Month: August 2022

-Who is Julie-Anne McDowell?

I am a mum of three kids, two dogs, three tortoises and a hedgehog, originally from Belfast now living in Johannesburg. I have been involved in the creative arts from as far back as I can remember. I trained with RADA both in classical ballet and speech and drama and hold a Joint Hons degree in languages, an International Marketing Diploma and a Masters with Distinction in Script and Screenwriting from Falmouth University.

An award-winning actress, I was nominated for a Naledi Best Supporting Actress Award for Marilyn in The Revlon Girl in 2019, won the NI Best Actress Award for Julia in Me and My Best Friend and the NI Best Supporting Actress Award as Model in Beauty. In 2020, I set up How Now Brown Cow Productions, based in Johannesburg, to produce world class theatre and in particular to commission, enable and empower South African theatre practitioners. Our first production The Beauty Queen Of Leenane will open in October 2022 at The Theatre On The Square Sandton. www.hownowbrowncow.co.za

I wrote my first short film in 2021, The Hive, which has won a number of awards including the Writers Guild Of South Africa Muse Award and the Toronto Intl Women Festival, Best Female Scriptwriter. How Now Brown Cow produced the film at the end of 2021 and it is now on the festival circuit where it won Best Producer at the 8&halfilms Awards amongst other festival nominations and wins.

–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

My love of storytelling. I have always loved stories, listening to and telling them. I love the escapism, the worlds you inhabit and the mirror they hold up to society.

I started writing a few years back with a view to creating work for myself as an actress. But in lockdown it took on another impetus. I burrowed myself away in other realities where I could write my own narrative, one which I could control.

I then filmed my first short film The Hive in October 2021.

-Do you think cinema can bring change to society?

Well, I think we have told stories from as far back as the cave dwellers to communicate with one another. To describe a day’s adventures, to warn of danger, to indicate where the food is, to entertain, to teach. Stories are a way for us to understand the world around us, to see ourselves objectively and at a palatable distance. They help us understand the human condition. So yes, I absolutely believe cinema as a means of storytelling has the ability to change us individually and as nations.

–Film industry in next 100 years?

The technological changes that have happened to date and that will continue to happen expand what is possible in how we visually tell a story. Already we’ve seen the recent change in the distribution of our stories from network dictated scheduling to binge watched streaming channels. When and what and how dictated by the consumer.

– Who is Michelle Arthur?  

I’m from a small town in the Midwest of the United States of America.  I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but my family early on moved to a suburban area south of the city.  Had I grown up near Los Angeles, California, where movie making is literally happening all over the region on a regular basis, then I’m quite sure I would have been involved in the Hollywood business sooner.  Instead my working class parents never anticipated those dreams and encouraged me to find a steady income. I pursued a media career initially.  It was through the magazine industry for years that I was in the habit of telling stories with the editorial departments, modeling for the glossy pages, or working with all types of companies by selling advertising space.  All of those tasks cross over to film — writing, producing, directing, acting.  It was a natural transition to go from working with the still layouts in print to moving frames of TV shows/Films once I migrated to the City of Angels.  Regardless of where or how, I’m someone who always felt destined to make a mark in the world through my work.  

–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?  

Since I was a child, I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge and the desire to share my findings with others — to educate and entertain.  I remember being in the library of my grade school one day and fell in love with the idea of looking up information in the encyclopedias (google did not exist then) then filtering it somehow for the other kids.  By earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University’s School of Journalism years later, I acted upon that through the newspaper or magazine jobs that followed. I was really surrounded by Hollywood with certain publications and those types of contacts were making a big impression on me.  At the end of the day, filmmaking is story telling and entertaining or enlightening others and that registers with me the most.  Looking back it seems inevitable that I would one day make my own films.   

– Do you think cinema can bring a change in the society?  

Absolutely.  Cinema is a powerful tool.  People like to be absorbed in watching shows or films. It takes their minds off their troubles at least for awhile. The meaningful messages within those films can play a part in influencing their decisions about life. If you consider the longevity and popularity of certain films then you realize the sheer number of eyeballs upon the material.  Power in numbers.  

– What would I change in the world?  

