Brossé (2013)

Review Brossé

Passion. A feeling which is overwhelming, can push you to do something and can make you reach heights you never thought possible. Not everyone is willing to follow their passion to reach those heights, either because you can’t make a living of of it or because you would have to give up things which are worth more than the pleasure you’d get from following that passion. Dirk Brossé is someone who at an early age already knew what his passion was: Music. As a little boy he was enchanted by the sounds that surrounded him and he was deeply moved when he heard a trumpet for the first time. He decided to follow his passion and ended up being both composer and music director. The price he had to pay for it was extremely high. In this documentary the viewer sees his life behind the success. Continue reading

My Filmviews interviews… Caspian Tredwell-Owen

Director Caspian Tredwell-Owen interview

Director Caspian Tredwell-Owen is writer of The Island and director of Profile of a Killer. My Filmviews got a chance to talk to him.

Profile of a Killer is an interesting take on the police vs. killer stories we have seen a lot. The search for the killer is there, but it takes a backseat to the direct contact between the killer and the profiler. What inspired you to approach it that way?
It came out of the growth of the teenage market culture over the past 10-15 years, where a previously undefined group was suddenly accorded enormous focus and gravitas. I wanted a way to explore the impact and extremes of this spotlight.

What kind of research goes into writing the story and bringing it all to the screen in a realistic way?
The killer/profiler dynamic was important – the profiler took a lot of research to find the right balance between judgment and understanding – these guys are not unfeeling nor is behavioral analysis (as opposed to the movie/tv version) an exact science. You have to let your subject “in”. Continue reading

My Filmviews interviews… Tom Putnam & Brenna Sanchez

Interview with Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez about Burn My Filmviews
Tom Putnam & Brenna Sanchez are the directors/producers of the feature documentary Burn, told through the eyes of Detroit firefighters, who are charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.

What made you decide to make a documentary about the Detroit Fire Department?
The film is dedicated to a Detroit firefighter named Walter Harris. In late 2008 I read a news story about Walter, who was killed fighting a fire in an abandoned building in Detroit. I called Brenna Sanchez, who is a filmmaker friend from Detroit, and she called me about an hour later from a Detroit firehouse. We started by asking ourselves why someone would risk their lives fighting a fire in an abandoned building in a city that has over 80,000 abandoned structures, and the answers turned out to be much more nuanced than we thought. Then in 2009 we went out with a small film crew and filmed two 24-hour shifts with Engine Company 50, which is the jumping off point for our film. We went to 21 structure fires with them, which is more fires than some suburban firefighters will see in their entire career. After that we knew we had to stick with this and tell their story.

What specific challenges did filming fires bring and what kind of equipment was used?
No one had ever filmed fires in a meaningful way before. No one had sent cameras into fires. So we tried a number of different cameras and techniques to capture it since we knew we wanted to show firefighting from the point of view of the guys running into the burning buildings. We ultimately ended up using Contour HD helmet cameras to go into the buildings, and Canon 5d and 7d DSLR cameras to film the more traditional documentary footage. We approached the fires like a sporting event, and used a combination of action sports camerapeople and traditional documentary shooters to cover the scenes. Continue reading

The Monday Question: Director!

I was listening to an old Filmjunk podcast last week where they were discussing The Last Stand. I had seen the movie and quite enjoyed it, but decided not to review it or look further into it. They talked about it and I then heard the movie was directed by Kim Jee-Woon, who was responsible for movies like A Bittersweet Life, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, I Saw the Devil and A Tale of Two Sisters. Although I have not seen that last movie I was impressed with the other three and was surprised to find out he also directed The Last Stand. It made me think about how often I actually look up the details on directors and I have to admit that it is not a lot. In general I will know which movies the big directors (Spielberg, Tarantino etc) will release, but besides that I am not that well informed. It also made me question how important a director is to your enjoyment of the movie. I will seek out movies by specific directors but although some have a clear visual style others might not have that so strongly.

