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Talkhouse

Nicholas Brennan is a documentary and commercial filmmaker working in London and New York City. He is the director of the feature documentary <a href="https://www.topic.com/los-ultimos-frikis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Los Últimos Frikis</a> (Topic, 2021) and the producer of Reflection: a walk with water (Tribeca Film Festival, 2021). He was a founding director at Courageous, CNN&#8217;s award-winning branded content studio, where he directed acclaimed series and commercials for many of the world&#8217;s biggest brands. His work has won top industry awards including Cannes Lions, One Show, Webby, and Edward R Murrow Awards. As a documentary filmmaker, Brennan has told stories in over two dozen countries and worked for major outlets including VICE, ABC News, and the New York Times. Raised on the coast of Maine, he was a Willard TC Johnson Fellow at NYU&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts.

Nicholas Brennan

Film

Chasing the Forbidden Truth

Karen Cinorre is a writer-director living in New York City. Her latest film, <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/mayday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayday</a>, an action fantasy starring Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth and Juliette Lewis, is out now through Magnolia Pictures. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. In addition to Mayday, she is also currently working on a documentary called The Last People. (Photo by Brigitte Lamombe, courtesy Magnolia Pictures.)

Karen Cinorre

“A Submarine Sinking and a Fleet of Underwater Sirens Celebrating”

Paul Kowalski was born in the U.K. to nomadic Polish immigrants, and grew up on four continents. While studying literature and writing at Brown University, he published a collection of short stories and made his earliest films. He later received his MFA in directing at the AFI Conservatory. His debut feature, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10365730/">Paper Tiger</a>, premiered at Austin Film Festival in 2020, winning the Audience Award and a Jury mention, and is now available on all digital platforms through Gravitas Ventures. His other films have won recognition from the ASC, Beijing Film Academy, CINE, Aesthetica, Raindance and Beverly Hills film festivals, among others. He is a BAFTA Newcomer and USC film directing professor – and was named by Austin Film Festival as one of “25 Screenwriters To Watch” in 2021. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Sorel Carradine.

Paul Kowalski

Lawrence of Arabia & I

James DeMonaco is the writer and director of the feature films The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy, The Purge: Election Year and Staten Island, as well as co-founder of the Man in a Tree production company. He also wrote the films The Negotiator and Assault on Precinct 13. He created and executive produced The Purge TV series, as well as the cable television miniseries The Kill Point, which starred John Leguizamo. He recently co-wrote the novel Feral with Brian Evenson, which was published by Random House, and his children’s novel The Curious Chronicles of Jack Bokimble and His Peculiar Penumbra was published by Inkshares Inc. in 2017. The latest film he wrote and directed, This is the Night, starring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Frank Grillo, is now <a href="https://www.uphe.com/movies/this-is-the-night-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available to stream</a>. He lives in Staten Island with his wife and daughter. He is an avid New York Yankees fan.

James DeMonaco

Watching Movies in a Theater, as God Intended

Bill Morrison makes films that reframe long-forgotten moving images. His short film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW65ChIjur4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Incident </a> was nominated for Best Non-Fiction Short at the 2024 Academy Awards and his latest film, The Vanguard Tapes, will have its <a href="https://movingimage.org/event/zodiac-killer-project/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">North American premiere</a> as part of First Look 2025 at the Museum of the Moving Image, Saturday March 15 at 8:00pm. His films have premiered at the New York, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Venice film festivals. In 2014, Morrison had a mid career retrospective at MoMA. His found-footage opus Decasia (2002) was the first film of the 21st century to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The Great Flood (2013), was recognized with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award of 2014 for historical scholarship. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) was included on over 100 critics’ lists of the best films of the year, and on numerous lists ranking the best films of the decade, including those of the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Vanity Fair. (Photo by Wolfgang Wesener.)

Bill Morrison

The Quietude of Eternity: Finding The Village Detective

Cristina Rosato can currently be seen opposite Josh Peck in the Disney+ action-comedy series Turner &amp; Hooch, inspired by the 1989 Tom Hanks film of the same name. She also recently starred in the Crackle drama series Art of More opposite Dennis Quaid, and her other TV credits include The Good Doctor, A Million Little Things, City on a Hill and Party of Five. Rosato recently wrapped the tango-themed Canadian-Argentinian indie drama Ariel, and her past film credits include the rom-com Little Italy, opposite Emma Roberts, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, and Bad Santa 2 with Billy Bob Thornton. Born and raised in Montréal, Québec, in an Italian-Canadian family, Rosato studied at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles and was mentored by the late acting coach Jacqueline McClintock. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she wrote and published a children’s book, A Hero Too, with her cousin, Lara Villani, with proceeds going to Save the Children Canada. (Photo by Jonny Marlow, hair and make-up by Michaël Goyette, stylist Kelly Brown.)

