Production company Doomsday Entertainment has signed commercial and film director Charlie Buhler for her first U.S. spot representation. Strongly influenced by her upbringing as a bi-racial woman growing up in a predominantly white area in South Dakota, she uses her work to make sense of the dichotomy between how she experienced the world and how the world experienced her through the lenses of race and gender. Her thematic explorations of identity and representation become strikingly clear in powerful film and photography work, as well as branded content for clients including Target, Google, Calvin Klein, GE, Narciso Rodriguez, and The New York Times.
The signing with Doomsday comes right before the scheduled Aug. 14th release of Buhler’s film Before The Fire, written by and starring Jenna Lyng Adams of The Kominsky Method, which held its world premiere at the Cinequest Film Festival in March. The film received acclaim as a frightening and timely look at how individual lives are turned upside down by a global crisis, inadvertently striking an eerie resemblance in the COVID-19 era to how we live today. Dark Sky Films recently announced the acquisition of all North American distribution rights for the project.
Doomsday founder and executive producer Danielle Hinde said of Buhler, “She has such a unique perspective and vision, and we can’t wait to develop her voice further. Her ability to pull off her first feature film on her own makes me ecstatic to see what else she can accomplish. Along with her unparalleled work ethic, she has limitless amounts of compassion and creativity, which are always my favorite filmmaker attributes.”
Buhler added, “Danielle has an incredible track record for discovering and championing the industry’s most exciting new voices, and I am pinching myself that I will have the opportunity to move into the next stage of my career alongside her and the rest of the Doomsday team.”
Buhler earned her BA in Film, Television and Theater as well as American Political Studies from the University of Notre Dame, after which she launched her production company Madfire Pictures in 2013. She is currently in postproduction on her upcoming documentary film Rosebud, which follows the lives of three Native American hip-hop artists on the reservation in South Dakota. Buhler is represented for film and TV by Verve.
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