October 11, 2025 / sucity / Comments Off on Highlights from the 2025 New York Film Festival The Centerpiece Film: ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ and the Closing Night Film ‘Is This Thing On?’
Family relationships dominate the Centerpiece and Closing Night Films.
Father Mother Sister Brother (2025). Courtesy MUBI
Father Mother Sister Brother
Winner of the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion, writer and director Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother is a study in familial dynamics constructed in the form of a triptych. The three chapters all concern the relationships between adult children reconnecting or coming to terms with aging or lost parents, which take place in the present, and each in a different country.
Siblings Jeff and Emily (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik) check up on their hermetic father (Tom Waits) in rural New Jersey; sisters Lilith and Timothea (Vicky Krieps and Cate Blanchett) reunite with their guarded novelist mother (Charlotte Rampling) in Dublin; and twins Skye and Billy (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) return to their Paris apartment to address a family tragedy.
At the press conference, Jarmusch was asked if he had a particular way of thinking about each story when he was writing the script.
Jarmush: “I always have a kind of haphazard way of writing where I’m gathering small ideas that I don’t quite know the overall structure or picture yet. I write thinking of actors I would like to collaborate with on these characters. I thought it would be cool to make a film with Tom Waits as Adam Driver’s father and really that’s where it started. While writing that story, Mayim Bialik was a host on Jeopardy and I’m a Jeopardy nerd and I hadn’t really seen her acting on TV. She’s a famous TV actor, right? But I just thought, ‘Oh, wow. That Jeopardy host kind of character could be close to the sister.’
I write really fast in like a month. But it’s hard. I can’t exactly tell you how it works because it’s really collecting disparate ideas that I don’t quite know the overall connect the dots picture yet. It’s always interesting to see how it gets connected from the writing to the filming.
I wasn’t really setting out with an intention. I didn’t want it to really say anything. I wanted it to observe people that are flawed without judging them. The thing about a balance between sadness and humor was important to me to sort of allow them both to exist in the film. But it’s an odd film because it’s very quiet and it doesn’t employ drama, violence, action, sex, you know, almost none of the things you expect. I was just interested in empathetic observation really and as far as families, they are very complicated. I thought a lot about how parents are not upfront with their children for a number of reasons; either they want to be guides for them or they don’t want to reveal certain mistakes they’ve made or they want to be a kind of role model or there are a lot of reasons why they’re not really that maybe upfront about who they are.”
Is This Thing On? (2025). Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Is This Thing On?
Will Arnett and Laura Dern play Alex and Tess Novak, whose marriage has reached an impasse. With amicable sorrow, the couple—parents of two young boys—mutually agree to split up. Their separation leads to unpredictable midlife self-reckonings, most dramatically in Alex’s wild career pivot to become a confessional stand-up comedian in New York City’s West Village, where he finds new direction and camaraderie.
Written by Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, and Mark Chappell Is This Thing On? was inspired by the true story of British comedian John Bishop.
The opening of the press conference centered on the evolution of the project.
Arnett met Bishop several years ago and was interested by his story of how he stumbled into stand-up comedy when his marriage fell apart. He convinced Bishop to let him and writing partner Mark Chappell take a stab at a film inspired by his story. Arnett brought an early draft of the script to Cooper who signed on to co-write and direct it. Cooper also has a supporting role in the film where he plays the friend of Arnett’s character.
Cooper was interested in exploring the idea of a guy being able to be honest with a room full of strangers – doing stand up – in a way he never was able to do before.
Arnett: “John Bishop’s story was a big inspiration. When Mark Chappell and I brought the script to Bradley, Bradley said I think this is where it could go and that’s how the collaboration started; he really gave us a lot of direction. Bradley ended up doing this rewrite that really shifted the film and took it to places we could only dream of.”
Cooper: “I was sitting at my daughter’s school in the East Village where we actually shot, and life will tell you what to do. We were sitting there and it was the Chinese New Year Festival and that exact group was there and I was looking at all these parents on their phones and I said that’s the beginning of the movie and I called Arnett.”
The decision not to include any scenes of Arnett’s character at his day job.
Cooper: “At least to me as a viewer if I’m watching something I’m always thinking of it in a derivative way like, oh yeah that’s like that movie or that’s that story. This movie is not about a guy who’s unhappy in his profession, he’s not miserable at work and he’s got to find another thing. I don’t want to meet his other co-workers. It’s not what the story is about. All I need to know is that he works in finance. He wears suits. He drops his kids off and goes to school. And it’s also based on people that I know. It’s not so much that they’re unhappy in their jobs. It’s that they’re not really uncomfortable with who they are. And it’s not necessarily just their job that’s telling them, it’s their life. That was the conscious choice. What (Arnett’s character) is going through it’s a bit like a catharsis not a crisis.”
October 5, 2025 / sucity / Comments Off on 2025 New York Film Festival Highlights: ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,’ ‘Sentimental Value,’ ‘A Private Life’
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025). Courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Scott Cooper’s biographical drama Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, adapted from Warren Zanes’s 2023 best-selling chronicle of the same title, is set at an early-’80s crossroads in Springsteen’s career when, still negotiating the transformative waves of his rising fame, he crafted the personal acoustic songs that would become his mythic album “Nebraska”—at the same time that he was recording the demos for “Born in the U.S.A.” which would catapult him to global superstardom.
The Q&A with actor Jeremy Allen White and writer and director Scott Cooper, offered insights into the making of the film, including that Springsteen was on set the majority of the time, flying back and forth while touring, and that White had extensive voice, guitar, harmonica, and movement coaching. They described the overarching themes of the film as memory and myth and regret.
Cooper: “Author Warren Zaynes said that he wrote the book because in Bruce’s memoir most chapters were quite lengthy, but the chapter on “Nebraska” was very short. I think it was like a page and a half. So Warren thought, ‘My god, that’s the story I want to know. That’s the story I want to tell.’ I met with Warren and we both knew of course that Bruce was reluctant. He’s always said no to any type of film about his life that isn’t a documentary. Warren and I sat down with Bruce and Jon Landau at Bruce’s house. I told Bruce that I didn’t particularly see the merits of a of a traditional biopic for Bruce, so I said, ‘Bruce, I feel like there’s a real story here that’s a psychological drama, about the art of creation, and I think it can really give voice to particularly men who often don’t give voice to their pain, don’t know how to get the help they need, don’t understand what it is that they’re suffering through. And of course, I never wanted this in any way to be a message movie.’”
