Croat Director Nebojša Slijepčević lifter a page from a tragic event in his region’s history for the the short film “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent“. The story of a train ride that turned into courage and loss during The 90’s Balkan War. This Chat Cinema Podcast talks to the Cannes Film Festival Palm d’ Or winner about the circumstances and speaking out in the face of brutality.
Director Wes Andre Goodrich talks about his short film MEAL TICKET on this episode of Chat Cinema Podcast. The work centers on a story of a choice and an opportunity. The up and coming Brooklyn based filmmaker’s delves into the conscience of a person taking a step upward, but at what price?
Chat Cinema interviews Award Winning Directors, talking about their short films and future work. Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm Winner The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent from filmmaker Nebojsa Slijpcevic and Meal Ticket by Wes Andre Goodrich are works concerning choices. Stay Tuned for the new episodes.
Awards Season has started, so has our screening of films that could get nominated for a trophy. Look for news, interviews and reviews here.
Every father and son relationship is different. The “Ward Cleaver” image from 50’s American TV was a work of the Perfect Eisenhower era fiction. Father’s can show their love, sometimes in imperfect ways. TWO FOR THE RODE from Lochlainn McKenna is an award-winning short film about a parent and childhood bound manifesting itself in some irregular child rearing scenarios.
A Black and Paper interview with filmmaker Lochlainn McKenna.
The opening scene/shot sets the tone for the film and relationship, why did you choose this for the opening scene?
I used to spend the weekends driving all over Ireland with my Dad! I was in every county before I was 10. Ireland’s not a very big country but sometimes those drives might be 4 or 5 hours. He would pick me up on a Friday evening and then drive late into the night and stop somewhere secluded for us to sleep before morning. For me it made sense for the film to start on Saturday morning. I wanted the audience to wonder where this child was? Why is he asleep in a car? Who’s he with? It adds a sense of jeopardy to the story before we establish the narrative of the story.
What was the writing process like? Do you have any personal ties to the story line?
I wrote the original story ‘Guinness & Coke’ during the pandemic and that laid the foundations for the screenplay. It’s all based on my own childhood. There was certainly a lot of thought that went into the characters and the scenes and actions. I try to be as detail specific as possible in my filmmaking and I tried not to skimp on any details. The biggest difference between the short story and the film script is that, in the story, a lot of the dialogue is internal in Oscar’s head where as in the film there’s a lot more external dialogue. It was a case of using that external dialogue to better accentuate the narrative. That dialogue is necessary to push the story along.
Chaos, adventure, risking, experiencing life, I’m curious to know if this is how you would describe a weekend with your father?
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. But there was also a lot of consistency, care, curiosity and companionship. Our weekends were always very physical. We were always doing. Whether that was exploring the countryside looking for old Celtic ruins or chasing thunderstorms… sometimes we’d traverse the coast looking for spider crabs. Other weekends we might be breaking rocks open looking for fossils. Some weekends we would play pool and go to the pub… sometimes motorbike rallies or airplane shows or go to the fair. It was very varied. There was a lot of camping.
There is the dynamic of the relationship switching to the son being the adult, looking after his father. Do you think the viewer has less sympathy for the father? My first thought was “Get that kid away from him”.
It’s always been my intention to make sure the father character isn’t vilified. I want the viewer to come out of the film feeling kinda conflicted. We should feel sympathy for the boy but also understand that the father is trying his best, despite wrestling with his own demons. There’s a lot of love between them, despite the obvious complexities. Naturally though, I think depending on people’s personal circumstances and their own relationships with their own parents or children, you’re going to have a strong reaction to it, right? And I think it’s great that you felt that strong a reaction. I don’t think anyone is watching the film and thinking, “ah, that’s fine, good for them”. But I think it’s a sliding scale as to how bad it all is really and I think that grey area is what makes the film intriguing.
How did you work with Eoin on the shooting style?
