New York and L.A.-based content creation studio CVLTProduction has tapped Kathrin Lausch to lead as VP of production and client services. She will also assume the same role for creative imaging sister company Urban Studio to meet the diverse needs and cross medium expansion of its growing clientele. Lausch brings two decades of experience as an executive producer after tenures with top drawer production and post companies, collaborating with brand clients such as Lexus, Puma, Perrier and Infiniti. Leading a rapidly expanding studio amidst major industry shifts, Lausch lends her vision and expertise to producing new forms of engaging digital content. Lausch was born and raised in Europe, where she split her time between France and Germany. She earned multiple law degrees and worked for the United Nations as a legal adviser in Geneva. An interest in the arts led her to New York, where she was quickly drawn to the entertainment industry. She moved into a career executive producing with her own two production companies: Passport Films and Compass Films, to usher European talent into the U.S. market. Following shifts into postproduction, she immersed herself further into the digital landscape as EP at B-Reel, Partizan and Ntropic, and head of new business at MPC…..
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 โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ 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 โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ 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