November 12, 2018
Filmmakers Navigate the Secretive World of Social Media Censorship in Atmosphere of Fear
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
You know German filmmakers Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block are sharp-minded characters when you learn they work collaboratively under the label “Laokoon,” named after the legendary Trojan seer Laocoön who…...
October 19, 2018
Filmmakers Turned Firefighters Venture Behind the Lines in “Wildland”
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
Filmmaker Alex Jablonski and his filmmaking partner Khalil Hudson had quite the arduous, smoke-filled journey to make the film Wildland. The documentary premieres on Independent Lens Monday, Oct. 29. Alex told…...
May 17, 2018
Documentarians Meet the Real People Behind a Media Firestorm
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Documentarians Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard picked a hefty, complex, but as it turned out incredibly timely subject to collaborate on. The film ACORN and the Firestorm looks at the…...
May 02, 2018
Documentarian Ventures into the “No Man’s Land” of Malheur Takeover
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Documentarian David Garrett Byars is making his feature film debut with No Man’s Land, but he's made short films before. including Recapture, a short documentary chronicling the attempt of right-wing activists…...
April 25, 2018
Director Finds Real Life Superheroes with “Conviction”
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer, also the program director of the MFA program in Documentary Film at Stanford University, has made acclaimed films about a wide collection of topics, from song-poems to…...
April 10, 2018
Filmmaker Cullen Hoback Digs Into Political Cover-Ups and Chemical Spills in Americans Water
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Filmmaker Cullen Hoback's previous film Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013), a humorous but chilling documentary about the erosion of online privacy and what info governments and corporations are legally…...
April 04, 2018
Shoes Wisely: Stacey Tenenbaum Shines a Light on an Age-Old Profession
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Award-winning filmmaker Stacey Tenenbaum co-created a critically acclaimed series in Canada, The Beat, which followed a team of beat police officers patrolling the streets of Downtown Vancouver. Exchanging the police beat…...
February 21, 2018
Filmmaker Theo Anthony’s Ratty Exploration of Urban Segregation
Craig Phillips in Interviews
[pullquote]"It’s cool to watch younger audiences watch the film, because they just get the filmic language right away. It’s a film that feels more like an Instagram story than a…...
January 29, 2018
“Winnie” Filmmaker Gives a New Perspective on Anti-Apartheid Activist Winnie Mandela
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Filmmaker Pascale Lamche took on the enormous but important challenge of documenting Winnie Mandela's story, a narrative, as she discovered, that was slightly skewed in the mind of many across…...
December 15, 2017
From North Carolina to San Francisco: Jennifer Kroot Tells the Tales of Maupin
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Jennifer Kroot brings a background in underground filmmaking to her documentaries and uses that sensibility to create surprises within her stories. The San Francisco-based filmmaker first caught the eye of…...
October 31, 2017
Filmmaker John Scheinfeld Chases Coltrane’s Legacy
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Filmmaker John Scheinfeld is no stranger to taking on challenging subjects for documentaries. The Emmy®, Grammy® and Writers Guild Award nominee and writer/director/producer's other films include The U.S. vs. John Lennon,…...
June 16, 2017
Real Boy Director Shaleece Haas on Filming a Family in Flux
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Documentary filmmaker Shaleece Haas has made several acclaimed shorts, worked as an editorial photographer and radio producer, and was a founding staff member of the national oral history project StoryCorps.…...