< p> ROAD TO NOWHERE (2010) premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and since then has screened in prestigious festivals around the world, its latest at the Copenhagen Film Festival, CPHPIX, 2011. Monte has won numerous awards throughout his career and was recently guest of honor at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2011. When I went to interview Monte at his home in Los Angeles, tucked in the sundrenched hills of Laurel Canyon, not only did I have the ...
Since BARDSONGS (2010) screened in Palm Springs this past PSIFF 2011, I’ve been speaking to director Sander Francken about doing an interview about what I thought was an extremely intriguing subject for a film, that of oral storytelling in a time where storytelling has changed so much that the old modes have long since departed us. Or have they? Sander’s film is a tribute to oral storytelling and ‘bardsongs’. I tracked him down in Copenhagen at CPHPIX 2011 where his film screened and we ...
Mike Ott’s film, LITTLEROCK (2010) has traveled the globe (most recently in Copenhagen at CPHPIX 2011 and SFIFF 2011 in San Francisco) with this ‘coming-of-age’ road movie about the little pleasures in life and the fascinations of cultural differences and similarities. A film about finding translation while seemingly lost in it, this film communicates universally and one finds oneself celebrating the similarities of culture rather than the differences. ME: How did you come up with t...
Read one on one interview with Romain Gavras on his film here:
http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/vanessa_mcmahon/interview_with_romain_gavras
interview by Vanessa McMahon, December 2010
CPHPIX press:
About the film
"Romain Gavras turned YouTube upside down with his hard-boiled and
controversial music video for M.I.A.'s 'Born Free', where a fascist
government detains the red-haired in concentration camps, and thereby
ind...
INTERVIEW with director Johannes Stjärne Nilsson, SOUND OF NOISE (2010)
THE SOUND OF NOISE (Sweden, 2010) screened at the 2011 Copenhagen Film Festival. Co-directed by directors Johannes Starne Nilsson and Ola Simonsson, this film is a one of a kind experiment of music on film. Many have compared the lively inventive percussionists in the film to the traveling band STOMP but as Johannes explained, ‘well, maybe it’s a bit similar but our band will make music out of...
On 'Son of Babylon'
Son of Babylon screened at this year's Copenhagen Film Festival 2011
‘SON OF BABYLON' (2010) is a fiction film based on reality about three
weeks following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the
Iraq War. Writer/director Mohamed Al-Daradji spent seven years on this
poetic masterpiece that touches on the timely and hypersensitive subject
of the Iraq War and the country now trying to pick itself up from
devastation and ruin.
...
‘Periferic ‘is a dark story about a woman named Matilda (played by actress Ana Ularu) who has only 24 hours release from after two years in prison, after which she must return back to serve another three years.
In that 24hours she plans to escape with money promised to her by her ex-boyfriend and to find her son, Toma. She visits her brother and her ex-boyfriend and then goes in search of her son, but just when everything appears like it's going to work out all goes terribly wrong, lea...
NUDE NUNS WITH BIG GUNS
NUDE NUNS WITH BIG GUNS!...If the title doesn't sell this film, I don't know what will.
This is a Camelot Pictures film...
FROM CPHPIX PRESS:
About the film
"'Nude Nuns With Big Guns'. Yes, the text might as well end here
because, with a title like tha...
MORGEN screens at this year's Copenhagen film festival... Let's hear it for Romanian cinema!
This definitely seems to be a year full of films about the ever increasing global situation of international border crossing… from ‘For A Moment, Freedom’ (2009, Iran) to ‘Illegal’ (2010, Belgium) to ‘The Albanian’ (2010, Germany) and the internationally award-winning film 'Morgen’ (2010, Romania) by director Marian Crisan. While each film shows its unique and...
still from 'Charlie Butterfly'
INTERVIEW WITH DARIUSZ STEINESS on his film CHARLIE BUTTERFLY (2002) and his director cut release at Copenhagen Film Festival.
I interviewed Dariusz in Copenhagen over a fantastic French dinner the night before his big premier, the re-release of his film CHARLIE BUTTERFLY (Denmark, 2002) in the form of a never before seen Director’s Cut. When I asked Dariusz about his film, he simply said: “If I could sum it up in one word, my f...
EVEN THE RAIN (Spain, 2010) screens at Copenhagen Film Festival 2011.
EVEN THE RAIN was directed by Iciar Bollaín and written by award winning
screenwriter Paul Laverty. The film takes place in the village of
Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2000. The premise was to make an epic film about
Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. It is a fiction film in
the style of a documentary about this film crew and its director,
Sebastián (Gael García Bernal), and his...
ESSENTIAL KILLING (Poland, 2010) screens at Copenhagen International Film Festival
In 'Essential Killing' (2010) actor Vincent Gallo plays Mohammed, a
Taliban from Afghanistan on the run from American soldiers through the
mountains of Poland after slaughtering three American soldiers to bits.
While I would not say this film is bad nor good, I would definitely say
that it is very worth the time as it is certainly a film not soon to be
forgotten. Who would of thought Gall...
Egypt's exemplary avant-garde director Ahmad Abdalla's new film Micriphone (2010) was featured at this year's CPHPIX
in Copenhagen.
Below is the latest from the makers of Microphone:
Almost the same bunch of independent film makers and fighters against the local commercial loud scene...
creators of "Heliopolis" (2009) made "Microphone" which had its world premiere at Toronto Film Festival tiff10!
...
DREI (2010), the new German film by celebrated director Tom Tykwer screened in Copenhegen at the international film festival 2011. The story of a threesome that is a twosome in three ways. Dining with Tykwer and speaking to him after seeing the film, all I could say was: 'Wow!'. Images of ancient androgynous symbols together with remembrances of breakthrough concepts by Jung crowded my brain and I was inspired, to say the least.
I explained to Tom how I loved that the fi...
INTERVIEW WITH: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (Thailand, 2010) screens at Copenhagen Film Festival 2011
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Vanessa McMahon interviews Apichatpong Weerasethakul
INTERVIEW WITH Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
During the 51st Th...
