KUCI: Film School

Cyrano, My Love / Film School Radio interview with Director Alexis Michalik

In Alexis Michalik’s rousing, re-telling of the story about France’s enduring and iconic dramatist Edmond Rostand is not yet thirty, but he already has two children and a lot of anxieties. He hasn’t written anything for two years. In desperation, he offers the great Constant Coquelin a new play, a heroic comedy, written in verse for the holidays. There is just one problem: the play hasn’t been written yet. Ignoring the whims of the actresses, the demands of his Corsican producers, his wife’s jealousy, his best friend’s relationship problems and the lack of enthusiasm of all those around him, Edmond begins to write the play that nobody believes in. For the time being, he only has the title: ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ Director Alexis Michalik joins us o talk about the recasting of this timeless tale as a peak behind the curtain of a failing playwright’s topsy-turvy effort to bring his tale of unrequited love to life and how his own attempts to bring Edward Rostand’s story to the screen eerily mirrored Cyrano’s author Edward Rostand.
For news, updates and screenings go to roadsideattractions.com/cyranomylove
Cyrano, My Love opens on October 18 at the Laemmel Royal Theatre in Los Angeles
Social Media
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On the President’s Orders / Film School Radio interview with Directors James Jones and Olivier Sarbil

ON THE PRESIDENT’S ORDERS tell the searing story of President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented and intimate access to both sides of the war - the Manila police, and an ordinary family from the slum. Shot in the style of a thriller, this observational film combines the look and feel of a narrative feature film with a real life revelatory journalistic investigation into a campaign of killings. The film uncovers a murky world where crime, drugs and politics meet in a deathly embrace - and reveal that although the police have been publicly ordered to stop extra-judicial killings, the deaths continue. Director / Producer James Jones and Director / Cinematographer Olivier Sarbil join us for a conversation on the challenges of gaining access to the police, the victims of police violence and the draconian drug policy being enforced by a dictatorial, human-rights abusing regime.
For news, updates and screenings go to: onthepresidentsorders.com

Doubting Thomas / Film School Radio interview with Director Will McFadden

Black babies don’t come from white people. Except this one just did. That’s what Jen (Sarah Butler) tells her husband Tom (Will McFadden). He says he believes her. But soon, amidst a constant barrage of questions from everyone, Tom’s doubts and worst fears take hold. Both new parents are scared by the thoughts entering their minds, and scared to share them with each other. Baby Liam seems to love their dear friend Ron (Jamie Hector) – but why does that make it harder for Tom? And why do people keep confusing Ron for Liam’s father? Maybe because they’re both black. By the time a twist is revealed that could explain the baby’s appearance, it may be too late. Before Tom and Jen can accept their child, they’ll have to accept themselves… or face living their lives apart. Starring Will McFadden, Sarah Butler, Jamie Hector, Rob Belushi, Zach Cregger,  James Morrison,  and Melora Walters. Doubting Thomas, winner of Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Audience Award, Best First Feature, will begin its theatrical run in Los Angeles on Friday, October 11th, ahead of its North American VOD / Digital release on October 15th, 2019 through  Gravitas Ventures.  Will McFadden’s  directorial debut, DOUBTING THOMAS brings unconscious racism home in the innocence of a baby. A complex tale that  touches on institutional    racism and assumed privilege, the concept for the film was born from the true story of a black man killed in police custody in a racially charged incident. That man's son, Joseph Campbell, shares story by credit with McFadden.  Director / Co-writer / Producer and Lead Actor Will McFadden joins us to talk about his thought provoking drama that raises a multitude of questions about the relevance of family history, trust and race.
For news, screenings and updates go to: doubtingthomasmovie.com
Social Media:
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twitter.com/DoubtingMovie
instagram.com/doubtingthomasmovie

Gift / Film School Radio interview with Director Robin McKenna

Inspired by Lewis Hyde’s beloved classic The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, GIFT is a richly cinematic film, interweaving character‐driven stories. On North America's Pacific Northwest Coast, a young Indigenous artist and carver undertakes the elaborate preparations for a potlatch - to make a name for himself by giving everything away. In Rome, Italy, a factory occupied by migrant families is transformed into a living museum, protected by a barricade of art : a model of resistance, and an invaluable gift.  In the pirate utopia of Burning Man, a mutant bumblebee art car distributes honey in a post-­apocalyptic desert landscape. Meanwhile, in Auckland, New Zealand, artist Lee Mingwei prepares to launch Sonic Blossom - a “transformative gift” of song. GIFT is a tribute to something that can’t be measured or counted, bought or sold. Exploring the parallels between artists’ work and a gift economy, it’s a reflection on the creative process, the reasons we “labour in service of our gifts”, and a celebration of the imagination. Director Robin McKenna joins us to talk about her beautifully meditative film about paying forward human connection and how communities can re-imagine the meaning of wealth and prosperity.
About the filmmaker: Robin McKenna is director, producer and writer of GIFT, a feature-length documentary and crossmedia project inspired by Lewis Hyde’s classic bestseller The Gift. She is currently making Thanadoula, a short animated documentary fairytale about a real-life “death doula”, in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada - and Medicine, a feature-length documentary over a decade in the making, about ayahuasca, medicine and healing, with Dr. Gabor Maté. She directed Genevieve Bujold: ArtVie, a short film tribute to Bujold on 16mm, for the Governor General’s Awards for the Performing Arts in 2018. Robin grew up in Montréal, and began making films with La course destination monde. Her cinematography credits include City of Borders (Berlinale, Hot Docs 2009) and The Take with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (AFI Best Documentary 2004).
For news, updates and screenings go to: giftitforwardproject.com/the-film
Social Media:
facebook.com/GIFTdocumentary
instagram.com/giftdocumentary

