“Flamin’ Hot” Screenwriter Linda Yvette Chávez Serves Up a Story Straight From the Heart
Linda Yvette Chávez tells the story of Flamin’ Hot with faith, passion, and romance. The co-creator of the Netflix series Gentefied saw herself in the true story of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), the Frito Lay janitor who dreamed of a snack that connected with his Mexican American community. With his great coach and partner in life, his wife Judy (Annie Gonzalez), Richard fulfilled his dream with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Chávez doesn’t focus on a single person with a singular vision.
Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story
An elite force of female soldiers, the Agojie, is all that stands between the African Kingdom of Dahomey and the combined forces of the Oyo Empire and Mahi people. The Oyo and Mahi plan to raid Dahomey villages and sell their captives to European slavers. We open on a Mahi village where raiders heat their machetes over a fire at night. Their leader hears something in the tall grass surrounding them and quiets his men,
“Never Have I Ever” Star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on the Final Season & Devi’s Send Off
“I’m dealing with cramps.”
That’s the first thing 21-year-old Maitreyi Ramakrishnan tells me when she hops on our Zoom. It’s wholly indicative of her character — an actress plucked out of obscurity at 17, grounded, down-to-earth, unapologetically herself no matter the circumstance.
It’s something she says she’s never had to think about — being herself in the public eye.
“When I first got the role and then, like, the Deadline article came out,
“Poker Face” Editor Shaheed Qaasim on Cutting Rian Johnson’s Ambitiously Clever Crime Drama
In the Peacock murder mystery series Poker Face, star Natasha Lyonne drifts across the country as Charlie Cale, an itinerant human lie detector who unexpectedly solves a new homicide each week. No single Poker Face story is like any other. And provoked by malice, rage, or envy, neither are the murders. “We really treated each episode as its own independent movie,” explained editor Shaheed Qaasim (Modern Family,
“The Little Mermaid” Hair Designer Camille Friend on Creating Ariel’s Locks From Halle Bailey’s Natural Hair
When director Rob Marshall cast Halle Bailey to play Ariel in the new live-action film The Little Mermaid, he knew it was important to both bring mermaid energy and believability to everything about this updated version of the character, and that included Halle’s hair. Of all the memorable aspects of Ariel from the 1989 animated feature, her redheaded, flowing locks became one of the most iconic.
Marshall enlisted hair designer and educator Camille Friend to create an equally iconic design for Ariel’s hair in the new film,
“American Born Chinese” Production Design Team Cindy Chao & Michele Yu’s Dazzling Details
It’s rare enough to see a production design team and rarer still to see a team of two female Asian American designers, but Cindy Chao and Michele Yu have been collaborating together successfully on both the large and small screens for over a decade. Recently they got a Primetime Emmy nomination for their work on A Black Lady Sketch Show, and now their new project, American Born Chinese, has arrived on Disney+ boasting rave reviews.
“Awkwafina is Nora From Queens” Composer Tangelene Bolton Drops the Needle
“I’ve been playing music since I was two or three, piano specifically, and then I was really into film starting in middle school, and I thought, ooh, maybe I’ll be a director one day,” says composer Tangelene Bolton, whose work can currently be heard on season three of Awkwafina is Nora From Queens. “I started experimenting with making a bunch of short films, and I realized the music heavily influenced how I approached cutting the footage and telling the story.
Director Dawn Porter Details a Complex First Lady in “The Lady Bird Diaries”
In filmmaker Dawn Porter’s newest documentary, The Lady Bird Diaries, Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson speaks for herself. Porter’s film is based on 123 hours of audio diaries that Lady Bird recorded during the presidency of her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The personal, often poignant diaries reveal the First Lady’s key role as her husband’s advisor and confidante during his tumultuous presidency.
“I knew very little about Lady Bird, though I knew a lot about President Johnson,” says Porter,
“Polite Society” Writer/Director Nida Manzoor on Her Genre-Melding Feature Debut
Writer/director Nida Manzoor grew up on martial arts, action, and Bollywood, so it makes sense that her feature directorial debut Polite Society would be a genre mashup that includes all that and more. An idea she’s been kicking around since her teen years, the film is a celebration of sisterhood, inspired, in part, by her experiences as a kid learning karate with real-life sister Sanya. Though you might know Manzoor for her iconoclastic and very feminist series We Are Lady Parts,
Change Begins at Home — Diversity Initiatives Across MPA Member Studios
During the Berlinale Film Festival earlier this year, the Motion Picture Association’s European team brought together a panel of industry veterans to discuss the state of diversity in filmmaking and how to ensure that efforts to foster it have real teeth. The lively, hopeful discussion was indicative of a bigger internal shift taking place across the MPA’s member studios, two of which have recently launched their own ambitious internal diversity initiatives, embarking on new approaches to find and foster talent in previously overlooked regions,
Industry Veterans Discuss Diversity in Filmmaking – From Below the Line to Front & Center
After two alternative years, the Berlinale Film Festival returned in person in February to alleviate the doldrums of late winter Berlin. Per tradition, the Motion Picture Association held their annual topical panel discussion (in the past, they’ve covered themes like artificial intelligence and greening the industry) in conjunction with the law firm Morrison and Foerster. A 100-plus audience crowded into the firm’s office above Potsdamer Platz to hear industry veterans discuss diversity in filmmaking — where it stands and how it can get better — and more broadly,
“Beef” Costume Designer Helen Huang on Dressing “Chill” Angelenos Seething With Rage
Girl honks boy. Boy gets revenge. Complications ensue.
