Interviews

Maryland invites familiar faces from The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and past festivals, for the 14th year of this broad-based regional festival that takes place in Baltimore May 3-6.

Editor Lindsay Utz accepts the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship at SXSW, just before her first feature documentary, Bully, opens in New York and Los Angeles. The Independent's Steven Abrams speaks with her about her approach to editing hundreds of hours of footage filled with the raw experience so prevalent among American kids.

The Australian-helmed mercenary's tale, The Hunter starring Willem Dafoe, pushed the actor to re-think hunting and what it means to want, and receive, redemption. Now on VOD, the film opens in North American theaters on April 6th. Katherine Brodsky spoke to Dafoe and director Daniel Nettheim about the project.

"I think every doc director is an activist, their army is visual images," says director Seung-Jun Yi. His film, Planet of Snail, about the blind and deaf poet Young-Chan, just won the best feature-length documentary award at IDFA. Seung-Jun Yi has made documentaries for Korean television and is among a growing movement of filmmakers to break out and expand the form.

From the long walk between work and home to squeezing water from the desert dust, The Fruit of Our Labor depicts daily life in post-9/11 Afghanistan, as told by 10 Afghan filmmakers trained by Community Supported Film.

"Especially for directors, writers or anyone that is an artist, being overemotional is actually both a gift and a curse. That’s your tool," says Jean-Pierre Améris to The Independent's Katherine Brodsky about his new film, Romantics Anonymous. In the interview and the quirky romantic comedy, Améris lays bare his own struggle with social anxiety, the loneliness all people face, and the universal appeal of chocolate.

If you thought the electric car died a slow, tragic death, you're right. And if you're like filmmaker Chris Paine, who helped document its demise in Who Killed the Electric Car? or the inventors and advocates in his new film, Revenge of the Electric Car then you believe, beyond a shadow of the doubt, electric can and will power vehicles of the future. Read what Paine told the The Independent's Katherine Brodsky after his film premiered.

We'll be announcing our annual list of 10 of the most talented filmmakers we think you should keep your eye on by posting exclusive content daily on our Facebook page.

Writer-director Tanya Hamilton, whose Night Catches Us is up for best first feature at Saturday's Independent Spirit Awards, helps Beth Brosnan kick off a new column for The Independent in which indie filmmakers talk about how classic Hollywood films have inspired and informed their approach to narrative.

Indie filmmakers and DIY distributors are vying for a shot at Netflix distribution. Though Netflix added 300 streaming independent films to their service one year ago, the submission and selection process for indie films is still evolving.