Midnight Traveler / Film School Radio interview with Co-producers Emelie Mahdavian and Su Kim

In 2015, after Hassan Fazili’s documentary Peace in Afghanistan aired on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s main subject and put a price on Fazili’s head. Fearing for their survival, the Fazili family fled Kabul for Tajikistan. Yet after 14 months spent submitting asylum applications that were rejected again and again, they were deported back to Afghanistan. It was at this juncture that Fazili picked up his cell phone and hit the record button and with that Midnight Traveler began to take shape. Chronicling every step from inside the action, Fazili, his filmmaker wife, and their young daughters trek across Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Serbia—scurrying through perilous landscapes, huddling in freezing forests, cramming into rattling vehicles. As they endure smugglers, gangs, and refugee camps, the camera witnesses not only the danger and desperation but also the exuberance and tenderness of this irresistible, loving family. For Fazili, framing their story becomes an assertion of control, humanity, and self-expression in a situation where none exists. With its radical subjectivity, visceral footage, and poetic form, Midnight Traveler is a migration story like no other. Producer Su Kim and Producer / writer / editor Emilie Mahdavian join us for a look at at Hassan and his remarkably resilient family as they attempt to overcome institutional and deadly political obstacles in their fight for freedom as seen through the eyes of his children, Zahra and Nargis and wife, Fatima. A fight for freedom that they have to win.
For news and updates go to: midnighttraveler.oscilloscope.net
For news and screening information go to: midnighttravelerfilm.com
Social Media:
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Collisions / Film School Radio interview with Director Richard Leviens

COLLISIONS follows the story of a twelve-year-old girl, Itan (Izabella Alvarez), a straight-A-student in San Francisco, who comes home from school to find their family’s furniture up-ended and no trace of her mother, Yoana (Ana de la Reguera), who was detained by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). Child Protective Services dumps Itan and her six-year-old brother Neto (Jason Garcia) with their estranged uncle Evencio (Jesse Garcia), a big rig truck driver. Itan can't stand him. He's arrogant, unreliable, and possibly a criminal. After a desperate search, Itan locates Yoana in an immigration detention center in Arizona and convinces Evencio to take them there. They are propelled onto the road in Evencio’s truck, through the maddening labyrinth of immigration detention. Itan fights to free her mother before she is deported. But her mother keeps slipping from her grasp, as she is transferred from prison to prison. Their journey takes them through the deserts of the southern border, to sprawling truck stops, border patrol offices and secret immigration prisons. Director / Producer / Writer / Editor Richard Levien joins us for a conversation on the inspiration for COLLISIONS, his desire to humanize the tragic stories behind the headlines and the corrosive impact that cruel, politically motivated policies can have on the lives of hardworking peoples lives.
For news, screenings and updates go to: collisionsmovie.com
Opens at Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles - October 4
Friday, October 4 - Collisions, Director Richard Levien

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch / Film School interview with Co-directors Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky

A stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH is a years-in-the-making feature documentary from the award-winning team behind Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and Watermark (2013) and narrated by Alicia Vikander. The film follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group who, after nearly 10 years of research, argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth. From concrete seawalls in China that now cover 60% of the mainland coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to metal festivals in the closed city of Norilsk, to the devastated Great Barrier Reef in Australia and massive marble quarries in Carrara, the filmmakers have traversed the globe using state of the art camera techniques to document the evidence and experience of human planetary domination. At the intersection of art and science, ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH witnesses a critical moment in our geological history. Co-directors Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky bring a provocative and unforgettable experience of our species's ever-expanding breadth and devastating impact.
For news, screenings and updates go to: kinolorber.com/Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
For more information on Anthropocene and filmmakers go to: theanthropocene.org/
For additional information on Jennifer Baichwal at mercuryfilms.ca
Social Media:
facebook.com/mercuryfilmsinc
twitter.com/mercuryfilms
instagram.com/mercuryfilmsinc