Sentimental Value (2025). Courtesy of MK2 Films/Neon.
Sentimental Value
Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Swedish writer and director Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value centers on two sisters who must confront their relationship with their estranged father when he reappears after their mother’s death.
At the New York premiere of his film, Trier discussed his poignant family drama: “I’m now pondering, what is the provocative counter position to a world where everything is very aggressive and divided? And I thought that maybe now tenderness is the new punk, that we actually need to listen to each other. I made a film about reconciliation, you know, and a family. But I think about that in a bigger way as something we need to think about—listen to each other and not make the other the enemy.”
Setting the film at the childhood home of the main characters offers a particular emotional layer of the story. Secrets, generational trauma, and more are explored as they navigate their respective past and current relationships and the future of the pending sale of the house.
A Private Life (2025). Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
A Private Life
Director Rebecca Zlotowski’s unpredictable and sometimes zany murder mystery stars Jodie Foster in her first French-language performance as an American psychoanalyst in Paris whose tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden and suspicious death of a patient. Co-written by Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé.
A series of twists lead not only to past grievances but past lives. (And even a cameo by the renowned documentary filmmaker Friederick Wiseman whom I interviewed for this publication.) The tonal shifts might be unsettling for some viewers as it moves back and forth from a drama about families, a comedy of remarriage, and a whodunit. Perhaps the true mystery of the story is revealed by the question (no, this is not a spoiler alert): “Why did you leave me?”
[L-R] Actors Ayo Edebiri, Julia Roberts and director Luca Guadagnino on the set of AFTER THE HUNT, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis
After the Hunt
The opening night film of the 63rd annual New York Film Festival, After the Hunt, centers on a philosophy professor (Julia Roberts) whose life is thrown into chaos after her protégée (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her longtime colleague and friend (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault.
In attendance at the press conference cast members Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Eyo Edebiri, and Michael Stuhlbarg discussed their flawed and often unsympathetic characters, navigating a world of academia, power plays, and relationships.
“Am I a provocateur? No, I don’t think so. Do I like to make the audience feel what they’re seeing? Yes, I do very much.” – Luca Guadagnino, director
Indeed, After the Hunt is a thought-provoking film with layered characters who make unsympathetic choices and hide their truths.
Director Luca Guadagnino and writer Nora Garrett discuss the script
Garrett: “My first construction going into writing was not thinking about how many potential buttons to push simultaneously. The genesis of the screenplay really started with the character of Alma, played by Julia Roberts. And I was really interested in her internal struggle; this idea of becoming a very outwardly successful person, becoming someone who was looking for power chasing power, but had this sort of internal compartmentalization based on a certain amount of shame from childhood or from a place when you had a certain amount of plausible deniability about the person you were and the person you would become. So the story kind of grew around that.”
Guadagnino discussed how they worked together on the project. “One of the great pleasures of my life is to work with writers that are brilliant like Nora, and this was quite a brisk process. I read the script, we met, we said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I think when you get a script that is so good and so strong, the duty is to make sure that embodiment is reflected in the script, because we had the privilege of working discussions. We wanted to make sure that every character could become the perfect character for each way, and to get their input into each as well.”
Setting the story at Yale
Garrett: “I did set it at Yale. Truthfully, I was writing this on spec without an agent or a manager. So I kind of thought that would never pass any legal process were this to get made. I am a very visual writer. I had been to Yale’s campus a couple of times. I have family members who went to Yale. But something that really interested me about Yale as an institution is that it’s in New Haven. And so it’s sort of this castle on a hill in an area that doesn’t have the same access to the affluence and power that Yale holds within its walls. There is this very clear stark difference between a powerful institution that comes from a lot of old money and a city that has a lot of economic turmoil surrounding it.”
Guadagnino: “I like to deal with archetypes and to deal with the great American landscape and of course the Ivy League world is so important to America, but also to us as Europeans. It reflects on us a lot. So the idea of telling a story that happened at Yale gives a sense of universality to it and an infrastructure that is so cinematic and as you (Nora) said the idea that Yale is a world within a world of New Haven. You see the different layers of this society clashing. We really shot this in London completely.”
[L-R] Actor Daniel Day-Lewis and director Ronan Day-Lewis on the set of ANEMONE, a Focus Features release. Credit: Maria Lax / Focus Features
Anemone
An emotionally charged family drama – directed by first-time feature director Ronan Day-Lewis and co-written with his three-time Oscar-winning father actor Daniel Day-Lewis – Anemone centers on lives undone by seemingly irreconcilable legacies of political and personal violence on a path toward familial redemption.
At the press conference, Ronan Day-Lewis, Daniel Day-Lewis and actor Sean Bean discussed the writing process, the archetypes of brotherhood, and the use of silence in the film.
Ronan Day-Lewis: “I have two brothers and I think that there’s this sort of beauty and tragedy to brotherhood; that kind of volatility where things can go from love and volatility in a matter of seconds. I was really fascinated with and we (gesturing to his father) were really interested in the sense of silence and just how siblings can have this almost telepathic communication with each other and how many different silences can exist between brothers, between siblings.”
The writing process
Ronan Day-Lewis: “We started kind of intuitively. We didn’t start with an outline or anything; it was very different from past scripts that I’ve worked on. It was almost like walking into the dark with a flashlight. We had the sense of there being this man who’s living in a state of self-exile and living in this remote environment and his brother turning up after 20 years of no contact. But beyond that, we didn’t really know the circumstances of their pasts and their lives. Their connection started to reveal themselves over time.
There was a lot of improvisation that went into it where my dad would actually speak as the characters and especially Ray. I sort of felt him kind of slipping into that character really early on in the process which was remarkable.”
Discussing why the script took several years to write Daniel Day-Lewis stated: “It took a long time because we only ever wrote when we were in the same room together. So we never tried to do it remotely at any point. Things would occur to us independently and then we would chat on the phone and come together but Ronan’s schedule was pretty busy after college so we just decided that was the way we wanted to do it and I think it worked best for us.”
Ronan Day-Lewis and Daniel Day-Lewis agreed that having that time to reflect and develop the characters in this way also allowed the opportunity to have a shorthand on set and in the monologues, dialogue and silences.
