The Mill has added Kennedy Davey to its production team. She joins as a sr. producer for Mill+, The Mill’s content creation arm that focuses on concept-to-delivery creative partnerships.
With an extensive background in both live action and on the agency side, Davey will use her understanding of clients to help address industry challenges and partner with agencies, production companies and brands to produce the best creative outcome. She will also be focusing her efforts on new areas and applications of emerging technology.
Previously a producer at Anomaly, Davey joins The Mill with a wealth of experience working with brands such as Converse, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Budweiser, Kohl’s and Panera Bread.
Prior to Anomaly, Davey held roles in production with Twentieth Century Fox, Chris Columbus, and Red Hour Films with Ben Stiller, in addition to producing for NBC during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Davey said, “As the industry continues to evolve and the landscape becomes more and more ripe with emerging tech, I’m incredibly excited to be joining a team that is a pioneering force in storytelling. The Mill is renowned and respected for creating high-quality visuals and, as a fan of the company’s previous work, I’m especially enthusiastic about being part of future projects. There’s no better place to leap into the world of high end VFX, direction and immersive content creation.”
Zu Al Kadiri, Mill+ executive producer, added, “Kennedy is an incredibly strong addition to our team, and her extensive industry knowledge garnered through working both the production and agency side equips her perfectly to help develop our Mill+ offering and collaborate with clients here in New York.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More