Filmwax Radio

My guests in this segment are filmmaker Morgan Gruer with actors Scott Cohen and Ellie Sachs. Morgan made a short film, a comedy called “Fire at Will” which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. “Fire at Will” is one family’s quest to confront their mortality and each other.

The film unravels the tapestry of a modern Jewish family as the Greenbergs attempt to understand each other, without actually stopping to listen. At its core, “Fire at Will” poses the universal question we all surely grapple with every time we visit our parents’ homes: Are we who we think we are? Or… are we who our families think we are?

Two great personal documentarians grace the podcast: Ross McElwee (“Sherman’s March”) and Michel Negroponte (“I’m Dangerous With Love”). Long friends and colleagues, Ross and Michel come on to primarily discuss the sensitive subject matter behind Ross’ latest film, “Remake” The film begins a theatrical engagement at Film Forum in NYC on 7/10/2026. They are currently screening a 40th anniversary 4K restored print of his seminal “Sherman’s March”.

The death of his son causes McElwee, an autobiographical filmmaker, to look back on his life’s work. He eventually turns to his archive of home movies — an afternoon trapping crayfish with his son Adrian, age 4; helping with homework, age 11; discussing career plans with his son, age 24. To what extent did his camera affect their relationship when Adrian was alive? To what extent does it define that relationship now that he is gone? Meanwhile, an effort to adapt McElwee’s first feature, “Sherman’s March”, into a work of fiction lurches along, giving the filmmaker another perspective from which to meditate on movie making and mortality.

Ross McElwee is a documentary filmmaker from Charlotte, North Carolina currently living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. McElwee has made ten feature-length films. “Sherman’s March” won Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and was chosen for preservation by the U.S Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2000 as a “historically significant American motion picture.”

Bright Leaves premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight. McElwee’s In Paraguay premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, and he returned to Venice in 2011 to premiere Photographic Memory. McElwee has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Film Institute. He has twice been awarded fellowships in filmmaking by the National Endowment for the Arts and production grants from the LEF foundation. McElwee received the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s Career Award in 2007 and the Pennebaker Award for his career in 2023. In 2024, the French Ministry of Culture awarded McElwee the rank of Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres.

McElwee was Professor of the Practice of Filmmaking in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard beginning in 2003 until his retirement in 2024. He is now a Research Professor, Emeritus in the AFVS Department. About Michel Negroponte

Michel Negroponte is an award winning filmmaker who has been making feature length documentaries for more than 30 years. He was born and raised in New York City, and studied filmmaking with Richard Leacock and Ed Pincus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. In addition to making his own films, he has freelanced on countless films for HBO, PBS, the BBC, and Channel Four.

He has also worked with independent filmmakers like Ross McElwee, Doug Block, Lisa Crafts, D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Christine Choy, Dick Rogers, John Marshall and Al Maysles. His films include SPACE COAST (1979), RESIDENT EXILE (1981), SILVER VALLEY (1984), JUPITER’S WIFE (1994), NO ACCIDENT (1996), W.I.S.O.R. (2000), METHADONIA (2005) and I’M DANGEROUS WITH LOVE (2009). JUPITER’S WIFE, a portrait of a beguiling homeless woman named Maggie, won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the prize for Best Feature Documentary at the Vancouver and the Santa Barbara Film Festivals. The film was also awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Documentary. Originally shot on small format video, it premiered on HBO/Cinemax before getting a nationwide 35mm theatrical release. Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called it one of the ten best films of the year. John Koch of the Boston Globe wrote, “Negroponte has a painter’s eye and a novelist’s reach; and if there is anything more engaging and satisfying than “Jupiter’s Wife” on television or at the movies these days, by all means tell me about it.”

Negroponte’s films have been broadcast in the United States on PBS, HBO, and the Sundance Channel as well as in England, France, Germany, Spain, and Japan. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, The New York Film Festival, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and in festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Vancouver, and Japan. Negroponte has also taught in the graduate and undergraduate film programs at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and Temple University. Recently, he helped create a new graduate program in documentary filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, which opened in September, 2009. He is part of the faculty there as well.

For over a century, Alfred Hitchcock has remained one of cinema’s most influential directors. Known as the Master of Suspense, this visionary filmmaker directed more than fifty films over six decades. His thriller “The Lodger” (1927) marked the start of his signature style, which was later exemplified in classic films like “Vertigo” (1958), “North by Northwest” (1959), “Psycho” (1960), and “The Birds” (1963).

