Director Tina Bull has joined Harpoon Pictures for U.S. representation. She comes over from production house humble.
Describing herself as a visual storyteller, Bull has meshed her directing, design, photography and editorial skills in a career which has seen her helm campaigns for international clients such as British Airways, P&G, Nestle, Kelloggs, Neutrogena and the BBC.
Coming from an artistic background, Bull went to art school in London where she focused on typography and animation, which ultimately led her to doing broadcast design for Channel 4 and the BBC. Doing her first shoot at age 21 for The Antique Road Show, she learned quickly that she loved all aspects of production from creating props for the set to the actual directing; Bull plays an extremely hands-on role in every piece of work she creates. Currently based in Sydney, Bull has been repped Down Under by Luscious International for the past six years.
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