Cristina Rosato

My Dream Role and Tango in the Time of Corona

Rachel Boynton is an award-winning producer and director, known for getting access to places no one has filmed before. Her latest feature, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarDocFilm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)</a>, launches in select theaters on September 17. Her previous films, Our Brand is Crisis and Big Men, have won the IDA’s Best Feature Documentary Award, and have been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and multiple News and Documentary Emmys, including Best Documentary. Boynton’s work has screened at numerous festivals worldwide and aired on the BBC, ARTE, DR, VPRO, CPB, and PBS, among many others. (Photo by Justine Cooper.)

Rachel Boynton

How Motherhood Revolutionized My Filmmaking Approach (and How I See America)

Siobhan Fallon Hogan is the writer, producer and star of <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/rushed/id1580840732" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rushed</a>, which was coproduced by Lars von Trier’s Zentropa Films and Emerald Caz Productions, the company founded by Fallon Hogan and Peter Hogan in 2019. The actress has been in threevon Trier films since 2000, including the Palme d’ Or winner Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and The House that Jack Built. The actress has been in several blockbusters over the years including Men in Black, Forrest Gump, Holes, New in Town, Going in Style, Charlotte’s Web and Funny Games. Her televisions credits include Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, Billions, Wayward Pines, 30 Rock, Law &amp; Order and Love Life. Fallon Hogan and Peter Hogan have been married for 29 years and have three children: Bernadette, 26, a political reporter for the New York Post, Peter, 22, an actor and music producer, and Sinead, an actress and sophomore at Virginia Tech.

Siobhan Fallon Hogan

On My 25 Years in Lars von Trier’s World

Deragh Campbell is a Canadian actor and writer. She has starred in numerous independent films such as Fail to Appear, Stinking Heaven and I Used to be Darker. For her most recent performance in Kazik Radwanski&#8217;s <a href="http://www.cinemaguild.com/theatrical/anneat13000ft.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anne at 13,000ft</a>, she received a nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role from the Canadian Screen Awards. She co-wrote, co-directed and starred in MS Slavic 7 with Sofia Bohdanowicz, which premiered at the 2019 Berlinale. She was selected as a 2015 Rising Star at the Toronto International Film Festival, received a 2017 Macdowell Fellowship for screenwriting and was awarded the 2019 Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for emerging film talent from the Toronto Critics Association.

Deragh Campbell

A Canadian Film is Playing in the USA

Jonah Feingold’s debut feature film, <a href="https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/dating-new-york" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dating &amp; New York</a>, starring Jaboukie Young-White and Francesca Reale, is out now in theaters and on demand through IFC Films. Feingold was born and raised in New York City, with a camera in his hands as soon as he could hold one, and When Harry Met Sally on repeat. He is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and has directed a variety of shorts including the viral fan-film hit Bangarang and a short for Facebook Watch called Maybe: Josh, produced by Sofia Vergara. He is the former host of the official Hinge Dating Podcast Dating Sucks, now titled Seeing Other People. After 10 years in L.A., he moved back to New York, mainly for the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. (Photo courtesy IFC Films.)

Jonah Feingold

How I Got Hook-ed on Movies

David Midell began his filmmaking career drawing inspiration from working as a teacher and therapist in economically disadvantaged areas of Chicago. David&#8217;s debut feature, NightLights, followed a sister and brother with autism as they experienced the heartbreaks and triumphs on their journey to find their place in the world. The film was released in 2014, made its network television premiere on the Lifetime Movie Network in 2015, and won numerous awards, including a Prism Award from the Entertainment Industries Council. His latest film, <a href="https://www.killingofkcfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain</a>, tells the true story of the events that led to the death of an elderly African-American former marine, suffering from bipolar disorder, who was killed during a conflict with police officers in his home. The film, which stars Tony Award nominee Frankie Faison and Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose and has won awards at the Austin Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, Urbanworld and more, and is out September 17 through Gravitas Ventures.

David Midell

Being a Filmmaker on the Autism Spectrum Presents Challenges – and Opportunities – of a Lifetime

Nick Fituri Scown is an Emmy-nominated, Libyan-American filmmaker whose new documentary co-directed with Julie Seabaugh, <a href="https://toosoondoc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11</a>, airs Wednesday, September 8 at 9:00 pm ET/PT on VICE TV and will also play on September 11 at the Dances With Films Festival at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theater. His narrative feature debut, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Bad-Actress-Nick-Scown/dp/B07DYN7QP3/ref=sr_1_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pretty Bad Actress</a> featuring Heather McComb and Jillian Bell, was released by MVD Entertainment. His shorts have played at film festivals around the globe, and he was named one of the 25 Screenwriters to watch by the Austin Film Festival. (Photo by Paul Tarantino.)

film essay