The list is long but many of those problems could be addressed with one word:  Compassion.  If only people thought about others as much as they thought of themselves then we would all be much happier.  It sounds simple, but if you gave me a complex issue then I bet it could resolved with more compassion for others.  Toss out the mirror.  

– Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years? 

You mean if the earth is still around in 100 years if we humans don’t totally destroy each other and it in the process due to our selfishness? Lol.  I see film in our lives forever. People love film. So do I.

– Who is Roberta Pyzel?

I am a native New Yorker; I’ve worked in various theater venues here in NYC in many capacities: stage manager; light/sound tech. I studied filmmaking at the NYU-SCE.

– What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

I LOVE films!! Working with so many interesting artists, especially in downtown NYC art performance venues, led me to video work: interviews, music videos and in 1994 producing, directing and editing a full length documentary, “SHOOTING STARS” – about living with AIDS.

All of this work led me into writing: first plays and now a full length screenplay (based on a short play of mine).

–Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

ABSOLUTELY!!! I believe that all the ‘ARTS’ have the power to touch people’s hearts…to open up their thinking – this is what makes real change possible.

– What would you change in the world?

We are in a very difficult and challenging time – it seems more dangerous than ever in many ways. I believe that one of the most serious obstacles to our solving the problems that we all face (climate destruction/economic desperation/racism/endless war/nuclear weapons…!!!) is the lack of communication between people; as long as people are isolated in their own political/social ‘bubbles’, productive conversations and serious solutions aren’t possible.

“Divide and Conquer!” When we are fighting so hard between ourselves, a few powerful people continue to control the world for their own benefit.

– Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

People love films: the great commercial, ‘Hollywood’ style films will always have their audience. I particularly love ‘independent’ films which today’s technologies make possible. The wonderful diversity of films that are being made and that are available for us to see – from every country on the globe – makes me hopeful that ‘ordinary’ voices will be heard…that ‘ordinary’ people will come to empathize with one another more and more. I believe in the healing power of understanding.

I think that there will be more and more diverse, independent voices speaking to a wider audience as time goes on.

–Who is Svetlana Copic?

A Belgrade – based creative multihyphenate with the background in advertising, now, apparently, also a documentarist.

– What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

I never set out to become a filmmaker.

I was just a passionate documentary film lover, until I woke up one day with this irrational, but totally clear, strong idea to write letters to unknown old women and ask them: if I was their granddaughter, what life advice would they give me.

All it took for me was to say yes to this initial crazy idea, because from there I had a feeling it took a life of its own and started unravelling, opening doors and arranging serendipitous meetings until, suddenly, there I was, with the script and the film funding in place. And I was like – well, I guess I am going to make the film.

– Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

I’d love to reply yes, but that would be a tad unrealistic. But it can reflect society as a mirror and reveal things the society doesn’t like or doesn’t know how to see about itself. And that can change individuals and indirectly influence broader culture.

I definitely feel making my small, intimate film has changed me and my notions of old age.

– What would you change in the world?

I’d put women and minorities in all the main positions of power and watch all this macho weapon flaunting and prying into bodies and intimate lives of grown people fade away into dark history.

It’s not that women and minorities are necessarily better humans than rich white men, but there is something about the power acquired from the place of undisputed privilege that makes it especially rot – predisposed.

-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

I am sure it will move into directions that are incomprehensible to us from our mind frame.

However, we will always need stories and there will always be people with curious eyes that see wonderful in the ordinary and the desire to share those discoveries.

–Who is Candy Lopesino?

