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Talkhouse

Jeffrey A. Brown’s feature writing/directing debut The Beach House, a horror film starring Liana Liberato, Noah Le Gros, Maryann Nagel and Jake Weber, is now streaming on Shudder. He was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, and has been working professionally on film, television, and streaming media for 20 years. He has served as a location manager, assistant manager, and scout on over fifty productions, including Pieces of April, Kill the Poor, The Baxter, Spider-Man 3, P.S. I Love You, Cold Souls, The Taking of Pelham 123, Detachment, 2 Days in New York, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, They Came Together, The Harvest, Demolition, the first seasons of Fringe, Master of None, and The OA. Most recently he managed Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die (2019 Cannes Film Festival opening film). Brown’s short film Sulfuric premiered at the 2013 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and went on to play in over 20 film festivals.

Jeffrey A. Brown

Film

Adventures of a Location Manager: From Spider-Man 3 and The Wolf of Wall Street to The Beach House

Muta’Ali is an award-winning film director from Westchester County, NY. His latest feature documentary, Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn, airs on HBO at 9PM on August 12. His past documentary films include the award-winning Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee, which featured notable guests including Harry Belafonte, Alan Alda, and Spike Lee. Muta’Ali is determined that his artistic body of work be wholly focused on what he calls “Love, Art &amp; Activism.” (Image by Jihaad Muhammad.)

Muta’Ali

Radical Honesty: You Alone Are Powerful

Laura Hunter Drago is a producer living in Los Angeles, California. Originally from a small town in Virginia, Laura grew up performing in theatre both in school and professionally. She trained as an actress at New York University&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company School and the Lee Strasberg Institute. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of <a href="http://msinthebiz.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ms. in the Biz</a>, a website founded by Helenna Santos that provides resources for female entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry, and co-founder of <a href="http://www.newgirlpictures.com/">New Girl Pictures</a> with one of her best friends from her high school theatre days, Samantha Macher. Their production company focuses on getting women into positions both in front of and behind the camera early in their careers. Her first feature film, <a href="https://www.tothenewgirl.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To the New Girl</a>, which was made by an all-female cast and creative team, is released on VOD on August 11, 2020.

Laura Hunter Drago

From Competition to Collaboration: How Championing Women in Film Changed My Perspective

Sheila Vand is an extremely creative and expressive performance artist and actor. She can currently be seen in Dave Franco’s directorial debut, The Rental, currently #1 at the box office. Earlier this summer, she co-starred in TNT&#8217;s Snowpiercer opposite Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connolly. Last year, she starred in a thrilling off-off-Broadway show, Nylon, written by Sofia Alverez. Additional credits include the 2018 Sundance Film Festival NEXT Award winner We The Animals, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Wave, Aardvark, Argo, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Women Who Kill and XX. Vand made her Broadway debut opposite Robin Williams as Hadja in Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo; she starred in the Disney Hall&#8217;s 10th Anniversary LA Philharmonic staging of Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels for Esa Pekka Salonen, had her original performance piece Sneaky Nietzche mounted at LACMA and co-created the award-winning visual art series MILK: what will you make of me? with TED fellow Alexa Meade, which toured throughout Europe. This series served as the inspiration for Ariana Grande’s recent music video for “God Is A Woman,” on which Grande worked with Vand and Meade.

Sheila Vand

Racist?

Atom Egoyan&#8216;s latest feature, <a href="https://sevenveilsmovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Seven Veils </a>starring Amanda Seyfried, is in theaters from March 11. His previous film, Guest of Honour, is currently available on Blu-ray on Kino Lorber and streaming through <a href="https://kinonow.com/film/guest-of-honour/5efcb02489961200015b4e80" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kino Now</a>, and the Criterion Channel has also released a collection called &#8220;Directed by Atom Egoyan&#8221; for streaming including masterpieces Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter. With 19 feature films and related projects, Egoyan has won numerous awards, including five prizes at the Cannes Film Festival (the Grand Prix, International Critics Awards and Ecumenical Jury Prizes); two Academy Award® nominations; 25 Genie Awards (now Canadian Screen Awards), including three Best Film Awards. Egoyan was knighted by the French government and is a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest honor. He’s a recipient of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. For more information on Atom Egoyan and his work in both film and opera, visit <a href="http://www.egofilmarts.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ego Film Arts</a>. (Photo by Ulysse del Drago.)

Atom Egoyan

Opera in the Age of Coronavirus

Rob Savage’s latest film, the Zoom horror film <a href="https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/host/b89c77f392b1c5e8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Host</a>, is now streaming on Shudder. Rob wrote, directed, shot, co-produced and edited micro-budget feature film Strings at age 17, which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. and won Rob the Discovery Award at the British Independent Film Awards for the film, the youngest director ever to win a BIFA. Rob is a Sundance and Berlinale alumnus, has won a number of awards for his short films at festivals including the London Short Film Festival, Raindance and Sitges, and was the recipient of the BFI Future Film Award in 2011. Rob&#8217;s 2017 film, Dawn of the Deaf, played at over 100 film festivals worldwide, including Sundance and Sitges, where it won the Melies d&#8217;Argent for Best Short. He has directed episodes of Jez Butterworth’s Britannia and the pilot of AMC/Amazon’s Soulmates, and is developing a number of TV shows, including Rawblood, a horror series starring and produced by Natalie Dormer, and a small-screen adaptation of Dawn of the Deaf.

