Directors Notes

Rising. A Requiem For Father Murphy heralds the final curtain call for experimental music duo Father Murphy. Right there with them for a large portion of that journey has been Portland-based, Italian artist (and multiple DN alum) Luca Dipierro, in a circular creative relationship which has seen Luca provide visuals for Father Murphy’s songs and the Italian two-some score Luca’s film work. Today, Luca and Father Murphy’s Chiara Lee & Freddie Murphy join us on the Directors Notes podcast to look back at the origins of their fruitful collaboration and reveal details of their largest project to date, a feature animation film called The Cadence.

Animating a medley of pieces from the album Rising. A Requiem For Father Murphy, this is the fifth and final chapter in a pentalogy of films created by Artist Luca Dipierro for Italian duo Father Murphy.

When you are in a corner you have to come up with something, I think creativity works that way.

Today we bring you an interview with emmy-nominated filmmaker James Erskine who’s feature documentary The Ice King hits UK cinemas and VOD today and tells the captivating story of John Curry, a man who not only redefined the sport of figure skating whilst being the first openly gay Olympian at a time when homosexuality was far from accepted but also elevated ice skating into an exalted art form in its own right. John shares how he crafted a story about artistic, athletic and societal struggle and reveals why The Ice King is only the first in a multi-step plan to celebrate the rebellious brilliance of John Curry on screen.

The greatest ice skater of all time, John Curry transformed ice skating from a dated sport into an exalted art form. Coming out on the night of his Olympic win in 1976, he became the first openly gay Olympian in a time when homosexuality was not even fully legal. Toxic yet charming; rebellious yet elitist; emotionally aloof yet spectacularly needy; ferociously ambitious yet bent on self-destruction, this is a man forever on the run: from his father’s ghost, his country, and even his own self. Above all, an artist and an athlete whose body time and time again –sometimes against his will– becomes a political battlefield.

I’m using sport as the stage upon which the human dramas play out.

If we crossed paths in 2011 it’s more likely than not I chewed your ear off about how taken I was with Dustin Guy Defa’s debut feature Bad Fever, a film that topped my list of favourites for that year. Needless to say, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Dustin’s follow up which made its appearance at the London Film Festival this year. I took the opportunity to catch up with Dustin to discuss film formats, his changing perspectives on life and filmmaking, and how he continued to hone his skills and directorial voice between features by constantly making shorts – one of which became the well received precursor to his new feature Person to Person.

A record collector hustles for a big score while his heartbroken roommate tries to erase a terrible mistake, a teenager bears witness to her best friend’s new relationship, and a rookie reporter, alongside her demanding supervisor, chases the clues of a murder case involving a life-weary clock shop owner.

I’m lighter than I was when I made Bad Fever.

For more, be sure to check out DN’s full 2017 London Film Festival coverage.

DN returns to our London Film Festival coverage where we got to spend time with award winning Danish Director Birgitte Stærmose to discuss Darling, her intense story of pain and perfection which unfolds in the demanding world of professional ballet. In our interview Birgitte describes how her decision to take a naturalistic and inventive approach to filming, which avoided repetition in shot setups across takes, infused the edit with a wealth of dynamic material.

Darling is a world-famous Danish ballerina. After a long absence, she and her husband Frans return to the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen to perform the classic ballet “Giselle”. She will dance the title role with Frans as choreographer. During a rehearsal, Darling collapses in pain. Try as she may to deny it, the prognosis is clear: her hip is irreparably damaged. She will never dance again. Her professional life, her world, is in ruins. But Darling refuses to let go. She decides to train her replacement, a young ballerina named Polly, to make Polly the Giselle she can no longer be. But as Polly becomes the center of attention, of Frans’ attention, Darling’s emotional stability begins to unravel.

I don’t think that artistic achievement comes without a price and I don’t think it should!

For more, be sure to check out DN’s full 2017 London Film Festival coverage.

I first spoke to Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire at the London Film Festival back in 2012 about his troubled teenage angst feature Punk and had the pleasure of catching up with the French Director once again at this year’s festival to discuss A Prayer Before Dawn – his latest skirmish into the world of violence, which recounts the harrowing true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated for three years in one of Thailand’s most notorious prisons.

The remarkable true story of Billy Moore, a young English boxer incarcerated for 3 years in one of Thailand’s most notorious prisons. He is quickly thrown into a world of drugs and gang violence, but when the prison authorities allow him to take part in the Muay Thai boxing tournaments, Billy realizes that this is his only hope for survival.

I immediately fell in love with this guy because he’s violent in a certain way but really sensitive and vulnerable also.

For more, be sure to check out DN’s full 2017 London Film Festival coverage.

Seeing that DN alumni Rob Curry and Tim Plester (who previously joined us on the podcast to discuss Tempest and Way of the Morris respectively) were premiering their new film at the London Film Festival, I jumped at the opportunity to finally get them in a room together to talk about their fruitful co-directorial work. And so, we take a deep dive into the creation of their new feature, The Ballad of Shirley Collins, a lyrical documentary about the 20th century’s most important singer of English traditional song and her battle to rise again from long silent ashes after losing the ability to sing in the prime of her career over 40 years ago.