Spanish Photographer and Cinematographer born in Madrid. Member of the global Community Women Street Photographers. I live and work in Madrid. The first time I saw the black and white image appear in the developer tank, I knew that photographing was what I wanted to do for a lifetime. Photography it is a means that helps me discover the world around me, to know myself and to express myself. With which I manage to unite two of my passions, photography and traveling. My profesional career begins in 1984 as a graphic reporter under the signature of Hidalgo-Lopesino photographers collaborating with the Incafo publishing house and in collaboration with the UNESCO it realizes articles for the collection of books ” The Heritage of the Humanity ” in Mexico, Bulgaria, Tunis, Portugal, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, France, Panama… I collaborate with magazines: GEO Spain, GEO Japan, Viajes National Geographic, Traveler, Volta ao Mundo, Saveur Magazine New York, Rutas del Mundo, Península, Descubrir, Altaïr… There was a first photography exhibition that made a huge impact on me. They were the portraits that Edward Sheriff Curtis had made of the North American Indians and to which he had dedicated 30 years of his life. The portraits were impressive, and the time spent on the project blew me away. I left the showroom wanting to do a long-term personal project. This is how I start my project THE IBERIANS in which I have been working for the first two decades of the 21st century and in which I continue to photographing. After years dedicated to Photography, in 2016 I decided to learn to record moving images with my camera, motivated to finalize my photographic project THE IBERIANS with a photobook and a documentary film. The following three years I dedicate to the study of Documentary Cinema.

–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

There are two filmmakers who have clearly marked my cinema: DZIGA VERTOV and his film “The Man with a Camera” and PETER HUTTON with his trilogy about New York City. My cinematographic vision is based on the “Cinema eye” theory created by the Soviet filmmaker DZIGA VERTOV in 1920.

-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

The cinema can raise awareness in each individual and get each one to contribute their small grain of sand, acting in their own environment, but a large-scale change I think not.

-What would you change in the world?

The violence, the wars, the suffering caused by the abuse of power.

–Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

A hundred years is too long in a time of continual change. New technologies have popularized both Photography and Films, now with a mobile you can make a report and a film. Imagine yourself in 100 years!! The entertainment film industry is adapting to new television series because the new generations do not go to the Cinemas. I see the future in the Independent Cinema favoring the release of films with a lower budget, with work teams of fewer people, with the possibility of creating more with less.

–Who is Stuart Rideout?

I’m a Welsh film maker, loving husband, father of two and owner of Meg the dog.

I have a passion for film & filmmaking, storytelling, art, architecture, design, travel and spending time in nature.

I have a simple mantra of ‘Never waste a view’ that I have tried to imbue in my two children (with limited success).

I love watching the sun come up, walking my dog (especially in the rain) and I have a new found passion for cold water swimming (I managed a swim in the sea every week throughout the winter).

I love good food, chilled wine and a decent coffee.

My wife would say that I need to be tidier! Every-day is a school day and I’m continually working on my BBQ cooking skills.

I’m also partial to a nice Martini.

–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

When I was a young child I suffered with a pretty awful stammer that seemed to inhibit my early educational development. As a result, I retreated into my own dream world of comic books and Hammer horror films, which became a slight obsession.

This obsession was further fed by the fact that my grandmother who lived in a small mining town in South Wales called ‘Blaengarw’ was an usherette and cleaner at the local cinema. This meant that whenever I went to stay with her (roughly twice a month) I would go with her to the ‘pictures’ as she called it. This meant that from an early age I was exposed to some amazing films on the big screen such as various Spaghetti Westerns, Planet of the Apes, James Bond etc.

I’d watch a double bill on the Friday evening then go and help my grandmother as she cleaned the cinema on the Saturday morning. This allowed me to go into the projection room and look at the huge 35mm projectors as well as the spools of answer prints.

I guess this, combined with my love of drawing, helped shape the very early stages of my visual sensibility.

I then saw the film JAWS and that really sealed it for me – I became doubly obsessed with film making and sharks.

–Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

Yes, I think film is a very powerful medium that can evoke change.

Ironically JAWS, apart from shaping the very nature of the modern summer blockbuster, also shaped the way in which the world perceived sharks in a very negative sense.

Peter Benchley who wrote JAWS held large regrets about writing the novel because of the negative effects it had on the conservation of sharks and oceanic creatures. Benchley became a huge advocate of shark protection and later travelled the world giving lectures and making documentaries on ocean life.

Drawing on my own experience I think film is perfect art-form to inspire and engage the imaginations of young people.

One of the best experiences I have had with my short film ‘I Wish for You’ is when a teacher friend of mine showed it to her class of eight and nine year olds.

Their enthusiasm and engagement with the film really blew me away.

They each wrote to me laying out how and why the film moved them, we then did a question and answer session and I found their passion for the film incredibly moving and their engagement for the film’s subject was truly inspirational.

