Film Interviews
Wilko Johnson (1947-2022): The Bard of Canvey IslandFriday, 25 November 2022
Wilko Johnson, who has died aged 75, enjoyed an astonishing afterlife while he was still alive. After Julien Temple’s Dr. Feelgood film Oil City Confidential (2009) restored his crucial former band's profile, a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2013 perversely flooded Wilko with the wonder of life, leaving this melancholy soul content for perhaps the first time. Read more...
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Q&A: Bianca Stigter, director of 'Three Minutes: A Lengthening'Saturday, 12 November 2022
Holidaying in Europe with his wife Lisa and friends in August 1938, David Kurtz of Flatbush, Brooklyn, whose family left Poland in 1892 when he was four, returned to his hometown of Nasielsk (population 7,000), 33 miles north-west of Warsaw. Read more... |
Leslie Phillips: 'I can be recognised by my voice alone'Thursday, 10 November 2022
Leslie Phillips would have known for half a century that at his death, which was announced yesterday, the obituaries would lead with one thing only. However much serious work he did in the theatre and on screen, he is forever handcuffed to the skirt-chaser he gave us in sundry Carry Ons and Doctor films and London bus movies. Read more... |
William Hurt, great Hollywood contrarian, has died at 71Sunday, 13 March 2022
No actor had a classier time of it in the Eighties than William Hurt, who has died at the age of 71. Ramrod tall, blue-eyed and aquiline, with a high forehead swept clear of thin fair hair, he was a brash decade's intelligent male lead. Read more... |
10 Questions for filmmaker Romola GaraiWednesday, 02 February 2022
The prolific actor Romola Garai first demonstrated her ability as a filmmaker with Scrubber, a gripping 20-minute feminist drama about a young middle-class mum and homemaker (Amanda Hale) who escapes her deadly routine through bouts of anonymous countryside sex; thematically, it anticipated the current critical favorite The Lost Daughter by nine years. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Marco KreuzpaintnerMonday, 06 September 2021
In 2011, Ferdinand von Schirach’s novel Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case) was published, its narrative of crime and punishment inspired by a law passed in Germany in 1968. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: choreographer Christopher ScottSaturday, 26 June 2021
Having won recognition for his streetdance routines on American TV’s So You Think You Can Dance, choreographer Christopher Scott was asked to help bring Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton stage hit to the big screen. In The Heights was shot entirely on location on the streets of Washingt Read more... |
Filmmaker Darius Marder: 'Deafness is a culture. That's not being PC'Saturday, 03 April 2021
Sound of Metal has been a long time coming. Director and writer Darius Marder faced years of delays ranging from casting changes to the whole world shutting down. Was it worth the wait? Well, six Academy Award nominations including Best Film certainly suggest it was. Read more... |
Filmmaker Frank Marshall: 'People don’t understand what geniuses The Bee Gees were'Tuesday, 08 December 2020
Frank Marshall might not be the biggest household name, but his footprint on Hollywood is unrivalled. He has produced hits ranging from Indiana Jones and Back to the Future to Jason Bourne and Jurassic World. He also takes occasional forays into directing, such as the madcap Arachnophobia and cannibalistic rugby tale Alive. Read more... |
Filmmaker Bassam Tariq: 'Great cinema doesn't need to be perfect - embrace the imperfections'Tuesday, 27 October 2020
After Bassam Tariq's feature debut These Birds Walk was released at SXSW 2013, things seemed to slow down. The documentary about a runaway boy in Pakistan garnered strong reviews, but soon Tariq was working in a New York butchers pondering his career. Read more... |
'I loved being a dresser': Sir Ronald Harwood, Oscar-winning writer, dies at 85Wednesday, 09 September 2020
Ronald Harwood, who has died at the age of 85, was best known for his play about tending to the needs of the larger-than-life actor-manager Donald Wolfit. Read more... |
Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui: 'The disability community is the world community'Tuesday, 25 August 2020
In 2018, directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui burst onto the documentary scene with McQueen, a visually stunning study of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Acclaim and offers followed, but no-one could have predicted the subject of their second feature. Read more... |
Director Marjane Satrapi: ‘The real question is do you like everyone? No? So, why should everyone like you?’Friday, 20 March 2020
Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born French filmmaker, has a reputation that precedes her. Her upbringing was the subject of the acclaimed films Persepolis (2007) and Chicken With Plums (2011). Persepolis won the Cannes Jury Prize, two César awards and was nominated for an Oscar. Satrapi adapted and co-directed both films. Read more... |
Actress Noémie Merlant: 'This is something that hasn't been told yet'Tuesday, 25 February 2020
Lest anyone believe that Parasite was the only ground-breaking foreign language film of the past year, Céline Sciamma’s fourth feature, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, arrives to remind us otherwise. Read more... |
Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland: 'Without journalism, democracy will not survive'Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Agnieszka Holland is one of Europe's leading filmmakers. Growing up in Poland under Soviet rule, her films have often tackled the continent's complex history, including the Academy Award-nominated Europa, Europa, In Darkness and Angry Harvest. In America, she's become a trusted hand for prestige television, with credits on The Wire, House of Cards and The Killing. Her latest film, Mr. Read more... |
'Shakespeare is mistakenly considered something for the elite': director Claire McCarthy on 'Ophelia'Tuesday, 19 November 2019
Ophelia is one of Shakespeare's most enduring characters in both literature and art, and yet her part in Hamlet is limited to few lines and fewer motivations. Based on Lisa Klein's novel, the new film Ophelia challenges this interpretation. Read more... |
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