Locarno78, Red Carpet, Pardo d’Oro – Sho Miyake, Grand Prize of the Festival and City of Locarno, Tabi to Hibi Locarno78
Locarno78 featured 101 world premieres from both emerging and established filmmakers with 224 films across 11 sections. Japanese filmmaker Shô Miyake took home the Golden Leopard for his film Two Seasons, Two Strangers. The American independent drama Rosemead received the Prix du Public UBS.
IN CONVERSATION
Emma Thompson, honored with the Leopard Club Award, spoke about her latest film The Dead of Winter directed by Brian Kirk, which premiered on the Piazza Grande. This action thriller starred Thompson, who also served as an executive producer.
Locarno78, Conversation with Emma Thompson (Leopard Club Award), Moderated by Manlio Gomarasca Locarno Film Festival
Thompson recounted her path from being discovered as a stand-up comedian, to winning the Best Screenplay Adaptation Oscar for Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. “A screenplay is a very interesting thing. When producer Lindsay Doran asked me to write it, I said I don’t know how to write a screenplay and she said ask around, so I went to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who adapted Howard’s End and Remains of the Day. Ruth said: ‘If you are thinking of adapting, this is what you do: you adapt the whole book, you dramatize every single scene because you don’t know which ones are going to work and which ones are not going to work.’ Weirdly, some of the most dramatic scenes in the book are not dramatic on film, and some of the least dramatic are very dramatic on film. So I wrote a screenplay that was 400 pages long, and they need to be 100 pages long, obviously. I started to take out the stuff that didn’t work and then started to add things that we needed, because some characters just disappear, and you have to find a way of bringing them back.
It took five years to write. I got some very useful notes, like from Sydney Pollack, he was one of the producers, who said ‘I’m a Jew from Indiana, I’m dumb, I don’t know anything, why can’t they just go and get a job?’ I thought, that’s a really good question. There were no jobs at that time for women in that situation.
All screenplays take a long time. Nanny McPhee took nine years to write. You keep rewriting it over and over.”
Award-winning Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof received the First Locarno City of Peace Award, which honors figures from the cultural space who have distinguished themselves in promoting peace, diplomacy, and dialogue among peoples. (Rasoulof was sentenced in Iran to eight years in prison and public flogging for his films. Shortly before his arrest, he managed to flee his home country and currently resides in Germany.)
Rasoulof discussed how cinema can serve as a form of resistance and a beacon of hope, sharing his perspectives on freedom, culture, and the role of the artist in times of oppression. In 2024, I had the privilege of interviewing him about his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig for this publication.
Two Documentaries Exploring Distinctive Approaches to Storytelling
Hair, Paper, Water…, a poetic and poignant documentary co-directed by Truong Minh Quy and Nicolas Graux, won the top prize: Pardo d’Oro – Concorso Cineasti del Presente. Shot over three years on a vintage Bolex camera, it is described as: She was born in a cave, more than 60 years ago. Now she lives in a village, with many children and grandchildren to look after. Sometimes, she dreams of her dead mother calling her home – to the cave. The film captures fleeting moments of her daily life and the transmission of her fragile language, Rục, to her grandchildren.
The film will have its North American premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival this fall. Quy’s previous film, Việt and Nam, was at the 2024 New York Film Festival, which I wrote about for this publication.
KEROAUC’S ROAD: THE BEAT OF A NATION (2025). Courtesy Universal Pictures Content Group. Locarno Film Festival
Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation explores how the legacy of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel On the Road reflects in today’s America. The film interweaves stories of modern-day “on-the-roaders” who share connections to Kerouac’s life, alongside those influenced by him or knew and loved him. Featured participants include Josh Brolin, W. Kamau Bell, Natalie Merchant, Matt Dillon, Jay McInerney and Joyce Johnson.
Director Ebs Burnough stated: When my producing partners, John Battsek and Eliza Hindmarch came to me three years ago with the idea of doing a film about Kerouac, I had reservations. I had previously directed The Capote Tapes, and I was not immediately drawn to telling the story of another male writer in America. But this film was different. It was never intended to be a Kerouac biopic; it was always a meditation on On the Road. As we developed the story, I became vested in telling the story of America through the book. As a black filmmaker who grew up in the States, and has spent a career in political campaigns as well as in government, traveling across the country myriad times, I was deeply aware of the different experiences people have while “on the road” and very aware that my relatives could not have taken the trip Kerouac did.
June 14, 2025 / sucity / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with ON A STRING writer, director, producer, and star Isabel Hagen at Tribeca Festival
Tribeca Film Festival 2025: Interview with ‘On a String’ Writer/Director/Star Isabel Hagen for Script Magazine
Susan Kouguell chats with writer, director, producer, and star Isabel Hagen about her film debut, how she found stand-up comedy amidst her Julliard training in classical viola, and more.
It was a pleasure to speak with the multi-hyphenate Writer/Director/Producer/EP and Star Isabel Hagen about her first feature, On A String, during the Tribeca Festival.
As a classically trained violist myself, (but not Julliard-trained like Hagen) we shared many funny—OK, sometimes tragically funny stories of our musician experiences, but she’s a professional stand-up comedian and thankfully I am not—as well as the profound influence music has on our respective writing and filmmaking.
Isabel Hagen is a nationally touring stand-up comedian and classically trained violist based in New York City. As a stand-up, she has been featured twice on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and as a New Face of Comedy at the Just for Laughs festival in Montréal. Isabel started stand-up immediately after earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viola performance from The Juilliard School. As a violist, she has played in the orchestra of many Broadway shows, and worked with artists such as Bjork, Max Richter, Japanese Breakfast, Steve Reich, and Vampire Weekend.
‘On a String’
About On A String: Isabel (Isabel Hagen) is a young, Juilliard-trained violist still living at home with her parents in the heart of New York City. She’s trying to make a living playing gigs with her friends but when her toxic ex-boyfriend reappears, who also happens to be the Philharmonic’s “newest, hottest cellist,” he informs her of a viola opening in the prestigious orchestra. Nothing can go wrong, right?
Kouguell: Tell me about your decision to transition from music to filmmaking.
Hagen: It was a couple of things. Partly it was my deep love for stand-up comedy, and I had a repetitive stress injury in my hand from hours of daily practicing, so I had to take time off playing. I tried open mic, and I knew that it was something I wanted to explore. After graduating Juilliard, I did more stand-up. Writing for stand-up got the wheels turning to writing other things, and then I did the web series.