–What would you change in the world?

This is a huge question, so I will try keep my answer fairly simple.

I’m very interested in our relationship with nature or putting it slightly differently our ‘lack’ of a relationship with nature.

The emergence of Covid 19 should be a pretty loud wakeup call for our relationship with the natural world.

It shows us clearly that human kind is out of step with nature and we take the natural world very much for granted. I genuinely feel that we need a pretty radical rethink our relationship with the world around us. It’s everything from something as simple as dropping litter through to the bigger things like farming and the food industry. We need a far better understanding of and relationship with the natural world.

I’m currently working on a virtual reality experience that attempts to help people re-engage with the natural world. I’m trying to tie this in with my cold water swimming experience and use it to help create a calming mindful experience.

I think we have to rediscover our equilibrium with nature, we need to be inspired by it and focus on it and I see technology playing a big part in this.

–Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

For me the most compelling thing about going to the cinema is the collective experience of watching a fantastic film with other people. When the audience jumps, cheers and cries together – that for me is where the magic is.

When you consider that the Lumière brothers invented the Cinématographe in the late 1800’s which is a little over a 100 years ago and look at where cinema is now where we have virtual production studios, the ability to place a camera virtually anywhere to capture action and the way CGI can create imaginary worlds and incredible characters, then the physical boundaries are endless.

However, in my view the key to great cinema is and always will be brilliant writing and storytelling.

–Who is Arthur Chays?

I’m a live action director for the past 10 years. After a quick detour with a full feature documentary, I mainly work in web commercial and TV ads. 

But there was aways something hitching in my head: Fiction.  I’ve made a few short films (quite bad actually :)) when I was at school, but not in recent years. 

And seen all those beautiful movies around me, in festival for exemple, I keep saying to myself, it’s time to start again !  

That’s why I’ve decided one day to make Spoon, my first animated film; without a big knowledge of 3D animation. It was a challenge, as I made it alone, in about 8 days, but at the end it gives a meaning to my life. And being selected and awarded in 8 and Hal was such an overwhelming feeling. I don’t know why I waited so long to come back to narrative films…   

–What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

I always loved watching making of, trying to understand how movies where made. And then, I had the chance to live in the 90s and 20s, a fantastic time for movies. I spend my youth watching amazing American movies of this era (Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Zemeckis, Cameron, Kubrick…) and felt in love, like many, with Pixar’s films. I’ve always lived animated film, form the Disney era, but Pixar was a game changer for me. I love new technology, and was amazed that you can gives emotion with a computer generated film… I kept this in myself for 20 years, and know it’s time to do my part… 

–Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

Absolutely, cinema can lead you to think differently, to exchange with people about society of political topic, and, as opposed to documentaries, makes you dream. Cinema is a proposition of what the world is, and more important, what the world can be.

That’s why it’s important to go to theater, and not only to watch films on your own at home. The power of a theater is manly being together. And on this trouble era, I think it’s very important. 

–What would you change in the world?

Big question 🙂 I will not say everything, as there are a lot of Wonderfull things happening. People keep surprising me. But for me the main concern is poverty. I cannot accept those disparities between rich countries, and poor ones in 2022. 

I’m sometimes ashamed to win money, as one tier of the planet is starving. To be honest, one of my goal, is to win a lot of money with my art, to be able to change things, and gives back everything I can to help.  

And making more movies about this issue, as many are doing, to keep spreading that message. 

–Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

As we can see right know, the film industry is already changing, with the rise of GAFA (apple, amazon, Netflix…), that are taking place of traditional studios. Today and by extension tomorrow, film are not longer limited to one medium. It can exist everywhere, in theater, in VOD, on instagram, in the meta verse… 

I don’t really exactly know what the film industry will become, but I can feel that we are at a crossroad between big companies producing films and independents creators gaining power throughout alternative platforms. 

Make me thing a lot to the 50s to 70s era, when studio were extremely powerful, but some renegade where trying to disrupt the system (again Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Zemeckis, Cameron…). 

The power will shift one day to young and talented creators. That’s why festivals are important, that’s why creativity and freedom are mandatory. When I see all talents around me, and festival like yours, I’m sure future will be amazing.