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Talkhouse

Emily Bennett is an award-winning writer, director and actor. Her most recent film, <a href="https://darkstarpics.com/alone-with-you" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alone with You</a>, which she stars in and wrote and directed with Justin Brooks, was released in 2022 by Dark Star Pictures. Her screenplay Ache placed as a quarter-finalist in the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in 2020. Bennett’s short film LVRS screened at Sitges and the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, and won her best Director at the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival. Her short film Bed screened at Fantasia in 2021 and has already secured distribution on Gunpowder &amp; Sky’s horror platform prior to its ongoing festival run. In addition to her ongoing partnership with Justin Brooks and Untapped, Bennett has been hired to direct the upcoming horror film The Vineyard, with Daryl Freimark producing. (Photo by Keith Barraclough.)

Emily Bennett

Film

Imposter Syndrome or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Filmmaking

Amanda Kramer is another writer/director whose films have shown at festivals around the world. Her latest film, Please Baby Please, starring Harry Melling, Andrea Riseborough and Demi Moore, premieres at the <a href="https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2022/films/please-baby-please" target="_blank" rel="noopener">International Film Festival Rotterdam</a> on January 26, 2022. Her previous features include Ladyworld and Paris Window. She is a film radical and stands for the liberation of all artists. Learn more at her <a href="https://www.afilmbyamandakramer.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>.

Amanda Kramer

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. <a href="https://pod.link/Talkhouse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subscribe now</a>, and explore more illuminating shows on the <a href="https://talkhouse.com/category/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Talkhouse Podcast Network.</a>

Talkhouse Podcast

Harry Melling is a British screen and stage actor who has emerged as one of the most acclaimed and sought-after actors of his generation. He can currently be seen in Joel Coen&#8217;s The Tragedy of Macbeth, opposite Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, and previously featured in Joel and Ethan Coen’s anthology film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He co-starred with Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Riley Keough and Bill Skarsgard in Antonio Campos’ Southern Gothic thriller The Devil All the Time, was part of an all-star cast including Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Sienna Miller and Robert Pattinson in James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, and played chess grandmaster Harry Beltik in the miniseries sensation The Queen’s Gambit. Melling also stars in Netflix’s global hit The Old Guard opposite Charlize Theron, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthias Schoenaerts and will next be seen in Amanda Kramer’s Please Baby Please, which also stars Andrea Riseborough. Melling’s breakthrough role was playing Dudley Dursley across five films in the Harry Potter film franchise. (Photo by Wolf Marloh.)

Harry Melling

Podcast

Harry Melling Talks with Amanda Kramer on the Talkhouse Podcast

Ray Giarratana’s latest film as writer-director, <a href="https://theavenue.film/movies/the-tiger-rising" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Tiger Rising</a>, starring Dennis Quaid, Queen Latifah and Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth) and based on the book by Kate DiCamillo, is out now in theaters and will be on demand and digital on February 8. Ray’s journey began as Visual Effects Supervisor for high-end commercials and music videos, and progressed to directing commercials. After starting his career helping to build Pacific Data Images (now Dreamworks Animation), Ray supervised and directed commercials at James Cameron&#8217;s company, Digital Domain, where he directed the $26 million, 70mm event film Artist&#8217;s Journey for Paul Allen&#8217;s Experience Music Project in Seattle. Ray has worked as a VFX coordinator on films like The Life Aquatic, John Wick 3, Captain America: Civil War, I Heart Huckabees and many others. Along with his wife and partner, Deborah Giarratana, their production company GG Filmz has been instrumental in producing Machine Gun Preacher, directed by Marc Forster and starring Gerard Butler and Burden with Tom Wilkinson, Garrett Hedlund and Forest Whitaker. Ray has won numerous awards for his work, including Clios, AICP awards, and national Emmys.

