“Los Espookys” Co-Creator/Writer/Director/Star Ana Fabrega Does it All (Literally)
Los Espookys, the surreal HBO comedy, has returned for a second season. Unlike anything currently on television, the series, created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega, and Fred Armisen, follows four horror-loving friends who run Los Espookys — a business that stages supernatural scenes and tricks people into thinking they are real.
Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco), Los Espookys’ leader, is also its heart and soul. Ursula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) is its makeup master.
“The Woman King” Director Gina Prince-Bythewood on Her Singular, Sweeping Historical Epic
When director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s most recent film, The Old Guard, premiered on Netflix in July of 2020, the critically acclaimed action drama became one of the top 10 original launches in the platform’s history. Prince-Bythewood is following that with one of the most anticipated films of 2022, the historical epic The Woman King, the story of the Agojie, an elite all-female warrior unit charged with protecting the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s.
Eric K. Thomas of “The Quintessential Gentleman” on Creating a New Kind of Space for Black Men
Eric K. Thomas was about to go to law school when an internship at a radio station gave him his first taste of the entertainment industry.
“I was like, before I cut this check [for law school] in terms of student loans, let me see if this is something that I actually wanted to do.”
What Thomas actually wanted to do, he found out, was create a space for Black men he didn’t see anywhere else online or on the magazine racks.
How the Ebo Sisters Find Comedy in Megachurch Scandal Feature “Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul.”
Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. came seemingly out of nowhere in January to become a breakout hit at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where Jordan Peele‘s Monkeypaw production company, Focus Features, and Peacock picked up the dark comedy. But in fact, the movie was a long time coming. Writer/director Adamma Ebo and her twin sister, producer Adanne, spent six years developing their 2015 short film of the same name.
“Easter Sunday” Director Jay Chandrasekhar on Channeling the Comedy of Jo Koy
Easter Sunday marks the first starring movie role for popular stand-up comedian Jo Koy. And like his routines, the film mines laughs from his family foibles, Filipino heritage, and its unique traditions based around the title holiday. Director Jay Chandrasekhar, known for both acting in and directing the Super Trooper films, Club Dread and Beerfest, was tapped to direct. (He also appears as Koy’s agent.) In a recent conversation,
“Father of the Bride” Director Gaz Alazraki on Re-Tooling the Story as Cuban-American Comedy
Spencer Tracy charmed moviegoers as the original Father of the Bride in 1950. Then Steve Martin reprised the wedding-overwhelmed dad in Nancy Meyer’s 1991 romantic comedy of the same name. Now, Andy García headlines a new reboot playing an old-fashioned Cuban-American patriarch hilariously bewildered by complications that arise when his very modern daughter announces she’s getting married.
Father of the Bride (opening Friday in theaters and on HBO Max),
Vietnam Filmmakers in Focus: In Conversation With Dr. Ngo Phuong Lan
The Vietnam Film Development Association (VFDA) was established in July 2019 as a national film commission, and its top priority was fostering international collaborations.
With that in mind, we talk to VFDA chairperson Dr. Ngo Phuong Lan, the former director of Vietnam’s Cinema Department and former head of the organizing committee of the Hanoi International Film Festival (HANIFF). She is also a film critic and an author and co-author of seven books, including “
“Moon Knight” Composer Hesham Nazih on Capturing the Sounds of Ancient Egypt, Modern Cairo, & Marvel Magic
Marvel’s Moon Knight recently concluded its first six-episode run (a second season is possible). Marvel’s latest Disney+ series centers on a mild-mannered British gift shop employee named Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac). Steven learns in the very first episode that he shares a body with an American mercenary named Marc Spector, who works as the human avatar for the ancient Egyptian god Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham). With the help of Steven and Marc’s mutual love interest Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy),
Producer Autumn Bailey-Ford on Making Movies & Shows She Loves in Georgia
Autumn Bailey-Ford has been an independent film and TV producer working out of Georgia for the past 13 years. Originally from York, Pennsylvania, Bailey-Ford has worked her way up from production assistant—that invaluable, multifaceted job that has been the starting point to many successful film careers—to running her own studio…and co-running a second.
“I love film and TV,” Bailey-Ford says, reflecting on a career that began with her daydreaming as a little girl watching Bob Hope and Bing Cosby movies on Turner Movie Classics.
Behind-the-Scenes With Five Female Singaporean Creators
“The last three years were an eye-opener because of the pandemic,” said Michelle Chang, managing partner at Singapore-based Mochai Chai Laboratories. “We are the post-production house at the tail end. If the producers stop producing, we are dead. The good thing was my business partner Chai Yee Wei has the foresight of not putting all our eggs in one basket. He has built a digital restoration lab. As luck would have it, a lot of distributors came to us because streaming platforms were buying catalog content and they need to up-convert into a compatible format for the streamers.
