Meet the Filmmakers

Sophy Romvari

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...

Sergei Loznitsa

Debra Granik

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 ...

Bi Gan

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...

Lav Diaz

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...

Ira Sachs

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...

Joachim Trier

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...

Hlynur Pálmason

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

Atom Egoyan

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

David Cronenberg

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...

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

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...

Alain Guiraudie

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...

Jia Zhang-Ke

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...

Sammo Hung

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...

Maura Delpero

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...

Payal Kapadia

This interview with director Payal Kapadia was recorded in 2024.

Tim Blake Nelson

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...

Jem Cohen

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...

Leos Carax

This interview with director Leos Carax was recorded in 2024.

Lubna Playoust

This interview with director Lubna Playoust was conducted in 2024.

Catherine Breillat

This interview with director Catherine Breillat was recorded in 2024.

Isabella Rossellini

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

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

This interview with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi was conducted in 2024.

Jerzy Skolimowski

This interview with director Jerzy Skolimowski was recorded in 2023.

Bertrand Bonello

This interview with director Bertrand Bonello was conducted in 2024.

Neo Sora and Bill Kirstein

This interview with directors Neo Sora and Bill Kirstein was conducted in 2024.

Bette Gordon

This new interview with filmmaker Bette Gordon was recorded in 2020.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

This interview with director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was recorded in 2024.

Joanna Arnow

Lila Avilés

This interview with director Lila Avilés was recorded in 2024.

Isabel Sandoval

This interview with director Isabel Sandoval was recorded in 2021.

Christian Petzold

This interview with director Christian Petzold was recorded in 2023.

Lina Rodriguez

This interview with director Lina Rodriguez was recorded in 2023.

Alexandre O. Philippe

This interview with director Alexandre O. Philippe was recorded in 2023.

Terence Davies

This interview with director Terence Davies was recorded in 2022.

Diana Peralta

This interview with director Diana Peralta was recorded in 2023.

Hal Hartley

This interview with director Hal Hartley was recorded in 2023.

Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch

This interview with directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch was recorded in 2023.

Jordan Firstman

Dustin Guy Defa

This interview with director Dustin Guy Defa was recorded in 2023.

Cheryl Dunye

This interview with writer-director Cheryl Dunye was recorded in 2020.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

This interview with directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne was recorded in 2023.

Gregg Araki

This new interview with Gregg Araki was recorded in 2020.

Susan Seidelman

Susan Seidelman discusses the evolution of her career.

Louis Garrel

This interview with THE INNOCENT director and actor Louis Garrel was recorded in 2023.

David Lowery

Ngozi Onwurah

This interview with director Ngozi Onwurah was recorded in 2020.

Ruben Östlund

This interview with director Ruben Östlund was recorded in 2021.

Mike Leigh

This interview with director Mike Leigh was recorded in 2022.

Muffie Meyer and Susan Froemke

Guy Maddin

This new conversation with director Guy Maddin and art critic Robert Enright was recorded in 2021.

Jessica Beshir

Joyce Chopra

This interview with director Joyce Chopra was recorded in 2020.

Sky Hopinka

This interview with filmmaker Sky Hopinka was recorded in 2020.

Laura Moss

Leslie Harris

In the following interview, conducted in 2019, director Leslie Harris discusses the making of the film.

Rick Alverson

This interview with director Rick Alverson was recorded in 2020.

Ashley McKenzie

This interview with director Ashley McKenzie was recorded in 2020.

Ronald Bronstein

Haley Elizabeth Anderson

This new interview was recorded in 2020.

Leah Shore

Sean McCoy

Raven Jackson

This interview with filmmaker Raven Jackson was recorded in 2020.

Janicza Bravo

The following conversation between director Janicza Bravo and Sam Fragoso, host of the podcast “Talk Easy,” was recorded in 2020.

Nadav Lapid

This interview with director Nadav Lapid was recorded in 2020.

Amy Seimetz

This interview with writer-director Amy Seimetz was recorded in 2020.

Jan Oxenberg

This interview with filmmaker Jan Oxenberg was recorded in 2020.

Martin Bell

This interview with director Martin Bell was recorded in 2020.

Nadav Kurtz

A filmmaker on his award-winning short documentary about Chicago’s window washers.

Lynne Sachs

This interview with filmmaker Lynne Sachs was recorded in 2021.

Zeinabu irene Davis

This interview with director Zeinabu irene Davis was recorded in 2020.

Pablo Trapero

This interview with director Pablo Trapero was recorded in 2020.

Mia Hansen-Løve

This new interview with writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve was recorded in 2020.

Stephen Cone

This interview with filmmaker Stephen Cone was recorded in 2020.

Jenni Olson

This interview with director and archivist Jenni Olson was recorded in 2020.

Rebecca Miller

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

This interview with director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun was recorded in 2021.

Ron Mann

This new interview with filmmaker Ron Mann was recorded in 2020.

Allison Anders

In this 2020 interview, Allison Anders discusses her fiercely independent, deeply personal approach to filmmaking.

Alice Rohrwacher

The Italian writer-director discusses her captivating first two feature films in this 2019 interview.

Lynn Hershman Leeson

Paul Rowley

Joanna Hogg

In this interview filmed in 2019, Joanna Hogg looks back on her directing career so far.

Arthur Dong

This interview with Arthur Dong was recorded in 2021.