Destiny Lives Down the Road (2011)
Living in a small town sucks for seventeen year old Destiny, especially after an environmental disaster. Deadbeat dad, mom drunk every night, her fantasy is to dance her way out of this hell hole and bring her sisters too. When she joins a dance school after a five year hiatus, she realizes that the difference between fantasy and reality is vast. It’s time to grow up.

Matt Jay’s short Any Day Now explores the life of a young woman as she attempts to navigate a new city and her role as ‘the other woman’. Matt joins us to discuss moving beyond a scandal to reveal the motivations of those involved and using the long take to convey a character’s state of mind.

I was very interested in trying to humanise what often gets reduced down to just lines on a page.

Any Day Now (2011)
Twenty-three year old small town beauty Sam has just arrived in New York. Pulling her there, are hardly fleshed out hopes of a modeling career. Following her there, is a long standing relationship with a married politician, that may or may not have a place in the next phase of her life. And awaiting her there, is all of the disorientation and isolation of foreign environment.

Most directors know that if they can concentrate on pulling great performances from their actors the battle’s half won, but it’s not quite that simple when your leads are a pair of hands. Director Tom Willems joins us this week to discuss how his short Left Right demanded he craft a new approach to filming and why faces were the last thing he needed in frame.

What’s overacting, what’s under acting, what’s good acting for a hand?

Left Right Materials
Storyboard

Showlinks
Caviar
Phantom Gold
Tilt-shift Lens

Left Right (2011)
What if your left arm gets jealous of your right arm? The left arm of Boris is jealous of the right one. After 35 years of neglect, it decides to take matters into his own hand(s).

Director David Easteal’s short The Father explores redemption and sacrifice after an unnamed dereliction of duty. David joins us to discuss capturing reality and how it’s possible for an audience to discover themes in a film its director was unaware of.

I like something to seem real […] If I can capture that moment, that’s what I’m going for, that’s what I like.

Showlinks
David Easteal
The Father

The Father (2011)
Haunted by his past, a man searches for forgiveness. Getting it however, may come at a cost.

Nikias Chryssos’ short Tower Block is the exception to the rule of keeping shorts under the 20 minute mark. Running at nearly 40 minutes it’s an enthralling blend of social realism and flights of fancy, which tell the story of a young boy’s quest for a father figure in an environment severely lacking in suitable candidates. Nikias and I discuss the hazzards of having fish on set and allowing a film to dictate its own running length.

For me it’s really nice to be on a set & you don’t really know what will happen.

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Nikias Chryssos

If you enjoyed our chat with Nikias and the full version of Tower Block, then I urge you to support the Kickstarter campaign for Nikias debut feature Der Bunker.

Tower Block (2006)
Daniel and his older brother Patrick live together in a tower block in Germany. Patrick forces Daniel to go around collecting money and plays sadistic games with him. Daniel escapes into fantasy worlds. As he suffers more and more from his brother’s tyranny, he believes to have found a friend in Bernd, a heroin junkie from the area.

Watch the full version of Tower Block after the jump.

Dutch artist and filmmaker Rosto is well know for creating intriguing, dark themed work which spans multiple forms of media. His latest, The Monster of Nix, is an existential animated musical fairytale, suitable for kids from 10 to 100. Rosto joins us to discuss not pinning yourself down to a single creative area and how to go about creating a musical that doesn’t suck after surviving five years of development hell.

I don’t consider myself necessarily to be an animator or a filmmaker or whatever. I call myself an artist because there’s no other word.

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The Monster of Nix
The Monster of Nix Facebook
Mind My Gap
Thee Wreckers

The Monster of Nix (2011)
Life is good in the idyllic fairy tale village of Nix… Until an all-devouring monster appears. Young Willy has to fight it. Alone…

We’ve followed the work of director Matt Lambert for a while here on DN, so were pleased when he debuted his filmic collaboration with fashion label UMASAN, which is undoubtedly his most ambitious short to date. Matt joined us to discuss punk rock filmmaking and traveling the globe to find the ideal place to create.

It was much more about syncing music to the movement verses syncing to the cuts.

Showlinks
Dielamb
Dielamb Twitter
Bare Bones

UMASAN (2011)
A micro and macro transformative journey that explores the poetry and evolution of human form and movement for Berlin-based fashion label, Umasan.

Fuck Machines (2010)
We are nothing but fuck machines. – NSFW

We’ve seen a fair amount of indie features this year, but a couple of our favourites came as a double bill comprising director Zach Weintraub’s Bummer Summer and The International Sign for Choking. Zach joins us this week to discuss the merits of getting back to your indie roots and why roller discos and selling lemonade may not be the best forms of film funding.

I feel like I’ve found my tone I guess or I’m closer to finding it.

Showlinks
Newhard Entertainment Blog
Canon EOS 5D

Bummer Summer (2010)
Seventeen year-old Isaac tags along on an impromptu road trip with his older brother Ben and Ben’s ex-girlfriend Lila. The trip staggers along uncertainly as the trio’s delicate and ambiguous dynamic is made increasingly weaker by the brothers’ mutual feelings for Lila.

