New Zealand human rights lawyer turned filmmaker Amelia Evans is not one to shy away from controversy. She follows the lives of pedophiles to find ways to prevent child abuse and understand their taboo attraction to children in her thought-provoking documentary Minor Attraction.
Game developer Navid Khonsari and filmmaker Bessie Khonsari join our 10 to Watch list with a genre-merging project, 1979 Revolution, a video game that aims to evoke the empathy of film. Navid and Bessie Khonsari participated in the New Frontier Story Lab at the Sundance Institute in 2014 and 1979 Revolution appeared as an exhibit in Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier and at SXSW in 2015.
Producer Stephanie Langhoff has a dream job working for Mark and Jay Duplass. Her work on The Bronze got her noticed at Sundance – where the film’s much-talked-about sex scene also turned some heads.
Having lived on three continents, Thomas Ikimi brings an international perspective to his films. His latest is the short thriller Nostradamus, which revolves around drone warfare and premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, and coincidentally was chosen as one of the best films of the fest by our senior critic, Kurt Brokaw.
Comedian and storyteller, Hasan Minhaj, may be best known as one of the newest correspondents for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but it was his work merging stand-up with storytelling that brought him to our attention. You can read about his latest project, a solo show, Sakoon, and its film adaption, Paint the Town, in 10 to Watch.
Director Claudia Myers takes on the story of a female army medic and mother in her powerful dramatic feature Fort Bliss, starring Michelle Monaghan. Writer Catherine Epstein delves into the challenges Myers faced in bringing such a complex narrative to the screen.
Mike Luciano and Phil Matarese are on our 10 to Watch list for their series, Animals. Read about their inspiration and how they connected with indie filmmaking powerhouses Mark and Jay Duplass to be the first completed television series to debut at Sundance in hopes of landing a distributor.
Katie Cokinos returns to Austin, the scene of her ad-hoc film school in the red hot ’90s, for the world premiere of her directorial debut, I Dream Too Much, which puts her on our 10 to Watch for 2015. The Independent’s Steven Abrams caught up with her at SXSW to talk about the transition from script to screen and how in film, too, directors must kill their darlings.
Our 10 to Watch Filmmakers of 2015 all in one place! Every day for 10 straight days we’ll announce a new filmmaker to keep an eye on in the coming year. With the help of YOU plus industry colleagues, we’ve selected artists who are breaking new ground, either in their own career or in the form at large.