Joining DN for our final podcast episode of 2019, Argentinian Director Lucio Castro’s debut feature End of the Century reunites two men for a one night stand whose seeds were sown two decades earlier. In our interview, Castro and I get into his use of performance rather than prosthetics to donate different time periods, the flexibility of shooting …

Marking her move into fiction filmmaking, Italian Director Maura Delpero’s Maternal (Hogar) is an enthralling exploration of the meaning of motherhood set within the confines of a religious Buenos Aires refuge for young unmarried mothers. In our chat Delpero shares why she believes personal stories make universal cinema, how the tools of her docume…

During our time at this year’s London Film Festival DN took the opportunity to sit down with Eryk Rocha the Brazilian director of Burning Night (Breve Miragem de Sol) – a film which depicts the isolation and economic struggle of a Rio de Janeiro taxi driver as he works the city’s late night streets. In our discussion, Rocha reveals the ways in whic…

If you live in the UK then you’ll be all too aware of the shocking amount of youth on youth violence which has plagued the country in recent years. Less often reported is the fact that these attacks are often fuelled by the activities of criminal gangs who recruit vulnerable children as expendable foot soldiers in a cross-country drugs distribution…

Returning to the narrative roots of her well received debut feature Thirst, Svetla Tsotsorkova’s Sister (Sestra) is a self proclaimed “confession of love to those who live a seemingly unnoticeable life”. The story of compulsive tall tale teller Rayna, Sister follows the defiant teen as one of her fanciful stories threatens to tear her family apart.…

A film which left this year’s Tribeca on a wave of plaudits – not least because this debut feature made history when 19 year old filmmaker Phillip Youmans became the youngest and first African-American director to be awarded Best Narrative Feature at the festival – Burning Cane tells the story of an ageing mother struggling between her religious co…

We kick off our 2019 season of podcasts with an interview recorded at the London Film Festival with Director Hari Sama, who talks to us about heading back to a Mexico City of 1986 and the character defining post-punk days of sexual liberty, outsider art and drugs which helped shape him, in his vibrant semi-autobiographical feature This Is Not Berli…

An assured debut feature which despite its frank depiction of sexual violence never slips into the male gaze and in fact, purposely turns the tables on the long problematic trope of the femme fatale, Holiday from Swedish Writer/Director Isabella Eklöf, uses the life of glitzy excesses experienced on the Turkish Rivera by a newly minted gangster gir…

Our penultimate interview from this year’s London Film Festival, DN speaks to veteran French Director Philippe Faucon about his story of economic separation and loneliness, Amin. Shot in Senegal and France, and featuring a predominately non-professional cast, Philippe discusses why working with non-actors is an integral part of his process and the …

During our time at the London Film Festival DN took the opportunity to speak to Director Sara Colangelo about her adaptation of Nadav Lapid’s critically acclaimed 2014 feature The Kindergarten Teacher, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal in what has been heralded by many as a career-best performance. In the following interview, Sara discusses the advantages…

DN heads back to the London Film Festival for an interview we recorded with Director Christina Choe whose feature debut, the psychodrama Nancy, picked up the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance earlier this year. In our interview we speak to Christina about the difficulties of securing financing for films led by complex female protagonists, …

A rightfully grueling and all-encompassing viewing experience, Erik Poppe’s Utøya: July 22 depicts in real time the violent tragedy of the 2011 Utøya summer camp massacre in Norway, which saw a heavily armed right-wing extremist take the lives of 69 youths over the course of a relentless 72 minutes. We spoke to Erik at the London Film Festival abou…

LFF Female Filmmaker Panel (left to right) Jessica Hynes, Sara Blecher, Arantxa Echevarria, Dyana Winkler, Soudade Kadaan & Sam Baker Today on the podcast we bring you audio from the London Film Festival’s Female Filmmaker Panel chaired by The Pool founder Sam Baker and comprising filmmakers Arantxa Echevarria (Carmen and Lola), Sara Blecher (Mayfa…

