Category: Director Spotlight

Academy Awards, Director Spotlight, Filmmaker Interview

Oscar Spotlight: I AM THE PRIZE – Sai Karan Talwar on Masculinity, Manipulation and the Performance of Success

From the seductive promises of online self-help culture to the increasingly complicated expectations surrounding contemporary masculinity, writer-director Sai Karan Talwar explores the fragile relationship between identity, influence and control in I AM THE PRIZE, an Oscar-qualified short film starring Russell Tovey. Examining the psychological contradictions of a charismatic self-help figure, I AM THE PRIZE, from writer-director Sai Karan Talwar, asks uncomfortable questions about the people … Continue reading Oscar Spotlight: I AM THE PRIZE – Sai Karan Talwar on Masculinity, Manipulation and the Performance of Success

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Awards Season, Director Spotlight, Filmmaker Interview

Oscar Spotlight: ODESSA shows how appearances can deceive

WARNING: this interview contains spoilers! The audience is initially encouraged to see Josef, Irene and Rolf as a vulnerable family simply trying to survive. How important was it to you that viewers form that emotional connection before the story begins to challenge their perception of who these people really are? It was essential. The connection is not the start of the film; it is what … Continue reading Oscar Spotlight: ODESSA shows how appearances can deceive

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Director Spotlight, Film Business, Filmmaker Spotlight, Interview, Live action short, Uncategorized

OSCAR SPOTLIGHT: Alex Lanipekun on ECHOES and the Silence Around Male Trauma

The writer-director behind the Oscar-qualified drama explores male mental health and childhood trauma with an acclaimed British cast led by Ashley Walters and Leo Gregory. Main photo by David Buttle For Alex Lanipekun, ECHOES began with conversations among male friends about something deceptively simple: why men can find it so difficult to say they need help. Those discussions became more personal when Lanipekun spoke to his father about … Continue reading OSCAR SPOTLIGHT: Alex Lanipekun on ECHOES and the Silence Around Male Trauma

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Awards Season, Director Spotlight

OSCAR SPOTLIGHT: Director Tamás Yvan Topolánszky on Never Give Up!, the Business of Short Film and Why Words Can Outlive the People Who Speak Them

Oscar-qualified filmmaker Tamás Yvan Topolánszky talks independent financing, discovering a remarkable nine-year-old first-time actor, the economics of ambitious short filmmaking and why his latest film asks a deceptively complicated question: who really owns a message? There is a deceptively simple question at the centre of Topolánszky’s Oscar-qualified short Never Give Up!: Do words belong to the person who says them, or to the person who ultimately gives them meaning? Produced by … Continue reading OSCAR SPOTLIGHT: Director Tamás Yvan Topolánszky on Never Give Up!, the Business of Short Film and Why Words Can Outlive the People Who Speak Them

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Director Spotlight, Film Business, Film Festivals, Filmmaker Interview, Filmmaker Spotlight, Films, HollyShorts Film Festival, Interview, Live action short, Short Film

‘KING OF THE IRON WILL’ Puts Shakespearean Language Behind a Modern Power Struggle: Liam James Collins and Scott Vickers on Ambition, Tyranny and Making an Epic on an Independent Budget

The filmmakers behind the HollyShorts premiere discuss reinventing Shakespearean dialogue for a contemporary audience, building a medieval world inside historic Scottish castles and what happens when the man who defeats a tyrant is handed the crown. KING OF THE IRON WILL began with an ambitious proposition: tell a story about power, revenge and the consequences of overthrowing a tyrant, but do it through the language and … Continue reading ‘KING OF THE IRON WILL’ Puts Shakespearean Language Behind a Modern Power Struggle: Liam James Collins and Scott Vickers on Ambition, Tyranny and Making an Epic on an Independent Budget

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