Kouguell: I watched your five-part web series is a violist, which is not only so funny, but it captures the lives of classical musicians with all their flaws, quirks, painful rejections, and honest realizations. Did you study screenwriting/writing and/or filmmaking?
Hagen: No. I learned by doing. It came out of doing stand-up comedy.
Kouguell: As the writer, director and star of this film, how did you approach the filmmaking process?
Hagen: There was a time I thought I’d bring in another director, but ultimately it was such a specific story, I felt that people had to have a deep understanding of this world. It felt right to direct it as a first feature.
‘On a String’
Kouguell: You mentioned that it’s such a specific story, which it is, yet it feels universal.
Hagen: Sometimes the more specific you get—and in this film, about a classical musician navigating a specific world, which many might find unfamiliar—the universality aspect was important. That experience of following your dreams, accepting unexpected challenges and limitations, is something most of us feel.
Kouguell: How did your stand-up comedy evolve?
Hagen: Years ago, when my brother watched George Carlin on TV, I became interested. I marveled at it. When I had a little space in my schedule at Julliard, I tried it out. Initially it was never a goal to become a stand-up comedian.
Kouguell: Let’s discuss your writing process.
Hagen: It’s always driven by music. I start by latching onto a piece or a song or the essence of it. It will inspire a scene I want to capture. So much of this film, I was writing with music in mind, such as Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. I draw inspiration from music.
Both classical music and pop songs follow a strict form, and that’s what makes things interesting. I wanted this whole film to feel like a piece of music; recapitulations, incorporating certain motifs, the structure, and so on.
Kouguell: We’ve been talking about your role as the observer when performing as a violist at various events such as weddings. You mentioned that On A String is not about someone driven by a desire for success, but rather by a need for true connection to the world around her, with no idea how to find it.
Hagen: I always felt like an observer, which is not necessarily bad or good. I’m always watching how people talk and at certain times I wanted to mimic it. So much of comedy is observational and I realized a lot of work I did was the role of the observer like watching a narcissistic conductor and watching people how they behaved.
Kouguell: The film features live-captured musical performances, and the musician characters are almost entirely played by trained musicians, including your real-life brother, pianist Oliver Hagen, who portrays your character’s brother in the film. How was it to work with him?
Hagen: Working with Oliver was great. He’s not a trained actor but he is an accomplished musician who I have always looked up to.
Kouguell: What’s next for you?
Hagen: I’m continuing to tour as a standup and performing with the indie rock band Vampire Weekend, And working on new ideas for another film.
To learn more about Hagen’s projects visit her website.
October 16, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Examining Relationships in ‘Hard Truths,’ ’Việt and Nam’ and ‘Happyend’ at the 2024 New York Film Festival
At the New York Film Festival, ‘Hard Truths,’ ‘Việt and Nam’ and ‘Happyend’ are strikingly different from each other in tone and execution yet they do share a commonality – their examinations of relationships are striking and thought-provoking.
At the New York Film Festival, Hard Truths, Việt and Nam and Happyend are strikingly different from each other in tone and execution yet they do share a commonality – their examinations of relationships are striking and thought-provoking. Moreover, these relationships are familial: Hard Truths (which centers on the family’s dynamics with the protagonist in constant crisis); Việt and Nam (a secret couple and mother in search of the father) and Happyend (two teens and their friend group form alliances, forming their own type of family unit).
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy in Hard Truths (2024).Courtesy Bleecker Street Media
Written and directed by Mike Leigh, Hard Truths is a compelling drama set in contemporary London. Leigh’s protagonist Pansy, (Marianne-Jean Baptsite) is relentless in her venomous anger and rages towards her husband, young adult son, her polar opposite sister, and anyone else who crosses her path. Pansy’s pain is palpable and Leigh and Baptiste have created a character who is unsympathetic and ironically and successfully empathetic.
Not unlike some of Leigh’s past films, Leigh began this project without a script and built the story and characters through months of rehearsals with the actors. This character study shifts between the various family members and the psychological repercussions of Pansy’s actions. The plot is unpredictable and there are no neat and tidy resolutions, thus resulting in a powerful and satisfying film with notable performances.
Banned in its home country of Vietnam, Việt and Nam, written and directed by Trương Minh Quý,is a poignant drama that confronts the legacy of the country’s war decades earlier. Set in the early 2000s, coal miners Viet and Nam are secret gay lovers, living in the shadows where past horrors hover in the present. Television news broadcast stories of the missing and the family members searching for information to help locate them, set up the pilgrimage Nam, his mother, Viet, and a family friend embark on to find the site of where Nam’s father was killed as a soldier.
As coal miners, the lovers’ job is digging into the earth; the metaphor of excavation and the unearthing of a horrific past is seen in contrasts of the lush landscapes and the dark caverns where a sense of timelessness unfolds. The film’s slow pace may not be for everyone, but it is effective and allows the characters time and space to explore their relationships and their generational trauma.
In the post-screening talk, Trương stated that he began the script in 2019 and how the casting process further enhanced the script: “I searched for people who have a real story that somehow matches the character’s story. I can then develop the character from their real stories. Like the character who is a veteran, he’s a real veteran and his confession at the end is based on his real story.”
Set in the near future of Tokyo, Happyend written and directed by Neo Sora, is a layeredcoming-of-age drama about the rise of political consciousness in a group of teens.
Neo Sora’s portrayal of these high school friends is relatable as it encompasses humorous events (students’ pranks) with an overshadowing sense of fragility as the ever present threats of earthquakes and an oppressive and invasive educational and political climate escalate. The unstable ground shifts as does the relationship between the two protagonists, childhood best friends, when they choose divergent paths.
In the post-screening discussion, Sora stated that it took seven years to write the script, and although this film was not autobiographical, his own life experiences were influential and inspired this work that he described as the rise of political consciousness.
Blitz, the closing night film of the New York Film Festival directed by British director Steve McQueen and two of the Main Slate films The Room Next Door directed by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvarand the documentary Suburban Fury directed by American filmmaker Robinson Devor,highlight three directors with varied voices and approaches to storytelling.
Written and directed by Steve McQueen, Blitz centers on the parallel perspectives of working-class single mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and her 9-year-old bi-racial son, George (Elliott Heffernan), as they become separated within the maze of a city under siege of 1940s WWII London.
