well as producers Don Coogan and Liz Garbus. Director Orlando von Einsiedel and Director Hassan Akkad joins us for a conversation on capturing the sweep of the pandemic on distressed public health systems from around the world while focused on the deeply humanistic stories of families and health care workers behind the infection rates and deaths.
Watch on netflix.com/Convergence: Courage in a Crisis

Freeland / Film School Radio interview with Co-directors Kate McLean & Mario Furloni

Devi (Krisha Fairchild, KRISHA) has been breeding legendary pot strains for decades on the remote homestead she built herself. But when cannabis is legalized, she suddenly finds herself fighting for her survival. In tour-de-force performance, Krisha Fairchild (Devi) brings the timely, real-world story of black-market growers battling to survive to the screen. Featuring a heart-breaking turn by John Craven (UPSTREAM COLOR) as an old flame from Devi’s commune days, and Frank Mosley and Lily Gladstone (CERTAIN WOMEN) as young workers adrift and bringing in the harvest, the film is full of standout performances that bring this very real community of fiercely independent characters to life. Set against the lush backdrop of the redwood forests of Northern California, Mario Furloni's breathtaking cinematography pulls us into this isolated community in Humboldt County, the mythical birthplace of weed. Co-directors Mario Furloni and Kate McLean imbue this emotional thriller with a deep and empathetic authenticity. They join us for a conversation on the challenges and rewards of embedding themselves into a notoriously closed community, bringing their experience as documentarian filmmaking into the narrative realm and working with a superb group of actors.
For news, updates and screenings go to: freelandfilm.com
Debuts In Select Theaters October 15th
On Demand Everywhere November 19th

Ascension / Film School Radio interview with Director Jessica Kingdon & Producer Kira Simon-Kennedy

Mesmerizing in its imagery and shot in 51 locations across the country, ASCENSION is a cinematic exploration of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. The film ascends through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new level of hedonistic enjoyment. In traveling up the rungs of China’s social ladder, we see how each level supports and makes possible the next while recognizing the contemporary ‘Chinese Dream’ remains an elusive fantasy for most. Producer Kira Simon-Kennedy and director / cinematographer / editor Jessica Kingdon joins us for a conversation on their collaboration and how a century old poem written by her Great Grandfather, Zheng Ze inspired her to make her illuminating and horrifying film about the massive industrialization of the world’s largest industrial power.
For news and updates go to: ascensiondocumentary.com
MTV Documentary Films and XTR present the theatrical release of ASCENSION opening on LA October 8th at the Laemmle Monica and Laemmle Playhouse in Pasadena. 

Jacinta / Film School Radio interview with Director Jessica Earnshaw

Shot over three years, JACINTA begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46, are incarcerated together, both recovering from drug addiction. As a child, Jacinta became entangled in her mother's world of drugs and crime and has followed her in and out of the system since she was a teenager. This time, as Jacinta is released from prison, she hopes to maintain her sobriety and reconnect with her 10-year-old daughter, Caylynn, who lives with her paternal grandparents. Despite her desire to rebuild her life for her daughter, Jacinta continually struggles against the forces that first led to her addiction. JACINTA earned its director, Jessica Earnshaw, the award for Best New Documentary Director at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival. It has continued an impressive festival run at DOCNYC, AFI Fest, IDFA, and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival where it won the Best Documentary award. With unparalleled access and a gripping vérité approach, director Jessica Earnshaw joins us to talk about her deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma over generations.
For news, updates and screenings go to: jacintafilm.com
The Hulu Original Documentary will premiere on Hulu on October 8

Witkin and Witkin / Film School Radio interview with Director Trisha Ziff

From the acclaimed director comes the deep and resonant story of the Witkins, identical twins born in Brooklyn in 1939. Painter and life-long educator Jerome and renowned photographer Joel-Peter may be brothers, but their lives, art and personalities could not be more divergent. Joel-Peter is a celebrated and highly controversial photographer whose Caravaggio and Dali–inspired arrangements, often constructed with cadavers and body parts, are transgressive and macabre. His identical twin brother, Jerome, is an equally acclaimed figurative painter, whose work explores political, social and cultural themes. Yet, for all their similarities, for much of their 80 years, the Witkins have willfully chosen to remain apart. Filmed over the course of four and a half years at five locations across the United States -- including the home where the Witkins grew up in Brooklyn, Joel’s home in Albuquerque, and Jerome’s home in Syracuse near the university, where he teaches fine art – WITKIN & WITKIN , which played such prestigious documentary festivals as Hot Docs, AFI Docs, DocFest and IDFA, chronicles the brothers’ decidedly separate paths as artists and as people, until, at their first-ever joint exhibition they encounter an unexpected change in their artistic trajectories and self-perceptions, as well as their relationships with each other. Trisha Ziff (The Man Who Saw Too Much, Chevolution) joins us to talk about her intimate and intensely human film explores the themes of love, loss and distance, while showcasing the Witkins’ fascinating bodies of work.  
For updates and how to watch go to: indiepixfilms.com
For news and updates go to: 212berlin.com/project/witkin-witkin

