Directors Notes

Robin Mason’s directorial debut Camelot, is a suburban noir about rumour, inheritance and fatal attraction, all beautifully wrapped within a tall tale and featuring a rather fetching green Ford Capri. Robin joins us to discuss story used as a device for understanding difficult situations, and creating fully formed supporting players who are just as compelling as the main characters.

Taking the festival circuit by storm, Tomasz Wasilewski’s second feature Floating Skyscrapers, tackles the themes of searching for one’s true identity and fighting for love where ever you may find it. We sat down with Tomasz to discuss his attraction to broken, mysterious characters and why emotions trump answers in cinema which truly affects audiences.

In Swedish director Niclas Larsson's debut short Vatten, a lonely girl discovers a mysterious unconditional love during a late night swim. Niclas joins us to discuss getting his feet wet with underwater filming and his use of 'silent takes' to expunge unnecessary dialogue during the edit.

In Philippe André’s latest short Delicate Gravity, a wrong number leads to an encounter full of potential for two people who have missed something in their lives. Philippe joins us to discuss how he extended cuts to create a ‘slow dating’ film of sophistication, in which the audience has a rare opportunity to spend time with the characters as their fluke romance develops.

It’s been 6 years since London director Jon Yeo last joined us on the DN podcast, but we won’t hold it against him as he’s back today with his new film about long dead Kings arising to claim a fallen Emperor, Leviathan Ages. We discuss Jon’s return to the hands on method of working he employed on the excellent Beauty is the Promise of Happiness, and dig into the roots of the varied inspiration he pulls from film, music and games.

After teasing the project a year ago on the podcast, Jeff Broadway and Rob Bralver return to DN with their latest feature documentary, Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton; a deep dig into Stones Throw Records, the passion fuelled, avant-garde label founded by DJ Peanut Butter Wolf. Jeff & Rob join us to discuss picking up and reforming the movie from another team of filmmakers and mining Peanut Butter Wolf’s extensive archival footage, as well as the label’s collection of enigmatic artists, to craft a film which conveys both the ethos and history behind Stones Throw.

We bring our series of London Film Festival interviews to a close for another year with filmmaker and fellow curator Jason B Kohl’s short The Slaughter. Jason joins us to discuss how he approached the fractious father/son relationship which provides the meat of The Slaughter’s dramatic conflict, whilst also tackling the strangely abstract distance the majority of us have from the food we eat.

In Jill Soloway’s psychosexual comedy Afternoon Delight, a married mother decides it’s her duty to rescue a stripper but along the way discovers that the person most in need of rescue is herself. Jill joins us to discuss how the project shifted tone after the filming of a key scene and playing against cinematic conventions by exploring a narrative through the heroine’s journey.

The first time we spoke to Spanish director Alberto Morais it was to discuss a journey taken by the old in The Waves. Alberto returns to the London Film Festival this year with yet another journey film; this time undertaken by the young on behalf of the old in The Kids from the Port. We caught up with Alberto again to discuss directing child actors and the difficulties of filmmaking in a country that has little regard for homegrown artistic culture.

Playing out over a nature rich, fragmented dreamlike structure, Daniel Patrick Carbone’s first feature Hide Your Smiling Faces beautifully brings the spiritual truth of young men facing questions of mortality and their relationships with themselves and each other to screen. We talk to Daniel about getting the best performances from a young cast and channeling past experiences into a narrative.

Making the jump from writers and script consultants to the tandem directors’ chair, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza channelled their frustrations from years of writing for others into the taut debut feature Salvo. We spoke to the pair about depicting physical and moral blindness onscreen through a mix of stylised POV camera work and rich, multilayered sound design.

In Yorgos Tsemberopoulos’ 5th feature The Enemy Within, an intellectual is forced to re-evaluate his assumptions when violence invades his home and shakes his family to the core. Yorgos joins us to discuss his multi-decade spanning filmmaking career and the current state of Greek cinema.

Adapted from his earlier successful short of the same name, Destin Daniel Cretton’s feature Short Term 12 tells the story of a 20-something supervising staff member of a foster care facility and the troubled relationships which fill her life. We caught up with Destin at the London Film Festival to try and discover the formulae for his filmmaking emotional math equations and sign up for his first date questions service.

Director Michalis Konstantatos’ debut feature Luton, depicts the mundanity of three seemingly unrelated lives, which are brought together by a deeply visceral connection. We sat down with Michalis to discuss the violence concealed in everyday life and the fallacy of what has been coined as the Greek ‘Weird Wave’ of cinema.

It’s been a little over three years since DN alumni Rob Brown spoke to us about his short film Silent Things, but even back then the seeds of his feature debut, about a former child solider trying to make peace with his past and move on to a promising future, Sixteen were well and truly sown. We’re very pleased to welcome Rob back to DN following Sixteen’s world premiere at the London Film Festival.