Filmwax Radio

MoMA programmer Raj Roy & the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Robert Koehler discuss this year's New Directors/New Films festival which their organizations jointly produce. We discuss highlights from this season, its 42nd, as well as what goes into programming the international festival which runs from March 20th through the 31st. Tickets go on sale March 10th.

Filmwax host, Adam Schartoff, attended the 2013 season of True/False, a documentary film festival located in Columbia, MO.  This was the 10th season for the festival. This interview with documentary film producer & director, Esther Robinson is one of several interviews during his stay. Esther Robinson is an award-winning filmmaker and producer. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY took top prizes at The 2007 Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals. It is available on The Sundance Channel, DVD, Netflix and itunes. As a producer, her projects include: HOME PAGE, by Doug Block, Cameron Yates' THE CANAL STREET MADAME, and Yance Ford's STRONG ISLAND (currently in production); Robinson served as the director of film/video and Performing Arts for the Creative Capital Foundation (1999-2006). Robinson is also currently the Co-Chair of The Cinema Eye Honors, a board member of Women Make Movies and the founder of ArtHome, an entrepreneurial nonprofit that helps artists build assets and equity.

Filmwax host, Adam Schartoff, attended the 2013 season of True/False, a documentary film festival located in Columbia, MO.  This was the 10th season for the festival. This interview with BLACKFISH director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite is one of several interviews during his stay. SYOPSIS: Even in captivity, orcas, the largest predatory mammal in the world, grow as large as 12,000 pounds. While our popular imagination is filled with the likes of Shamu and company at Sea World, the footage in this film reveals a much more harrowing history—that of Tilikum, a captive orca responsible for at least two human deaths. In her directorial debut, Gabriela Cowperthwaite amasses a trove of amateur footage shot by former Sea World trainers and combines it with interviews to paint a damning portrait of how these parks treat large sea mammals. It’s a careful, well-reasoned argument, given additional power by the eye-popping footage and thrilling narrative of Tilikum, the killer whale. Gabriela Cowperthwaite is a documentary filmmaker who for more than 12 years has directed, produced and written a variety of real life stories, including Blackfish, a feature documentary currently selected for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. She has directed, written and produced for ESPN, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery, and History Channel, including History Channel’s “Shootout!” a series for which she and a cameraman were embedded with 300 Marines at Twenty Nine Palms, and “Disaster Tech,” a documentary series about the biggest natural disasters in world history. Gabriela just finished Directing, Producing and Writing City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story. The film, for which Gabriela was immersed in the inner-city for 8 months, chronicles the lives of six 12-year-olds as they and their families struggle through middle school in their gang-ridden neighborhoods. After winning multiple Audience Awards on the festival circuit, the film was acquired by ESPN and DirectTV. In 2009, Gabriela completed a medical film for UCLA International Medicine in conjunction with the International Rescue Committee, teaching doctors in Darfur, Sierra Leone, Thailand and Pakistan, Clinical Management of Assault. The film focuses on clinics in war-torn regions, with the emphasis on providing ground-breaking medical care for victims of violence. It is being translated into 3 different languages and will be distributed in 8 countries.  She is currently directing a campaign for Supply and Demand, a commercial directing agency based in New York and Los Angeles.  