Eoin McLoughlin did such an outstanding job on this film, honestly. It just makes me so happy every time I watch it back, it’s exactly what I had hoped it would be. I always wanted the film to look and feel like a 90s memory. So the decision to shoot on 16mm was pretty much set from the outset. A big reference for me was Lynn Ramsey’s short film Gasman. There are these scenes in the pub where they use long lenses to pick off really natural moments of action which I just really loved and wanted to emulate. In general the thinking behind our approach was that whenever Oscar is feeling free and having fun we’re on long lenses. The camera is hand held, moving, roaming. When things get serious or dangerous for him, the camera is locked off, very static, very sharp and generally very wide.
Are you planning on making a feature film on the same subject?
I am! I’m currently writing a book which will be based on a number of other weekends with my Dad across a number of years. I’m hoping this anthology of stories will be the basis for the feature film script in due course.
TWO FOR THE ROAD has qualified for the 2023 Academy Awards Best Live Action Short.
Short listed for the 2023 Oscar, ALMOST HOME is a futuristic sci-fi short film with moral resonates today, responsibility for a life and death decision.
An interview with Producer Jonas Lembeck.
A sci-fi short film, not an easy assignment, why did you decide on this one project? Where there times you had to say, “NO”?
When Nils pitched me the idea for the first time, I was amazed by the concept of setting a coming-of-drama in space. I liked the idea of telling a story about isolation and growing up in this contained environment. The genre elevates the dilemma very well for me. So, for me, it was not a Covid film. It poses a broader question of what a life worth living is. I guess everyone made his own opinion about that during the pandemic and probably everyone went through this. Therefore, I thought this is the right film at the right time and we must shoot this. After the decision was made to engage as a Producer it became clear instantly that this project won’t be easy to realize and we`ll have to overcome some obstacles. This is by the way also a reason I decided on ALMOST HOME: I really liked that this idea was ambitious and not an easy assignment, but I believed in the visuality as well. During the whole production & postproduction, we always had to find creative ways to work around and deal with the limited resources we had. For example, we couldn´t afford to rent a proper stage to build up the spaceship and shoot. We rented an old hall in Munich, Germany that was used by wastewater management before. So we had some issues with the smell but it fitted the budget. I remember me and some members of our production crew standing on the roof of this hall covering the roof, so it gets dark in there. When it comes to saying “NO” I have to admit that this was part of the daily work, but I am not a fan of just saying “NO”. For me, it is more of a discussion about what exactly we need and there may be some ways to work around it. It was the top priority in this project (maybe with every project but especially here) to find the very best balance between creative needs and our resources. In the end, it was an amazing team effort and so many team members really gave a lot for the film. Our cast & crew and partners made this possible. I am super grateful for that!
A genre known for mega budgets, where you a nervous about how the film would look and the comparisons?
Sure, Sci-Fi is known for mega budgets. For me ALMOST HOME is kind of more a grounded Sci-Fi film. It is an honour to be shortlisted as one of the first Sci-Fi shorts among these other great filmmakers. As I said for us as a team it was a challenge to make this happen. I would lie if I were saying their haven´t been times when I was thinking about decisions more than twice. I am still happy that we were able to attach such great partners like ARRI and our film school in Munich who trusted in the creative vision as much as we did. Also, I discussed decisions with our Executive Producers Philip Hofmann and Robert Richarz from my company lehof.
What type of interaction did you and Nils have on this project?
We both met each other at film school. ALMOST HOME was our first project together. Nils and I share the same vision of projects we want to realize, also when it comes to what we want to shoot as our next movie. During the last two years realizing ALMOST HOME, we have been working together shoulder to shoulder. This was quite an intense journey. As you can imagine we believed in the same creative vision and part of the work as Director-Producer-Duo was always to align everybody on this vision. I really like the way Nils works he is very clear about his creative vision and at the same time, he is very pragmatic and always hands-on and open-minded to find solutions. That’s what I meant with “there was no simple ‘NO’”. Even though everybody has his principles we always tried to balance decisions to find the perfect solution without losing the underlying creative vision of course. I think we complement very well in many aspects so that’s why we currently developing the next projects together.
Do you have a rule for filmmaking?