Fruits of Labor / Film School Radio interview with Director Emily Cohen Ibañez

FRUITS OF LABOR is the latest documentary from Colombian-American director Emily Cohen Ibañez that follows Ashley Solis, a Mexican-American teenager living in an agricultural town on the central coast of California. A high school senior, Ashley dreams of graduating and going to college, but when ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family, she is forced to become their primary breadwinner. While most of her friends are thinking about prom and graduation, Ashley finds herself working days in the strawberry fields and the night shift at a processing plant, with little time left for sleep or studies. Tracing the tensions between family bonds and the systems that work to sever them, FRUITS OF LABOR follows Ashley as she tries to hold on to her dreams while coping with obligations to her mother, who is undocumented, and three younger siblings. The family lives in a cramped house with 12 other families, and although Ashley’s mother Beatriz works seven days a week as a domestic, it’s not enough to make ends meet. Yet despite their challenges, both Ashley and Beatriz are committed to changing their lives and the lives of others in their community facing the same struggles. Director, producer, writer and cinematographer Emily Cohen Ibañez joins us for a conversation on the myriad of personal, social and economic pressure that informs most of Ashley’s personal decisions and how the political history and social institutions make Ashley’s path forward fraught with uncertainty,
For news and updates go to: fruitsoflaborfilm.com

The Faithful - The King, The Pope, The Princess / Film School Radio interview with Director Annie Berman

Elvis, Princess Diana, and Pope John Paul II are undoubtedly still alive today, thanks to their devoted followers who love, admire, and consume them. Literally. THE FAITHFUL a new film by writer/director Annie Berman, powerfully explores fandom, memorabilia and the magnetic appeal of three of the most influential cultural icons of our time. THE FAITHFUL, twenty years in the making, leads viewers on an emotional journey leaving them looking inwards, reflecting on their own lives and the connections they cherish. A Pope John Paul II lollipop. An Elvis Presley shower curtain. A Princess Diana teacup. These are just some of the countless pieces of memorabilia that these pop culture icons’ most devoted fans collect and cherish… but why? Berman profiles these figures’ biggest fans and makes numerous pilgrimages to Vatican City, Graceland, and Kensington Palace. As the years go by, the film itself becomes increasingly entwined with Berman’s daily life and identity, much like how these officially-licensed knick-knacks define the fans she filmed. Director Annie Berman joins us for a conversation on what attracted her to these culturally significant figures, why are people so invested in the lives of these particular icons and how this 20-year journey has impacted he life.
For news, screenings and updates go to: the-faithful.com
Official Blog: medium.com/the-faithful-the-king-the-pope-the-princess

Pharma Bro / Film School Radio interview with Director Brent Hodge

PHARMA BRO chronicles the shooting star life and times of Martin Shkreli, the 38-year-old financial entrepreneur and pharmaceutical tycoon from Brooklyn, New York, was dubbed “the most hated man in America” by the media after he rose to infamy in 2015 for price gouging the prescription drug Daraprim by 5500% overnight depriving patients of the life-saving medication. Hodge presents a new in-depth look on the all-too familiar media tale in PHARMA BRO a concentrated year-long study of the man who defies traditional categorization. Through traveling to Shkrel, Albania to learn about his heritage and uncover his backstory; visiting hospitals and talking with Daraprim patients; watching countless hours of his live-stream; and uncovering the real story about the Wu-Tang album, Hodge is able to provide new and alternative insight from a variety of sources, who offer commentary on Shkreli and his story of promising financial savant turned pharma opportunist and the fortune he acquired at the detriment of others. Combining live streams, sit-down interviews, news footage, filmed scenes and actual encounters with Shkreli, Hodge presents a prismatic image of PHARMA BRO, the differing sides he consciously (and sometimes unconsciously) presented and a cinematic examination of the qualities that earned him his most hated status. The film features Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, musical artist The Fridge, Journalist Christie Smythe, and Shkreli Defense Attorney Ben Brafman. Director Brent Hodge (A Brony Tale, I Am Chris Farley, Freaks and Geeks: The Documentary) joins us for a lively conversation on why he wanted to go behind the headlines to explore the how and why of the Shkreli’s life as well as his personal commitment to being even-handed in telling the whole story of “the most hated man in America.”
For news and updates go to: 1091pictures.com