Park City, Ut. - To even describe it seems ludicrous: recruit two young women, who think they will be part of a hidden-camera prank show, to inadvertently assassinate Kim Jong-nam, the dissident half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. In an airport. In broad daylight. With hundreds of witnesses and cameras recording it all. This isn’t the plot for a spy thriller, but rather the ... more >
INTERVIEWS
SUNDANCE INTERVIEW: “Assassins” is ripe for a series, it’s got so many twists and turns (director Ryan White)
[Documentary]
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
SUNDANCE / INTERVIEW : “The face of the Asian was very much the face of the enemy in America” (Bao Nguyen, director of “Be Water”)
[U.S. Documentary Competition]
Park City, Ut. | Filmmaker Bao Nguyen didn’t mince words when we sat down in a house not far from where his documentary about Bruce Lee, called “Be Water,” premiered at Sundance this week. Nguyen idolized Lee as a young man because there were rather few Asian and Asian-American actors on U.S. television and in movies in those days. When Lee was trying to get his start in Hollywood, World War II ... more >
Once upon a time, the twisted twins Jen and Sylvia Soska – INTERVIEW
"Follow your stupid fucking dreams" (Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska)
In the last decade twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska have doggedly pursued film ventures in the horror genre. Armed with ingenuity, a DYI ethos and a pledge to frighten honest, hard-working people, the Soskas have acted in, directed, screenwritten and produced movies that would give Lloyd Kaufman and Eli Roth a run for their money. The Soskas have directed such films as “Dead Hooker in a ... more >
Talking with Sky Bergman. Her short “Mochitsuki” screens at SBIFF on Sunday
"What’s happening in your everyday life that you care about, that helps you learn, that’s making you grow?"
Sky Bergman is a filmmaker and teacher based in San Luis Obispo, California, a university town known for being the home of Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University). In 2017 Bergman brought her documentary “Lives Well Lived,” which shared the wisdom of a group of gloriously happy senior citizens, to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It’s a wonderful film—which I hasten to ... more >
INTERVIEW: CAMILLE BROWN, director of “A Christmas Winter Song”
[Drama / 90 mins]
Ashanti, Stan Shaw and Sashani Nichole
Camille Brown recently achieved a distinction, one that has become a tradition. A female-directed film on Lifetime seems like a rite of passage for any woman behind the camera. Yet a Christmas movie makes it all the more special. “A Christmas Winter Song” aired throughout the month of December, is currently on-demand and will likely remain part of the network’s future holiday line-ups. I was ... more >
INTERVIEW: Burk Sharpless, Matt Sazama and the cast of “Lost in Space 2”
"We can all relate to this family"
The producers and showrunners insist they didn’t plan for the second season of “Lost in Space” to debut Christmas week, but a yuletide story element in the first episode of Season 2 made it a rather fortuitous happenstance. “We heard that Netflix put us in their Christmas window, because they were so excited about the audience we might get,” said series co-creator and executive producer Burk ... more >
Mark Landsman: “We have a tabloid president. That’s a very disturbing thing”
"Scandalous: the untold story of the National Inquirer"
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
Directed by Mark Landsman
Current events overtook documentary filmmaker Mark Landsman even as he was working hard on his film about the National Enquirer and its controversial parent company, AMI. “We had already gotten our seed money together and were out filming when the Ronan Farrow stories broke in the New Yorker” about President Trump’s alleged connections to Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s attempts to “kill” ... more >