Avant garde filmmaker Su Friedrich drops by Filmwax Radio for a visit.  After a brief discussion in the studio we hop into the car for an excursion through Williamsburg with Su acting as tour guide. Su's new film, GUT RENOVATION, gets the theatrical engagement treatment at Film Forum in Manhattan, beginning Wednesday March 6th. Check schedule for dates, times & appearances. Su Friedrich began filmmaking in 1978 and has produced and directed eighteen 16mm films and videos, including FROM THE GROUND UP (2007), SEEING RED (2005), THE HEAD OF A PIN (2004), THE ODDS OF RECOVERY (2002), HIDE AND SEEK (1996), RULES OF THE ROAD (1993), First Comes Love (1991), Sink or Swim (1990), Damned If You Don't (1987), The Ties That Bind (1984), and GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM (1981). Her films have won many awards, including the Grand Prix at the Melbourne Film Festival and Outstanding Documentary at Outfest. Friedrich has received fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations as well as numerous grants from the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, NYSCA and ITVS, and in 1995 she received the Cal Arts/Alpert Award. Her work is widely screened in the United States, Canada and Europe and has been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, The Stadtkino in Vienna, the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver, the National Film Theater in London, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema, the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the First Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, the Cork Film Festival in Ireland, the Wellington Film Festival in New Zealand, The Bios Art Center in Athens, Greece, and the Anthology Film Archives in New York. Friedrich is the writer, cinematographer, director and editor of all her films, with the exception of Hide and Seek, which was co-written by Cathy Quinlan and shot by Jim Denault. Her work is screened and distributed widely throughout the US, Canada and Europe. She teaches film & video production at Princeton University. Her DVD collection is distributed by Outcast Films. Welcome to Williamsburg, New York’s new bohemia. Or is it? In the late 1980s artists moved into this working class neighborhood, populated by small manufacturers, Polish butchers, and auto repair shops, just across the East River. SoHo took 30 years to change from an artists’ bohemia to an art gallery hotspot, to an outdoor shopping mall; Williamsburg’s demise has been much faster, due in part to a 2005 zoning law change. With a winning combination of wit, anger, and political savvy, filmmaker Su Friedrich, and co-writer Cathy Quinlan, record how the neighborhood has changed from when they arrived in 1989 to the rich-hipster haven it has become. Friedrich casts a jaundiced eye on the sleek granite kitchen counters featured at the condo openings she attends; she paints graffiti on construction fences (“Artists Used To Live Here”) and comments wryly on her new neighbors (“What’s with all the fancy dogs?”). She gives up mapping a all new construction with building number 173. For anyone who has ever moved to an affordable neighborhood only to find that gentrification renders it unaffordable – this is the movie for you. Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum

Filmmaker Kirby Dick  discusses his most recent documentary, the Oscar-nominated THE INVISIBLE WAR. The film just won a Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Kirby Dick is an Academy- and Emmy Award-nominated documentary director. His most recent film, THE INVISIBLE WAR, is a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape in the U.S. military, won the Audience Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Released by Cinedigm/Documara, the film helped influence the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to announce some important policy changes. In 2009, Dick was nominated for an Emmy for Outrage (released by Magnolia Pictures) a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of powerful, closeted politicians and the political and media institutions that protect them. In 2006, he directed THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, released by IFC Films. A breakthrough investigation of the highly secretive MPAA film ratings system, the film compelled the MPAA to make long overdue changes in the way it rates films. Dick's prior film, TWIST OF FAITH, is the powerful story of a man confronting the trauma of his past sexual abuse by a Catholic priest. Produced for HBO, the film received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Dick's other films include Derrida, a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida, which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival, and the internationally acclaimed SICK: THE LIFE & DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival. SYNOPSIS: THE INVISIBLE WAR is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military. Profoundly moving, we meet characters who embraced their service with pride and professionalism, only to have their idealism crushed. Their chilling stories of violent sexual assault become even more rattling as they seek justice in a Kafkaesque military legal system. As a courageous few defy victimhood, they face their most challenging fight yet: penetrating a closed circuit where officers collude, cases are routinely swept under the rug, and few perpetrators are tried or convicted. Both a rallying cry for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who've been assaulted and a hopeful road map for change, THE INVISIBLE WAR is one of those rare films so powerful it has already helped change military policy. Demand Change: Tell the Department of Defense to better equip our troops to fight military sexual assault by using THE INVISIBLE WAR as a training tool. More ways to connect  to Kirby's film and to the subject of sexual abuse in the military.  

ZIPPER filmmaker Amy Nicholson finally stops by Filmwax Radio to discuss her recent documentary. The film will cliose out the Filmwax series, Brooklyn Reconstructed on Wednesday, February 27th at 7PM at The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope.  Amy Nicholson is a documentary filmmaker and creative director living in New York City. Her first short film, BEAUTY SCHOOL, aired on PBS, NYCTV, and the Documentary Channel. Her first feature film, MUSKRAT LOVELY, was broadcast on the Emmy award-winning Independent Lens. Amy's latest feature documentary, ZIPPER: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride, won a Special Jury Prize at its World Premiere and is currently touring the film festival circuit. SYNOPSIS: Small-time ride operator Eddie Miranda proudly runs a carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district. Eddie and his ride are driven away when the City of New York and an opportunistic real estate mogul lock horns over the future of the “People’s Playground.” A film about greed, politics, land use and public policy, and the battle over an American cultural icon, ZIPPER captures a market-driven world where growth often trumps preservation, and the Zipper may be only the beginning of what is lost.