I think I don’t have this ONE rule. What I´ve learned again while producing ALMOST HOME and what kind of speaks for the project is the importance of TRUST. For me, every step builds on that, and trust must be the foundation, especially for ambitious projects. As simple as it sounds: Trust in the creative vision, trust your team and your partners and of course vice versa.
Check out the interview with director Nils Keller.
Almost Home is short listed for the Academy Awards.
Tribeca Enterprises was founded in New York in 2001 by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. Its accompanying Tribeca Film Festival has since been promoting emerging film talent. Sections include: Premieres, Gala Events, US Competition, Online Premieres, and International Competition. Furthermore, the Shorts section includes Narrative, Documentary and Animations, and this year comprised 53 entries.
The World Premiere of Chicken concerns a 16-year-old boy serving time in a Bronx juvenile prison. Faced with losing custody of his child, he discovers fatherly duties through raising a chicken. Director Josh Leong’s film is very engaging, well-acted, and with feature-film potential. It also highlighted a perhaps overlooked subject of the lives of juveniles in prison.
Another World Premiere, also set in New York, was Fraud, directed by Zen Pace. A transsexual rock singer is searching for her place in the world and companionship. She also has a parallel existence committing petty credit card fraud. But when her latest subject makes a surprising offer, she reconsiders her life. Fraud emerges as a deceptively profound drama.
The Letter Men, directed by Andy Vallentine, was also a World Premiere at Tribeca. Continuing the LGBTI theme, it is based on real love letters from WWII. This untold story is of two gay men torn apart both by war and the law.
The UK entry Pragma, by Ellie Heydon, also had its International Premiere at fest. This perhaps prophetic film concerns a first School for Relationships. Willow’s dilemma is whether to trust science or her heart.
There is certainly originality in the premise and a twist in the plot. However, the futuristic approach to love and romance is clinical and ultimately suspect here.
Another UK film receiving its North American Premiere was Fireworks, by Paul Franklin. Set in an MI6 Ops Room, this tense thriller uses Virtual Production technology well. The characterization has potential, but the petty squabbling (and expletives) is a little overdone. This reduces Fireworks to soap opera level, implausible for an institution like MI6.
Mohammed Saffouri’s US-Jordan production Touchline also received its North American Premiere. During the 1948 occupation of Palestine, 17-year-old Ahmad is chosen to represent the national football team. However, the Israel conflict means his family have to leave their home, his dreams shattered. A touching and poignant period film, it is just as relevant today.
The UK-Nigeria produced Point and Kill is Smuggler director Ebeneza Blanche’s music video. It portrays Brit Award Winner Little Simz exploring her Nigerian roots. A representation of proud heritage and customs make the effect very authentic. The video, also having its New York Debut, features fellow Nigerian singer Obongjayar.
Alison Roberto’s satirical horror Girls Night In is another New York Premiere. However, the award-winning Director and Creative Director seems to have fallen short here. Based on the Bechdel test, two friends have to deal with a crazed intruder. With allusions to films like the Scream series, the tension ultimately becomes nauseating.
Tribeca Film Festival was held from June 8th to June 19th 2022 in New York City.
~ By Steven Yates
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In the shorts category, I watched some small works worthy of attention.
The Resemblance from Derek Nguyen goes into “Black Mirror” Territory with a story on grief.
Mooptopia from Delany Buffett takes on the shallow fleeting meaning of social media fame.
Five O listed many directors: Ismaïl Alaoui Fdili, Yassine Lassar Ramdani, Elsie Otinwa, Florence Fauquet, Ming Fai Sham Lourenço, Eloise Monmirel. A White Savior story mixed with Opera set in Paris.
Triggered from Tara Westwood brings home the gun debate in hard hitting way.
This episode of Chat Cinema talks to award-winning director Murad Abu Eisheh about his work, TALAVISION. A short film centered on lost childhood innocence during the Syrian conflict.
The episode of Chat Cinema talks to Bay Area filmmaker Erica Eng about her new short film AMERICANIZED.
Americanized was screened at the Bentonville Film Festival.
Running time: 17 minutes.