Monthly Archives: February 2019

Film, Interviews, Little White Lies

David Dastmalchian on poverty and abuse drama ‘All Creatures Here Below’

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Since his striking film debut as a haunting henchman of The Joker in The Dark Knight, David Dastmalchian has built a strong resume of memorable supporting parts in blockbusters and auteur-driven projects. He’s a favourite of director Denis Villeneuve, featuring in Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune, and a mainstay of both Ant-Man films.

He’s also a writer, now of a second feature in which he also stars. The first, 2014’s Animals, drew inspiration from his own history of addiction and homelessness several years prior to his acting career. All Creatures Here Below, also from Animals director Collin Schiffli, again explores poverty as well as sexual abuse which Dastmalchian says stems from revelations in both his own family and his childhood neighbourhood…

Full interview for Little White Lies

Film, Interviews, The Skinny

Philippe Lesage on his heartfelt coming of age film ‘Genesis’

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Forget Xavier Dolan; writer-director Philippe Lesage may be the most exciting filmmaker to emerge from Quebec in the last few years. But unlike the director of Mommy and Heartbeats, Lesage has had some struggle getting his films wider distribution, at least in English-language territories.

Reportedly drawn from autobiographical experience, The Demons, his acclaimed narrative debut after a string of documentaries, earned strong notices – including at Glasgow Film Festival 2017 – and favourable comparisons to the thriller stylings of Claude Chabrol and Michael Haneke. In it, a young boy in Montreal begins experiencing the adult world, as he enters adolescence against a backdrop of local child kidnappings.

For his latest feature, Genesis, Lesage strays into autobiographical territory once more for a tale of teenagers in love. In fact, Genesis loops us back in with the filmmaker’s alter ego Félix (Édouard Tremblay-Grenier), the lead of The Demons, at an older age. This is not a literal sequel, though, which is perhaps wise considering the erratic distribution of Lesage’s films mentioned earlier. Think François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series, where seeing every entry isn’t required, but if you do seek them all out you’ll get a little something extra out of the experience…

Full interview for The Skinny

Film, Interviews, The Skinny

Bo Burnham on ‘Eighth Grade’, teens and the internet

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Of all filmmakers to tackle the subject of the relationship of young people to the internet as it is now, Bo Burnham would be among the most qualified. After all, these platforms are responsible for where he is now. The 28-year-old American comedian, musician and actor began his performance career in 2006 with YouTube videos of self-penned comedy songs. The full trajectory of his path since is too convoluted to divulge here, but the important thing is that he has written and directed his first feature: a wonderful film called Eighth Grade that’s had a healthy box office run stateside and has gone on to receive numerous major awards wins and nominations, including a Golden Globe nod for star Elsie Fisher, a thrilling new talent, and a Directors Guild of America Award win in the First-Time Feature category for Burnham just days after our phone conversation…

Full interview for The Skinny

BFI, Film, Interviews

‘Cyrano’ meets ‘Harry Potter’: Toby MacDonald and Pauline Etienne on ‘Old Boys’

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Loosely based on Edmond Rostand’s classic 19th-century play Cyrano de Bergerac, Toby MacDonald’s debut feature, Old Boys, transplants key elements of that story to a British boarding school in the late 1980s, albeit with some of the more tragic parts – the war and the bloodshed for starters – excised in favour of a more comedic update…

Full interview for the BFI

Film, Huck, Interviews

Ray & Liz: an exploration of family life in Thatcher’s Britain

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In Ray & Liz, artist and photographer Richard Billingham makes his feature debut as a writer-director. A vignette-based portrait about a family falling apart, it’s inspired by his own childhood growing up in the Thatcher-era West Midlands.

It’s a period that he documented in the photo project that first brought him fame in the late ’90s. Titled Ray’s a Laugh, the series featured striking images of his parents (the titular Ray and Liz) as well as younger brother Jason, often in scenes of squalor reflecting the deprivation and isolation in which Billingham grew up. The film, however – which has since been nominated for a BAFTA  – goes even deeper.

“A film I was very interested in is The Terence Davies Trilogy [1983], which I saw in my 20s. A lot of that was shot from lived experience,” he explains…

Full interview for HUCK

BFI, Features, Film

10 things to see at Glasgow Film Festival 2019

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Celebrating its 15th instalment, the Glasgow Film Festival runs this year between 20 February and 3 March, opening with the UK premiere of Jonah Hill’s directing debut, Mid90s. It later closes with another UK first: the premiere of Beats, an adaptation of Kieran Hurley’s award-winning play set in the Scottish rave scene of, well, the mid-90s.

Rest assured, the full festival programme isn’t solely aimed at Generation X and older millennials, though some 90s favourites are among those receiving pop-up screening treatment at creative venues; a 20th anniversary showing of The Blair Witch Project at a secret location sounds terrifying.

With more than 330 individual screenings, talks and events in between the opening and closing galas, choosing what to go to can be tricky. Here are 10 highlights from the stacked programme…

Full feature for the BFI