How important is it for you to know a director of a movie and does it have a relation with the enjoyment you get out of a movie?

My Filmviews interviews… Director Marijn Poels

Interview Marijn Poels

Marijn Poels is director of By Choice or Change (my review of it can be found here), which shows the difficulties single mothers have to go through in Vietnam. He also is a very active documentary maker. More info on his work can be found on his website.

In the west the image of single mothers is something everyone expects and it’s something which doesn’t stand out. By Choice or Chance shows that the situation isn’t like this all over the world. What’s the goal you want to reach with this documentary?
The movie will get its world premiere on March 8th (International Women’s Day) in 24 different countries and 46 different cinemas. Even in countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and India where there is still a lot of inequality between men and women. The goal of this film to give women in those countries the courage to step out of the traditional thinking and fight for their rights. In the interest of equal rights and their children. I hope it will inspire women and make them think. For single mothers in the Netherlands and Europe this is a recognisable story which we had to go through in the sixties/seventies. Still the story this movie tells remains something which is beautiful to watch as it’s about the love between mother and child. Continue reading

My Filmviews interviews… Director Kurt Kuenne

shuffle, dear zachary
Kurt Kuenne has written and directed several movies and documentaries, including Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. His latest movie Shuffle was recently released on DVD.

The idea behind Shuffle is a very unique one about a man waking up being a different age each time. It almost feels like something you’d see on The Twilight Zone.
What was your inspiration for it?
The concept came out of a conversation I was having with a development executive in Hollywood who had read a script of mine called “Mason Mule” that had just won the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences at the time; he really liked my writing and was thinking about hiring me to write something for his studio. He had noticed from my previous work that I liked playing with structure, so we started chatting about ideas in which I could do that. “What about a guy who lives his life out of order?” was one of the ideas floated during that brainstorming session. I didn’t even know what the sentence meant, but I liked it, so I went home and came up with the outline for what eventually became “Shuffle”. It turns out that the exec I was talking to was looking for something more comedic in nature, so we parted ways on that particular idea, and I decided to go write it on my own. Continue reading

The Ten: Best Directors of All Time “relay race”

best directors of all time

Oh yes, it’s time to start another of these! Who are the ten best directors? I have the feeling that this is going to be one of the most discussed ones.

Making the initial list has been very hard and there are tons of directors I think should be mentioned, but of course I had to narrow it down, which means some of your favorites might not be in here. Don’t worry though as the rules of this relay race are as follows:

So what’s the idea behind the relay? I’ve created a list of what I think are the ten best directors. At the end of the post I, just like in a real relay race, hand over the baton to another blogger who will write his own post. This blogger will have to remove one director (that is an obligation) and add his own choice and describe why he/she did this. At the end the blogger chooses another blogger to do the same. We will end up with a list (not ranked in order) which represents a common agreement of the best directors.
If you are following the relay race it is also a great way to be introduced to new blogs!

So which directors are on the starting grid? Who are The Ten? Continue reading

My Filmviews interviews… Director Ana Barredo

The Table

Ana Barredo is the director of the documentary The Table, about a group of people who help each other out in the challenging world of Hollywood. My review of the documentary can be found here. More information on the movie can be found on its website.

First of all, thank you for taking the time out for this interview. You were invited by Marc Zicree to attend a meeting of The Table after you met him during the production of the definitive Twilight Zone collection. What was your first impression of the group?

Marc knew I made movies on the side and has been mentioning this group to me ever since, but I didn’t get around to going to a meeting until 2009. It had been a while since I made a movie and quite frankly, I had no intention of making another one. The only reason I went to the meeting was just so I can finally tell Marc I went, and call it a day. Hearing the Table members’ projects, war stories, updates, etc. that evening got my creative juices flowing once again! By end of that first meeting, not only am I back to making movies, I found the perfect subject for my next project! Continue reading