Don’t Be Nice / Film School Radio interview with Producer Nikhil Melnechuk

The high-energy documentary DON’T BE NICE, chronicles the upstart Bowery Slam Poetry Team, made up of five African-American, Afro-Hispanic and queer poets in their 20s, preparing for the national championships. Coach Lauren Whitehead pushes them past personal boundaries to write from a painfully honest place with the credo “Don’t Be Nice.” She explains that to “be nice” is to stay on the surface of things, is to perpetuate the status quo, and is, for black people, to be what White culture demands. Her team of poets breaks down, breaks through, and ultimately writes their masterpiece—a celebration of black joy. Timely and difficult, their spoken word slays—but will their soul-searching pieces about police violence and the whitewashing of Black culture be able to compete against choreographed crowd-pleasers for the national title? Will opting to make a statement instead of a show spell their defeat?  An emotional and inspiring film that gives insightful commentary on race, gender, identity and sexual politics in America today, DON’T BE NICE is both an exciting competition film and a deep dive into the wildly-popular Slam Poetry subculture, that proves once and for all that winning hearts and minds is the ultimate prize. Producer Nikhil Melnechuk joins us to talk about the phenomenally talented group of poets / writers / advocates that make up the Bowery Team and these from the heart, high-wire performances chronicled in this emotionally charged documentary.
For news, screening and updates go to: dontbenicemovie.com
Social Media:
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Jim Allison: Breakthrough / Film School Radio interview with Director Bill Haney

JIM ALLISON: BREAKTHROUGH is the astounding, true story of one warm- hearted, stubborn man’s visionary quest to find a cure for cancer. The film traces Allison’s remarkable life from his school-boy days in Friday Night Lights, Creationist Texas all the way to Stockholm where, in December of 2018, he accepted the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Director Bill Haney is an award-winning documentarian, serial inventor and entrepreneur, who has founded more than a dozen companies, two of which develop drugs to cure cancer and neurological diseases. Meeting Allison in the labs of MD Anderson, Haney was immediately captivated by Jim’s empathy and pathos as much by his scientific accomplishments. Today, Jim Allison is a name to be reckoned with throughout the scientific world — a 2018 Nobel Prize winner for discovering the immune system’s role in defeating cancer but for decades he waged a lonely struggle against the skepticism of the medical establishment and the resistance of Big Pharma. Using intimate interviews with Allison and a set of scientific leaders, paired with the use of graphics and archival material, JIM ALLISON: BREAKTHROUGH takes us into the inspiring and dramatic world of cutting-edge medicine, and into the heart of a true American pioneer, in a film that is both emotionally compelling and deeply entertaining. Director Bill Haney (The Piece of Sugar, The Last Mountain, A Life Among the Whales) stops by to talk about this highly entertaining, informative story about an innovator, free-thinker, honky-tonk musician and a true iconoclast.
For news and updates go to: breakthroughdoc.com
For Jim Allison: Breakthrough screenings go to: breakthroughdoc.com/screenings
Jim Allson: Breakthrough opens in LA on Friday 9/27 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center
Social Media:
facebook.com/CancerCureDoc
twitter.com/CancerCureDoc
instagram.com/CancerCureDoc

Always in Season / Film School Radio interview with Director Jacquelin Olive

Claudia Lacy wants answers. When her 17-year-old son, Lennon, was found hanging from a swing set in Bladenboro, North Carolina, the authorities quickly ruled his death a suicide. In light of suspicious details surrounding his death, and certain that her son would not take his own life, Claudia is convinced Lennon was lynched. Jacqueline Olive's unwavering debut film ALWAYS IN SEASON puts Lacy's pursuit for justice into a wider historical context, inspiring a powerful discussion about lynching across racial lines. Appalling accounts of lynchings carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century provide a necessary historical framework, while an annual lynching reenactment in Monroe, Georgia, offers insight into the enduring legacy of racial violence in America. Olive's layered exploration follows one African American family's personal experience with a justice system that has failed so many, while also hinting at the promising first steps of a nation trying to reconcile. Olive's film honors and acknowledges the injustices that have been inflicted, while emphasizing that only through the uncomfortable conversations and acceptance of our nation's history will we begin to heal together. Director / Producer Jacquelin Olive joins us for a conversation on the bitter, pernicious and deadly legacy of the Confederacy and the enslavement of human beings in service to big business interests.
About the filmmaker: Director / Producer Jacquelin Olive is an independent filmmaker and immersive media producer with fifteen years of experience in journalism and \film. Her debut feature documentary, Always in Season, premiered in competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency. Jackie also co-directed the award-winning hour-long film, Black to Our Roots, which broadcast on PBS in 2009. Jackie has received artist grants and industry funding from Sundance Institute, Independent Television Service, Ford Foundation, Firelight Media, and more. She was recently awarded the Emerging Filmmakers of Color Award from IDA and the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.
For news, screenings and updates go to: alwaysinseasonfilm.com
Always in Season opens in LA on Friday, September 27 at the Laemmle Music Hall - A Q&A with Director Jacquelin Olive will follow the 7:30 PM screening
Social Media:
facebook.com/AlwaysInSeasonFilm
twitter.com/Always_InSeason
instagram.com/alwaysinseasonfilm