Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

Richard Shepard’s first documentary feature, <a href="https://filmforum.org/film/film-geek" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Film Geek</a>, premiered at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles this past fall and is screening for two weeks at Film Forum in New York City starting May 17. He is an Emmy- and DGA-winning director/writer whose feature films include the Golden Globe-nominated The Matador, starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear; Dom Hemingway, starring Jude Law and Richard E. Grant; and The Perfection, starring Allison Williams and Logan Browning. In his career, Shepard has directed 10 television pilots to pick-up including Criminal Minds; Ugly Betty, for which Shepard won the Director’s Guild award and Emmy award; the Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist; and Acapulco for Apple, now in its third season. Through its six seasons, Shepard directed 12 episodes of the Golden Globe-winning HBO series Girls, including the controversial “American Bitch” episode, for which Matthew Rhys received an Emmy nomination, as well as several Emmy-nominated episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale. He recently directed the final two episodes of the multiple Emmy-nominated Welcome to Chippendales, a Hulu limited series. Shepard’s HBO documentary I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale was nominated for an Emmy award.

Richard Shepard

Film

Richard Shepard (The Matador) Talks Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation

Pat Healy has acted in over 50 films including Craig Zobel’s Great World of Sound and Compliance, E.L. Katz’s Cheap Thrills, Ti West’s The Innkeepers and worked with Werner Herzog, Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Bay and Ivan Reitman, to name but a few. He has appeared in over 30 TV series including Ray Donovan, How to Get Away with Murder and Six Feet Under, and also written several episodes of the HBO show In Treatment. He is the author of two Black List screenplays (Snow Ponies and Strange Skies) and is currently preparing to direct his first feature film.

Pat Healy

Actor and Screenwriter Pat Healy Talks Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies

Jim Hemphill is the writer and director of the award-winning film <a href="https://www.facebook.com/troublewiththetruth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/troublewiththetruth/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567688259834000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEfdWVn5INQ2VaFYkDfqCAJ1hDMVw">The Trouble With the Truth</a>, which is currently streaming on <a href="https://amzn.to/2Q20O6F" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://amzn.to/2Q20O6F&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567688259834000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE0fujkM407hiTH5e2ZBjQK8VSaCA">Amazon Prime</a> and other platforms. He has written about movies and television for Filmmaker magazine, American Cinematographer and Film Comment, and is the author of The Art and Craft of TV Directing: Conversations with Episodic Television Directors. He also serves as a film historian at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has contributed audio commentaries to DVDs and Blu-rays for Indicator, Shout Factory, the BFI, and other home video labels. His website is <a href="http://www.jimhemphillfilms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.jimhemphillfilms.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1567688259834000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHaS2u3V0GTADaZ-lbaGzXANhioeQ">www.jimhemphillfilms.com</a>.

Jim Hemphill

Jim Hemphill (The Trouble with the Truth) Talks Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak

Eugene Kotlyarenko is the writer-director of A Wonderful Cloud, set for release on October 23. His debut feature, 0s &amp; 1s, was called “the ultimate has-to-be-seen-more-than-once movie” by the New York Times. He has directed viral music videos and outlandish web series, including Feast of Burden. His work has been shown at SXSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art. You can see some on his website <a href="http://www.everybodyloves.me" target="_blank">www.everybodyloves.me</a>.

Eugene Kotlyarenko

Eugene Kotlyarenko (A Wonderful Cloud) Talks Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse

Michael Mohan’s new film, the erotic thriller <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CSFX3NP/?ref=DVM_US_DL_SL_GO_AST_21VOYR_mkw_sTXIQHLhA-dc_pcrid_544725152548" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Voyeurs</a>, starring Sydney Sweeney, Justice Smith, Ben Hardy and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, is out now on Amazon Prime Video. Mohan received critical acclaim for his short film Pink Grapefruit, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short at SXSW Film Festival. He co-created and executive produced the Netflix original series Everything Sucks!, which he also directed. This ’90s-set coming-of-age series, which also stars Sydney Sweeney, became an instant cult favorite, as many LGBTQ+ youth across the globe still use it as a tool to help them come out to their parents. Additionally, Michael wrote and directed the independent film Save the Date starring Lizzy Caplan, Alison Brie, and Martin Starr, which premiered in competition at Sundance and later released by IFC Films. Previously, Michael was the senior coordinator at the Sundance Writing and Directing Labs, under Michelle Satter. Films developed during his time there include Taika Waititi&#8217;s Boy, Cary Fukunaga&#8217;s Sin Nombre, and Dee Rees&#8217; Pariah.

Michael Mohan

Michael Mohan (Save the Date) Talks Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs

Allison Anders is an award-winning film and television writer and director. She is best-known for films such as Gas, Food Lodging (1992), Mi Vida Loca (1993), Four Rooms (1995) and Grace of My Heart (1996), and is currently a prolific TV director, helming episodes of shows such as Sex and the City, The L Word, The Mentalist and Orange is the New Black. A winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant, she is also a Distinguished Professor in the Film And Media Studies Department at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Allison Anders

Allison Anders (Grace of My Heart) Talks Elaine Constantine’s Northern Soul

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 Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall

Zach Clark is the writer-director of The Becomers, Little Sister, White Reindeer, Vacation! and Modern Love is Automatic. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Zach Clark

Zach Clark (White Reindeer) Talks Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s The Forbidden Room

Brea Grant is a filmmaker/actress best known for her roles on Heroes, Dexter, and Friday Night Lights. Her second feature as writer-director, the horror thriller <a href="https://www.12hourshiftfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12 Hour Shift</a>, is out October 2 in theaters and on demand through Magnet Releasing. Her first feature, Best Friends Forever, an apocalyptic road trip movie, premiered at Slamdance in 2013. In 2017, she became a producer on the Emmy-nominated LGBTQ series EastSiders, and in 2018, she wrote and directed an episode of the show. One month after 12 Hour Shift wrapped in Arkansas, Brea starred in the film Lucky, which she also wrote. It is directed by Natasha Kermani (Imitation Girl) and was set to premiere at SXSW 2020 before it was cancelled due to COVID-19. Brea has directed many shorts, including the award-winning Feminist 
Campfire Stories and Megan, 26. She has also directed television for the CW and 
writes comic books. She continues to act and recently was in Jeremy Gardner’s After 
Midnight and just completed shooting Jill Sixx’s The Stylist opposite Najarra 
Townsend.

Brea Grant

Brea Grant (Best Friends Forever) Talks Ridley Scott’s The Martian

Riley Stearns is the writer-director of Faults (2014), The Art of Self-Defense (2019) and his new film Dual, starring Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul, which is available on digital, on demand and AMC+ on May 20. He lives in Los Angeles. You can visit his website <a href="http://www.rileystearns.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

Riley Stearns

Riley Stearns (Faults) Talks Ariel Kleiman’s Partisan

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 Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario

Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment, directed many of their feature films, including The Toxic Avenger, The Class of Nuke ‘Em High, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, Tromeo &amp; Juliet and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. Kaufman has written six books and presented his “Make Your Own Damn Movie” masterclasses globally. His latest film, Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1, produced in association with Starz, premiered in 2014 and screened in The Contenders series at MoMA. He is currently working on Return to Nuke &#8216;Em High Vol. 2 and The Toxic Avenger Part V.

film commentary