Alex Karpovsky, the director, writer and star of two new films opening in NYC on Friday, February 22nd,  returns to the Filmwax Radio broadcast for his 4th visit. We discuss the 2 films, the road comedy RED FLAG and the darker RUBBERNECK, the latter which had its New York premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.  Both films are being distributed by Tribeca Film and are having a theatrical engagement at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Theater at Lincoln Center. A double feature discount is available if you want to see them back to back. Also discussed are Alex's role in recent Filmwax Radio guest Sam Neave's film, ALMOST IN LOVE, currently at the reRun Theater as well as his role on the hit HBO series, GIRLS. SYNOPSES: RED FLAG: A laugh-out-loud road trip comedy, starring writer/director Alex Karpovsky (GIRLS) as Alex Karpovsky, a newly-single indie filmmaker who hits the road with an old friend (Onur Tukel) to promote one of his films. As the pair travels from one half-empty theater to the next, pursued by an adoring fan (Jennifer Prediger) who drives them into an exceptionally uncomfortable love triangle, Alex-as-Alex is forced to suffer an endless series of humiliations, each one more absurd than the last. Also stars Dustin Defas. RUBBERNECK: Months after a weekend fling, Boston research scientist Paul (Karpovsky) continues to lust after his beautiful coworker Danielle (Jamie Ray Newman), nurturing his fantasies with the occasional polite exchange at work. But once she starts dating another scientist at their lab, his infatuation quickly turns into obsession – and he finds himself unable to control his desires. A slow-burn character study-turned-psychosexual thriller, co-written by Karpovsky and Garth Donovan, RUBBERNECK is a chillingly believable story of workplace romance gone wrong.

Journalist, filmmaker and film series curator, Brandon Harris, stops by for the first of a 2-part conversation. In this first episode, among other things, we talk about a recent article of his that appeared on the Brooklyn Rail website and which has drawn some attention, The Emancipation Wet Dream. Other topics of discussion include Robert De Niro, Neil Young, Jonathan Demme, Pam Grier, Quentin Tarantino, such films as SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, LINCOLN, DJANGO UNCHAINED, BELOVED, blaxploitation films of the 70's and more.  Also discussed is the new Hammer to Nail film series at Brooklyn Fireproof in Bushwyck, which Brandon is curating. The next screening is SAWDUST CITY and takes place on Sunday, February 24th, 7:30. The filmmaker, David Nordstrom, calls in as a bonus surprise.

Queens World Film Festival programmer, Don Cato, is the guest. Don updates us on the upcoming season which run March 5 — 10th.   Some of the films mentioned in this conversation include Adrian Manzano's BQE, Kirk White's F**K NEW YORK, Jaime Hook's VACATIONLAND (with Karen Black who is being honored at the festival), and Heather Freudenthal's NO REGRETS BUT... The Queens World Film Festival (QWFF) celebrates the independent filmmaking spirit by screening innovative and challenging from around the world and around the corner. QWFF includes an annual festival, industry panels, special screening events, and popular youth-oriented educational initiatives. Year round screenings provide ongoing opportunities for QWFF filmmakers, past and present. 2013 Award winners will be eligible for encore screenings at the Secret Theatre as part of the extremely popular LIC Arts Open and this year’s LGBT films will enjoy an encore screening as part of the Queens Pride free film series.  A former Landscape Architect, Don Preston Cato was raised on a fruit farm in Fredonia, New York. He earned a BSLA and a BLA from Michigan State and his MLA from the University of Oregon where he also taught & worked on his MFA in Motion Graphics. At Oregon, he participated in Director workshops with Howard Hawks and Bugs Bunny animator Bob Clampett. At The Orson Wells Film School in Cambridge, MA. he studied with Cinematographer Austin DeBesche and participated in workshops under notable film Directors Sam Fuller, Paul Morrissey & Jan Kadar. He directed his first feature, DIXIE LANES, with Karen Black, Hoyt Axton, Moses Gunn, Tina Louise and Nina Foch, edited and released by Cinemavault Releasing in 1987 to over 40 countries & was twice, the CBS movie of the week & is currently a Turner Classic Movie. His last feature BE MY OSWALD appeared in and was nominated for best feature in eight festivals winning four. He just completed Producing, C0-Directing & Editing My Kansas a Bio-Doc written, narrated & Co-Directed by Richard Uhlig for PBS Kansas City & was DP / Editor on a theatrical short My Day by Writer/Director Paul M. Kelly with Judith Roberts (Eraserhead).  Don was selected by the Queens Courier as one of the 2012 KINGS OF QUEENS for his contribution to the Boro as Program & C0-Director of the Queens World Film Festival .He teaches at the New York Digital Film Academy and is a Teaching Artist for Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side,

