Get to know the Toronto-based director of BLUE HERON, one of the most acclaimed debuts in recent memory. In the following interview, Sophy Romvari discusses recreating the ’90s through meticulous production design, taking inspiration from her father’s home movies for the cinematography, and creat...

Meet Debra Granik, a self-described “observer” whose multipart documentary CONBODY VS. EVERYBODY tracks an ex-con entrepreneur’s efforts to build a business in a gentrifying New York City. In the following interview, Granik describes her path to filmmaking via sociology, her interest in the high ...

Meet Bi Gan, the visionary director of RESURRECTION. In the following interview, Bi discusses his interest in the spiritual and subconscious aspects of human experience, his formative experiences watching Stephen Chow movies and THE RED BALLOON, and the collective dimension of cinema that gets lo...

Meet Lav Diaz, the iconoclastic Filipino filmmaker whose monumental MAGELLAN imagines the life of the titular explorer from a bracing anticolonial perspective. In the following interview, Diaz recounts his early marathon trips to the movies with his cinema-obsessed father, the influence of Russia...

Meet Ira Sachs, the veteran filmmaker whose acclaimed anti-biopic PETER HUJAR’S DAY recreates a day in the life of the legendary photographer. In the following interview, Sachs discusses the challenges of adapting a transcript into a narrative feature, his attention to light and the passage of ti...

Get to know the acclaimed Danish Norwegian director, whose latest film, SENTIMENTAL VALUE, is one of the year’s most buzzed-about releases. In the following interview, Trier explores his touchstone themes of time and memory, his connection to modernist filmmakers like Alain Resnais and Federico F...

This interview with GODLAND director Hlynur Pálmason was recorded in 2023.

This new piece with writer-director Atom Egoyan was recorded in 2020.

Get to know body-horror master David Cronenberg, the director of THE SHROUDS. In the following interview, Cronenberg discusses his vision of the body’s inseparable unity with the mind, how personal grief informed his latest film, the appeal of conspiracy theories, and the role of longtime collabo...

In the following introduction to his wildly unpredictable thriller CLOUD—his fortieth theatrical feature, by his own estimation—director Kiyoshi Kurosawa discusses the way his approach starts from a realistic foundation and takes a “half-step beyond reality.” Learn why the director prefers long t...

Get to know Alain Guiraudie, the director of the tantalizing comic thriller MISERICORDIA. In the following interview, Guiraudie (who is also a novelist) reflects on the differences between filmmaking and writing fiction, his fond fascination for small-town life, his goal of exploring eroticism th...

Get to know Jia Zhang-Ke, cinema’s essential chronicler of the epochal upheavals in China’s recent history. In the following interview, recorded in 2025, Jia discusses key influences like Sergei Eisenstein and Michelangelo Antonioni, the spontaneity he unlocked by switching from celluloid to digi...

Get to know Hong Kong action legend Sammo Hung, who put his own stamp on martial-arts cinema both in front of and behind the camera. In the following interview, recorded in 2024, Hung revisits his training at the China Drama Academy, reflects his early work as a stunt performer for King Hu, and e...

Get to know the director of VERMIGLIO, a stunning tale of secrets and subtle change in World War II–era Italy. In the following interview, director Maura Delpero recounts her path to filmmaking and the lessons she learned beginning her career in documentary. That experience would shape her approa...

This interview with director Payal Kapadia was recorded in 2024.

Get to know Tim Blake Nelson, whose versatile directing career has run in parallel to his acclaimed acting work. In the following interview, Nelson discusses a transformative early encounter with the films of Sergio Leone, his experiences learning from other filmmakers as an actor, and his motiva...

Get to know Jem Cohen, the unclassifiable independent filmmaker whose work explores art, music, and the cities that shape our lives. In the following interview, Cohen describes how he moves between different formats (Super 8, 16 mm, digital) and modes of filmmaking (documentary, collage, street p...

This interview with director Leos Carax was recorded in 2024.

This interview with director Lubna Playoust was conducted in 2024.

This interview with director Catherine Breillat was recorded in 2024.

This interview with actor and director Isabella Rossellini was recorded in 2024.

This interview with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi was conducted in 2024.

This interview with director Jerzy Skolimowski was recorded in 2023.