George’s odyssey to reunite with his mother is Dicksonian in a quest for survival. The amount of time (several days?) in which the plot unfolds is briefly referenced but it doesn’t quite seem accurate; perhaps it’s an intentional choice to reflect the blur and almost unbelievable events that unfold. The tone and images, and the thematic determination of a young male protagonist seen from his POV was somewhat reminiscent of Europa Europa directed by Agneszkia Holland whom I also interviewed for this publication. Both films chronicle racism and identity in WWII, and challenge the viewer to enter their respective worlds with a distinct vision.
McQueen’s previous film, Occupied City, a documentary with Bianca Stigter (both of whom I interviewed for this publication) also portrayed a capital city, in this case, Amsterdam, under siege by the Nazis. In interviews, McQueen explained that it was somewhat accidental that these two films were released back-to-back.
In press conferences, McQueen noted that “it was important to me that the movie be an epic. The reason it was important is because of scale. Seeing the Second World War through the eyes of a prepubescent child was important to give us a refocusing of where and who we are now. It is echoed in wars going on now…and with the recent race riots in the UK, the film has so much relevance to what’s going on now, even though it’s set in the 1940s.”
It’s interesting to note that currently on exhibit and running through the summer of 2025 at the Chelsea Dia gallery in New York City, McQueen is the featured artist. His piece Sunshine State (2022), a two-channel, dual-sided video projection is described as a story about McQueen’s father to examine notions of identity and racial stereotypes. This work, along with another video piece and his photographs, underscores McQueen’s range as a visual artist and filmmaker who consistently pushes boundaries of storytelling.
Blitz opens in theaters on November 1 ahead of its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on November 22.
The Room Next Door (2024).Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed the film, his first English-language feature, which is loosely adapted from the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The film centers on Ingrid (Julianne Moore) a best-selling writer and Martha (Tilda Swinton) a war journalist; their friendship is rekindled and tested when Martha makes a life-altering request to Ingrid.
At the press conference, Almodóvar stated that the book was unadaptable because of the many details, but was interested in one chapter in particular: “When Julianne’s character goes to the hospital to see her friend. I was interested in the two women reuniting, and their need to talk.” He added that he set out to develop these two women from “a generation that I love; the mid-1980s.” When discussing the inclusion of Damian (John Turturro) in the script he explained that he used his character to voice Nunez’s environmental concerns “and how dangerous neoliberalism is linked with the far right. It was important to give that message in a country that will have an election soon.”
The Room Next Door opens theatrically in New York City and Los Angeles on December 20, 2024, followed by a limited release in select US cities on Christmas Day, and a January 2025 wide US release.
In 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco and served 30 years in prison. Moore, the only person interviewed for this film, is the unapologetic subject of Suburban Fury a documentary by Robinson Devor, Moore tells her own story: from housewife (several husbands) and mother (several children), to FBI informant to would-be assassin, all of which are set against the backdrop of the era’s political unrest and militancy, including the Black Panthers, and Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army.
At the press conference, Devor and his team discussed uncovering relatively unseen archival footage, the choice to avoid familiar music soundtracks of the era, and filming Moore (over the course of 11 days) in unconventional locations such as a 1970s-era Suburban station wagon. Although the assassination attempt occurred almost 50 years ago, the film is timely.
The inclusion of numbers integrated between various sequences of scenes was an interesting device but the intention was unclear and didn’t have a clear payoff. Moore is the definition of an unreliable narrator of her personal story and her involvement in historical events, leaving the viewer to decide what is fact and what is fiction.
October 16, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Interview with ‘Invention’ Filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival
In this wide-ranging talk, ‘Invention’ filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez discussed their collaboration, mixing genres, shooting a low-budget Super 16 film, making a ‘dead dads’ project, and so much more.
It was a pleasure to speak with Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez at the Locarno Film Festival where their film Invention had its debut, and Callie was awarded Best Performance at the Locarno in Concorso Cineasti de la Presente. In our wide-ranging talk, we discussed their collaboration, mixing genres, shooting a low-budget Super 16 film, making a ‘dead dads’ project, and so much more.
About Invention
In the aftermath of a conspiracy-minded father’s sudden death, his daughter inherits his patent for an experimental healing device. Featuring archives from Callie Hernandez’s late father, Invention explores the process of grieving a complicated parent, and the filmmaking itself becomes a part of the process.
“Having both lost our dads, We wanted to explore the fictions and fantasies that often follow loss and allow us to bear disappointment – both as individuals and as a public in times of national decline.” – Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez
About the Filmmakers
Courtney Stephens is a Los Angeles-based writer and director. The American Sector, her documentary (co-directed with Pacho Velez) about fragments of the Berlin Wall transplanted to the U.S., was named one of the best films of 2021 in The New Yorker. Her essay film, Terra Femme, comprised of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art and toured widely as a live performance. She is the recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship to India. Invention is her first fiction film.
Callie Hernandez is an actress, writer, filmmaker and producer with work spanning over a decade. She was recently awarded Best Performance at Locarno in Concorso Cineasti de la Presente for Invention in August 2024. After starting out in music as both a cellist and in experimental punk bands in Texas, she found herself acting in her first role in Terrence Malick’s Song to Song. Later acting work includes Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, A24’s Under the Silver Lake, Pete Ohs’ JETHICA among others. In 2022, she founded Neurotika Haus Films, an in-house film studio, which yielded INVENTION, and longtime collaborator Pete Ohs’ upcoming dark comedy Untitled Tick Movie produced with Jeremy O. Harris. Her upcoming project is an Untitled Erotica Anthology.
Film still from Invention (2024).Courtesy Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez
The Interview
Kouguell:Invention is credited as “A film by Callie Hernandez and Courtney Stephens”: you wrote the script together. Tell me about your writing process and your collaboration.
Hernandez: The process was very collaborative. We were into the idea of making a film together. And it really all began when it felt right to make a “dead dads” film. Making a film about my dad’s niche medical realm, the machines he collected and his VHS archive was something I’d wanted to make. So eventually, our film became more in line with that idea as we developed it.