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1319-filmwax.mp3] } Queens World Film Festival programmer, Don Cato, is the guest. Don updates us on the upcoming season which run March 5 — 10th.   Some of the films mentioned in this conversation include Adrian Manzano's BQE, Kirk White's F**K NEW YORK, Jaime Hook's VACATIONLAND (with Karen Black who is being honored at the festival), and Heather Freudenthal's NO REGRETS BUT... The Queens World Film Festival (QWFF) celebrates the independent filmmaking spirit by screening innovative and challenging from around the world and around the corner. QWFF includes an annual festival, industry panels, special screening events, and popular youth-oriented educational initiatives. Year round screenings provide ongoing opportunities for QWFF filmmakers, past and present. 2013 Award winners will be eligible for encore screenings at the Secret Theatre as part of the extremely popular LIC Arts Open and this year’s LGBT films will enjoy an encore screening as part of the Queens Pride free film series.  A former Landscape Architect, Don Preston Cato was raised on a fruit farm in Fredonia, New York. He earned a BSLA and a BLA from Michigan State and his MLA from the University of Oregon where he also taught & worked on his MFA in Motion Graphics. At Oregon, he participated in Director workshops with Howard Hawks and Bugs Bunny animator Bob Clampett. At The Orson Wells Film School in Cambridge, MA. he studied with Cinematographer Austin DeBesche and participated in workshops under notable film Directors Sam Fuller, Paul Morrissey & Jan Kadar. He directed his first feature, DIXIE LANES, with Karen Black, Hoyt Axton, Moses Gunn, Tina Louise and Nina Foch, edited and released by Cinemavault Releasing in 1987 to over 40 countries & was twice, the CBS movie of the week & is currently a Turner Classic Movie. His last feature BE MY OSWALD appeared in and was nominated for best feature in eight festivals winning four. He just completed Producing, C0-Directing & Editing My Kansas a Bio-Doc written, narrated & Co-Directed by Richard Uhlig for PBS Kansas City & was DP / Editor on a theatrical short My Day by Writer/Director Paul M. Kelly with Judith Roberts (Eraserhead).  Don was selected by the Queens Courier as one of the 2012 KINGS OF QUEENS for his contribution to the Boro as Program & C0-Director of the Queens World Film Festival .He teaches at the New York Digital Film Academy and is a Teaching Artist for Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side,

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1318-filmwax.mp3] } NORTHEAST filmmaker Gregory Kohn is joined by the film's co-stars David Call & Eléonore Hendricks on this episode of Filmwax Radio. NORTHEAST, distributed by Tribeca Film, is having a theatrical engagement at reRun Theater February 22nd through the 28th.  Gregory Kohn began his directing career with the MTV2 sketch-comedy show, “North Palm Wrestling.” In addition to directing, he also co-wrote, produced and edited the show. Gregory has also directed numerous music videos, most notably for the critically acclaimed band, Sleigh Bells. NORTHEAST is his first feature film. He is the writer of numerous screenplays and television pilots. Eléonore Hendricks was born in downtown Manhattan. After cultivating strength and sensitivity from the Quaker Friends School in NYC and the all women's Smith College, she began a simultaneous pursuit in film and photography. As an actor she has worked on various films including, A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, DADDY LONGLEGS, KUCHISAN, THE DISH AND THE SPOON & NANCY PLEASE. Her performance in THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED earned her the Prix d'Interpretation from Festival De Belfort. David Call: A native of Washington state and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, David can soon be seen starring in Alistair Banks Griffin’s TWO GATES OF SLEEP (Cannes 2010) and Lena Dunham’s TINY FURNITURE (IFC Films/SXSW 2010).  He was most recently in DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? with Hugh Grant, as well as EVENING, Chad Lowe’s BEAUTIFUL OHIO and THE NOTORIOUS BETTY PAGE. He has also worked extensively in television, with recurring roles on “Gossip Girl,”  “Rescue Me,”  “Fringe” and “Mercy,” as well as past appearances on “Numb3rs,” “Army Wives” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” He recently directed, co-wrote and produced the short film B.U.S.T., which won the Special Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival. SYNOPSIS: Will (David Call), an unemployed and aimless playboy living in Brooklyn, has spent his 20s skating on easy charm from one casual, distant affair to the next. Noticing his friends’ happiness as they gradually settle into steady jobs and committed relationships, Will decides to trade apathy for effort in order to find someone with whom he can start the next chapter of his life. Shot on 16mm film with artful direction and honest performances, NORTHEAST is a vividly naturalistic portrayal of the pressures of an impending adulthood.

