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Talkhouse

Jennifer Reeder constructs personal fiction films about relationships, trauma and coping. Her award-winning narratives are innovative and borrow from a range of forms including after school specials, amateur music videos and magical realism. These films have shown consistently around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. (Photo by Youssef Nassar.)

Jennifer Reeder

Film

A Set of One’s Own: Female Filmmakers on Takeaways from the Post-Weinstein Moment

Jade Porter is a filmmaker currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Her directorial debut, Concrete Futuro, a feature documentary about the rising skateboard culture in Mexico and how it is creating change, will premiere in 2017. She is moving to Mexico City the end of December and plans to explore film production and commercial work in Mexico.

Jade Porter

My Friend, the Murderer: an Ethical Filmmaking Dilemma

Adam Rifkin is a writer-director whose eclectic career ranges from family comedies to thought-provoking indies to cult classics. Notable titles include The Dark Backward, Detroit Rock City, Look, Giuseppe Makes a Movie, Mousehunt and Small Soldiers. Rifkin’s current film, The Last Movie Star, a critically acclaimed drama starring screen legend Burt Reynolds, will be released later this year from A24.

Adam Rifkin

A Call to Revival: The Power of Film Compels You

Dito Montiel is a screenwriter, director and musician. Montiel made his directorial debut with the film version of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, starring Robert Downey Jr., Dianne Wiest, Channing Tatum, and Shia LaBeouf. In 2006, Montiel released the self-titled album Dito Montiel through Rhino Records. In 2009, Montiel directed the film Fighting, again starring Channing Tatum. Montiel&#8217;s police drama The Son of No One, also starring Channing Tatum with co-stars Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, Ray Liotta and Tracey Morgan, played at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. His next three features were Empire State (2013), starring Liam Hemsworth and Dwayne Johnson; Boulevard (2014), starring Robin Williams; and Man Down (2015), starring Kate Mara, Shia LaBeouf, and Jai Courtney, which had its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. His latest film, The Clapper, based on his popular novel Eddie Krumble is the Clapper, stars Ed Helms and is in theaters now.

Dito Montiel

The True History of Eddie Krumble

Steven Sheil is a screenwriter and director. His first feature, Mum &amp; Dad, was released in 2008 and was described by Total Film as “one of the defining British horrors of its generation.” His second feature, the 2012 action-horror Dead Mine, was shot in Indonesia and starred an international cast. HBO Asia’s first original production, the film is distributed in the U.K. by eOne. He is also the co-writer of psychological drama Gozo, co-written and directed by Miranda Bowen for Bishop Films and due for release in 2016. He also works as a cinematographer, primarily with his wife, the artist and documentarian Jeanie Finlay, and is the co-director of the Mayhem Film Festival, based at Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, U.K.

Steven Sheil

They Fuck You Up: Parents in Horror Films

For the past decade, David Heinz has been working in cutting rooms on both independent and studio pictures alike. He edited Adult World with John Cusack, which was released theatrically by IFC, and served as the additional editor of This Means War for Fox, as well as several other independent features. David recently contributed as the visual effects editor to The Jungle Book, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Live Free Or Die Hard, to name a few. American Folk, his feature directorial debut, is out in theaters and on demand from January 26.
Singer-songwriter Amber Rubarth became a fixture in New York&#8217;s indie music scene, named Best NYC Songwriter by Deli Magazine and grand prize winner of NPR&#8217;s Mountain Stage New Song Contest. She also composed the score for the documentary Desert, and with Paul Brill wrote the music for the Sundance Film Festival winner Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Her songs have attracted enthusiastic praise from NPR&#8217;s All Songs Considered, the Huffington Post, BBC Radio, Acoustic Guitar magazine, and a Sun Studio Session airing nationwide on PBS. She makes her acting debut as one of the leads in American Folk.

David Heinz and Amber Rubarth

What Making a Movie in an Ancient Camper Van Taught Us About America

Michael Lehmann has been a director and producer in film and television for over 30 years. After getting his start as receptionist for Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios in San Francisco, Lehmann went on to direct nine feature films and over 90 episodes of television. His films include Heathers, Meet The Applegates, Airheads and The Truth About Cats and Dogs, and in television he’s directed, among others, episodes of The West Wing, Homicide, The Larry Sanders Show, Californication, Dexter, True Blood, American Horror Story, and, most recently Snowfall and Deception.

