Bicoastal Cohn+Company has added director Harry Patramanis for spots….Director Danny Boyle is joining Hollywood-based SunSpots….Tombo, the Hollywood-headquartered production house founded by executive producer Fred Porter, has signed director Branson Veal….Swedish director Johan Tappert has signed with Compulsive Pictures, New York for commercial representation….VP/executive producer Matthew Charde has exited San Francisco-headquartered Red Sky’s entertainment division and is pursuing other opportunities. The entertainment group was created last fall after Red Sky acquired Boston- and Burbank-based animation/effects/live-action studio Olive Jar, in which Charde was a principal, and Los Angeles-based multimedia firm White Noise (SHOOT, 10/6/00, p. 1). Earlier this year, Red Sky filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see SHOOT’s "Street Talk," 7/27, p. 22)….Bicoastal Believe Media has fortified its U.K. presence via an association with Rose Hackney Barber, London. Believe Media’s London operation will be quartered on the Rose Hackney Barber premises, with executive producer Mark O’Sullivan continuing to represent the Believe directorial roster in the U.K….Hollywood-based Orbit Entertainment Group, the parent to commercial production house Orbit Productions, is set to produce Phoenix Pictures’ military thriller Basic. Directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard, The Hunt For Red October) and starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, Basic is the first feature to come out of the strategic alliance entered into last year by Orbit Entertainment Group and Culver City, Calif.-based Phoenix Pictures (SHOOT, 1/21/00, p. 1)….PostWorks, New York, has named visual effects/graphics designer Victor Barroso director of the company’s newly created graphics and visual effects division…Smoke editor Nathan Hurlburt has joined Liquid Light, New York….Jeff Ross has come aboard Glendale, Calif.-based Sunset Digital (formerly Sunset Post) in the newly created role of executive VP/COO. Ross spent the past 11 years at Pacific Ocean Post, Santa Monica, joining as its COO in 1990 and then serving from ’97 on as managing director of POP Film and POP Animation (which have both since been merged into R!OT)….Amy Nicholson, creative director at the New York office of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), has left the agency. Todd Waterbury, who had been at the Portland, Ore., headquarters of W+K, will succeed Nicholson….Nigel Williams has joined ad agency davidandgoliath, as creative director. He will be based in the shop’s Los Angeles headquarters (the agency also maintains a New York office), and report directly to David Angelo, chief creative officer/managing partner. Williams comes over from Suissa Miller Advertising, Los Angeles….After 15 years in business, Holland Mark Advertising, Boston, has closed. Clients serviced by the agency included Polaroid, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Yankee Candle Co., and Veryfine Products’ juice line….
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