Category: Director Spotlight

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

‘CERTAIN THOMAS’ Writer-Director Henry K. Hwang on Algorithmic Supremacy, the Rise of “Dataism” and Why Sci-Fi Is the New Realism: “Our Future Won’t Just Be Shaped by Data, It Will Be Governed by It”

Ahead of the film’s HollyShorts Film Festival run, the filmmaker discusses building an algorithmic totalitarian world through restraint, using Thomas as a reflection of the system around him, the visual language behind The New State and the feature film now in development. Henry K. Hwang’s CERTAIN THOMAS drops audiences into a dystopian America governed by an algorithmic totalitarian regime, but rather than explaining the mechanics … Continue reading ‘CERTAIN THOMAS’ Writer-Director Henry K. Hwang on Algorithmic Supremacy, the Rise of “Dataism” and Why Sci-Fi Is the New Realism: “Our Future Won’t Just Be Shaped by Data, It Will Be Governed by It”

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

‘LITTLE BUG’ Turns the Space Race Into an Intimate Story of Love, Loss and Connection

Writer-director Matt Branston on bringing Laika’s final days to the screen, shooting from a dog’s perspective, and using the 1957 space race to tell a deeply human story The story of Laika, the Soviet space dog sent into orbit in 1957, has become one of the most haunting chapters in the history of space exploration. But in LITTLE BUG, writer-director Matt Branston deliberately moves away from … Continue reading ‘LITTLE BUG’ Turns the Space Race Into an Intimate Story of Love, Loss and Connection

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