Michael Lehmann

The Improbable Genesis (and Unlikely Return) of Meet the Applegates

Natalia Leite is a writer-director-actor, born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her 2015 feature film debut, Bare, starred Dianna Agron, Paz De La Huerta and Chris Zylka and was released by IFC Films and Paramount Pictures. She often deals with sexuality in her work, which has been described as having “a bracing, assertive style” (Variety), “emotional intelligence and sensitivity” (Los Angeles Times), and as “cementing the reign over highly stylized and sexually progressive dramas” (Slant). Her second feature, M.F.A., a psychological thriller centered around rape crimes in a university, stars Francesca Eastwood and was released by Dark Sky Films this fall. She also directs music videos and commercials, and is a frequent contributor to Vice Media. She created the provocative Vice show Every Woman, which has garnered over 8 million views, and co-created and starred in the series Be Here Nowish on Vimeo. Her work has been featured in The Sunday Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Vogue, among other publications.

Natalia Leite

The Politics of Female Orgasms in Hollywood

Damon Cardasis is a two-time Writer’s Guild Award nominee, and writer-director Rebecca Miller’s producing partner. Cardasis recently produced Miller&#8217;s film Maggie’s Plan, and is currently in post-production on a documentary with HBO. Round Films, Cardasis and Miller&#8217;s production company, is in development on a variety of projects, for film and television. His debut feature as writer-director, <a href="https://t.co/8jfCtV7YP3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saturday Church</a>, is in select theaters through Samuel Goldwyn Films from January 12.

Damon Cardasis

Finding the Faith, or What I Learned Working with At-Risk LGBTQ Youth

Laurie Simmons is an internationally recognized artist. Her work is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum, among others. In 2006, she wrote and directed a short film, The Music of Regret, starring Meryl Streep and the Alvin Ailey Dancers with cinematography by Ed Lachman. She will have a retrospective originating at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2018. Her first feature film, My Art, which premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and had its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, is playing in select theaters through Film Movement from January 12. (Photo by Mary Simpson)

Laurie Simmons

The Heart of My Art

Megan Griffiths is a writer and director working in film and television whose latest film, the coming-of-age drama <a href="https://www.monumentreleasing.com/year-of-the-fox" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Year of the Fox</a>, starring Sarah Jeffery, is now available on digital. She has directed episodes of the Duplass Brothers’ Room 104 for HBO, Animal Kingdom for TNT, Prodigal Son for Fox, as well as shows for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and EPIX. Her recent features include I&#8217;ll Show You Mine, starring Poorna Jagannathan and Casey Thomas Brown, and Sadie, starring Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, John Gallagher Jr, Danielle Brooks and Tony Hale, which premiered at SXSW 2018 and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Her feature work also includes The Night Stalker (starring Lou Diamond Phillips as serial killer Richard Ramirez), Lucky Them (starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, Oliver Platt and Johnny Depp), Eden (starring Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary and Beau Bridges) and The Off Hours (starring Amy Seimetz, Ross Partridge and Scoot McNairy). More on Megan can be found at <a href="http://www.thecinechick.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thecinechick.com</a>. (Photo by Susan Doupe.)

Megan Griffiths

The Pervert/Genius Problem

Zia Anger is a filmmaker and music video director. Her debut feature, <a href="https://mubi.com/en/us/films/my-first-film" target="_blank" rel="noopener">My First Film</a>, is streaming globally on MUBI from September 6. In 2018 she began touring a new solo performance that traces the last ten years of her lost and abandoned work, titled My First Film. The performance was named by The New Yorker as one of the “Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking.” Her most recent short, My Last Film, premiered at the 53rd New York Film Festival. She has made music videos for various independent artists, including Angel Olsen, Mitski, Julianna Barwick, Maggie Rogers, and Jenny Hval; the latter of whom she also tours with as a performer. In 2016, Zia participated in the Sundance Institute&#8217;s Screenwriter&#8217;s Intensive, and in 2015 she was included in Filmmaker magazine&#8217;s &#8220;25 New Faces of Independent Film.&#8221; Find out more at her <a href="http://www.ziaanger.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">official site</a>. (Picture by Theo Anthony.)

film essay