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Talkhouse

Boots Riley is the writer-director of Sorry to Bother You, one of the most acclaimed films of 2018. Growing up in Oakland, he studied film at San Francisco State University before dropping out in favor of a major label recording deal. He put in two decades as leader of The Coup, a radical funk/punk/hip-hop band, where he penned six albums to widespread critical acclaim, receiving “Pop Album of The Year” by The Washington Post and the Associated Press, and “Hip Hop Album of The Year” by Rolling Stone. His book of lyrics and anecdotes Tell Homeland Security We Are the Bomb is out now on Haymarket Press. The Coup&#8217;s seventh, as-yet-unreleased album, The Sun Exploding, is the soundtrack to Sorry to Bother You. The New York Post says, &#8220;Boots Riley ranks as some kind of genius.&#8221; Jeff Chang said, “he is one of the most influential poets and thinkers of this generation.” Stereogum says, &#8220;Boots Riley is a national treasure.&#8221; While Slavoj Zizek says “The very existence of a person like Boots Riley is a miracle.” It is his hope to be a part of creating a new movement in film.

Boots Riley

Film

Best of 2018: Boots Riley Talks Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy

Jason Reitman made his feature film debut with the 2006 Sundance hit Thank You for Smoking, and notably earned Academy Award nominations for directing Juno and Up in the Air. His other films include Young Adult, Labor Day and Men, Women and Children. He recently executive produced the Academy Award-winning film Whiplash and produces the Hulu comedy series Casual. He next will direct for Dreamworks the animated feature film Beekle, about an imaginary character who sets off on a journey to find a friend.

Jason Reitman

Best of 2018: Jason Reitman Talks Hannah Fidell’s The Long Dumb Road and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War

I am Gaby Dunn. I am a TV writer and actress living in Los Angeles. I’ve sold shows to MTV, FX, FOX, and YouTube Red. I appeared on the second season of Take My Wife, a sitcom you can watch on Starz. (I was kind of a bad guy!) I currently write on Netflix’s Big Mouth. I have a podcast called <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-with-money-with-gaby-dunn/id1144712710" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bad With Money</a>, which was named one of the top 10 podcasts of 2016 by the New York Times. The show’s third season comes out in April 2018. The book version of Bad With Money will be published by Simon and Schuster in Jan 2019. My comedy partner Allison Raskin and I produce the YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/justbetweenusshow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Just Between Us</a>, which has more than 750,000 subscribers. Our novel<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/125012932X/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> I Hate Everyone But You</a> was a New York Times Best Seller. (Wow! Cool! Awesome!)
(Photo by Doug Frerichs)

Gaby Dunn

In Comedy, Saying Nothing Is No Longer an Option

Paige Goldberg Tolmach is the director and producer of the documentary <a href="https://www.whathauntsusfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What Haunts Us</a>, about the dark secret – and systemic cover up – that endured for decades at her seemingly perfect high school. The film premiered at the Boston Film Festival in 2017 and aired on Starz earlier this year. A leading expert on environmental toxins and their effects on children, Tolmach founded The Little Seed in 2007, an eco-conscious store in Los Angeles that helped raise awareness about the dangers of toxic chemicals in our homes. The Little Seed partnered with Seventh Generation in 2009 to help launch their “Million Baby Crawl,” which demanded that Congress change federal laws to keep toxic chemicals out of our homes, and in 2010, she and her partner collaborated with Target to bring The Little Seed’s eco sensibility and eco awareness to the masses.

Paige Goldberg Tolmach

Facing Our Ghosts

Empire recently described Simon Rumley as “one of the most important and intelligent British film-makers working today.” Screen International said of his critically acclaimed 2017 feature, Crowhurst, which was executive produced by British legend Nicolas Roeg, “It reaffirms Rumley&#8217;s position among the most interesting, unconventional British filmmakers of the moment.” Rumley has directed nine feature films, including Red White &amp; Blue, Fashionista and The Living and the Dead, and contributed to the anthology film The ABCs of Death. His films have played at festivals around the world including Toronto, Rotterdam, SXSW, Sarajevo, Tallin, Transylvania, Buenos Aires, Sydney, London, Rio and Stockholm, and won almost 50 awards collectively, including best film or director prizes at Sitges, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia and Fantaspoa, amongst others. He is currently in post-production on a 1940s historical gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in London, set for theatrical release in the U.K. In 2019. (Photo by Charlotte Tolhurst.)

Simon Rumley

Everyone Sees Different Things: Remembering Nicolas Roeg

Stuart Gordon was a writer-director-producer of film, television and theater. He is best known for the cult classic Re-Animator and for having murdered his wife Carolyn in his films whenever possible.