Ray Giarratana

What I Learned Working with Vilmos Szigmond (and on Hundreds of Big-Budget Commercials)

Iuli Gerbase, a Brazilian filmmaker, studied Cinema and Creative Writing. At 20 years old, she started making films and developed a taste for writing strong dialogues and exploring inner conflicts. She has written and directed six short films, selected for festivals around the world like TIFF and Havana Film Fest. Her first feature film, <a href="https://www.bluefoxentertainment.com/films/the-pink-cloud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Pink Cloud</a>, a drama with touches of surrealism and scifi, premiered at Sundance in 2021 and is out now in theaters through Blue Fox Entertainment. For her next projects, Iuli is developing her second feature, another sci-fi drama, and a TV series. (Photo by Louise Carpenedo.)

Iuli Gerbase

The Actress, the Wig and the Alligator

Maya Cozier’s debut feature, <a href="http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/she-paradise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">She Paradise</a>, is out now through Samuel Goldwyn Films. Cozier was raised by artist parents — Irenée Shaw and Christopher Cozier — in the Caribbean twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She gained years of experience working as a dancer/choreographer for music videos and television shows (on her own and as part of a champion hip-hop crew that represented the island at the World Hip-Hop Dance Championships). At age 18, Maya had her first international gig when Nicki Minaj flew to Trinidad with Hype Williams to direct the “Pound the Alarm” music video. It was on set as a background model that she became fascinated with the process of filmmaking. After being awarded a national academic scholarship, she enrolled at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, to pursue a degree in film. Her first short film was about a childhood friend, Shan, a limbo dancer, touring the United States with a Circus. Her thesis film, Short Drop, a story in which a recently widowed retiree’s car is mistaken for an illegal taxi bringing together unlikely individuals in Port of Spain, won the NYWIFT student award and has shown at over 20 film festivals worldwide winning best Caribbean short film at Curacao film festival and best short film at Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

Maya Cozier

How Entering a Beauty Pageant Helped Me Make My Debut Feature

Niav Conty is an active freelance director, cinematographer and screenwriter in New York City. Her award-winning films have travelled to festivals worldwide. She is a recipient of the Kodak Award for cinematography, and the prestigious Princess Grace Award. Small Time, her 2020 feature shot in rural Pennsylvania, is out now. It has won 9 awards, including the Spirit of Freedom Award, the EDA award for best female-directed feature, and four Best Feature awards. She is currently in post-production on her newest feature, Person Woman Man Camera Tv, about an interracial couple disintegrating during the 2020 pandemic. Read more at her official website, <a href="http://www.niav-film.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">niav-film.com</a>.

Niav Conty

Realer Than Reality

Christopher Makoto Yogi is an artist and filmmaker from Honolulu, Hawai‘i. His debut feature film, the award-winning August at Akiko’s, had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2018 to critical acclaim and was named by Richard Brody in The New Yorker as one of the best films of 2019. <a href="https://strandreleasing.com/films/i-was-a-simple-man/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I Was a Simple Man</a>, his second feature film, had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is in theaters through Strand Releasing from November 19. Chris’ short films include the documentaries Occasionally, I Saw Glimpses of Hawai‘i and Makoto: or, Honesty, and the fiction film Obake (Ghosts). Chris is a fellow of Berlinale Talents, Visual Communications’ Armed with a Camera, Kyoto Filmmakers Lab, and New York Film Festival Artists Academy.

Christopher Makoto Yogi

Parenthood, Panic Attacks and Premiering at Sundance

Allisyn Snyder is a writer, director, producer and co-owner of Watch The Footage (WTF) Productions. Her debut feature, Howdy Neighbor!, is now on the festival circuit. She began her career in the entertainment industry as an actress at only four years old, rose to prominence in her teens in the Disney Channel shows Sonny with a Chance, alongside Demi Lovato, and So Random, and is currently appearing in the NBC sitcom AP Bio opposite Glenn Howerton and Patton Oswalt. In her late teens, Allisyn began writing sketches for AwesomenessTV and created YouTube personality <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/astridclover" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Astrid Clover</a>, releasing a new episode every Friday for seven years while gaining a loyal following over 350 original episodes. In 2015, Allisyn formed <a href="https://www.watchthefootageproductions.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Watch The Footage Productions</a> with her now-husband Dylan Snyder and began writing and producing award-winning short films such as Nasty Habits and Room 566. When not in front of or behind the camera, Allisyn enjoys ocean scuba diving and roller derby, and studies the graceful and demanding art of trapeze with her younger sister Josie. She is a prolific artist, whose dark and whimsical characters have been invited to gallery showings since she was only 15 years old.