Stephens: When we started talking about it, the project was going to be much more of a straight fiction, exploring the aftermath of losing a father. Then Callie shared elements of her own dad’s world, which was fascinating and specific, and I was drawing from the process of dealing with my own dad’s failing business affairs after he died, and this kind of composite of our experiences took shape to form the fiction elements of the film.
Kouguell: Particularly striking is the film genre; it successfully serves this unconventional (experimental) narrative film. Would you define it as a fiction and documentary hybrid?
Hernandez: The narrative is definitely fictionalized and there are a lot of true elements. My dad didn’t invent a medical device — he collected them. This film is an experiment, maybe. It premiered at Locarno as a fiction and much of the narrative is highly fictionalized, but there are a lot of very close, true elements in the film. For example— my dad did not invent a medical device, but the electromagnetic healing machines are definitely something he collected and became central to the narrative. It’s a deeply personal fiction, I suppose.
Kouguell: Courtney, you’ve worked in both narrative and documentary. As the co-writer and director on Invention did your approach to the project change as it evolved?
Courtney Stephens Courtesy Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press
Stephens: I think it meandered further into non-fiction as we worked, but it was exciting to work backwards: starting with the idea of fiction and then kind of documenting the creation of that fiction and drawing real stories out as we went along. I have an MFA in screenwriting from the AFI, but had gone on to make more experimental and essay films, so it was interesting to apply lessons learned in those realms to fiction.
In the film, we were working from an outline rather than a fixed script, with the exception of a few scenes. So there was definitely an element of working out these kinds of testimonies with the actors about who Carrie’s dad was, knowing they would be puzzled together into something that feels like this fractured portrait.
Kouguell: Callie, you have an extensive background as an actress, and you also starred in this film. How did this inform the writing process, and the incorporation of archival footage of your late father, promoting and discussing his inventions?
Hernandez: Yes, so, as I mentioned before, my dad did not invent these types of machines, but he had dozens. With some of them, one must be licensed by the inventor in order to purchase and use the machine. They range anywhere from $2k-$17k. So, my dad was an MD turned holistic healer in the early 90s. He was a hypnotist at one point, a monk in Bhutan at another point. After he died, my sister and I sort of re-discovered all these beautiful machines that we’d been privy to growing up with him, of course.
I knew his archive existed, but was surprised to find it all in one place in a storage unit. I shared these VHS tapes with Courtney and, then, slowly it felt like — ‘OK, yes, this is the film we’re making.’
Yes, acting has been my bread and butter for the most part for about a decade. I was acting in a TV show right after my dad died. In fact, I went straight to work after his funeral. I didn’t tell anyone. My dad’s death in combination with a mounting curiosity about making my own films led to my renting a house in Massachusetts with the intention of making my own films. As my good friend Pete Ohs put it, I was done with only acting.
That said, I studied doc photography and journalism in college, so these things are probably engrained. Making films and writing have always been every day for me — I’ve always done it since I was in my teens. I really just like making films in general. It’s all intertwined for me.
Kouguell: This footage is both powerful and humorous, subtly underscoring mythology and the American Dream, Anything is possible or is it? There is a layered tone of hopeful optimism and disappointment when it comes to Callie discovering who her father was and wasn’t. Please talk about this.
Hernandez: There’s a lot of mundane tasks involved when dealing with a death. Many of the characters in the film are very similar to interactions my sister and I have had with people surrounding my dad’s death.
But I think this speaks to a larger idea of conspiracy as a form of grief. We wanted to explore conspiracy and its origins. There’s both hopefulness and hopelessness, and a desperation in both.
Carrie faces a very fragile reality. She’s pulled toward her dad because he’s gone. She’s left with this essence of irrevocability and unanswerable questions. So her skepticism, over time, gets braided into a sense of hope or lack thereof. It’s about irreversibility, I suppose. This is what interested me most in making the film. Irreversibility and the things we try to change in real time that we absolutely cannot. But, for whatever maddening reasons, we do try.
Stephens: Yeah, we were thinking a lot about the nature of belief and especially how porous that becomes when one is in crisis. My sense is that America is on that same kind of shaky ground, in which something was promised, and people feel let down. It’s often so much easier to find a story in which things are not what they seem, or there is some secret adversary or obstacle, than it is to process the fact that you’ve been let down, that there’s nothing but disappointment.
Kouguell: Grief, one of the themes of the film, is something you both experienced, losing your respective fathers. It’s the catalyst of the plot yet you don’t fall into predictable tropes or a neat and tidy ending.
Hernandez: We exchanged books in the beginning. I gave Courtney Pitch Dark by Renata Adler, and Courtney gave me Basic Black with Pearls by Helen Weinzweig. We found that the books were pretty eerily similar; women inventing – or maybe not at all inventing – wild circumstances during a time of foundational loss. There’s something primordial about this state of mind. There’s a push and pull as you un-become yourself, in a way. You are suddenly, without consent, fundamentally different than you were before. We both lost our dads pretty suddenly. You’re very quickly haunted when this happens. So, this was also a part of why we wanted to make the film together, I think. This shared understanding.
Stephens: In a sense the construction of the film – and this word Invention – are, in a positive sense I think – exploring ways of changing the shape of grief through fiction. Maybe it goes back to the question of genre and the self-reflexivity of the film. The encounters in the film are building the character of the absent dad in ways that are contradictory, and that’s OK within the space of the film for these contradictions to exist, because we’re always acknowledging that they are these fictional propositions, so it’s an exercise in character. But in life, we want it to all add up, and it often doesn’t, it’s just layers upon layers, and that’s what we hoped to depict, rather than a linear process.
Kouguell: The actual invention or one of them, is about healing ‘energy’ – can you delve into this more?
Callie HernandezCourtesy Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press
Hernandez: There’s a great deal of specifics in terms of electromagnetic frequencies, energy and lasers, etc that are commonly argued as scientific approaches in the medical industry. It varies in terms of meaning. I think the term “healing” has developed its own, vastly varying implications.
My dad didn’t invent this (or any) machine (to my knowledge), but he had dozens. He believed in electromagnetic healing and lasers and frequencies. He was a big believer in energy, and even more so a believer in general. In reptilians. In parallel universes. Energy was always his core belief, both as a doctor and as a person. At one point, he lined the perimeter of our house in copper. We had copper pyramids in our backyard.