A lyrical response to the life-and-work of folk music icon Shirley Collins, the High Queene of English Folk. A Singer and Song-Collector. Silent for almost 40 years. Ready to reclaim her voice.

We decided pretty much from the get go that we didn’t want to make a traditional biopic or a ‘folkumentary’.

For more, be sure to check out DN’s full 2017 London Film Festival coverage.

Even though we deeply love the work of every filmmaker we feature here on Directors Notes, it’s a rare honour to get to talk to someone responsible for shaping and expanding our collective outlook as to the creative possibilities of the cinematic form. Multi-award winning Director Chris Shepherd firmly fits in that category – first transfixing us with the eye watering comedy of Big Train’s 43rd World Stare-out Championship Finals and then terrifying us with the senseless violence of 2003’s groundbreaking combined animation/live action short Dad’s Dead.

During my time at last month’s Encounters festival I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris to reflect on his celebrated career, a return to violence in Dad’s Dead sequel Johnno’s Dead, his massively collaborative project Yours Faithfully, Edna Welthorpe (Mrs) and hope for a return to the World Stare-out Championships.

Serving twelve years behind bars for a crime you didn’t comit focuses the mind. Everything becomes crystal clear. All of the injustice poisons the soul and there’s nothing left but to settle old scores.

I always wanted to sell out but nobody would have me.

Whether you’re a lifelong reader of seminal British weekly comic 2000AD or have never heard of it, chances are that its anarchic sensibilities run through the DNA of much of the media you consume on a daily basis. 2000AD is title which nurtured the early talents of comic titans such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman, to name a few, whose work then went on to influence generations of creators across numerous fields. Made with heart and a desire to set the far reaching influence of 2000AD on the record, Paul Goodwin and Sean Hogan’s feature documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD, takes a deep dive into the unruly history of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. With a new feature packed BluRay edition of the film out this week, I sat down with Paul and Sean to discuss how they brought this untold story to screen.

Future Shock! tells the story of 2000AD: a UK science-fiction comic that changed the face of the comics industry. First published in 1977, it was violent, anti-authoritarian, blackly funny and above all, idiosyncratically British. Future Shock! offers an comprehensive overview of the magazine’s history: a warts and all look at the various highs and lows, a peek inside the creative process of some of its most famous creators, and a funny, moving and passionate chronicle of how a band of talented eccentrics came together to create a visionary and extraordinary comic that is still a game-changer 40 years on.

We wanted to do something that we gave a shit about ourselves.

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Nico Edwards’ Sea Gypsies is a thrilling nautical documentary about adventure, alternative ways of living and life-threatening predicaments. It’s easy to see why this debut feature has picked up notoriety and awards on its film festival journey. Nico joined us on the DN podcast to discuss producing his documentary on a shoestring budget whilst battling through a force 12 hurricane of ice with wind gusts exceeding 100mph through some of the most treacherous seas on earth and how he lived to tell the tale.

Sea Gypsies (2014)

The vessel is Infinity, a 120ft handbuilt sailing ketch that plies the Pacific Ocean on a never ending voyage of nomadic exploration. In early Feb 2014, during the iciest year on record in the Southern Ocean, Infinity and her crew of 16 left New Zealand on an 8,000 mile pacific crossing to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica. Along the way, they battled a hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea, struggled with compounding mechanical and flooding problems, undertook a mission with the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd, tore every sail they had, and unwittingly went further south than any sailing vessel in 2014. This expedition was undertaken with a non-ice-reinforced gypsy boat built by hand in the 1970’s, crewed by a band of wandering miscreants, with no permits or insurance and an almost non-existent budget. This is a story about sailing, the camaraderie of a shared struggle and the raw awe-inspiring power of the natural world.

I wanted to broaden people’s perceptions about life’s possibilities.

As anyone who’s attempted to build a career within the creative fields is all too aware, the path to success is far from a straight line. Initial victories can (and often do) give way to lengthy fallow periods which leave you questioning the sanity of staying the creative course. Bringing this bittersweet reality home over 73 (at times heartbreaking) minutes, Matt Hopkins and Ben Lankester’s feature documentary A Divorce Before Marriage follows five-piece rock band I Like Trains. A band who despite a dedicated following of fans and early record deal success have now found themselves most definitely ‘stuck in the middle’, without the backing of a label and working day jobs as they attempt to finally breakthrough in a stagnant music industry. Matt and Ben join us on the podcast to discuss how they followed the band members for over three years in order to capture this first-hand view of the struggle to succeed.

Following the loss of their record deal, A Divorce Before Marriage documents the lives of Leeds’ rock band I Like Trains as they navigate a brave new world. Capturing the timeless, bittersweet beauty of Yorkshire, this is a cinematic portrait of five men battling to express themselves against the detritus of everyday life. Moreover, it is a film about the wannabe rockstar finally growing up, a rite-of-passage documentary that will strike a chord with any creative individual battling with the strains of becoming an adult in contemporary Britain.

As creatives there’s huge elements of that feeling of “Where do I lie between success and failure?”