The International Sign for Choking (2011)
Ben is twenty-four years old and listless since graduation. Frustrated, he seeks out a job teaching English in the last place his life felt exciting: Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the adjacent bedroom lives Anna, a fellow North American. She’s bubbly and outgoing, and through Anna Ben finally begins to experience the city in the way that he’d initially hoped to, until romantic tension mounts between the two.

Music is a major component of any film but can spell life or death for an animated piece, so completely building your film around its soundtrack is a risky gamble. Or Bar-El’s first venture into 3D animation, BEAT is a gamble that pays off in spades. Or joins us to discuss the marriage of drums and animation and the great results you can achieve once you’re willing to jump off the creative cliff.

I knew I didn’t want to make a wannabe film.

Showlinks
Or Bar-El
Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design
Autodesk Maya
Adobe After Effects

BEAT (2011)
In a cubic world, where work is one repetitive slow tempo, one worker discovers inside them another form of expression.

Jean Marc Calvet has led an extraordinary, and at times, dark life, which made him a perfect subject for director Dominic Allan’s feature documentary Calvet. We caught up with Dominic to discuss trusting your inner barometer and creating films as part of the new paradigm.

Calvet begins its UK cinema run this week with Dominic in attendance for Q&As across several of the screenings. Full details after the jump.

This is not reconstruction, this social photography.

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Calvet
Calvet Facebook
Dominic Allen Facebook

Calvet (2011)
Via a terrifying trip to hell and back, Jean Marc Calvet was given a second chance at life, and now a successful artist on a quest for redemption, he embarks on an extraordinary journey to make peace with his past.

Adapted from a short story by Norwegian writer Kjell Askildsen, Håkon Larssen’s The Grasshopper (Gresshoppen) is the story of a couple out of love, in a relationship that may well be out of time, told through glances and the space between what is said. Håkon and spoke about losing producers to film institute advice and the challenges of working with an editor whilst near mute.

I don’t feel that I belong to one genre. I like to explore different areas of filmmaking.

The Grasshopper Materials
Scene Maps, Posters & Film Stills

Showlinks
The Grasshopper Facebook
Sony F35

The Grasshopper (2010)
The summer is on the wane and dark clouds form on the horizon for Jakob and Maria. On the surface, everything seems fine, but behind the facade the reality is different. When Maria’s younger sister Vera comes visiting, she awakens a desire in Jakob.

Director Mike Ott joins us this week to discuss his second feature Littlerock, a beautifully balanced fish out of water story, with the added complication of a language barrier.

It’s just a scary thing to hand over your film to someone & trust that they’re gonna take care of it.

Showlinks
Littlerock
Smaal Form Films
Sony PMW-EX3

Littlerock (2010)
When her car breaks down on a site-seeing tour of California, a Japanese student winds up stranded in a small desert town. Exhilarated by a sudden sense of freedom, she extends her stay and finds friendship, romance, and what promises to be a new home. But as she pulls back the layers on this unlikely paradise, she discovers a different America than the one in her dreams.

Some are called, some are chosen but all attempt to work for the greater good of their communities. No it’s not the synopsis for Kick-Ass 2, but rather Michael Barnett’s feature documentary Superheroes which delves into the world of Real Life Superheros across North America. Michael joined us to discuss gaining access to this secretive and camera shy group in our final interview of this year’s London Film Festival.

Truth is just stranger than fiction in this situation.

Showlinks
Superheroes
Superheroes Facebook
Canon EOS 5D

Andrea Segre’s debut feature Li and the Poet tells the story of Shun Li, a Chinese woman working off her debt to a better life in Italy and the forbidden friendship she forms with retired fisherman Bepi. Andrea joined us at the London Film Festival to discuss his move from documentary to fiction and using film to create questions around xenophobia.

I start from the point of view that they are illegal because we decided the world is divided into people who can travel & people who can’t.

Promo – Trailer – Io Sono Li from Jolefilm on Vimeo.

Although I’ve been chasing Robbie Pickering for an interview since seeing his multi-award winning Natural Selection at SXSW, it was the London Film Festival that delivered Robbie for an extended chat, where we spoke about self belief not getting you on the basketball team and the many reasons you shouldn’t believe all the ‘rules’ about Hollywood filmmaking.

Simplicity & concreteness I think is what allows for infinite complexity.

Showlinks
@natselthemovie
Natural Selection Facebook
Red Camera

Alison Bagnall’s The Dish and the Spoon features a woman betrayed, who takes a romantic English teen on her journey through blind rage. Alison and I discuss the creative benefits of forced limitations and why it’s fine to not have all the answers.

I feel like movies are getting better & better because people are not getting into it to make money [...] they’re just really making the movies that they want to make.

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The Dish and the Spoon Facebook

I’m pretty sure that Daniel Edelstyn is the only director I met at the London Film Festival this year who’s the rightful heir to a Russian vodka factory. We spoke about connecting with relatives from beyond the grave and working as a film outsider.

I’m still trying to make the world better by using pictures.

Showlinks
How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire Trailer from Daniel Edelstyn on Vimeo.