Then, of course, his interest in hypnosis, devices, etc. It’s true that, by the end of his life, he was selling these types of energetic healing devices for a company out of Utah. He really did use them demonstratively on feral cats in an attempt to show their increasing domestication. He was living with his girlfriend in their trailer in Texas and they had 17 cats at one point — all with names that began with ‘B.’ All of this to say, this type of medical technology is pretty niche, but varied. At the same time, there is a unique point where all these very specific interests intersect.
Kouguell: You shot on Super 16 on a shoestring budget. I imagine this also informed specific choices you made during the filming – both positive and negative.
Stephens: Trying to work out improvisational scenes while burning through limited rolls of film – I don’t recommend it! But it forced us to shape the scenes there and then rather than just exploring out loud with the hope of finding the film later on, a process which would have yielded something more impressionistic. The visual language of the film is quite direct and almost old-fashioned, and I think this helps given the abstract nature of some of the things we were exploring.
Hernandez: Definitely. I think we couldn’t imagine shooting this on anything but film. There was a moment we considered otherwise, but it didn’t feel right. And, of course, we knew the limitations of using film, which gives you an engine to keep pushing through with these limited resources. You have a limited amount of film and time to hone in on what’s important. But, yes, there are definitely pros and cons. A shoestring budget indeed. All out of pocket. We were the crew. It’s simpler, but not easier.
Kouguell: Final thoughts on your film that you would like to share?
Stephens: Thanks for the great questions! In film school, they will tell you “Raise the stakes!” Our film is small and kind of gentle, but the stakes for us were really high— our dad’s who we loved and these really difficult experiences in our lives. So the nice reception to the film gives me faith in what can be transmitted through cinema without too many resources.
Hernandez: I actually shot four films in this same house that I’d rented in Massachusetts with the intention of making micro-budget films that no one would ever really ‘allow’ us to make. This film idea was the one that felt closest to the things that I hope to continue making films about. Again — making films this way is simpler, not easier. But I like hard work.
Invention probably wouldn’t exist without this partnership between Courtney and myself. Yes — the responsibility I felt in terms of my dad, incorporating his VHS archive and machines and the overall essence of the film was huge. My sense at the beginning was that Courtney was the right person to collaborate with. And I think this instinct was right.
October 15, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Interview with Constance Tsang, Writer and Director of ‘Blue Sun Palace’
Susan Kouguell speaks with writer-director Constance Tsang about her poignant first feature film ‘Blue Sun Palace’ premiering at the Cannes Film Festival for Script Magazine.
As I watch Blue Sun Palace now, I have come to terms of what it means to me – a letter to the ghosts of childhood, to my parents who came to America with one dream and settled for another, to my father who I now understand, and to myself as I come to terms with redefining loss in my life.
– Constance Tsang
It was a pleasure to speak with Constance Tsangabout her poignant first feature filmBlue Sun Palace, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique; it is the only US film selected.
Tsang, a Chinese American writer, director, and educator based in New York, received an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing from Columbia University. Her award-winning short film BEAU is a Vimeo StaffPick and her previous short film, CARNIVORE, was a 2018 AT&T Hello Lab project. Her work is supported by Starlight Stars Collective and Tribeca Film.
About Blue Sun Palace: Within the confines of a massage parlor in Flushing, Queens, Amy and Didi navigate romance, happiness, and the obligations of family thousands of miles from home. Despite the physical and emotional toll their work demands, the women have fortified an impenetrable sisterhood, which tragically collapses when disaster strikes on Lunar New Year.
Still from Blue Sun Palace (2024).Courtesy A Big Buddha Pictures & Field Trip Media Production
Kouguell: Let’s begin with talking about your writing process.
Tsang: Itstarts with a feeling that I can’t escape. From there, I begin with constructing the story structure and what it looks like. And I do that with Post-its, I put inspirations, feelings, and thoughts on the Post-its, and the Post-its become the story, and the story becomes the outline, and then I start writing the screenplay. It’s low risk; you can put a character point or plot point on a Post-it and you can move it around or throw it out.
Kouguell: The tone, mood and atmosphere you created in the visual storytelling and pacing is captivating. What were some of your influences?
Tsang: The films of Chantal Akerman. I read Harold Pinter. I’m interested in how silence is used and ways spaces can linger.
Kouguell: The inspiration for your script came from losing your father as a teenager.
Constance TsangPhoto by Daniel Zvereff
Tsang: At the core of the film is grief. It is something that drives a lot of decisions the characters make. It took me a long time to understand my own grief. I still have a hard time actually verbalizing it, and that difficulty to express grief was a thrust for this movie too through this process of writing and discovering these characters.
Kouguell: Tell me about the transition from making short films to Blue Sun Palace, which is your first feature.
Tsang: I made a couple of shorts in grad school, and it was a transition to jump in and understand the craft of it all. Moving to the feature space meant being able to be vulnerable; I couldn’t always do that in my shorts. It demanded more of me, and my understanding of the film’s emotional life. It’s almost as if things I was too scared about myself I had to let that go.
Kouguell: How did it all come together from script to screen?
Tsang: It took a long time, I had been writing this for five years. In the beginning, the first couple of drafts were not great, it was not the truest form. It took time to really understand what the story meant and what it meant to me.
Kouguell: It’s interesting that your two main actors Lee Kang ShengandKe-Xi Wuare also screenwriters and directors.
Tsang: They came to the story with such intelligence and understanding, it was amazing. They gave so much and were able to make the characters their own.
Kouguell: What’s next for you?
Tsang: I’ve started to write my next film about my mother.
Kouguell: Final thoughts?
Tsang: Especially since this article is aimed towards screenwriters I will say, write what you know. It’s very true. For me, it was a lot easier when writing a first feature to take from personal experiences.
Blue Sun Palace won the French Touch prize at the Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival.
June 13, 2024 / sucity / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell’s Interview With ‘Vulcanizadora’ Writer/Director/Editor and Co-Star Joel Potrykus, Producer Ashley Potrykus and Star Joshua Burge at the Tribeca Festival
This dark comedy highlights Potrykus’s distinct vision with a gripping dramatic pulse, and unrelenting tone and atmosphere. Familiar themes in Potrykus’s work emerge again in ‘Vulcanizadora’: nihilism, isolation, loneliness, society-rejected outsider, however this time he digs further, tackling new territory about fatherhood and father/son relationships.
