Epoch Films has brought director Jessica Sanders aboard its roster. The filmmaker’s credits include After Innocence, a documentary that scored the Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and the documentary short SING!, which earned an Oscar nomination in ’02.
Among her recent endeavors is a short helping to kick off Sony’s “Make.Believe” campaign for agency 180LA. The short charmingly tells Sander’s creative, personal story about being a filmmaker, including relating insights into her background such as having parents who are Academy Award-winning documentarians. Sanders directed the project when she was at Nonfiction Unlimited, the house which handled her for commercials and branded content prior to her joining Epoch.
“What prompted us to sign Jessica is not only the ability to tell human stories in an artful, entertaining way but her entire persona. She is a great creative and cultural fit for Epoch Films. We need both,” said Jerry Solomon, managing partner of Epoch. “Although Jessica comes from a documentary background, it’s too limiting to describe her talents. She is a filmmaker with a wide array of experiences and influences to draw upon. Her work is graphic and beautiful, and most of all honest.”
Over the course of her career, Sanders has tackled subjects ranging from the wrongful conviction of an innocent man to a community children’s chorus facing budget cutbacks to a girl born with the birthmark of the Great Wall of China to September 11th. She has shot such notables as Al Gore, Sacha Baron Cohen and George Takei.
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