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Talkhouse

Fernando Grostein Andrade is a Los Angeles-based Brazilian filmmaker and media entrepreneur, represented by Untitled Entertainment. His new film <a href="https://www.bluefoxentertainment.com/films/abe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Abe</a>, starring Noah Schnapp, Seu Jorge and Mark Margolis, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and is now available on VOD. He created and directed Quebrando o Tabu, a documentary that discusses alternative solutions to the war on drugs featuring six heads of state, including Jimmy Carter and Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It was distributed in 22 countries, became a two-season 10-episode TV series, show-run by Fernando, and was spun off into an online media channel with 10 million followers, becoming the largest human rights internet outlet in Brazil with the biggest Facebook engagement rate in all Brazilian media. Fernando was also one of the creators of Carcereiros, a 2017 MIPTV award-winning drama TV series, for which he directed five episodes. He reactivated a theater group formed by inmates inside a maximum-security penitentiary called Do Lado de Ca, many of whom were later cast in many productions. Fernando co-founded Mapa Educação, a youth movement that advocates for quality in public education in Brazil and directed the documentary Wandering Heart, featuring Caetano Veloso and special appearances by Almodóvar, Antonioni and Giselle Bündchen. With an ever-growing online presence, Fernando’s coming-out video on YouTube had 250k views and sparkled an online debate about acceptance in Brazil. Fernando is a columnist for two of the largest Brazilian media outlets, Folha de São Paulo and Veja. Follow him on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/grosteinandrade/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. (Picture by Fernando Siqueira.)

Fernando Grostein Andrade

Film

What Starting a Prison Theatre Group Taught Me About Empathy and Understanding

Originally from India, Jenna Mattison Mirza moved to Chicago at seven years old. She started her career in Chicago at 14, appearing in theatre productions, writing short stories and modeling. Upon her move to Los Angeles, Jenna wrote her first screenplay titled Fish Without a Bicycle. The movie went into production in 2003 and had a limited U.S. theatrical release, thus kickstarting her career as a writer, producer and actress. In 2007, her acting career was cut short, after signing on to play Brenda Starr, Reporter in a TV series based on the iconic comic strip character, when she sustained an injury that would force her into five years of surgeries and rehabilitation. Her first project back, For the Love of Money, a Jewish gangster biopic starring James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Edward Furlong and Jeffrey Tambor which she wrote and produced, was released by Lionsgate. Her most recent film, The Sound starring Rose McGowan and Christopher Lloyd, was released by MGM&#8217;s Orion and Samuel Goldwyn in select theaters to critical acclaim. Jenna is currently writing for television and releasing her fourth installment of her Liza Radley Housewife Detective best-selling mystery novel series.

Jenna Mattison Mirza

How I Faked My Race to Make It in Hollywood

Michael Reich used to be a dog groomer and currently lives in East Hollywood. He has directed music videos for My Chemical Romance, The Shins, Bad Religion and Ryan Adams. A decade ago (while he was still working with dogs), he started documenting the Los Angeles underground punk scene with an experimental video-based website called Videothing.com. He also made a bunch of short films that played at many film festivals including SXSW, Tribeca and Fantasia. Michael&#8217;s first feature film, <a href="http://www.shesallergictocats.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">She&#8217;s Allergic To Cats</a>, an autobiographical account of his life as a dog groomer with artistic ambitions, is now available on VOD. This movie was funded solely with savings accumulated from working as a body double for one of the Daft Punk robots (he&#8217;s the gold one). He has been a robot since 2005 when he starred in their feature film Electroma which premiered at Cannes. Michael has been in blockbuster movies, hit music videos and graced magazine covers as Daft Punk. But he is always wearing a helmet and pretending to be a robot, so that&#8217;s probably why you don&#8217;t recognize him. Spectacle is hosting online screening of She&#8217;s Allergic To Cats on April 30; for all the relevant details, click <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/157581778937355/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

Michael Reich

The Hollywood Ballad of Honey Davis

Christina Kallas is the New York-based writer-director of critically acclaimed ensemble dramas The Rainbow Experiment and 42 Seconds of Happiness and the writer of the John Hurt-starring, Golden Berlin Bear-nominated political thriller The Commissioner. Her prior credits include BBC Films’ hooligan drama, I.D., Toronto and Berlin selection hybrid narrative-doc Mothers, and European TV series hits, Edel &amp; Starck and Danni Lowinski. Kallas is also known as author of books such as Creative Screenwriting: Understanding Emotional Structure and Inside the Writers’ Room. She was the President of the FSE, the European equivalent of the Writers Guild of America, for eight years and is a member of the European Film Academy, the German Film Academy and of the New York chapter of Film Fatales.

Christina Kallas

Harlem Blues: Remembering Sam Hargress Jr.

Jim Strouse is from Goshen, Indiana. Howard Hawks was also from Goshen, Indiana. Jim Strouse does not think he&#8217;s as good as Howard Hawks nor ever will be. He just thought it was an interesting coincidence. His film People Places Things is currently available on Amazon Prime. And The Incredible Jessica James is on Netflix. You can find his cartoons <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jimdrewthis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@jimdrewthis</a> on Insta and/or <a href="http://jimstrouse.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="http://jimstrouse.com">jimstrouse.com</a>.

