Jun 02

Filmmaker 5 with Alexander Freeman: My Own Normal

Documentary film My Own Normal, directed by Alexander Freeman, shares his personal story as he navigates fatherhood, relationship, family conflict, and working as a filmmaker while living with cerebral palsy. This autobiographical film take us inside the familiar life of any new father, from the struggles of self doubt to the joy of father-daughter playtime. And it […]

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Apr 01

Filmmaker 5 with Keri Pickett: Finding Her Beat

There may not be a better way to shatter the patriarchy then with fearsome, loud drumming. Taiko, Japanese traditional drumming, isn’t an easy place to start, but in Finding her Beat, we meet a community of women whose lives are consumed by this traditionally male-dominated art form. In St. Paul Minnesota, TaikoArts Executive Director, Jennifer […]

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Mar 24

Filmmaker 5 with Lin Yihan: SHI RI FANG GU / Sojourn to Shangri-La

An elaborate fashion shoot is planned on the beach, but the backdrop built in advance has been swallowed by the sea overnight. While a young assistant tries every means possible to find it again, the this film within a film almost imperceptibly slips into the magical. Following a successful screening at the prestigious Berlinale Film […]

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Mar 23

Filmmaker 5 with Iggy London: Area Boy

Area Boy takes us to the confessional before attending church on Sunday in a timeless short film. We find ourselves stepping into the life of Eli, a young boy whose pain resonates globally with his excruciating struggle with who he is in his world, who he wants to be and what consequences may come with […]

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Feb 11

Filmmaker 5 with Elham Esas: Yellow

Director, writer and actor Elham Ehsas brings his 2023 short movie Yellow, in which he plays a young man working in a Talab Chadari shop in Kabul. A young woman enters the shop, Laili played by Afsaneh Dehrouyeh, determined on buying the government mandate hajib in burqa style, completely covering the face. It’s blue, and […]

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Feb 04

Filmmaker 5 with Michael Lippert — Sloane: A Jazz Singer

Director Michael Lippert’s homage to the great “unknown” jazz legend, Carol Sloane doesn’t just introduce you to someone you may not have known, it makes you fall in love with her. And jazz. It makes you wonder why you don’t know her name and forces you to consider the possibility that out there, in the […]

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Jan 25

Exclusive Interview with Laura Gabbert and Doug Pray: The Power of Film

The Power of Film is a six-part series hosted and curated by renowned UCLA professor emeritus, founding chair of UCLA’s Film and Television Producers Program, and one of the founders of the UCLA Film Archive, Howard Suber. Each 40-minute episode in The Power of Film dives deep into the art of storytelling by examining the […]

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Jan 23

Filmmaker 5 with Daniel Barosa: Boi de Conchas / The Shell Covered Ox

While mourning her missing sister, Rayane balances helping her fisherman father and practicing for the school’s music festival – provided she doesn’t become an ox first, a misfortune assailing several teenagers in the area. Short film Boi de Conchas borrows its title from a folkloric manifestation born in Ubatuba, Brazil, about an Ox named Ratambufe, […]

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Jan 15

Filmmaker 5® with Ary Zara: An Avocado Pit

Larissa, a trans woman and Cláudio, a cis man, meet one night, in the streets of Lisbon. Two people, two realities. In challenge, in surprise, in awe and in recognition of one another, they dance their differences away till morning light. Short film An Avocado Pit tells an empowering story, free from violence and filled […]

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Nov 28

Filmmaker 5 with Scott Hamilton Kennedy and Neil deGrasse Tyson: Shot in the Arm

In the spring of 2019, before anyone had heard of COVID-19, filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy began investigating the global measles epidemic. He began filming a documentary with top public health officials—including Tony Fauci, Paul Offit, and Peter Hotez—and compiling rare interviews with anti-vaccine activists—like Robert Kennedy, Jr., Andrew Wakefield, and Del Bigtree—who were persuading parents […]

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