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Talkhouse

Joe Swanberg has directed many acclaimed feature films and web shows, including Hannah Takes The Stairs, Alexander the Last, Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas and the IFC.com series Young American Bodies. He also co-directed and acted in the breakout horror film V/H/S. His films have premiered at Sundance, Berlin and SXSW and regularly appear on TV and in film festivals and theaters around the world.

Joe Swanberg

Film

Joe Swanberg (Happy Christmas) Talks Jake Kasdan’s Sex Tape

Rodney Ascher is a filmmaker known for working in the spaces between documentaries, collage, and genre films. His feature debut, Room 237, managed a theatrical release despite the fact that it was made on a home computer in his living room. Other projects include The Nightmare, Primal Screen, Haunted, Horrifying Sounds From Beyond the Grave, and as editor, Andy Kaufman’s posthumous (?) comedy album, Andy and His Grandmother. A Glitch in the Matrix, his latest, explores Simulation Theory and, knock on wood, will premiere later this year. He lives in a fast-gentrifying corner of Los Angeles with his talented family and their beautiful cat. (Photo by Joseph Cultice.)

Rodney Ascher

Rodney Ascher (Room 237) Talks Roberts Gannaway’s Planes: Fire & Rescue

For Ben York Jones, it’s all about character. As a screenwriter, his feature writing credits include the 2011 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Like Crazy, Breathe In and the forthcoming WWII drama Ashes in the Snow. As an actor he can be seen in the Emmy- and Cannes Lion-winning web series The Beauty Inside, the 2010 Sundance Competition film Douchebag, and the short film Safety. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he is picking cat hair off one of his many plain black T-shirts. (Photo by Tiffany Roohani)

Ben York Jones

Screenwriter Ben York Jones (Like Crazy) Talks the Worlds of Louie and Maron

With a strange mix of underground horror shock and existential atmosphere, Calvin Lee Reeder made a name for himself with short films like Piledriver and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDFaLFA5VBY" target="_blank">Little Farm</a>. His features films <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWJiYebSQYM" target="_blank">The Rambler</a> (Anchor Bay Films) and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE7lxnhqYJ8" target="_blank">The Oregonian</a> (Factory 25) divided and excited Sundance audiences just as his shorts had before them. Reeder specializes in turning lo-fi splatter pics into art films by meshing high-concept thought and design with genre storylines. Follow him <a href="https://twitter.com/CalvinLeeReeder" target="_blank">here</a>.

Calvin Lee Reeder

James DeMonaco is the writer and director of the feature films The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy, The Purge: Election Year and Staten Island, as well as co-founder of the Man in a Tree production company. He also wrote the films The Negotiator and Assault on Precinct 13. He created and executive produced The Purge TV series, as well as the cable television miniseries The Kill Point, which starred John Leguizamo. He recently co-wrote the novel Feral with Brian Evenson, which was published by Random House, and his children’s novel The Curious Chronicles of Jack Bokimble and His Peculiar Penumbra was published by Inkshares Inc. in 2017. The latest film he wrote and directed, This is the Night, starring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Frank Grillo, is now <a href="https://www.uphe.com/movies/this-is-the-night-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available to stream</a>. He lives in Staten Island with his wife and daughter. He is an avid New York Yankees fan.

James DeMonaco

Calvin Lee Reeder (The Rambler) Talks James DeMonaco’s The Purge: Anarchy

Terence Nance is an Artist, Musician, and Filmmaker born in Dallas, Texas in what was then referred to as the State-Thomas community. Nance wrote, directed, scored, and starred in his first feature film, <a href="http://ofherbeauty.com">An Oversimplification of Her Beauty,</a> which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2013. In 2014, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In the summer of 2018, Terence’s Peabody award-winning television series Random Acts of Flyness debuted on HBO to great critical acclaim, and was renewed for a second season by the network. His latest release as a musician, Vortex+, came out in early 2025.

Terence Nance

Terence Nance (An Oversimplification of Her Beauty) Talks Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo

David Lowery is a filmmaker from Texas. His work as a director has been shown at Sundance, SXSW and the Cannes Film Festival, and includes Pioneer, St. Nick and Ain&#8217;t Them Bodies Saints. As an editor, he has cut such films as Bad Fever, Sun Don&#8217;t Shine and Upstream Color, for which he received an Independent Spirit Nomination. As of this writing he is working on a movie about a dragon.

David Lowery

David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) Talks Richard Linklater’s Boyhood

Critically acclaimed writer, director and editor Aaron Katz was born and raised in Portland, OR. His movies include <a href="http://www.sonyclassics.com/landho/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Land Ho!</a>, Cold Weather and Quiet City.

Aaron Katz

Aaron Katz (Land Ho!) Talks Maclain Way and Chapman Way’s The Battered Bastards of Baseball

Nancy Savoca’s debut film, True Love, with Annabella Sciorra and Ron Eldard, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1989. Her other works include Dogfight (River Phoenix, Lili Taylor), Household Saints (Lili Taylor, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tracy Ullman, Judith Malina) and HBO&#8217;s If These Walls Could Talk (Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek, Cher). Her latest film, Union Square, stars Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard &amp; Patti LuPone and premiered at Toronto in 2012.

Nancy Savoca

Nancy Savoca (Dogfight) Talks Aarón Fernández’s The Empty Hours

Jason Nash, a stand-up comedian and actor who’s known for his work on television and online, recently made his debut as writer/writer with <a href="http://t.co/o7rx7yCNQm" target="_blank">Jason Nash is Married</a>. Thanks to characters like Soda Dad, he’s amassed more than a million fans on <a href="https://vine.co/JasonNash" target="_blank">Vine</a> and other social media platforms. In 2013 he created the GQ web series How to Be a Man, featuring such guests as Andy Richter and David Koechner. Previously he wrote, produced and starred in The Shaman, an eight-episode web series for CC:Studios. (Photo by Derek Hui.)

Jason Nash

Comedian Jason Nash Talks How to Make Your First Low-Budget Film

Kirsten Smith co-wrote Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, She&#8217;s the Man and The House Bunny. She&#8217;s directed two short films, both starring Anna Faris, and executive produced Whip It. Her latest project is The Expendabelles, the female-centric installment of The Expendables franchise. You can find her on Twitter at @kiwilovesyou.

Kirsten Smith

Screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (Legally Blonde) Talks Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens’ Land Ho!

Anna Martemucci&#8216;s second feature film and her directorial debut, the critically acclaimed Hollidaysburg was released in September of 2014. Her filmmaking process was documented on the Starz docu-series The Chair. Martemucci&#8217;s first film, Breakup at a Wedding was released by Oscilloscope in 2013. Her third film, Periods, will be released by Oscilloscope this December 2nd. She was a resident of State College, PA from the ages of 8 to 20.