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Talkhouse

Luis De Filippis is a Canadian-Italian filmmaker whose debut feature, Something You Said Last Night (2022) which received the TIFF Change Maker Award, the Sebastiáne Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, and the Rotterdam Youth Jury Award, is out now in theaters. Her other work includes the short film For Nonna Anna (2017), which received a Sundance Special Jury Prize. (Photograph by Mar Marriott, courtesy Luis De Filippis.)

Luis De Filippis

Film

On Being My Own Muse

Signe Baumane’s new animated feature, <a href="https://www.myloveaffairwithmarriagemovie.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">My Love Affair with Marriage</a>, which fuses animation with music, theater, science, photography, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation to tell the story of a spirited young woman&#8217;s quest for perfect Love and lasting Marriage, opens October 6 in New York City. She is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts and is best known for her first animated feature, Rocks in my Pockets, which covers a 100-year history of depression and suicide of women in her family, including herself. It premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014 where it won a FIPRESCI prize, went on to over 130 international festivals and opened theatrically in the U.S. through Zeitgeist Films. Signe is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow in Film for New York Foundation for the Arts. She has a degree in Philosophy from Moscow State University.

Signe Baumane

On Lasse, Lisa and Some Like It Hot

Sarah Labowitz is the producer of <a href="https://www.texasusafilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas, USA</a>, which is out in theaters on October 6. She is a Houston-based policy expert. She is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously worked in leadership roles at the ACLU of Texas and the City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department, and was a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of State. She co-founded and co-directed the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Sarah was included in Forbes’ inaugural 30 Under 30 list for law and policy. Texas, USA is her first film project.

Sarah Labowitz

The Fight for Democracy: A Texas Story

Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier are the directors of the new documentary <a href="https://memory.is/carpet-cowboys" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carpet Cowboys</a>, which is out now. Emily is a New Orleans-based director and producer who has produced and directed for HBO, Vice, MTV, Fuse, Discovery Networks, WEtv, and Channel 4, among others. Noah is a director and cinematographer born in New York City working primarily in the non-fiction sphere, with credits that include the Sundance Special Jury Award-winning Jawline (Hulu 2019), Santa Camp (HBO 2022), and The Come Up (Freeform 2022).

Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier

“Then … a Volcano Erupted”

Aitch Alberto is a writer-director born and raised in Miami, Florida, whose debut feature, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, is out now in theaters. The film, based on the award-winning young adult novel of the same name, was produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eugenio Debrez. Aitch has written on Duster, a 1970s-set crime drama series from J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan for HBO Max and WBTV, and on AppleTV+’s BAFTA and Film Independent Nominated anthology series Little America from Alan Yang, Kumail Nanjiani, and Emily V. Gordon. Aitch has most recently been featured on Variety’s 10 Directors To Watch for 2022 and Indiewire’s 22 Rising Female Filmmakers to Watch in 2022.

Aitch Alberto

Dear Dad, or the Power of Violent Forgiveness

Danny O&#8217;Malley is a Grammy- and James Beard-nominated film director whose debut feature, <a href="https://canary.oscilloscope.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Canary</a>, is out now. Best known for his work on Netflix&#8217;s Chef&#8217;s Table, where he serves as co-executive producer and a director. Danny has worked filming with bands across the U.S., including Tegan and Sara, The Rentals, The Decemberists, Kraftwerk, and more. His documentary “States,” from Tegan and Sara&#8217;s release Get Along, was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Long Form Music Video. Danny made his mark in documentary television working as a story producer, where his work has aired on Netflix, Fox Sports 1 and NBC. On Chef&#8217;sTable, Danny is a key force behind the character-driven storytelling that is the show’s signature. Danny and his directing partner, Alex Rivest,PhD, won the Alfred P. Sloan development grant in 2017, which led to the creation of Canary.

Danny O’Malley

Facing Failure on Top of a Mountain

Award-winning director Niels Arden Oplev’s new film, Rose, starring Sofie Gråbøl, is now on the festival circuit and is the opening night film at <a href="https://cinefest.com/2023/schedule" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cinéfest Sudbury</a> on September 16. Oplev is best known for directing the 2009 adaptation of Steig Larsson&#8217;s cult novel, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which was a box-office hit in his native Denmark and was distributed wordlwide, and the Hollywood films Flatliners, starring Elliot Page, Diego Luna, Kiersey Clemons and Kiefer Sutherland, and Dead Man Down, with Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Terrence Howard and Isabelle Huppert. On TV, he directed Millenium, the International Emmy-winning series based on Larsson’s books, the Steven Speilberg-produced Stephen King adaptation Under the Dome, and the pilot episodes for Mr. Robot, Dick Wolf’s FBI, and Vikings: Valhalla.

Niels Arden Oplev

The Toughest (and Most Magical) Film I’ve Ever Made

Ryan Spahn is an actor, filmmaker and writer. He has been published by Rotten Tomatoes, Metro Weekly, USA Today, IntoMore, and American Theatre Magazine. As an actor, he can be seen in American Horror Story, Succession, The Bite, Chicago P.D., and Modern Love. Ryan is a graduate of Juilliard and is based in New York City. Go <a href="https://linktr.ee/RyanSpahn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> for more info.

Ryan Spahn

Heathers, My Cousin Sherrie Sue and the Persistence of Memory

Actress, writer and director Sarah Wayne Callies became known to audiences for her portrayal of Sara Tancredi in Prison Break and followed that up with the even bigger hit, The Walking Dead. She then starred opposite Josh Holloway in the series Colony and most recently was seen in the NBC series Council of Dads. Sarah has taken the leap into directing with an episode of the limited series Unspeakable as well as an episode of the final season of Colony. As a writer, Sarah has several screenplays in development with various motion picture entities. As a film actress, Sarah has appeared in Giancarlo Esposito’s This is Your Death opposite Josh Duhamel and Famke Janssen, Pay the Ghost with Nicolas Cage, and Black November opposite Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger. Continuing her passion for storytelling, Sarah is a producer and the voice of the new science-fiction post-apocalyptic podcast <a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-aftershock-83996090/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aftershock</a>. (Photo by Nicolas Gerardin.)

Sarah Wayne Callies

Liberals Can Be Preppers, Too

Jacqueline Castel’s feature film debut My Animal is out in theaters on September 8. She is an internationally award-winning director, screenwriter, and curator based in NYC whose short film work has been featured at more than 50 festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, BAMcinemaFest, Sitges, and Fantasia. She has written for and directed cult auteurs John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and collaborated on a film with David Lynch for his Festival of Disruption in 2018. Her most recent short film, a portrait of Cannes award-winning actor Caleb Landry Jones, debuted on NOWNESS in 2021. Castel’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The BBC, Dazed, VICE, Italian Vogue, Interview Magazine and on AMC’s Shudder. She earned her BFA with honors at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. (Photo by Nedda Asfari.)

Jacqueline Castel

Become What You Are

Lola Blanc is a creator across the mediums of music, film and podcasting. Her new single, “Trust Me,” is out now and will be followed by a companion short film/music video due out early fall 2023, directed by Blanc, who is also a filmmaker. Her latest film, Pruning, starring Madeline Brewer, is currently on the festival circuit. In addition to her musical and film careers, Lola Blanc co-hosts a wildly popular podcast about cults and the dangerous and intoxicating psychology of extreme belief, also called Trust Me. She is in fact a trusted pundit on the subject in the upcoming Netflix docuseries How to Become a Cult Leader. (Photo by Mikey Piliero.)

film essay