Based on the famous book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness from German judge Daniel Paul Schreber, Simon Pummell’s feature Shock Head Soul depicts Schreber’s ‘madness from the inside’ through the combined use of live action, expert interviews and animation. Simon and I discussed transmedia and blurring film disciplines into a cohesive whole over tea at the London Film Festival.

Filmmaking’s become one of those things you can dream about even if you’re from outside the magic circle.

Showlinks
Simon Pummell
Shock Head Soul
Canon 5D MKII
Red Camera

Angered by the way he and the rest of us allowed the UK to sleepwalk into the Iraq war, Richard Jobson’s The Somnambulists is a departure for the director which explores the lost lives of 15 service men and women in stark visual style. We discuss collective responsibility and pushing technology and form to serve a story.

It reminded me of being in a punk band again, everything was stripped back & very simple & you weren’t relying on anything other than the performance.

Showlinks
Richard Jobson
Canon 5D MKII
Canon EOS 7D

In his debut feature The Waves (Las Olas), director Alberto Morais explores the conversations we have with history and ourselves through his lead character Miguel’s (Carlos Alvarez) journey into his past. We spoke to Alberto at the London Film Festival about shooting a film which merges the present with memory.

I respect the locations as characters because I think the locations explain a lot about the characters.

In the fifth feature from Spanish director Fernando León de Aranoa, a woman must reconcile dignity with personal necessity after forging a difficult friendship with the elderly, bedridden Amador. We caught up with Fernando at the London Film Festival to discuss his background as a writer and why his characters are his friends.

You have the music of the lines in your head & you wrote that so many times that you’re expecting to listen to that music finally on the set.

Named as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, director Mark Jackson has crafted a perfectly balanced portrait of a young woman balancing on the edge of sanity, whilst drowning in the depths of grief in his feature debut Without.

A lot of it is people watching and projecting ideas and backstory on strangers.

Showlinks
Without
Without Facebook
@withoutmovie

After discovering a cache of nearly 85 hours of pristine 16mm film shot by Swedish news reporters documenting the evolution of the Black Power Movement in the black community, director Göran Hugo Olsson brought together contemporary commentators and musicians to bring the material to life and so create The Black Power Mixtape 1967 – 1975. We sat down with Göran at the London Film Festival to discuss the importance of music in his work and why documentary filmmakers should dig in their own backgardens.

This is not a film about the black power movement, it’s a film about how it was perceived in Sweden.

Showlinks
The Black Power Mixtape 1967 – 1975
Black Power Mixtape Soundcloud

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 from Story AB on Vimeo.

In the first of our London Film Festival interviews we sit down with director Nick Brandestini to discuss his feature documentary Darwin; a look at an isolated community of 35 residents who live at end of a weathered road in Death Valley, California.

When we saw there was a ghost town called Darwin, we thought ‘Perfect’! It doesn’t get any better than that.

Showlinks
Darwin
Sony PMW-EX3

Darwin – Trailer from Darwin Documentary on Vimeo.

We only discovered the work of director Kristoffer Borgli last year but instantly became lifelong fans of his style of filmmaking. Kristoffer joins us to discuss his career to date and why octopus faced kids are unlikely to appear in his ad work.

I’m 26, I don’t feel the rush to make a feature film right now…but I really do want to make some short films.

Showlinks
Kristoffer Borgli
F5

Kristoffer Borgli (2009-2011)
A selection of Films from Kristoffer Borgli

I’ve been a fan of animator Kris Hofmann’s stop motion work since seeing her true lives of the animals we eat piece Breakfast a couple years ago. Her new piece Screwed Up is a charming film about not knowing a good thing until it’s gone, which stars a nut and a bolt. Kris joins me to discuss scaring children (and angering parents) with the truth and how animation is a the perfect cure for a broken heart.

I like to work with objects. I like to give life to objects.

Breakfast & Screwed Up Materials
Production Images

Showlinks
Kris Hofmann
Copy Shop
Adobe After Effects
Ikea Lamp
SotW: How We Launched Our Film Online

Breakfast (2009)
Often, we present our children with toys and books that tell joyful tales of animals living in peace on farms, surrounded by fields and forests. When a child’s room is left empty an ordinary tape player and a well used puzzle come to life and start to tell the truth behind the pretty pictures used to lull us into believing where animals spend their lives today.

Screwed Up (2010)
After a short honeymoon period monotony and arguments settle in. One deserts the other, but regrets that very decision soon after and embarks on a search for the missing other half.

I was skeptical I’d ever come across another zombie short worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the classic I Love Sarah Jane, that was until I got a sneak peak at Omar Hauksson’s Undying Love. Omar joined me to discuss the Icelandic film industry and pulling in favours to make a jaw dropping debut short on a shoestring.

I’m actually not a big fan of short films because short films can be really really slow & I lose the attention rather quickly if the story doesn’t get moving.

Undying Love Materials
Behing the Scenes Stills

Showlinks
Undying Love Facebook Group
@Oswarez
Omar Hauksson Vimeo
Twitch
Canon 5D MKII
Adobe After Effects
Video Copilot