Written, directed, edited, and co-starring Joel Potrykus, Vulcanizadora, centers on two friends who trudge through a Michigan forest with the intention of following through on a disturbing pact. After they fail, one of them must return home to deal with the legal and emotional repercussions.
Joel Potrykus is a Michigan-based independent filmmaker, specializing in screenwriting and guerilla style production. His films have screened internationally and are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. His screenplays are part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science Permanent Collection, and the George A. Romero Archival Collection. He received an MFA in Writing for Film and Television from Emerson College and is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University.
It’s been over ten years since I first met husband and wife team Joel Potrykus and producer Ashley Potrykus at the 2014 Locarno Film Festival where I interviewed them about their award-winning film BUZZARD,starring long-time collaborator Joshua Burge. In 2012, their film APE, which also starred Burge, premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, taking the Best Emerging Director – Filmmakers of the Present award and a Best First Feature – Special Mention.
Vulcanizadora,Potrykus’s latest feature,world premiered as part of Tribeca’s US Narrative Competition and this time I met with Joel and Ashley Potrykus in New York City now joined by stars Joshua Burge and Solo Potrykus, Joel and Ashley’s 6-year-old son.
This dark comedy highlights Potrykus’s distinct vision with a gripping dramatic pulse, and unrelenting tone and atmosphere. Familiar themes in Potrykus’s work emerge again in Vulcanizadora: nihilism, isolation, loneliness, society-rejected outsider, however this time he digs further, tackling new territory about fatherhood and father/son relationships.
Joshua Burge in Vulcanizadora (2024).Courtesy Sob Noisse
Kouguell: The three of you have been collaborating for a long time along with your filmmaking team Sob Noisse.
Ashley Potrykus: I joined the Sob Noisse band for their first feature and Josh before that with Coyote. When I first joined, film was not my area at all and with each movie, it was another stepping stone and as that happened, our Sob Noisse band got bigger.
Joel Potrykus: At some point, I realized I couldn’t make a movie without Ashley; she’s the other half of my filmmaking brain that keeps everything organized and clears my thoughts.
It is like a band, and we call it Sob Noisse; I look at it like a musician band would be and everyone has the instrument they play. Josh is definitely like the lead singer, he’s the voice of what we’re trying to say and what people should be looking at. He’s got a certain face, persona and rhythm.
Joshua Burge: I never had any intention to be an actor, I went to school to be a filmmaker and to write. I got bit by the music bug while I was there and started performing, and Joel was a fan and then asked if I could be in one of his movies. The first one was Coyote and at that point, I didn’t really understand what acting was, and then with the first feature, Ape, I felt I was part of the Sob Noisse band.
Ashley Potrykus:Ape was the first time, at least for me, and I think for you, Josh, that we felt that we each came into our own role a little bit more.
Joshua Burge: When we started, everyone was wearing all the hats.
Kouguell: This is another low-budget feature for you.
Joel Potrykus: It’s the biggest budget we ever worked with but still a vastly low budget. We shot on 16 mm. I think it’s less rare that these micro-budget features are breaking out and we are now in the norm. We’ve shot on 16mm before but never a feature. We didn’t think it was financially feasible but it is. If you shoot the way we shoot, efficiently and economically and not burning through twenty takes, you can totally do it.
Kouguell: The script definitely does not follow a traditional 3-act structure. Just when I thought the plot was going to turn one way, it shifts. Yet, all these twists and turns are earned; they have been subtly set up. At times it also felt a little improvisational. How scripted was it?
Joshua Burge: It was very scripted. The only exception was sometimes we had an idea before we’d start rolling and we might try another line or an extra tack to bring something home. But for the most part, it was all on the page.
Joel Potrykus: I’ve always wanted to be an improv-style director so I was like, let’s start with an outline, we’ll shoot from an outline, but then it turned into a real script with real dialogue. We didn’t have the luxury to improvise when we were shooting.
Kouguell: How long was the shoot?
Joel Potrykus: We scheduled it for 10 days, which was really bonkers, but somehow we got it done in 8 days.
Ashley Potrykus: And we had a big location move, which was a two-hour drive with all of our gear and our crew, and closing up Airbnb’s within that time frame.
Joel Potrykus: We are a band, we know the rhythm, we know the beat.
Kouguell: How much input on the script did Ashley and Josh have?
Joel Potrykus: I’m a control freak so I wrote on my own. It was about the tone, and I know that Josh knows how to play that tone. We’ll all read it and then talk about it, and I’d take those ideas and incorporate it into a new draft.
Kouguell: In the opening scenes of your film, the music choices set an unsettling yet somewhat comedic tone and atmosphere. Let’s talk about the tone of the film.
Joel Potrykus: The three things Josh and I would say before the film were: “Sad, funny, scary.” We got to hit those.
Kouguell: We’ve been talking about the consequences of the characters’ actions. For Joshua’s character, seeking redemption is complicated and defies expectations for the viewer.
Joel Potrykus: It was the chance to see his character’s guilt and shame and remorse; he’s terrified of that redemption and what that means, and the repercussions of redemption.
Joshua Burge: I think my character is settling for relief, maybe not redemption.
Kouguell: Josh, the scenes you had with Solo were very powerful.
Joel Potrykus: What was it like to play Jeremy, Solo?
Solo Potrykus: Practice, practice, practice.
Ashley Potrykus: He didn’t love rehearsals, but one day he looked at us and said, “Mom, Dad, don’t worry, I got this.”
Joshua Burge: Solo nailed every line, he was so well-prepared and so professional.
Kouguell: Your script subverts the traditional screenwriting rules by breaking them and successfully defying the expectations for the viewer.
Joel Potrykus: I teach screenwriting and we use Save The Cat and I drill the 3-act structure. The more that I teach, the more confident I am subverting that 3-act structure because I know what audiences subconsciously expect these moments to happen; and so when they don’t happen, I feel like a lot of audiences will have a hard time following along with the structure so it’s my job to put in these little pieces that keep you holding on to the next scene. I like this script because there’s not even a midpoint, there’s a two-thirds point. I’m curious what the reaction will be because it’s not giving audiences what they are expecting.
Vulcanizadorahad its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in the US Narrative Competition.
Upcoming Tribeca screenings:
Tuesday, June 11 – 2:30 pm EST at Tribeca Film Center
Thursday, June 13 – 8:45 pm EST at AMC 19th St. East 6