10 years in the making and spanning three decades in the life and career of underground DJ, music producer and record label owner James Lavelle, feature documentary The Man from Mo’Wax provides a compelling look at the foundation and implosion of one of the 90s most influential record labels and the driven man behind it who made careers, hits and a…

Rising. A Requiem For Father Murphy heralds the final curtain call for experimental music duo Father Murphy. Right there with them for a large portion of that journey has been Portland-based, Italian artist (and multiple DN alum) Luca Dipierro, in a circular creative relationship which has seen Luca provide visuals for Father Murphy’s songs and the…

Today we bring you an interview with emmy-nominated filmmaker James Erskine who’s feature documentary The Ice King hits UK cinemas and VOD today and tells the captivating story of John Curry, a man who not only redefined the sport of figure skating whilst being the first openly gay Olympian at a time when homosexuality was far from accepted but als…

If we crossed paths in 2011 it’s more likely than not I chewed your ear off about how taken I was with Dustin Guy Defa’s debut feature Bad Fever, a film that topped my list of favourites for that year. Needless to say, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Dustin’s follow up which made its appearance at the London Film Festival this year. I took the opportuni…

DN returns to our London Film Festival coverage where we got to spend time with award winning Danish Director Birgitte Stærmose to discuss Darling, her intense story of pain and perfection which unfolds in the demanding world of professional ballet. In our interview Birgitte describes how her decision to take a naturalistic and inventive approach t…

I first spoke to Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire at the London Film Festival back in 2012 about his troubled teenage angst feature Punk and had the pleasure of catching up with the French Director once again at this year’s festival to discuss A Prayer Before Dawn – his latest skirmish into the world of violence, which recounts the harrowing true story of B…

Seeing that DN alumni Rob Curry and Tim Plester (who previously joined us on the podcast to discuss Tempest and Way of the Morris respectively) were premiering their new film at the London Film Festival, I jumped at the opportunity to finally get them in a room together to talk about their fruitful co-directorial work. And so, we take a deep dive i…

Even though we deeply love the work of every filmmaker we feature here on Directors Notes, it’s a rare honour to get to talk to someone responsible for shaping and expanding our collective outlook as to the creative possibilities of the cinematic form. Multi-award winning Director Chris Shepherd firmly fits in that category – first transfixing us w…

Whether you’re a lifelong reader of seminal British weekly comic 2000AD or have never heard of it, chances are that its anarchic sensibilities run through the DNA of much of the media you consume on a daily basis. 2000AD is title which nurtured the early talents of comic titans such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman, to name a few, whos…

Nico Edwards’ Sea Gypsies is a thrilling nautical documentary about adventure, alternative ways of living and life-threatening predicaments. It’s easy to see why this debut feature has picked up notoriety and awards on its film festival journey. Nico joined me on the DN podcast to discuss producing his documentary on a shoestring budget whilst batt…

As anyone who’s attempted to build a career within the creative fields is all too aware, the path to success is far from a straight line. Initial victories can (and often do) give way to lengthy fallow periods which leave you questioning the sanity of staying the creative course. Bringing this bittersweet reality home over 73 (at times heartbreakin…

We last sat down for an interview with Crown Chimp Films founder Nickolas Duarte back in 2012 for his simian schoolboy short What You Need. Today Nick and I discuss his new documentary Jay, which began life way back then as a quick 3 minute profile piece about Jay Kyle Petersen a man who paints soul energy, only to become an epic five-year explorat…

An invitation to explore the darker edges of the human mind, Jorge Riquelme Serrano’s psychological thriller Chameleon follows in the footsteps of some of cinema’s most disturbing uninvited guest narratives, to remind us that home and our most intimate relationships are only a safe haven when we’re careful about who we let in. I spoke to Jorge (wit…

Producer of the 2008 Oscar winning exposé of the American military’s use of torture Taxi to the Dark Side, Eva Orner’s new film as director, Chasing Asylum, brings to light the repugnant and inhumane ways the Australian government treats asylum seekers hidden away on the offshore islands of Manus and Nauru. This latest piece had me (and many others…