Hitchcock’s work received tremendous success and critical acclaim. While he never won the competitive Academy Award for Best Director, he received five Oscar nominations, two Golden Globes, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, a BAFTA Fellowship, multiple lifetime achievement awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nine of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry. His mastery of tension, innovative camera techniques, and psychological depth continue to inspire and influence modern filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele, and Bong Joon Ho.

Drawing on new archival research, previously unpublished interviews, and a rigorous examination of key biographies, “A Century of Hitchcock” challenges the long-standing narratives that have shaped Hitchcock’s legacy. Author Tony Lee Moral revisits controversial claims regarding Hitchcock’s alleged abuses, scrutinizing biographer Donald Spoto’s interpretations—particularly Spoto’s portrayal of the director’s relationship with actress Tippi Hedren. With his analysis of Spoto’s 1980 interview of Hedren, Moral reveals for the first time how one key document contradicts decades of exaggeration.

In this comprehensive reappraisal of Hitchcock’s career, Moral encourages readers to explore the complexities of creative collaboration and the risks of relying on a single biographical narrative. Marking one hundred years since Hitchcock’s first film, “The Pleasure Garden”, and fifty years since his last film, “Family Plot”, Moral reexamines the director’s cinematic brilliance, storytelling mastery, creative partnerships, and controversies, offering a fresh perspective on Hitchcock’s legacy in the post-#MeToo era.

Documentary filmmaker Ivy Meeropol (“Bully. Coward. Victim.: The Story of Roy Cohn”, “After The Bite”) returns for her 3rd visit to the podcast. Her latest film “Ask E. Jean” which recently had a very successful festival run and is currently in theaters.

Ivy Meeropol is the Director and Producer of “Ask E. Jean”, a feature documentary film about the advice columnist and journalist E. Jean Carroll who sued Donald Trump for rape and defamation and won. In 2023, she completed “After The Bite” (HBO), a feature documentary about the explosion of great white sharks and seals on Cape Cod. She premiered her HBO documentary “Bully. Cward. Victim.: The Story of Roy Cohn” at the 2019 New York Film Festival and in 2020 the film was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary. She was the Senior Story Producer on the CNNFilms documentary “The End: Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House” , which premiered at the National Archives in Washington, DC. She directed and produced the feature “Indian Point”, about an aging nuclear power plant close to New York City, which was honored with the Frontline Award for Journalism in a Documentary Film and aired on NHK during the anniversary of Fukushima in Japan. Ivy created and directed the 6-part nonfiction series “The Hill” (Sundance Channel), about Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) and his young staff (nominated for best series by the International Documentary Association). She produced the feature documentary “Museum Town”, which premiered at SxSW, and has produced and directed for the Emmy Award winning climate change series “Years of Living Dangerously” (National Geographic) and for “Death Row Stories” (CNN). Ivy’s debut film, “Heir to an Execution” (HBO), explored the legacy of her grandparents Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. It premiered at Sundance and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and serves on the Professional Advisory Board of The Jacob Burns Film Center.

The artist and storyteller Beth B returns for her third visit to the podcast. Beth’s latest film project is called “Glowing”, and will have its world premiere at the Roxy Cinema in NYC with 2 screenings; one on Wednesday, May 27th at 8PM and again on Saturday, My 30th at 4:30 PM.

Not just a film, but an immersive, genre-defying experience that blurs the boundaries between documentary, narrative, experimental cinema, and music video. Nine fearless artists step into the frame — their voices raw, their stories electric. As poets, musicians, and performers reveal deeply personal truths, their stories collide and intertwine, forming a powerful, living dialogue with the audience. What unfolds is not simply storytelling, but an invitation: to feel, to witness, to connect.
Preceded by 2 new short films (Near Death Jared + Near Death Bliss).

Photo credit: © Grace Roselli

My guests in this special episode are co-hosts of the podcast Films Not Made: Amy Hobby and Avi Zev Weider. This episode is also appearing on their platform as well. Amy and Avi’s one-of-a-kind podcast explores the fascinating world of movies that were planned, developed, and sometimes even cast—but never made it to the screen. From legendary unmade projects to obscure near-misses, we dig into the stories behind cinema’s most intriguing what-ifs.

Amy Hobby is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody-winning producer with 30+ films including “What Happened, Miss Simone?,” “Secretary,” and “Sunday.” Former Executive Director of Tribeca Film Institute; co-founder of Distribution Advocates. She’s spent her career finding the stories nobody else would touch – and figuring out how to get them seen.

