Bicoastal Shilo has added Daniel Cohen to its directorial roster for worldwide representation outside the U.K., where he continues to be represented by Aardman Animations.
A native and resident of London who recently relocated to New York City, from an early age, Cohen dreamt of a life in the creative industry. Initially he focused on being a sculptor, which led to him building miniature sets and animating them. He was accepted into film school but left after a year to join Graham Fink's production company thefinktank as a runner in 2003. As the now-famous story goes, one day a script came in for Fink that Cohen took an interest in and secretly wrote a treatment for. Fink liked it and submitted Cohen's treatment as his own. The agency awarded him the job, at which point Fink came clean and told them that it was actually a young office runner who would love to direct the commercial. They agreed and that live-action project for Nelson Mandela's READ charity won Cohen the Creative Circle's Best Newcomer Award in 2004, setting him firmly on his own path as an emerging director.
Through late 2006, he directed commercials and short films involving live-action and animation for thefinktank and many major brands and agencies, some of which he wrote himself, like his RMCC short which earned a Gold ADDY Award. He then spent three very productive years on the roster of Th1ng, followed by two more years with HLA, before landing with Aardman Animations. Cohen's signature style has been seen in campaigns for Amnesty International, Hellmanns, Hovis and many others, including a 2012 British Arrow Craft Award-shortlisted cross-media campaign for Bullring Shopping Centre.
Cohen said he was drawn to Shilo's work, marked by its broad range of mixed media. Jose Gomez, Shilo's owner and director, described Cohen's filmmaking style as "very handcrafted and whimsical. I really love how his work is clever and witty. As we expand our roster of artful and design-driven directors Daniel is the perfect fit for Shilo to expand our offerings."
Daniel Craig Embraced Openness For Role In Director Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer”
Daniel Craig is sitting in the restaurant of the Carlyle Hotel talking about how easy it can be to close yourself off to new experiences.
"We get older and maybe out of fear, we want to control the way we are in our lives. And I think it's sort of the enemy of art," Craig says. "You have to push against it. Whether you have success or not is irrelevant, but you have to try to push against it."
Craig, relaxed and unshaven, has the look of someone who has freed himself of a too snug tuxedo. Part of the abiding tension of his tenure as James Bond was this evident wrestling with the constraints that came along with it. Any such strains, though, would seem now to be completely out the window.
Since exiting that role, Craig, 56, has seemed eager to push himself in new directions. He performed "Macbeth" on Broadway. His drawling detective Benoit Blanc ("Halle Berry!") stole the show in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." And now, Craig gives arguably his most transformative performance as the William S. Burroughs avatar Lee in Luca Guadagnino's tender tale of love and longing in postwar Mexico City, "Queer."
Since the movie's Venice Film Festival premiere, it's been one of the fall's most talked about performances — for its explicit sex scenes, for its vulnerability and for its extremely un-007-ness.
"The role, they say, must have been a challenge or 'You're so brave to do this,'" Craig said in a recent interview alongside Guadagnino. "I kind of go, 'Eh, not really.' It's why I get up in the morning."
In "Queer," which A24 releases Wednesday in theaters, Craig again plays a well-traveled, sharply dressed, cocktail-drinking man. But the similarities with his most famous role stop there. Lee is an American expat living in 1950s... Read More