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Talkhouse

Mouly Surya was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she currently lives. Considered one of Indonesia&#8217;s most gifted filmmakers, Surya premiered her award-winning debut, Fiksi, at the Busan International Film Festival. Her second feature, What They Don&#8217;t Talk About When They Talk About Love, was the first-ever Indonesian film to premiere at Sundance, and went on to many festivals including Karlovy Vary and Rotterdam, where it received the NETPAC Award. In addition to making films, she also teaches directing. <a href="http://icarusfilms.com/ks-marl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts</a>, her third film, is out through Icarus Films on June 22.

Mouly Surya

Film

You Can Never Go Home Again

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

Revisiting Schlock (and My Adoration of John Landis)

Lea Thompson has accomplished a 40-year career in the arts that encompasses film, television, and theatre. A native of Minnesota, Thompson began her career as a professional ballet dancer and performed in more than 45 ballets with the Minnesota Dance Theatre. She is best known for playing Michael J. Fox’s mom in Back to the Future I, II and III; as the title character in the syndicated series Caroline in the City, for which she won TV Guide and People’s Choice Awards; and as Kathryn Kennish in five seasons of the groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning series, Switched at Birth. Her other notable films include All the Right Moves, Red Dawn, Howard the Duck, and Some Kind of Wonderful, in which she was directed by her future husband, Howard Deutch. Thompson has been directing TV for more than a decade, and makes her feature directorial debut with The Year of Spectacular Men, which is released theatrically on June 15. The film was written by and stars her daughter Madelyn Deutch, and the cast includes her daughter Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia and Thompson herself. (Picture by Ray Garcia.)

Lea Thompson

From My Childhood of Formidable Women to The Year of Spectacular Men

Drew Pearce is a multi-hyphenate writer-director-producer. He most recently wrote and directed Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista, Charlie Day and Zachary Quinto, which is in theaters now. Pearce is best known for co-writing Iron Man 3 for Marvel studios, and for his work on movies such as Pacific Rim, Godzilla and Mission : Impossible – Rogue Nation. In his spare time, he directs music videos for rock artists such as Father John Misty, Miles Kane and the Last Shadow Puppets.

Drew Pearce

The Last Detail, or How I Had Fun with Fake Brands and Easter Eggs on My New Movie

Lorna Tucker cut her teeth working behind the camera and jumping on tour buses with rock bands such as Unkle, Lupe Fiasco, The Cult and Queens of The Stone Age creating tour videos and music promos. She then moved into longer format storytelling, directing documentaries, writing scripts and creating more experimental video art projects for the likes of Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Nike. Her first feature documentary, <a href="http://www.viviennewestwoodfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Westwood – Punk Icon Activist</a>, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is being released by Greenwich Entertainment on June 8. This year will also see the release of <a href="https://www.amamovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amá</a>, a feature documentary about the sterilization abuses of Native American women across the United States during the last 60 years, which because of its socially sensitive nature has taken a decade to bring to fruition. Tucker was recently <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/entertainment/a20409129/meet-5-breakout-female-film-makers-of-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hailed</a> by Harper&#8217;s Bazaar as one of the top five breakout female filmmakers of 2018.

Lorna Tucker

Overnight Success Takes a Long Time to Happen

Carla Simón is the writer-director of <a href="http://summer1993.oscilloscope.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Summer 1993</a>, a film based on her own childhood experiences, which is currently in theaters through Oscilloscope Films. Her feature film debut, it won multiple prizes at the Berlin Film Festival and the Gaudis, Spain&#8217;s equivalent of the Oscars, where Simon was recognized with the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards. Simón is a graduate of the London Film School, where she wrote and directed the documentary Born Positive and the fiction Lipstick, both short films selected in numerous international film festivals. In 2013 Carla created Young For Film!, an association which taught cinema to children and teenagers. Since moving back to Barcelona, she has been collaborating with Cinema en Curs, a program which helps children in primary and secondary schools learn filmmaking.

