Curfew, a production company founded in 2014 by directing duo Mark & Spencer (Mark Smith and Spencer Dennis), has added directors Madeline Kelly and Haya Waseem to its roster for commercial and branded content representation in the U.S.
Kelly hails from Sydney, Australia, where she fell in love with storytelling from an early age. Her first short film Nineteen told the deeply intimate and empathetic story of a terminally ill young man seeking his first sexual experience before his time ran out. The film won Best Film and Audience Awards at prestigious LGBTQ film festivals in Sydney and Melbourne and went on to screen at fests worldwide. Her wanderlust and curiosity led her to New York where she’s directed for clients such as Pantene, Maybelline, Spotify, Champion, and MTV. Her most recent project is a documentary with Universal Music about Boy & Bear lead singer Dave Hosking’s triumph over illness to record their latest studio album.
Curfew marks Kelly’s first U.S. representation in the ad arena. She had been directing freelance in the American market, with Curfew producing that work.
Director Waseem, born in Pakistan, raised in Switzerland, and now living in Brooklyn by way of Canada brings her eclectic experience and singular voice to Curfew’s roster. With a background in documentary editing, her curiosity and acute attention to detail shape the stories she tells and deepen her rich, character-driven narratives. Her previous short films, all shot on 35mm film, have screened at TIFF, Cannes, and Berlinale among others, while recent branded work includes campaigns for Lyft and the ACLU. Her most recent short film The Ballad, shot on 65mm, was presented at a screening held by BWGTBLD in Berlin alongside the work of Vincent Haycock, Jodeb, Pantera, Philippe Tempelman and Jared Knecht. Waseem was formerly represented by Variable.
Curfew has produced campaigns for brands including AT&T, Adidas, Mercedes-Benz, Jack Daniel’s, Hyundai, Lincoln, MoMA, eBay, Doctors Without Borders, MTV, and A&E Networks.
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