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1318-filmwax.mp3] } NORTHEAST filmmaker Gregory Kohn is joined by the film's co-stars David Call & Eléonore Hendricks on this episode of Filmwax Radio. NORTHEAST, distributed by Tribeca Film, is having a theatrical engagement at reRun Theater February 22nd through the 28th.  Gregory Kohn began his directing career with the MTV2 sketch-comedy show, “North Palm Wrestling.” In addition to directing, he also co-wrote, produced and edited the show. Gregory has also directed numerous music videos, most notably for the critically acclaimed band, Sleigh Bells. NORTHEAST is his first feature film. He is the writer of numerous screenplays and television pilots. Eléonore Hendricks was born in downtown Manhattan. After cultivating strength and sensitivity from the Quaker Friends School in NYC and the all women's Smith College, she began a simultaneous pursuit in film and photography. As an actor she has worked on various films including, A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, DADDY LONGLEGS, KUCHISAN, THE DISH AND THE SPOON & NANCY PLEASE. Her performance in THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED earned her the Prix d'Interpretation from Festival De Belfort. David Call: A native of Washington state and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, David can soon be seen starring in Alistair Banks Griffin’s TWO GATES OF SLEEP (Cannes 2010) and Lena Dunham’s TINY FURNITURE (IFC Films/SXSW 2010).  He was most recently in DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? with Hugh Grant, as well as EVENING, Chad Lowe’s BEAUTIFUL OHIO and THE NOTORIOUS BETTY PAGE. He has also worked extensively in television, with recurring roles on “Gossip Girl,”  “Rescue Me,”  “Fringe” and “Mercy,” as well as past appearances on “Numb3rs,” “Army Wives” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” He recently directed, co-wrote and produced the short film B.U.S.T., which won the Special Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival. SYNOPSIS: Will (David Call), an unemployed and aimless playboy living in Brooklyn, has spent his 20s skating on easy charm from one casual, distant affair to the next. Noticing his friends’ happiness as they gradually settle into steady jobs and committed relationships, Will decides to trade apathy for effort in order to find someone with whom he can start the next chapter of his life. Shot on 16mm film with artful direction and honest performances, NORTHEAST is a vividly naturalistic portrayal of the pressures of an impending adulthood.

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1320-filmwax.mp3] } Filmmaker Sam Neave (FIRST PERSON SINGULAR) visits the show to talk about his latest film, ALMOST IN LOVE described as a love story in two takes, denoting the film's 2 interrupted segments. Co-hosting the show is actor Theodore Bouloukos. ALMOST IN LOVE will enjoy a theatrical engagement at reRun Theater from February 15—21, thanks to IFP & Argot Pictures. SYNOPSIS: The story of a love triangle in two uninterrupted halves, Almost in Love mixes a naturalistic style with an ambitious form to create a unique experience. A film that deals with loyalty, friendship and love - and whether a perfect moment can save us from ourselves. It may seem perverse for a man who makes his living as an editor to try to make a film essentially without edits but Almost in Love is my attempt to combine the natural intimacy and improvisatory style that I love with a more rigorous formal aesthetic. I wanted to see if we could perform this technical sleight-of-hand without sacrificing the emphasis on performance. Using the audio to pull our focus from one conversation to another, one moment to the next, the film is a blend of performance and technique. Until very recently of course, long takes (anything over about 10 minutes) were a technical impossibility and while the digital revolution has allowed for longer takes, even in the era of HD I hadn’t seen a film that attempted to marry the bravura element of style with the intimacy of a character-driven drama. The challenge of Almost in Love is to present two continuous takes — two single breaths — in which lives are transformed and characters altered in real time. Sam Neave is Iranian by birth, British by upbringing and a New Yorker by choice. His first feature, Cry Funny Happy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. As an editor he has worked on many award-winning features including Alex Karpovsky’s THE HOLE STORY and Ferenc Toth’s UNKNOWN SOLDIER (for which he shared the Best Editor Award at the Woodstock Film Festival). He has also been a long-time collaborator of the renowned Iranian visual artist, Shirin Neshat, and recently helped to edit her first feature, Women Without Men, which won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. CO-HOST: Theodore Bouloukos is a New York-based actor and writer, whose performance work is divided equally between principal roles in independent narrative cinema (premiering at Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, Berlin, Strasbourg, among myriad festivals around the world), and numerous projects in video, painting and photography, live-performance and tableaux vivants that have been internationally exhibited at festivals, museums and galleries, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Performa, Art Basel and Art Basel Miami. An alumnus of The Albany Academy and Columbia University, he is also a writer, who--in addition to having contributed innumerable journalistic pieces to national publications over the years--co-wrote Hiding My Candy, published by Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. He serves as a correspondent for The Vienna Review (Austria), and writes cultural criticism on his blog, I, THEODORE.