Carla Simón

Every Being That Lives Will One Day Die

Shannon Plumb has shot over 200 short films, which have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and on international screens. She started by shooting herself as various characters, acting out three-minute situations using humor and silence as her vehicles for storytelling. In 2013, her first feature film, Towheads, premiered at MoMA as part of New Directors / New Films; it is now streaming on the <a href="https://www.criterionchannel.com/towheads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Criterion Channel</a>. You can see her short films at <a href="http://shannonplumb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shannonplumb.com</a> and Towheads is available on Netflix and iTunes. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, director Derek Cianfrance, and their two sons.

Shannon Plumb

Dear Hollywood

Baltasar Kormákur is an Icelandic actor and filmmaker whose work spans theater, movies and television. His latest film, Apex, starring Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton and Eric Bana, is now streaming on Netflix. He is the director of Icelandic films including 101 Reykjavik, The Sea, Jar City, The Oath and The Deep, the latter of which was shortlisted for the foreign language Academy Award. Since 2008, Kormákur has directed and produced several non-Icelandic features, such as Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster and Kate Beckinsale; 2 Guns, with Denzel Washington and Wahlberg; the epic adventure movie Everest, with an ensemble cast featuring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Sam Worthington, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Robin Wright and Jake Gyllenhaal; the ocean survival tale Adrift, starring Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin; and the survival movie Beast, starring Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley.

Baltasar Kormákur

Why I Make Extreme Survival Movies

Jeremy Frindel is the founder of <a href="http://www.substratumfilms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Substratum Films</a>, specializing in cinematic portraiture exploring the resilience and majesty of the human spirit. In 2013 Jeremy released his first feature film, <a href="https://zeitgeistfilms.com/film/onetrackheart">One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das</a>. Distributed by Zeitgeist Films, the film screened theatrically across the US, and won the Best Documentary prize at the Maui, Dharamsala and Gold Coast Film Festivals among others. Jeremy is in post-production now on his next project, Spacefox, a feature documentary following the reinvention of Marty Friedman from lead guitarist in Megadeth to one of the most famous TV comedians in Japan. The Doctor From India, his second feature, opens June 1 at the Quad Cinema in New York City and is screening across the U.S. courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.

Jeremy Frindel

In Movies, I Tell People’s Transformation Stories. Here is My Own.

Kate Novack is an Emmy-nominated producer and director of documentary films. Her first feature as director, <a href="https://www.thegospelaccordingtoandre.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Gospel According to André</a>, a documentary portrait of the iconic fashion journalist André Leon Talley, is released by Magnolia Pictures on May 25. Previously, Kate was a producer and writer on Page One: Inside the New York Times, which premiered at Sundance in 2011, and a producer on the HBO feature film A Table in Heaven. With her longtime producing partner Andrew Rossi, Kate has worked as a story consultant on several films, including CNN&#8217;s Ivory Tower (2014), which she also co-produced, and The First Monday In May (2016). Prior to making films, Kate was a reporter at Time, where she covered film, design, television and the arts. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two children.

Kate Novack

Falling for New York (in 35 mm)

Director Elissa Down’s 2008 debut feature film, The Black Balloon, starring Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Gemma Ward, and Toni Collette, won six Australian Film Institute Awards and received more than 30 prizes around the world. Since then, Elissa has directed two episodes of the award-winning Australian comedy series Offspring, and adapted and directed the bestselling Colleen Hoover novel Confess into a TV series for Awestruck (Awesomeness TV) that was a hit on go90. Her latest film, <a href="http://lionsgateathome.com/the-honor-list" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Honor List</a> starring Meghan Rienks, Sasha Pieterse, Karrueche Tran and Arden Cho, is now out on digital, DVD and on demand.

Elissa Down

Finding My Moments

Claudia Weill is a film, television and theatre director. Her feature films include Girlfriends, It’s My Turn, and the Academy Award-nominated The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir. She has directed theatre at Williamstown, the O’Neill, Sundance, ACT, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Public Theatre (Donald Margulies’ Found A Peanut), Pasadena Playhouse, EST and Irish Rep (The Belle of Belfast). Weill&#8217;s TV work includes Sesame Street, Thirtysomething (Emmy), My So-Called Life, Face of a Stranger (Emmy for Gena Rowlands) and Girls (HBO). She teaches TV Directing at the New School and Columbia University and serves on the Executive Committee for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to which she was the third woman admitted as a director in 1981.

film essay