Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

Onur Tukel is a writer, director and illustrator. Some of his films include Catfight, The Misogynists, Scenes From An Empty Church and Summer of Blood. He co-wrote the children&#8217;s books Let&#8217;s Make a Movie! and The Legend of Halloween with David Gordon Green, and his latest book, the illustrated novel <a href="https://www.pitchstonebooks.com/catalog/run-werewolf-run" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Run Werewolf Run</a>, is out now.

Onur Tukel

Film

The Disappearing Act

Lou Pepe directs both documentary and fiction films, among them Lost in La Mancha, shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary and winner of the Evening Standard’s Peter Sellers Award for Best Comedy; Brothers of the Head, winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature; and The Bad Kids, which premiered at Sundance 2016 and won the Special Jury Award for Verité Filmmaking. Pepe holds an MFA in Film &amp; Media Arts from Temple University and is a fellow of the Sundance Documentary Film Program. He has collaborated with co-director Keith Fulton for over 20 years. Their most recent documentary, He Dreams of Giants, explores film director Terry Gilliam’s 27-year quest to film an adaptation of Don Quixote. They are currently in post-production on an experimental documentary about emotional responses to the ongoing pandemic. (Picture by Robert Beckwith.)

Lou Pepe

Confessions of a Middle-Aged Fanboy

Phillip Youmans is a filmmaker from the 7th Ward of New Orleans. At 19, Phillip became the youngest and first African-American director to win the Founder’s Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival for his feature-length debut, <a href="https://www.phillipyoumans.com/burningcane">Burning Cane</a>, which he wrote, directed, shot and edited during his final years of high school. Phillip is also the youngest director to ever have a feature film compete at the Tribeca Film Festival. Distributed by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing, Burning Cane opened in select theaters on October 25th, 2019 and was released on Netflix on November 6, 2019. Phillip was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Director and a Film Independent Spirit Award for his work on the film. Recently, Phillip wrote, directed and edited a short film for Hulu’s Black History Month titled Imagine a Moon Colony, about a black family in 1970 Los Angeles that imagines the year 2020 through a black lens and creates abstract visuals based on their predictions.

Phillip Youmans

Watch Them Rise

Jonathan Milott’s latest feature, the thriller <a href="https://www.quiverdistribution.com/becky" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Becky</a> – which he co-directed with Cary Murnion and which stars Lulu Wilson, Joel McHale and Kevin James – is out now on digital and screening at drive-ins around the country. Milott and Murnion met at Parsons School of Design, where they teamed up to run a cutting edge animation, design and advertising firm and began to explore filmmaking together. Their early collaborations pushed the boundaries of taste, technique, form, and humor. One of their first short films premiered at SXSW, which parlayed into feature filmmaking. Their directorial feature film debut, Cooties, starring Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; distributed by Lions Gate, it is now available on VOD. Bushwick, their second feature film, starring Dave Bautista and Brittany Snow, premiered in the U.S. at Sundance and had its international premiere at Cannes’ Director&#8217;s Fortnight. It is now available on Netflix.

Jonathan Milott

Finding the Details and Choosing Your Battles

Named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker magazine, Morgan Jon Fox is a writer-director from Memphis, currently living in Chicago, whose work has focused primarily on youth and self-discovery in the South. His short film The One You Never Forget is now streaming on Vimeo <a href="https://vimeo.com/288610484" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. (Picture by Breezy Lucia.)

Morgan Jon Fox

The Power of Being Seen

Shola Amoo’s debut feature was a multimedia film called A Moving Image, which received the Special Recognition Award at the Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia, had its European Premiere at the BFI London Film Festival 2016 and was released theatrically in the U.K. in 2017 through Verve Pictures. Shola’s second feature was the drama <a href="https://t.co/tueFDP6Xna?amp=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Last Tree</a>, which premiered at Sundance 2019 in the World Cinema Dramatic competition. The film was released theatrically in the U.K. through Picturehouse Entertainment and opens <a href="https://www.bam.org/film/2020/lfb-the-last-tree" target="_blank" rel="noopener">virtually via BAM</a> from June 25. The Last Tree received the Best Screenplay Award from the Writers Guild of Great Britain and won two British Independent Film Awards: Most Promising Newcomer for Sam Adewunmi and Best Supporting Actress for Ruthxjiah Bellenea. Shola&#8217;s latest project, a VR experience called Violence, recently premiered at Cannes XR.

