ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

Interviews

Interviews 

Greta Lee and Celine Song talk PAST LIVES – Jennifer Green reports

Jennifer Green , , , , , , ,

For a film about the deep connections we have with others and how destiny shapes which relationships come and go in our lives, it would seem appropriate that the talents behind the film also share deep bonds. In fact, Past Lives writer-director Celine Song says she’s convinced she was married to actress Greta Lee in a past life. That’s the kind of connection the two forged working on one of this year’s standout films, now widely considered a top contender for recognition this awards season. Song and Lee shared details of their work, and the meaningful on- and off-camera relationships behind their poignant film.

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Interviews 

Cecilia Aldarondo on docu-fiction and YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND – Nadine Whitney interviews

Nadine Whitney , , , , ,

In You Were My First Boyfriend, filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo returns to her adolescence in Winter Park, Florida to recreate sections of the experiences that she felt defined her as an adult. The opening of the painfully intimate docu-fiction is a hazy recreation of a school dance with Cecilia as an adult dressed as her teen self interacting with young actors playing her contemporaries in the mid-nineties. It feels like a horror film come to life, because for so many going back to that vulnerable period is something we only do in nightmares, especially if for some reason we were outsiders at school. Cecilia, a Puerto Rican woman was not the ideal thin white girl. She wanted a boyfriend, popularity, a feeling of belonging, but could never quite achieve it. Cecelia talks about immersive docu-fiction and other works that inspired You Were My First Boyfriend.

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Interviews 

Ashley Avis on WILD BEAUTY: MUSTANG SPIRIT and Saving Horses – Jennifer Green interviews

Jennifer Green , , , , , , ,

When writer-director Ashley Avis signed on to direct the remake of Black Beauty, released in 2020 on Disney+, she didn’t know how it would change the course of at least the next several years of her life, leading to her follow-up project, the creation of a foundation, the adoption of multiple wild horses and a new role in advocacy. Avis’s documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West earned her a Special Congressional Commendation from Congresswoman Dina Titus in March and is now nominated for a Critic’s Choice Award for Best Science/Nature Documentary.

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Festivals Interviews 

Sandra Lipski on Filmmaking, Location and Founding Mallorca Film Festival – Jennifer Green interviews

Jennifer Green , , ,

When actor-writer-director Sandra Lipski made her first short film, she wanted to send it to a local festival in Mallorca, where she grew up. She discovered there wasn’t one. “It just really shocked me, because there’s literally a festival, as you know, in every little, tiny town,” she says. “And I just couldn’t believe that this beautiful island didn’t have one.” So, she decided to start her own. “I thought, well, why not just try it?” And that’s how Spain’s Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF) came into being in 2012. It wrapped its twelfth edition on Oct. 24.

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Interviews 

Amanda Kramer and Britt Brown on SO UNREAL – Nadine Whitney interviews

Nadine Whitney , , , , , , , ,

Amanda Kramer and Britt Brown discuss the lure and fear of the early internet in So Unreal. Amanda Kramer is best known as a director of independent fiction films. Delighting and confounding audiences with such titles as Ladyworld, Give Me Pity!, and Please Baby Please. In a script written in conjunction with Britt Brown, Kramer delivers a stunning visual essay documentary So Unreal about “cyber cinema.” Nadine Whitney spoke to Kramer and Brown about their work that debuted at Fantastic Fest 2023.>

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Interviews 

Lindsey Anderson Beer talks Women in Horror, Stephen King and PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES – Nadine Whitney interviews

Nadine Whitney , , , , ,

Although she’s making her directorial debut with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Lindsey Anderson Beer has worked in the screen industry for years as writer, show runner, story consultant and more. With Pet Sematary: Bloodline, she’s expanded the vision of super horror creative Stephen King. As she puts it: My goal with anything is always delightful surprise and I hope the film feels like something they haven’t seen before. I hope it offers them the heart and the moral questions of Pet Sematary and I want it to scare the shit out of people. I also want it to make them feel something.

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Festivals Interviews 

Ena Sendijarević talks SWEET DREAMS (TIFF 2023) – Tara Karajica interviews

Tara Karajica , , , , , ,

Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević’s her sophomore film is set on a remote Indonesian island during the waning days of the colonial era. Sweet Dreams is the story of two women who are left to their own devices after the death of Jan, patriarch owner of a sugar plantation. Sendijarević grew up in the Netherlands, a country with a long and atrocious imperialist past. “I never learned anything about it when I was [in] school. She wanted to know more about it and got the idea to do something with it on film.

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Festivals Interviews 

Kim Thuy on RU (TIFF 2023) – Liz Braun interviews

Liz Braun , , , , , , , ,

Award-winning Canadian author Kim Thuy recently had the experience of seeing her best-selling novel, Ru, transformed into a film of the same name. She watched along with TIFF audiences who were present at the world premiere. Ru is Thuy’s own story about coming to Canada in childhood as one of the “boat people” who fled Vietnam in the ‘70s after the fall of Saigon. The vignettes and closely observed moments in her memoir are captured and woven together into a beautiful film from director/writer Charles-Olivier Michaud, co-writer Jacques Davidts and cinematographer Jean-Francois Lord.

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Festivals Interviews 

Jessica Yu talks QUIZ LADY (TIFF 2023) – Tara Karajica interviews

Tara Karajica , , , , , ,

Helmer Jessica Yu directs Sandra Oh and Awkwafina in her latest outing for Disney/Hulu, Quiz Lady. The film deals with sibling dynamics and how, at the end of the day, no matter how different they are, they end up loving each other. “I think what they go through actually ends up reminding them of how much they have shared together in life and how much they actually appreciate each other. We don’t really see that many comedies about sisters and so, that was attractive to me,” Yu comments.

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Festivals Interviews 

KITTY GREEN on THE ROYAL HOTEL (TIFF 2023) – Liz Braun interviews

Liz Braun , , , , , , , ,

Australian filmmaker Kitty Green delves into the war between men and women in The Royal Hotel, a film about two young backpackers who take barmaid jobs in a mining area in Australia’s isolated outback. How they fare in an environment drenched in testosterone and alcohol is an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller about gender dynamics. Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick star in The Royal Hotel as the tourists who take pub jobs to top up their holiday fund. The Royal Hotel is about systemic issues, says Green, “about drinking culture and women feeling threatened in certain spaces.

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