Direction – Below the Line

DGA Awards: Steven Spielberg and Todd Field Nominated Alongside Top Gun: Maverick Pilot Joseph Kosinski

January 11, 2023 Staff Comments Off

The Directors Guild of America has announced the nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2022, as well as Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Theatrical Feature Film Director. “The work recognized this year represents the amazing power of film in the hands of these gifted directors to tell deeply moving stories that profoundly affect us all. The recognition by one’s peers in […]

Filmmakers Richard Linklater and Tommy Pallotta on Their Animated Netflix Movie Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood

December 15, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

Boyhood filmmaker Richard Linklater has previously explored the world of animation with 2001’s Waking Life and 2006’s A Scanner Darkly, based on the Philip K. Dick novel. His most recent animated effort, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, is another one of the Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s more personal films, similar to Boyhood. The Netflix film follows a young lad named Stan who is growing up in the Houston area in […]

Bros Director Nicholas Stoller on Bringing Billy Eichner’s Gay Rom-Com to Movie Theaters

September 29, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

Universal Studios’ new comedy Bros is going to be an interesting movie to follow as it’s released in theaters this Friday, being that it’s the first major studio rom-com written by and starring an openly gay leading man. That man is Billy Eichner, who roughly 11 years ago was running around the streets of New York City putting a new spin on the classic man-on-the-street interview format with Billy on […]

Moonage Daydream Director/Editor Brett Morgen on His Deep Exploration Into David Bowie’s Life and Music

September 27, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

When it comes to documentary filmmaking, director Brett Morgen continues to be one of the more interesting filmmakers working in the format. His 2002 film The Kid Stays in the Picture (co-directed with Nanette Burstein) introduced millions to studio exec Robert Evans, who (among other things) was responsible for bringing Mario Puzo’s The Godfather to the big screen. 2007’s Chicago 10, which kicked off Sundance that year, recreated the famed […]

Indie Filmmaker Neil LaBute on His Return Behind the Camera With Thrillers House of Darkness & Out of the Blue

September 9, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

It feels like we haven’t seen many movies from playwright-turned-filmmaker Neil LaBute in recent years. In fact, it’s been seven years since his last feature film, Dirty Weekend, which came after a fairly prolific run that began in 1997 with an adaptation of his own stage play, In the Company of Men. That was followed by several films that he wrote and directed, including Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), Nurse […]

Barbarian Filmmaker Zach Cregger on How He Made One of the Year’s Craziest Horror Films With the Help of a Bulgarian Crew

September 8, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

Zach Cregger spent many years making the series The Whitest Kids U Know, writing and directing most of the episodes with the late Trevor Moore. The two of them also co-directed a few comedy features, but none of Cregger’s past work hinted at the horrors that lurk within his new movie Barbarian, which hits theaters on Friday. The creepy genre film stars Georgina Campbell as Tess, who arrives at her […]

Summering Director James Ponsoldt on the Challenge of Capturing Elusive Female Friendships Among Tweens

September 2, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

Filmmaker James Ponsoldt cut his teeth in the world of independent filmmaking with a number of highly-regarded movies that premiered either at Sundance or SXSW, beginning with his 2006 debut, Off the Black, and continuing through Smashed in 2012, The Spectacular Now in 2013, and The End of the Tour in 2015. (Ponsoldt’s 2017 movie, The Circle, broke up that run by premiering at Tribeca.) Ponsoldt’s latest film, Summering, premiered […]

Breaking Director Abi Damaris Corbin on Showing Brian Brown-Easley’s Humanity and Designing the Wells Fargo Bank

August 26, 2022 Andrew Korpan Comments Off

Much of the discussion surrounding the new Bleecker Street film Breaking, which stars a phenomenal John Boyega, posits the hostage drama as a modern-day Dog Day Afternoon. There are certainly similarities between the two, though Dog Day Afternoon explores themes of sexuality, while Breaking examines race. The film premiered at Sundance earlier this year and stars Boyega as Brian Brown-Easley, a Marine who held up a Wells Fargo bank in […]

Trees of Peace Director Alanna Brown on Her 9-Year Journey to Get the Netflix Movie Made and Why the Story of the Women in Rwanda Is Close to Her Heart

August 23, 2022 Ian Spelling Comments Off

Alanna Brown made a decision. An actor-turned-aspiring filmmaker, she’d written Trees of Peace, a tough, emotional drama about a quartet of disparate women – a Tutsi (Bola Koleosho), a nun (Charmaine Bingwa), a pregnant Hutu (Eliane Umuhire), and an American (Ella Cannon) — hiding in a basement during the violent Rwandan genocide in 1994, and she was going to direct it — no matter what. That “what” included nine years […]

Bodies Bodies Bodies Director Halina Reijn on Creating Real Terrors for Her Young Cast and How They Helped With the Lighting

August 19, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

A24‘s Gen-Z horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies has now been in theaters for a few weeks, but there’s an amazing story behind how it came together under the direction of Halina Reijn. This is her second feature, but her first English-language film, as well as her first time working with a major American studio. The movie stars Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give) as Sophie, who brings her latest flame […]