Shola Amoo

A Black British Condition

Nijla Mu&#8217;min is a writer and filmmaker from the East Bay Area. Named one of the 2017 <a href="http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/nijla-mumin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/nijla-mumin/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524571778612000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE-Amz57jqB--hxi4Jr0H5o9kv4XA">&#8220;25 New Faces of Independent Film&#8221;</a> by Filmmaker magazine, she tells stories about black girls and women who find themselves between worlds and identities. Her short films have screened at festivals across the country. Her filmmaking and screenwriting have been recognized by the Sundance Institute, IFP, Film Independent and the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2011, she worked as a Production Assistant on Ava DuVernay’s film Middle of Nowhere. Her debut feature film, Jinn, starring Zoe Renee and Simone Missick (Netflix’s Luke Cage), premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Recognition Award for Writing. Her short film Dream was acquired by Issa Rae Productions (Insecure, HBO) for online streaming. She is a 2013 dual-degree graduate of CalArts MFA Film Directing and Writing Programs. Her writing has appeared in VICE, Shadow and Act, The East Bay Express and The Los Angeles Times.

Nijla Mu’min

The Myth of the Small Black Film

Deborah Goodwin is a writer-director-producer whose work in film and television began as a development executive for Sanford-Pillsbury Productions (Desperately Seeking Susan, River’s Edge, How to Make an American Quilt). Deborah’s Urbanworld Film Festival Best Screenplay win for her darkly provocative family drama Cherrys launched her filmmaking path. She has written for Emmy-winning and Independent Spirit Award-nominated producers, and for shows like the cult favorite horror series Tales from the Cryptkeeper. She is a Film Independent and IFP lab fellow and an ABC and NBC diversity showcase director, best known for her horror fable Vampires in Venice and her action/drama The Pastor, released by Fathom Events and AMC. Her Icelandic noir Snaeland, which she co-wrote and produced, premiered at the Vail Film Festival and screens in the Brooklyn Film Festival 2020. Deborah is a Sundance Collab advisor and screenwriting professor at Brooklyn College, and a newly minted co-creator and writer of the noir-crime-thriller series Hot Freeze, with Canadian producer Nomadic Pictures (Hell on Wheels, Van Helsing, Fargo).

Deborah Goodwin

On Black Storytelling and Why Hollywood Must Irrevocably Change

Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme co-directed the “Slumlord Millionaire” episode of Netflix’s Dirty Money docu-series. Previously, they were co-writers and directors of Get Me Roger Stone. Together they have written for The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and Talkhouse.

Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme

Investigating Jared Kushner in the Golden Age of Documentary Journalism

Born in Iran, Matt Eskandari immigrated to the United States as a child, when his parents fled the oppressive religious regime that followed the Iranian revolution. He graduated with Honors from USC with a degree in Cinema/Television Critical Studies. At 21, his first short film, The Taking, won Best Short Film at ScreamFest, which helped him finance his first feature, the psychological thriller titled Victim (2010), which was distributed theatrically by IFC Films. Eskandari’s next feature, the action thriller Game of Assassins, starring Bai Ling and Dustin Nguyen, was shot primarily in mainland China and was distributed by Lionsgate in 2014. Following his third feature, 12 Feet Deep, starring Tobin Bell and Diane Farr, Eskandari signed a three-picture deal to direct action/thriller feature films for Lionsgate starring Bruce Willis, Trauma Center, Survive the Night and Open Source. Trauma Center was released theatrically in 2019, and <a href="https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/survive-the-night" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Survive the Night</a> is currently on release, via VOD.

Matt Eskandari

Don’t Let Anything Get in Your Way

Laura Terruso is a screenwriter, director and producer. Her latest comedy, Work It, will premiere on Netflix later this summer.&nbsp;Her previous film, Good Girls Get High, will be available on HBO Max in July. Her feature debut as writer-director, Fits And Starts,&nbsp;premiered at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival and is available on Amazon. She co-wrote and co-produced the film&nbsp;Hello, My Name Is Doris, starring Sally Field and directed by Michael Showalter. The feature is based on her short film&nbsp;Doris &amp; The Intern. Released by Roadside Attractions, Hello, My Name Is Doris went on to become one of the top grossing indies of 2016. Laura attended NYU&rsquo;s graduate film program at the Tisch School of the Arts. She is repped by CAA, Industry Entertainment and SGSBC.

Laura Terruso

How Do We Get Back to Work During Coronavirus? By Embracing Our Indie Roots

Jason Wise is the director of the new documentary The Delicacy, which is now streaming worldwide exclusively on SOMM TV. He graduated from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Television in 2005. In 2012, Jason directed the acclaimed wine documentary Somm, which put the existence of the sommelier into the American consciousness and was one of the most watched documentaries of the year. In 2015, it was turned into a television series by Esquire Network titled Uncorked, and Jason served as an executive producer of all six episodes. Jason’s follow-up film, Somm: Into The Bottle, was released worldwide by Samuel Goldwyn Films and spent several weeks as the number one documentary on iTunes in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the UK. Jason’s next film, Wait For Your Laugh, about the nearly 90-year career of showbiz performer Rose Marie, released in 2017. The third film in the Somm series, Somm 3, was released in 2018. In 2019, Jason was awarded the 2019 documentarian of the year from Kodak.

film essay