Allisyn Snyder

How Spending My 18th Birthday Tied to a Chair Shaped Me as a Filmmaker

Rosario Dawson is an artist, designer and activist. She made her feature film debut at the age of 15 in the controversial Kids, followed by Spike Lee’s He Got Game and The 25th Hour. She’s since starred in a range of films including Alexander, Rent, Clerks Ii, Top Five, Trance, Unstoppable and Men in Black II, as well as the Sin City franchise. On the small screen, Dawson starred as Allegra Dill in USA’s Briarpatch and as Claire Temple in Netflix’s Marvel comic book series Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones and The Defenders. She can currently be seen in the Hulu limited series Dopesick. Rosario has produced several passion projects such as Talia Lugacy’s features Descent and This Is Not a War Story, and The Need To Grow, which highlights innovators healing our broken food systems and the need for soil regeneration to capture carbon and reverse climate change. Recently, Rosario directed her first short film, Boundless, for the Power/On Series. In 2013, Rosario founded Studio 189 with Abrima Erwiah, a fashion and media lifestyle brand made in Africa that produces African and African-inspired content and clothing. She is extremely passionate about helping empower LatinX millennials to vote and lead so in 2004, she co-founded Voto Latino. The organization has registered over one million people and was one of the co-founders of National Voter Registration Day. In 2011, Rosario was honored by Barack Obama with the President’s Volunteer Service Award for her valuable contributions to the community.

Rosario Dawson

Talia Lugacy is a New York City-based writer, director, actress and teacher. Her second feature, <a href="http://www.thisisnotawarstory.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Is Not a War Story</a>, about a ragtag group of combat veterans in New York who face their PTSD through art and community, is now playing on the festival circuit. It will screen next in narrative competition at the <a href="https://www.woodsholefilmfestival.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woods Hole Film Festival</a>, between July 31  and August 7; tickets go on sale July 1. Lugacy made her feature debut as writer-director in 2007 with the New York Times Critics&#8217; Pick Descent, starring Rosario Dawson. A graduate of NYU&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts and member of the Actors Studio Directors Unit, she has taught at the School of Visual Arts and is now a faculty member at the New School.

Talia Lugacy

Rosario Dawson Talks with Talia Lugacy on the Talkhouse Podcast

Originally a Fort Worth, Texas native, Carlson Young attended the University of Southern California where she studied Creative Writing. Carlson’s short film directorial debut The Blazing World premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and the feature version of The Blazing World had its world premiere at Sundance 2021. The film, starring Young, Dermot Mulroney, Udo Kier and Vinessa Shaw, will be released in select theaters and on demand through Vertical Entertainment on October 15. She is also an actor, appearing in Scream: The TV Series, Key &amp; Peele and Emily in Paris.

Carlson Young

The Shadow Work of My First Film, or: How Fantasy Became My Guide for Healing Trauma

Kurt Mattila is the director of the award-winning documentary, <a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/stuntman/1Bx6pcT39Txy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stuntman</a>, which is executive produced by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia. The gripping doc details the journey of famed stuntman Eddie Braun as he embarks on his quest to recreate the famous Snake River Canyon jump, originally attempted by daredevil Evel Knievel. Stuntman won the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and is now streaming on Disney+. A graduate of RISD, Kurt got his start directing the famed precog sequences for Steven Spielberg&#8217;s Minority Report. He recently helmed a companion piece for the third chapter in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. The Hidden World was the first virtual reality film for Universal and DreamWorks and was nominated for a PGA Award, as well as winning a Lumieres Award. (Photo by Alona Forsythe, courtesy Disney+.)

Kurt Mattila

Stuntman: A Ghost Story

Karen Cinorre is a writer-director living in New York City. Her latest film, <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/mayday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayday</a>, an action fantasy starring Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth and Juliette Lewis, is out now through Magnolia Pictures. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. In addition to Mayday, she is also currently working on a documentary called The Last People. (Photo by Brigitte Lamombe, courtesy Magnolia Pictures.)

Directing