Stuart Gordon

Farewell to Sensational Stan

Writer-director Katherine Dieckmann’s latest film, Strange Weather, starring Holly Hunter, is available on digital and through Netflix. Her previous features are A Good Baby (2000), Diggers (2006), and Motherhood (2009). Dieckmann was the original director on Nickelodeon’s groundbreaking series The Adventures of Pete &amp; Pete, and has directed music videos for Sharon Van Etten, R.E.M., Wilco, Aimee Mann, Throwing Muses and Vic Chesnutt, among other bands. She is a Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts Film Program, where she teaches screenwriting.

Katherine Dieckmann

Blurring the Edges: Sharon Van Etten’s “Jupiter 4”

Angela Shelton is the writer-director of <a href="https://heartbabythemovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heart, Baby</a>, based on the true story of boxer George Lee Martin, starring Gbenga Akinnagbe and Jackson Rathbone; the film is now playing in select theaters. Shelton had her first screenwriting and producing credit with Tumbleweeds (1999), which won the Sundance Film Festival Filmmaker’s Trophy and earned the lead actress Janet McTeer an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win. She followed Tumbleweeds with her highly acclaimed adaptation of Kaye Gibbons’ novel Charms For The Easy Life (2002), starring Mimi Rogers and Gena Rowlands. In 2001 Angela made her directorial debut with the documentary Searching For Angela Shelton, in which she discovered that 70% of the women she interviewed with the same name had, like herself, been a victim of rape, childhood sexual abuse and/or domestic violence. The film received many accolades and went on to begin a grassroots movement of survivors and humanitarian organizations around the world dedicated to exposing the epidemic of abuse. Her memoir, Finding Angela Shelton, published by Meredith Publishing in 2006, describes how making the documentary changed her life. She is currently in development on her second feature.

Angela Shelton

Reuniting Friends Through Movies

Stacy Cochran made her directorial debut with My New Gun, starring Diane Lane; it premiered in Directors&#8217; Fortnight at Cannes and earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. Subsequent projects include Touchstone title Boys, the short doc Richard Lester!, and Drop Back Ten, which premiered in Dramatic Competition at Sundance. Her latest film, <a href="https://www.writewhenyougetworkmovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Write When You Get Work</a>, is released theatrically by Abramorama on November 23.

Stacy Cochran

Waking Up Back in the Movie Business

Jennifer Fox is the writer, director and producer of <a href="https://www.hbo.com/movies/the-tale" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Tale</a>, her autobiographical drama about childhood sexual abuse, starring Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Jason Ritter, Elizabeth Debicki, Ellen Burstyn and Common, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film aired in 2018 on HBO, was nominated for two Emmys and is currently up for Breakthrough Director at the Gotham Independent Film Awards and Best First Screenplay, Best First Feature and Best Editing at the Independent Spirit Awards. Fox&#8217;s groundbreaking works as a director include Beirut: The Last Home Movie, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival; the Gracie Award–winning An American Love Story; Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman and the Emmy nominee My Reincarnation. Fox has also executive produced several award-winning films, including On the Ropes, an Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature.

Jennifer Fox

The Tale of Doing Everything Wrong to Make Something Right

Shraysi Tandon is a documentary filmmaker whose directorial debut <a href="https://www.firstrunfeatures.com/invisiblehands.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Invisible Hands</a>, the first feature film to expose child labor and child trafficking within the supply chains of the world’s biggest corporations. The film is released by First Run Features, and opens in New York at Cinema Village on November 23, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle Glendale on  November 30. A journalist by background, Shraysi was a reporter and anchor for CGTN America, covering business, economics and finance. At 25, she became the youngest Bloomberg TV reporter and helped oversee Bloomberg TV’s Australia coverage. As a reporter, Shraysi has interviewed such figures as Israeli President Shimon Peres, U.S. Vice President Al Gore, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Academy Award winner Matt Damon, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Nobel laureates Muhammad Yunus and Kailash Satyarthi. She currently lives in New York.

Shraysi Tandon

This is the One

Cameron Yates is a filmmaker and curator. His latest feature, the documentary <a href="https://www.kinolorber.com/film/chef-flynn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chef Flynn</a>, a portrait of culinary prodigy Flynn McGarry, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and is currently in select theaters through Kino Lorber. His first film, 14 and Payrolled, a half-hour portrait of four teenagers working as pages for the Virginia House of Delegates, premiered on PBS in 2003. His first feature documentary, The Canal Street Madam, the story of a New Orleans madam who ran a brothel with her mother and daughter until she was busted by the FBI, world premiered at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival. A former World Cinema and Documentary Programmer for the Hamptons International Film Festival, Yates has also worked with Albert Maysles, Zeitgeist Films, Sundance, NewFest LGBT Film Fest, and has been a contributor to IndieWire.