Directing in a team with Oakland-born Ryan Fleck, Boston Anna Boden has taken us into the centre of a addict's pain to the far reaches of space. And while a Boden Fleck joint is often about characters failing to overcome their limitations, their movies do not revel in despair but look with great tenderness into the eyes of the despairing. Their time and concern for how a character tries, fails and tries again is a large part of why the world's most famous actors--Ryan Gosling, Brie Larson, Pedro Pascal--seem to continually want to work with them.

Fresh off the release of her latest project Freaky Tales, I got to catch up with Anna to discuss how the early works of Richard Linklatter and Robert Altman inspired her as a teen and how newer works by directors such as Lucretia Martell and Andrea Arnold continue to inspire her today.

Selected FilmographyCaptain Marvel (2019) Mississippi Grind (2015) It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010) Sugar (2008) Half Nelson (2006)