March 27, 2019
How a Lifelong Fascination with Medicine Turned into a Film About the Rural Healthcare Crisis
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
[UPDATED April 6, 2019: We reached out to filmmakers Laura Green and Anna Moot-Levin to gather their thoughts on why they titled their film The Providers.] The filmmaking team behind the…...
March 25, 2019
Children Own Their Stories in Tre Maison Dasan
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Denali Tiller has been an artist, a teacher, a world traveler, and was named one of 110 “Filmmakers to Watch” by Variety, but Tre Maison Dasan happens to be her…...
February 20, 2019
Director Explores Live Streaming Revolution and How Technology Affects Human Happiness
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Technology executive-turned-filmmaker Hao Wu takes a raw and human approach to storytelling in an era when culture evolves online, and for his very first feature film, People's Republic of Desire…...
February 07, 2019
RaMell Ross Charts “the Visual Story of Blackness” in Oscar-Nominated Doc
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Just one year after RaMell Ross' Hale County This Morning, This Evening won a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the filmmaker will follow his film's television debut…...
January 24, 2019
Three Things About “The King,” with Eugene Jarecki and Steven Soderbergh
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki's pedigree is impressive. He has twice won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Peabody Award for: The House I Live In, his 2013 film…...
December 21, 2018
Director Duo Show No Easy Answers in Fight Over Land
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
The team behind the new Independent Lens film My Country No More, Rita Baghdadi and Jeremiah Hammerling, told us they were drawn to Hammerling's native North Dakota to make this film "because his…...
November 14, 2018
Erika Cohn Unfolds a New Perception of Shari’a Law in Portrait of Remarkable Woman
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Erika Cohn, who co-directed (with Tony Vainuku) the Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens doc In Football We Trust, went from the gridiron in Utah to the Shari'a courts of Palestine for her…...
October 29, 2018
Filmmakers Seek the Truth in Eye-Opening Story of Forced Native Child Separation
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Before there was Dawnland, there was First Light, a shorter version of the same story about the forced separation of Native American children that helped lead to the trust necessary to tell…...
April 20, 2018
Five Questions with Nick Offerman about Wendell Berry
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Look & See: Wendell Berry's Kentucky co-producer Nick Offerman, an actor of many an indie film and of course on TV's Parks & Recreation, Fargo, and author of Paddle Your Own…...
March 17, 2017
Filmmakers Lou Pepe and Keith Fulton Tell Story of At-Risk Youth Getting Last Chance
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Filmmakers Lou Pepe and Keith Fulton have gone from the deserts of Spain (for their acclaimed film Lost in La Mancha about Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempt to make a Don Quixote…...
February 11, 2017
Paying Homage to UT Tower Mass Shooting Victims with Life Affirming Animation
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Craig Staggs is the lead animator for the little animation studio based in Austin, Texas, also the home base of filmmaker Keith Maitland. Staggs' company did the brilliantly layered animation…...
September 27, 2016
Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon Peel the Layers of Buckley and Vidal
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
It's not often you'll find a documentary filmmaking team who combined have won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Grammy, but the multi-faceted duo of Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon have done…...