Beef features Oscar-nominee Steven Yeun and comedian Ali Wong as star-crossed L.A. malcontents whose lives go haywire after a road rage incident. Created by Lee Sung Jin (Silicon Valley, 2 Broke Girls), who was tapped last week to write Marvel’s upcoming Thunderbolts movie, the ten-part Netflix series (streaming now) presents outwardly chill characters who are seething on the inside.
“Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham” Composer Stefan L. Smith Draws out the Darkness
Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham submerges Bruce Wayne (David Giuntoli) in a world of magic, myths, and monsters. Set a century ago in the roaring 20s, the glamour and grandeur of Gotham glimmer beneath an evil awakening set to consume the city. The edgy animated style based on the 2000-2001 comic book miniseries by Mike Mignola and Richard Pace is appropriately avant-garde and calls for an epic, atmospheric score. Composer Stefan L.
Michelle Yeoh Makes History & “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Wins Big
In what was one of the smoothest, most genuinely pleasant Oscars telecasts in recent memory, Michelle Yeoh made history, Everything Everywhere All At Once won just about everything everywhere, and the 95th Academy Awards rolled into the history books with nary a bump in the road and backed by a gentle breeze.
Yeoh became the first Asian person to win an Academy Award in the lead actress or actor category, taking home her first Oscar for Best Actress for her astonishing performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
“Champions” Star Kaitlin Olson on Doing Improv With Woody, Her Bond With Her On-Screen Brother & More
Releasing in theaters March 10th, the heartwarming and acerbic dramedy Champions, directed by Bobby Farrelly, comes just in time to cheer those sick of winter and in the need for a little spring in their step. Based on the 2018 Spanish film Campeones, which won top awards and was the biggest hit of the year in that country, Champions stars Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson and features an ensemble cast that includes ten performers with developmental disabilities.
“Sharper” Star Briana Middleton on Finding Her Edge in Apple TV’s New Thriller
Filled with plot twists, double-crosses and characters who never seem to be who they are, Sharper is designed to keep you guessing right to the end. But one thing is for certain; with a razor-sharp cast that includes Julianne Moore, Briana Middleton, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith and John Lithgow, the Apple TV+ original film delivers its many satisfactions with a cast more than equal to the job.
“It’s so fun,” says Middleton during a recent interview.
Harpo Films Director of Development & Production Lauren Tuck Wants Her Creators to Flourish
Harpo Films and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has been leading the pack in Hollywood in terms of diversity and inclusion for years. From the very beginning of OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar, creator Ava DuVernay envisioned using all female directors for the series, and both OWN and Harpo Films were 100% behind that. DuVernay’s show proved a hit, and her commitment to hiring diverse female directors resulted in greater success for the 42 helmers that took part.
Director Haifaa Al-Mansour on Casting a Spell in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches”
Though Haifaa Al-Mansour is known as the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia by virtue of her award-winning 2012 feature Wadjda, she has since become a go-to director inside and outside Hollywood through both features and projects on the small screen. The writer/director’s releases Mary Shelley and The Perfect Candidate were lauded by critics and audiences, and her artistic contributions to shows like The Good Lord Bird,
“Harlem” Costume Designer Deirdra Elizabeth Govan on Season Two’s Evolving Looks
Costume designer Deirdra Elizabeth Govan has been working in the film industry for decades but really made a name for herself with Boots Riley’s brilliant 2018 film Sorry to Bother You. Since then, she’s worked on high profile films, including 2019’s The Sun is Also A Star and last year’s Devotion, and projects on the small screen like The L Word: Generation Q and First Wives Club.
“Fight the Power” Producer Helen Bart on Exploring Hip Hop’s Explosive Power With Chuck D
Nearly fifty years ago in the Bronx, on August 11, 1973, Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to spin funky drum breaks at his sister’s back-to-school party. The event turned out to be hip hop’s big bang moment. In the decades that followed, the music became a politically charged platform empowering Black America to share its culture through rhymes brimming with wit, ferocity and pathos. Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World,
