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Talkhouse

Alison McAlpine’s latest film, <a href="http://www.www.perfectlyastrangeness.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">perfectly a strangeness</a>, is currently nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the Academy Awards. Alison began her career as a published poet, playwright and theatre director. Her previous films include the award-winning Second Sight (2008), which she reworked for the BBC as Ghostman of Skye (2009), and CIELO, Alison’s award-winning first feature, which premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2017 and was released in 2018. perfectly a strangeness, Alison’s first short film, premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, had its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, was “Best of Fest” at IDFA and has since travelled to over 80 international film festivals, playing in 27 countries and winning 20 awards. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Alison is currently working on several new films. Find out more at her <a href="http://www.alisonmcalpine.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">official website</a>.

Alison McAlpine

Film

What Can a Story Be?

Nicola Rose is a film director and writer from New York City. Most recently she completed her second feature film, <a href="https://www.magnetospheremovie.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Magnetosphere</a>, a coming-of-age comedy about growing up neurodivergent with synesthesia. The film, which is <a href="https://www.freestyledigitalmedia.tv/film/magnetosphere/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now available</a> for rent or purchase throughout North America, stars Colin Mochrie, Patrick McKenna, Debra McGrath, Tara Strong, Steven He, and Shayelin Martin. In 2021, Nicola directed and wrote her first feature film, Goodbye, Petrushka, which premiered at Dances With Films in Los Angeles and is now streaming on many major platforms. ​Previously, Nicola directed, wrote and produced several short films. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle in Paris. (Photo ©Kisha Peart.)

Nicola Rose

Sing, Dance and Be Yourself: How Two Films Helped Heal One Hurt

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

A Uniquely American Story: My Winter 2025

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

The Little People

Shannon Plumb has shot over 200 short films, which have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and on international screens. She started by shooting herself as various characters, acting out three-minute situations using humor and silence as her vehicles for storytelling. In 2013, her first feature film, Towheads, premiered at MoMA as part of New Directors / New Films; it is now streaming on the <a href="https://www.criterionchannel.com/towheads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Criterion Channel</a>. You can see her short films at <a href="http://shannonplumb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shannonplumb.com</a> and Towheads is available on Netflix and iTunes. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, director Derek Cianfrance, and their two sons.

Shannon Plumb

From One (Great) Man to Another: Darius Marder and the Story of Sound of Metal

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

“Real is a Thing That Happens to You”

Susan Youssef is the director of two dramatic features and a short that now streams on Netflix. Her two features, a documentary, and shorts have been screened at film festivals, such as Venice, Toronto International, Cannes, and Sundance and have been programmed in museums, including The Museum of Modern Art (New York). The focus of Susan’s films has been human and civil rights. Human Rights Watch and Movies that Matter have toured her work. Her second feature Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf Academy Awards qualified and streamed in the Academy screening room. Susan has been commissioned by Tate Modern. 21st Century Fox hired her to make the short Amsterdam to Anatolia that now streams on Netflix. Susan is a Fulbright Fellow, Princess Grace Award Winner, Poynter Fellow (Yale University), and 21st Century Fox Director Fellow.

Susan Youssef

The Road to Triumph: Civil Rights and Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf

Marie Therese Guirgis is a film producer who has worked in both fiction and documentary film. She recently produced The Brink, by Alison Klayman.

Marie Therese Guirgis

Loving Movies in the Age of #MeToo

Guillermo del Toro is a writer, producer and director. At the 2018 Academy Awards, he won Best Director and Best Feature for his film The Shape of Water. Among his other best-known films are Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, Crimson Peak and Cronos.

Guillermo del Toro

William Friedkin is a filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He is best known for his films The French Connection, The Exorcist, Bug, Killer Joe, and To Live and Die in L.A. His latest film, The Devil and Father Amorth, is in theaters from April 20 through The Orchard.

William Friedkin

Podcast

Revisited: Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) Talks with William Friedkin (The Devil and Father Amorth) for the Talkhouse Podcast (Part 1)

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. <a href="https://pod.link/Talkhouse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subscribe now</a>, and explore more illuminating shows on the <a href="https://talkhouse.com/category/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Talkhouse Podcast Network.</a>

Talkhouse Podcast

Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) Talks with William Friedkin (The Devil and Father Amorth) for the Talkhouse Podcast (Part 1)

Reinaldo Marcus Green is a thesis student at NYU&#8217;s Tisch School of the Arts. His films have screened at many film festivals around the world including Festival de Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, Telluride, and LAFF, and have garnered distribution and been televised by HBO and Condé Nast. While at NYU, he has worked as an assistant to directors Kasi Lemmons and Todd Solondz and received the 2014 Honorarium Award from the prestigious Princess Grace Foundation.

Reinaldo Marcus Green

Kirsten Johnson is a cinematographer and director. Her directorial feature debut, Cameraperson, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, won numerous awards and was released theatrically by Janus Films to great acclaim. Her short film The Above premiered at 2015 New York Film Festival in the The Intercept’s Field of Vision launch. Her most recent camerawork appears in Oscar-winning Citizenfour and Very Semi-Serious. Her credits include The Invisible War, Asylum and Fahrenheit 9/11. She lives in New York City. (Photo by Kathy Leichter.)

Kirsten Johnson

Eliza Hittman is an award-winning filmmaker, born and based in New York City. Her critically acclaimed debut feature film, It Felt Like Love,&nbsp;premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013 and was released in 2014 by Variance Films.&nbsp;She received an MFA from CalArts, School of Film / Video (2010) and&nbsp;teaches graduate level film directing at Columbia University, School of the Arts.

Eliza Hittman

From short experimental videos (Third Known Nest) to installations and live performances of music and film (My Silent One) to feature-length narratives (Swoon, Savage Grace), Tom Kalin’s award-winning work has been screened throughout the world. A producer of the films I Shot Andy Warhol and Go Fish, he was also a member of the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury. He is a Columbia University Professor in film, teaching directing.

Tom Kalin

Tom Kalin, Eliza Hittman, Reinaldo Marcus Green and Kirsten Johnson Talk the Oscars on the Talkhouse Podcast

Chad Hartigan was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, and attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking. In 2008, he wrote and directed his first feature, Luke and Brie are on a First Date, which premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival and was remade for Latin American audiences in 2013 as Luna en Leo. His second feature, This is Martin Bonner, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT and went on to also win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards. His third feature, Morris From America, starring Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson and Carla Juri, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and a Special Jury Award for Robinson. It was released by A24, and received both Gotham and Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Oscars