Rob Savage

How I Rediscovered Spontaneous Creativity Making My Quarantine Zoom Horror Movie

Sergio Navarretta’s latest film, The Cuban, starring Lou Gossett Jr., Ana Golja and Shohreh Aghdashloo, is in select theaters from July 31. His passion project, it tells the story of a naïve pre-med student (Golja) who develops an unlikely friendship with an elderly Cuban musician with dementia (Gossett Jr.). Navarretta made his directorial debut with Looking for Angelina, a true crime feature that tells the story of one of the most sensational murder cases in North American history. Navarretta’s follow-up feature, The Colossal Failure of the Modern Relationship, is currently available on all VOD platforms everywhere. He is Vice President of S.N.A.P. Films Inc., and currently has a number of live action and animated projects in development. He divides his time between Toronto and Los Angeles.

Sergio Navarretta

Why I Make Movies

Greta Schiller launched her filmmaking career with Before Stonewall (1985), which won two Emmy Awards. In 2019, the film was re-released, ran in 65 cinemas, and was selected for the National Film Registry. Her other credits include the award-winning films Paris Was a Woman, International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Tiny &amp; Ruby: Hell Divin’ Women, Escape to Life, The Man Who Drove with Mandela, I Live at Ground Zero, No Dinosaurs in Heaven, The Marion Lake Story and Bones of Contention. Schiller holds a BFA in Film/Video and a Masters in Science Education from the City College of New York which awarded her the Townsend Harris Medal for Outstanding Contributions to her Field. Her newest film is The Land of Azaba (Kino Lorber 2020), which is premiering in the Vallodolid Film Festival this fall. She is founding director of <a href="http://www.jezebelproductions.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jezebel Productions</a>, a women’s production company since 1984.

Greta Schiller

Remembering Artie

Elegance Bratton began making films as a U.S. Marine after a decade spent homeless. Today, he holds a BS from Columbia University and MFA from NYU Tisch Graduate Film. Walk For Me, his award-winning debut narrative short about a young trans girl whose secret life is discovered by her mother at a gay ball, played in over 100 festivals worldwide. His documentary feature Pier Kids follows three queer and trans homeless youth on NYC’s iconic Christopher Street Pier to show the intricate ways queer people of color utilize public space to build chosen family. With Pier Kids, Elegance is the winner of Emerging Talent for Outfest 2019 and a Documentary Feature honorable mention at the New Orleans Film Festival (2019). He is the executive producer/creator of Viceland’s GLAAD- nominated and Cannes MIPCOM winning series My House. The Inspection, his forthcoming feature narrative script, is supported by Tribeca All Access and Film Independent Fast Track, and is being financed by Gamechanger Films. Buck, his most recent short, was a Sundance 2020 official selection. Elegance was one of Indiewire’s 25 LBGT faces to watch in 2019, and a 2018 grantee of winner of the Maynor Biggers Artist Fund. (Picture by Gioncarlo Valentine.)

Elegance Bratton

Seeing is Believing and We Need A New Way to See

Romola Garai’s debut feature film as writer-director, the horror film Amulet, starring Alec Secareanu, Carla Juri and Imelda Staunton, is released by Magnolia Pictures on July 24. Garai is a multi-award-nominated actor whose extensive film, TV and stage resume includes work with some of the world’s finest writers and directors, including Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, Joe Wright’s Atonement, Francois Ozon’s Angel, Lone Scherfig’s One Day and Stephen Poliakoff’s Glorious 39. She also has an extensive list of TV credits including playing the lead in Marc Munden’s TV mini series The Crimson Petal and the White. On stage, she has played major roles in plays for the Royal Court (The Village Bike), the Young Vic (Measure for Measure), the Almeida (The Writer) and the RSC (Queen ANNE and Lear/The Seagull). As well as her extensive performing credits, Romola is also known for her writing/directing work, including Sundance Best Short Film-nominated Scrubber. She has a feature film in development with UK top production company The Bureau and a number of TV projects.

Romola Garai

My Monster

Peter Medak is an award-winning international film director whose latest film, <a href="http://www.theghostofpetersellers.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ghost of Peter Sellers</a>, is now available to watch on demand. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1937, Peter fled to England age 18 during the uprising against the communist regime and immediately began his film career with Associated British Picture Corporation, working on some of the most remarkable British films of that period. In 1963, Peter was signed by Universal Studios in Hollywood and began directing television. 1967 saw him sign with Paramount to direct his first feature, Negatives, with Glenda Jackson. His next two films were highly acclaimed black comedies, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, starring Alan Bates, and The Ruling Class, with Peter O’ Toole, which received an Academy Award nomination. Over the next 30 years, Peter earned the reputation of an actors’ director, resulting in such acclaimed films as The Changeling’with George C. Scott, The Krays (Evening Standard Award for Best Director) and Romeo is Bleeding, with Gary Oldman. In a career spanning 50 years, Peter has made 27 features and 59 TV episodes. He continues to live and breathe film every waking moment.

Peter Medak

Why 45 Years On, I Still Dream of Making Evening Flight

Aimiende Negbenebor Sela is a writer-director of Nigerian descent, adopted by a Jewish-Israeli family from the Bronx. Her award-winning short films have screened at numerous festivals across the world, and her screenplays have placed in several contests including Austin Film Festival, Cinestory Fellowship, Nicolls Academy, Screencraft, and the Sundance Writer’s Lab. Growing up as that kid glued to The Sound of Music, back in Nigeria, to the adult now dazzled by the complexity of the characters in 12 Angry Men, films have always helped Aimiende make sense of the world. As a result, her work interrogates the human condition but with empathy as she truly believes we all live the same lives, we’re just colored differently. Her production company, <a href="https://www.selafilms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sela Films</a>, was born out of this belief in order to help push the boundaries of innovation, inclusion, diversity and creativity with a focus on humanism. Hermit, her latest short film, is currently making its rounds on the festival circuit. Aimiende currently resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their 14-year-old Shih Tzu, Orlando.

film essay