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Interviews

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…...

Filmmaker turned firefighter Alex Jablonksi, on the job for
Behind the Films

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…...

Interviews

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…...

Interviews

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…...

Interviews

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…...

Director Cullen Hoback (at right) takes secret charter up West Virginia river to collect water samples under the cover of night.
Interviews

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…...

Interviews

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…...

Interviews

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…...

Winnie Mandela in a press conference, late 80s
Interviews

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…...

Filmmaker Jennifer Kroot interviews Maupin at steps to the real-life inspiration for Barbary Lane in Tales of the City
Interviews

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…...

John Coltrane in concert; credit: Don Schlitten
Interviews

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,…...

Real Boy filmmaker Shaleece Haas
Interviews

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.…...