Jim Strouse

How Coronavirus Brought Me Back to Cartoons

Sonejuhi Sinha is the writer-director of the crime drama <a href="http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/stray-dolls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stray Dolls</a>, starring Geetanjali Thapa, Olivia DeJonge, Robert Aramayo and Cynthia Nixon. The film premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival is released on VOD April 10. Sonejuhi grew up in Northern India until the age of thirteen; after a short stint at a British boarding school in the Himalayas, she packed her bags to join her parents in New York City. She got her start in the industry working as a commercial film editor and has worked alongside acclaimed directors such as Harmony Korine and Spike Jonze. She produced and edited the award-winning documentaries These Birds Walk and Homegoings and began her directing career began with a narrative short film, Love Comes Later, which was one of 10 short films accepted to the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Her work has been featured in Filmmaker magazine, Huffington Post, Indiewire, Hollywood Reporter, New York Times, Variety, Bright Ideas magazine and NOWNESS, to name a few.

Sonejuhi Sinha

Pushing the Boulder Uphill

Hilary Brougher is a screenwriter and director living and working in New York City. <a href="https://southmountainfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South Mountain</a>, her third original feature, premiered at SXSW on 2019 and is on VOD from May 5. Her first feature, Sticky Fingers of Time, was an official selection at the Venice, Rotterdam, SXSW, and Toronto International Film Festivals and was released theatrically in 1997. Her second feature, Stephanie Daley, starred Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo, Tim Hutton and Denis O’Hare, and premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Award for Screenwriting. She is currently working on a documentary, Striper, co-directed with Maria Rosenblum. Brougher is the Chair of the Film Division at Columbia University’s School of the Arts as well as a full-time member of faculty in directing in the MFA program.

Hilary Brougher

Try This at Home

Director and producer Spencer T. Folmar grew up in Central Pennsylvania in Clearfield. His time there brewed a passion and love for the area. Though he is based in Los Angeles, California, he attempts to pay homage to his home state when he can. He sees his latest film, Shooting Heroin, out on VOD April 3, as a way to help raise awareness of the opioid epidemic that is ravaging not only his home community, but others around the United States. Folmar is a member of the Producers Guild and Directors Guild of America, has directed four feature films, and has produced seven. His love for filmmaking and tackling real-world issues can be seen in the types of films and projects he has worked on. Folmar also has a passion for training and equipping the next generation of storytellers through his company Veritas Arts, which owns and operates a movie theater, and runs an international film festival.

Spencer T. Folmar

Telling Stories That Liberate

Cooper Raiff is a filmmaker-actor from Dallas, Texas, now based in Los Angeles. His innovative drama series <a href="https://mubi.com/en/us/series/hal-harper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hal &amp; Harper</a>, starring Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo and Raiff himself, is now streaming on Mubi. His debut feature, Shithouse, had its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature, and his second film, Cha Cha Real Smooth, starring Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Vanessa Burghardt and Raúl Castillo, premiered at Sundance in 2022.

Cooper Raiff

The People in Shithouse

Rachel Elizabeth Seed is an LA-based nonfiction storyteller working in film, photography, and writing. Her debut feature film, <a href="https://www.rachelseed.com/#/apm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Photographic Memory</a>, premiered at True/False 2024 and was cited as “one of the best docs of the year” by Rogerebert.com and “an ingenious, meta doc” by Variety. Rachel’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Chicken + Egg Pictures, NYFA, Field of Vision, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, the Maine Media Workshops, the Roy W. Dean grant, the Jewish Film Institute, Jewish Story Partners, and IFP/Gotham Labs, among many others. Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography and she was a cameraperson on several award-winning feature documentaries including Sacred by Academy-Award winning filmmaker Thomas Lennon. Rachel’s writing has been published by No Film School, the Sundance Institute and Talkhouse

Rachel Elizabeth Seed

Alone, Together: A Filmmaker’s Quarantine

Jonathan Jakubowicz is the director, writer and producer of Resistance, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Ed Harris, Clémence Poésy and Edgar Ramírez, which is out March 27 through IFC Films. It tells the story of how Marcel Mangel, an aspiring Jewish actor later known as Marcel Marceau, joined the French Resistance to save the lives of thousands of children orphaned at the hands of the Nazis. Jakubowicz is Venezuela&#8217;s most celebrated filmmaker and writer, and in 2005 his debut feature Secuestro Express, became Venezuela’s highest-grossing film, eclipsing such movies as Titanic. His second feature, Hands of Stone (2016), about the relationship between Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez) and his trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro) premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and released theatrically worldwide. In November 2016, Jakubowicz published his first novel, Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard, which immediately became a best-seller in the Spanish language market and it is on its way to become the highest selling book of all time for a Venezuelan author. Jakubowicz is of Polish Jewish descent. He has a BA in Communications from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Jonathan Jakubowicz

What Scorsese Told Me

Deborah Kampmeier is an award-winning filmmaker. Her first feature Virgin, starring Elisabeth Moss and Robin Wright, was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Actress for Elisabeth Moss and the John Cassavetes Award. Her second feature, Hounddog, starring Dakota Fanning and Robin Wright, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Deborah’s third feature, Split, won Best of Show at the 2016 Female Eye Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Vision Best Film at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival. Kampmeier made her television directorial debut on Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed series Queen Sugar in 2019 and followed immediately with two episodes of DuVernay&#8217;s new series Cherish the Day. Her fourth feature, TAPE, starring Isabelle Fuhrman is having its <a href="https://www.tapevirtualpremiere.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">online virtual release</a> March 26, 2020, and will be available on Amazon and iTunes April 10th. Deborah is prepping her next feature, Dirt Rhapsody, as well as her limited series Pilgrim&#8217;s Wilderness.

film essay