Utilising exquisite black and white cinematography, rich sound design and a disturbing expression of the extremes of loneliness, Nicolas Pesce’s horrifying first feature The Eyes of My Mother, expertly hijacks your imagination for its own ends, making you ‘see’ its most brutal moments deep in your mind’s eye. During our interview recorded at the Lo…

Three years ago when I spoke to Tomasz Wasilewski about his sophomore feature Floating Skyscrapers, the Polish director teased a future project which would be a portrait of the lives of four woman in the wake of the collapse of communism. That idea came to fruition as a story of lust, isolation and loneliness called United States of Love, and so To…

Edoardo De Angelis’ thought provoking third feature Indivisible explores the lives of eighteen year old siamese twins, Daisy and Violet, as they are faced with the emotional decision of whether to be surgically separated. That daunting realisation of a previously unimagined future in which they could grow up independently inevitably leads the siste…

Unfolding almost exclusively within the confines of a Brussels family home which has become a battleground for pent up resentments and socioeconomic accusations, Joachim Lafosse’s After Love begins 15 years after the happily ever after marriage of Marie and Boris, as the couple painfully move towards separation and divorce. I sat down with Joachim …

Depicting the true accounts of inseparable brothers Elmer and Erik as they attempt to escape the wrath of their headmaster’s unrelenting tyranny, Jesper W Nielsen’s The Day Will Come brings us a painfully honest depiction of the boys’ lives in a 1960s Copenhagen orphanage. I was lucky enough to sit down with the sagacious Jesper at the London Film …

Whilst interviewing Director Alice Diop at this year’s London Film Festival I could feel passion emanating from her as she spoke of her new project On Call – a film which seeks to put names and faces to the asylum seekers suffering a life of loneliness and fear as they live in exile in Paris. Sneaking behind the curtain of their one on one consulta…

Creatively combining archival footage, firsthand accounts and rotoscoped animation, Keith Maitland’s feature documentary TOWER recreates the tense horror of America’s first mass school shooting – perpetrated in 1966 by a lone gunman from the observation deck of the University of Texas Tower over the course of 96 horrifying minutes. Directors Notes …

At the beginning of this year I would have never imagined that one of my cinematic highlights would be an Icelandic feature about estranged sheep farmers, but Grimur Hakonarson’s Rams is a film filled with such deep humour and an even deeper humanity, that I was rapt from its opening frames. Grimur joins us on the podcast to share how he overcame c…

What if God was not only real but lived in Brussels with his wife and unknown daughter, spending his time exacting a series of petty and cruel torments on mankind? That’s the scenario which award winning Director Jaco Van Dormael mines to great comic and visual effect in his fourth feature The Brand New Testament. Jaco joined DN to discuss how he c…

Well known as one of Israel’s busiest film editors and the director of the 2007 Cannes short Death of Shula, Asaf Korman’s debut feature Next to Her (At Li Layla) provides an intimate and very personal look at the themes of co-dependence and unhealthy symbiotic relationships. Ahead of Next to Her’s VOD and UK cinema release on the 11th March, Korma…

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak, Something Better to Come is in my opinion one of the most important and powerful social documentaries of recent times. Featuring the personal stories of multi-generational families living on the garbage dumps just outside of Moscow, the film provides a heart wrenching insight into the agony some pe…

Centred around one man’s violent struggle to protect his livelihood after industrial collapse, Stephen Fingleton’s The Survivalist provides a tense depiction of how people forced to accepted their old lives are over, live a vicious new existence. Stephen joined us to discuss how he created the contained post-apocalyptic world of The Survivalist and…

A masterclass in how to translate production efficiency into maximum emotional impact, Jakob M. Erwa’s sophomore feature Homesick, sees an ambitious cellist’s dreams of four walls, two people, one happiness disintegrate as the pressures from her demanding career and less than hospitable new neighbours slowly erode her grip on reality. DN caught up …