Avi Weider is a filmmaker and technologist whose work spans the Sundance-premiered “I Remember” to “American Santa” (LA Times) to “Welcome to the Machine” (SXSW). He’s part of OpenAI’s Artist Program, a Sundance Lab alum, lives at the intersection of storytelling and emerging tech – and built half the tools he uses to get there.

Filmmaker Katie Camosy makes her first appearance on Filmwax Radio. Her documentary, “Gaslit” will have a screening at the Berkshires International Film Festival on Friday, May 29, 2PM at the Triplex Cinema #1.

As the world teeters on the brink of irreversible climate disaster, actor and activist Jane Fonda ventures deep into oil and gas country, meeting the people who are exposing the fossil fuel industry’s lies. These are the stories of the shrimpers, cattle ranchers, former oil workers, families, faith leaders, community organizers, self-described “reluctant activists,” who have come together across political and cultural spectrums in defense of the communities and coastlines they love.

The documentary filmmaker Michelle Esrick (“Saint Misbehavin: The Wavy Gravy Movie”, “Cracked Up”) makes her first appearance on the podcast to discuss an upcoming event she is hosting: Wavy Gravy’s 90th Birthday celebration. The event will take place on Wavy’s 90th birthday which is May 15th, 7PM, at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco. The Q&A following the screening will include Michelle and Wavy, as well as Wavy’s wife Jahanara Romney and Dr. Larry Brilliant. It will be moderated by author Bob Santelli.

Wavy Gravy is known as the MC of the Woodstock festival, a hippie icon, activist, clown, and even a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor. In “Saint Misbehavin'” we meet a true servant to humanity who carries his message through humor, compassion, and a song he wrote called “Basic Human Needs”. The film weaves together intimate vérité footage, reflections from an array of cultural and counter-cultural peers, and a rich collection of never-before-seen archival footage to tell a story that is bigger than the man himself.

Actor Michael O’Keefe (“The Great Santini”, “Caddyshack”) is the guest. O’Keefe is in a new indie film called “A Break In The Rain” directed by Don which will be in theaters soon. He’s also has a supporting role in the Jon Hamm series “Your Friends and Neighbors” which is on the Apple TV platform. I did a Q&A with him at the Woodstock Film Festival and asked him on to the podcast to talk about that film as well as working with Robert Duvall back when he was just starting his film career.

Anne Aghion has been praised as a filmmaker of poetic vision and a unique documentarian whose films, in the words of one critic, “pull us deep into the social fabric“ of the places she covers. She gained international renown for “The Gacaca Series“ (pr. ga-CHA-cha), four films on post- genocide justice and social reconstruction in Rwanda.

There, Anne Aghion charted the emotional impact of a controversial system of justice that returned killers to their homes to live side-by-side with the survivors of unimaginable violence. The final film in the series, “My Neighbor My Killer“ premiered in Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival; was nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards; and earned Aghion the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Additionally, other films in the series received an Emmy Award and the UNESCO Fellini Prize.

The 2008 feature “Ice People“ was described by Variety as “staggeringly beautiful,“ and New York Magazine’s noted critic Bilge Ebiri wrote that “it might be the most immersive documentary I’ve ever seen.“ The film, which explores the physical, emotional and spiritual adventure of living and conducting science in Antarctica, was produced with ARTE France and ITVS International in association with Sundance Channel. Her award-winning 1996 directorial debut “Se Le Movió El Piso: A Portrait of Managua (The Earth Moved Under Him),“ examines how Nicaraguan slum dwellers had survived the double ravages of political and natural disasters.

In 2024, Anne Aghion finished “Turbulence“ which poses the question: How do we overcome the heartbreaks, sorrow and traumas we endure or witness, and come out whole? The film, written, directed and produced by Aghion, is made in association with Arte France – La Lucarne, and with the participation of the French Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Procirep & Angoa, Jewish Story Partners, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Anne Aghion has collected numerous prestigious awards for her work, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has earned a host of grants from such organizations as the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the French Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, and the Soros and Sundance Institute Documentary Funds. She has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony in the United States, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, and others.

For “Turbulence“ she also received a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to India. She has served as a juror for La Scam’s L’Oeil d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the International Documentary Association (IDA), among others. She is an international speaker at universities and has conducted documentary workshops and master classes at film programs in countries including Haiti, India, Morocco, Lebanon, France and the United States. She serves on the board of Camargo Foundation’s French association.

Both “My Neighbor My Killer“ and “Turbulence“ may now be streamed on the platform kinema.com.