Getting Intentional With Jeanne Mau, SVP of TV Programming Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at NBCUniversal
Jeanne Mau joined NBCUniversal only seven months ago, in a new position that was tailor-made for her skill set and experience. The former Senior Vice President of Global Inclusion at ViacomCBS is now NBCUniversal’s Senior Vice President of TV Programming Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Mau’s position has her overseeing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across NBCU’s vast television and streaming brands. It’s a thrilling opportunity for someone who has been doing the work for 20-years.
Chatting With WarnerMedia’s Senior Vice President of Equity & Inclusion Karen Horne
Karen Horne has been working to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities for more or less her entire career. WarnerMedia’s Senior Vice President of Equity and Inclusion Programs has been creating results-oriented programs across a wide swath of the entertainment, sports, and news divisions for more than two decades. “I’ve always wanted to work in this field,” Horne says of her work. “Also, I’ve never had a plan B.”
The pipeline programs Horne has implemented at WarnerMedia since 2020 alone have been crucial,
Leading Lawmakers Celebrate the Motion Picture Association’s Centennial
“We are a nation of visionaries,” Vice President Kamala Harris says at the top of her remarks about the Motion Picture Association’s centennial. The Vice President was one of nine leading lawmakers to speak about the centennial and the importance of the MPA’s work advocating on behalf of the film and television industry. “Members of the Motion Picture Association, for a century you have written the lines we will never stop quoting. You have created the images we will never forget.
“Turning Red” Co-Writer Julia Cho on Writing Pixar’s Tender New Film
Pixar’s new movie Turning Red follows straight-A student Meilin, whose perfect 13-year-old life implodes when she starts turning into a giant panda every time her emotions get out of control. Heir to a fierce ancestral spirit that’s affected women in her family for generations, Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) defies her domineering mother Ming (Sandra Oh) and joins her friends to see Four Town, a boyband that sounds very much like NSYNC thanks to the period-perfect pop songs crafted by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell.
MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu on her Stunning Debut Feature “Nanny”
Deploying West African folklore to interrogate the myth of the American dream, writer/director Nikyatu Jusu‘s debut feature Nanny is a remarkably assured genre-melding experience. Nanny also gives viewers something that’s sadly still quite rare—it evocatively places us inside the head, heart, and aching soul of Aisha (Anna Diop), an undocumented Senegalese immigrant trying to navigate the mystifying codes of the United States to create a stable place to bring her son,
Telling Stories With Singapore-Based Producer Si En Tan
Singapore-based producer Si En Tan already has an impressive resume in a relatively short career. After working as an assistant producer on Kirsten Tan’s Thai-Singapore co-production Pop Aye (2017), she went on to produce Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019), which won a string of awards at film festivals and the Golden Horse Awards held annually in Taiwan. Her producing credits also include Chen’s segment of the seven-part anthology film The Year Of The Everlasting Storm,
Smiely Khurana is Leading the Sustainability Charge in Canada With Reel Green
Smiely Khurana is the face of the sustainability movement in Hollywood North. As Creative BC’s in-house Sustainability Lead with Reel Green™, she’s cutting a singular path for the industry in Canada; one that is quickly being modeled in production hubs across the country. Through Reel Green™, Khurana is accelerating knowledge sharing and working to deepen local industry expertise. She’s leading the charge on training and developing new tools to help Canada’s film community green its story and transition to a circular economy.
“Winning Time” Writer Rodney Barnes on Scripting HBO’s Fast-Breaking Lakers Series
It’s pretty much a slam dunk that Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will appeal to basketball fans. After all, it tells the story of one of the most pivotal moments in NBA history and features some of the game’s most notable figures — Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, and Pat Riley.
But Rodney Barnes, who shares scripting duties with Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, and serves as an Executive Producer on the 10-episode HBO series that debuted March 6,
Writer/Director Jared Frieder’s Long Journey to Make “Three Months” Starring Troye Sivan
Imagine what you would do if, at one of the most pivotal moments in your life, you find out you’re at risk for a life-threatening disease? Jared Frieder turned the experience into a movie. That movie, Three Months, is out today on Paramount+.
Three Months, a funny and touching coming-of-age story, tells the story of Caleb (Troye Sivan), an unruly, gay high school senior who is days away from graduation and ready to pursue his dream of becoming a photographer.
Director Sacha Jenkins on Confronting Racism in “everything’s gonna be all white”
Midway through Black History Month, Sacha Jenkins‘ documentary series everything’s gonna be all white debuted on Feb. 11 on Showtime. Introducing itself as “A tale of two Americas, one white, one not,” the three-part show offers a sprawling group portrait of Black, Native American, Korean-American, Puerto Rican, Afro-Peruvian, South Asian, and other citizens of color who go before the camera to offer their unvarnished views on racism in the United States,
