Bicoastal RSA USA has signed Chicago-based rep firm Nikki Weiss & Company to handle the shop’s Midwest sales, and Santa Monica-based Stacey & Annie to cover the West Coast and Texas….After a six year run with the company, Chicago-based rep Donna Daguanno is no longer repping bicoastal HSI Productions. According to HSI executive producer Bill Sandwick, HSI has no plans to hire a Midwest rep to replace her….Daguanno has picked up bicoastal The Artists Company and The A+R Group for Midwest representation……Envision It, Miami, has signed New York house Steam Films for representation in Florida. Headed by partners Robin Campbell and Barbara Weiss, Steam has a directorial roster that includes Rick Field, Robert Palumbo, Ana Coyne Alonso and Barbara Heller. Envision It was founded earlier this year by Alana Rothlein….Miami-based BVI Communications has added Leslie Schwimmer as director of new business…. A…List Artists, Hollywood, has signed aerial/underwater DP Joshua S. Narins for exclusive representation in commercials and features….
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