Stephanie Seligman, exec. producer on the East Coast and overall head of production for A Band Apart Commercials, bicoastal with a Minneapolis office, has left the company. At press time, she did not know her immediate plans. She said her departure was due to a difference in management style and philosophy between her and exec. producer Michael Bodnarchek, a co-founder of the shop….Word is that director Bobby Sheehan has an Ace up his sleeve….Duck Soup Studios (formerly Duck Soup Produckions), Los Angeles, has expanded its roster, securing three directors, including noted animation helmsman Sam Cornell….Myles Tierney, an Associated Press television producer, was shot and killed Jan. 10, when his car was hit by gunfire while on assignment covering the civil war in Sierra Leone. Tierney, 34, previously worked in the New York post community and was a former partner/editor at The Cutting Vision….Feature and television director Lesli Linka Glatter, repped through New York-based Creative Film Management International, is set to helm her first commercials: a Procter & Gamble package out of Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, slated to be shot in Australia in late January….Credits for three of the four Silver winners for best cinematography in the fourth annual International Automotive Advertising Awards were not available in time to make last week’s story (1/8, p. 1). The winners were: director/DP Peter Smillie of Smillie Films, Santa Monica, on Lexus’ "Capture" and "Escape," via Team One Advertising, El Segundo, Calif.; director/DP Samuel Bayer of bicoastal Mars Media on Team One’s "Carcass" and "Steeplechase" for Lexus; and DP John Simpson on Toyota’s "Winning Style" for Saraceno Productions, Sydney, Australia….
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