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1320-filmwax.mp3] } Filmmaker Sam Neave (FIRST PERSON SINGULAR) visits the show to talk about his latest film, ALMOST IN LOVE described as a love story in two takes, denoting the film's 2 interrupted segments. Co-hosting the show is actor Theodore Bouloukos. ALMOST IN LOVE will enjoy a theatrical engagement at reRun Theater from February 15—21, thanks to IFP & Argot Pictures. SYNOPSIS: The story of a love triangle in two uninterrupted halves, Almost in Love mixes a naturalistic style with an ambitious form to create a unique experience. A film that deals with loyalty, friendship and love - and whether a perfect moment can save us from ourselves. It may seem perverse for a man who makes his living as an editor to try to make a film essentially without edits but Almost in Love is my attempt to combine the natural intimacy and improvisatory style that I love with a more rigorous formal aesthetic. I wanted to see if we could perform this technical sleight-of-hand without sacrificing the emphasis on performance. Using the audio to pull our focus from one conversation to another, one moment to the next, the film is a blend of performance and technique. Until very recently of course, long takes (anything over about 10 minutes) were a technical impossibility and while the digital revolution has allowed for longer takes, even in the era of HD I hadn’t seen a film that attempted to marry the bravura element of style with the intimacy of a character-driven drama. The challenge of Almost in Love is to present two continuous takes — two single breaths — in which lives are transformed and characters altered in real time. Sam Neave is Iranian by birth, British by upbringing and a New Yorker by choice. His first feature, Cry Funny Happy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. As an editor he has worked on many award-winning features including Alex Karpovsky’s THE HOLE STORY and Ferenc Toth’s UNKNOWN SOLDIER (for which he shared the Best Editor Award at the Woodstock Film Festival). He has also been a long-time collaborator of the renowned Iranian visual artist, Shirin Neshat, and recently helped to edit her first feature, Women Without Men, which won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. CO-HOST: Theodore Bouloukos is a New York-based actor and writer, whose performance work is divided equally between principal roles in independent narrative cinema (premiering at Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, Berlin, Strasbourg, among myriad festivals around the world), and numerous projects in video, painting and photography, live-performance and tableaux vivants that have been internationally exhibited at festivals, museums and galleries, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Performa, Art Basel and Art Basel Miami. An alumnus of The Albany Academy and Columbia University, he is also a writer, who--in addition to having contributed innumerable journalistic pieces to national publications over the years--co-wrote Hiding My Candy, published by Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. He serves as a correspondent for The Vienna Review (Austria), and writes cultural criticism on his blog, I, THEODORE.

DownloadGet it on iTunes {pb_mediael audio_mp3=[http://d343ypnmzkqpnf.cloudfront.net/filmwax/1317-filmwax.mp3] } The Producer of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival, Janet Pierson is responsible for the vision, programming, and execution of the annual event. Before joining SXSW in April 2008, Janet spent over 30 years championing independent films and filmmakers, in a variety of roles including distributor, exhibitor, producer’s rep, investor, workshop producer, executive producer, documentary subject, producing a program at The Moth, and as co-creator and segment director of the IFC cable TV series Split Screen.  Much of this work was in partnership with her husband, the author, producer, professor, and co-president of Grainy Pictures, John Pierson.  An Austin Film Society Board Member 2004-2010, she’s currently on the Advisory Board, and has served on and taken part in several grant panels, festival juries, and advisory roles, including on behalf of the NEA, ITVS, and Creative Capital. This year's SxSW Film Festival takes place March 8 — 16th.