Interview: Chinonye Chukwu on 'Clemency' and Alfre Woodard's astounding close-ups

by Murtada Elfadl

Anchored by a staggering performance from Alfre Woodard, Clemency is a powerful, precise and scorching indictment of capital punishment. We follow Woodard as prison warden Bernadine Williams, as she prepares to execute another inmate (Aldis Hodge), and deal with the toll, years of carrying out death row executions have taken on her life and relationships. 

Director Chinonye Chukwu won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival last January. She started working on the film after Troy Davis was executed in a Georgia State prison in 2011, when “the sounds of the hundreds of  thousands who protested against his execution kept ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t help but wonder: if so many of us struggled with what had happened to Mr. Davis, what about the people who actually had to carry out his execution? What if some of them were also grappling with having to kill this man?”

We recently met with Chukwu in New York. [This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.] 

Murtada Elfadl: Congratulations on the film. You start your movie with an execution, you end it with an execution. So it's these two bookends. That was a bold, strong choice. Can you talk about why you made that choice?

Chinonye Chukwu: I did that for a couple of reasons. One, to show Bernadine's arc and that she's not in the same place at the end as she was at the beginning of the story. Also, I wanted to get at the cyclicalness of the space of a prison that with or without her, this cycle of capital punishment is going to go on.

This film is very performance driven. Did you write it with Alfre Woodard in mind?

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Looking back at 2019 Filmmaker Interviews

by Murtada Elfadl

2019 gave me the chance to speak to a few filmmakers about their films, their process, what they think their art contributes to the world. These filmmakers came from all over the world, and the breadth of their experiences and the topics they tackled is astounding. As the year comes to an end and we look back at the moments that stood out, here are some of the most fascinating insights I heard.

Recently The Farewell was not allowed to compete in the main film categories at the Golden Globes, and accepted only as a “foreign” film when its story is quintessentially American. After all the United States is a country of immigrants. Some people’s insistance on calling The Farewell foreign when it's so American just indicates that they don't think anyone whose 1st language isn't English is American enough despite their contributions to this country. When I talked to Lulu Wang during the summer, I asked her if she thinks her film being not entirely in English might limit its appeal...

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Interview: Jayro Bustamante on 'Temblores'

by Murtada Elfadl

In this followup to his debut Ixcanul (2015), Jayro Bustamante shifts his focus from rural Guatemala to Guatemala City and both its vibrant queer subculture and strict evangelical institutions that believe in a type of gay conversion therapy. Temblores is about Pablo a seemingly straight father and husband who tries to balance both his life as an out man and his responsibilities to his children and family and does not find an easy compromise. The film won the grand jury prize recently at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ film festival, I was a member of that jury.

I recently spoke to Bustamnate about the film and how he based it on research and interviews with many men - he called them his Pablos which is the main character’s name - who were forced to come out and some faced rituals of conversion therapy to reconcile with their religous beliefs and with their Christian families...

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Mati Diop on 'Atlantics' and the most haunting scene of the year

by Murtada Elfadl

In the press notes that come with Atlantics, director Mati Diop mentions something that touched me in a deep way. She is talking with a young man named Serigne in Dakar, Senegal whose sea crossing story she featured in her short film, Atlantiques (2009). He tells her about migrating and leaving one’s country of birth

 when you decide to leave, it’s because you’re already dead

That reminded me of a quote from Tracy Chapman’s "Fast Car" that struck me at a young age and was part of my decision to leave Sudan in the late 1990s. I remember saying it to my friends at the time as a reason to leave.

leave tonight or live and die this way

People migrate for many different reasons. For economic hardship, for political persecution, or when their values no longer match the values of the places they live in. I left because I wanted to live openly as a queer person and not continue being closeted or live on the margins of society, the two choices affored me at the time. Perhaps this personal connection with a story about migration is why I have not able able to stop thinking about this film...

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Interview: Chris Butler on creative freedom, animation's future, and "Missing Link"

by Nathaniel R

Chris Butler (Paranorman, Missing Link)

When I met the talented Chris Butler earlier this year for the release of his second film Missing Link (2019), I was buzzing while he was crashing. I was thrilled that he’d just proved his Oscar nominated horror-tinged comedy ParaNorman (2012) was no fluke with his sophomore effort, a hilarious adventure comedy which wore its Victorian literature and adventure film influences all over its fussy colorful sleeves. He was suffering from a cold and ready for a much needed vacation after wrapping his second feature and hitting the publicity grind immediately thereafter. 

As writer and director, he plays two very different roles on each film, one a solitary pleasure, but in the other surrounded by hundreds of people daily. He jokingly feared that he’d become misanthropic. “I need some space! ‘Chrisanthropic’ -- that’s what they call me!”

I flashed back to that interview recently given that year end awards and “best of” lists are upon us. If there’s any justice, Missing Link is being rediscovered right now on FYC screeners and Butler will be surrounded by hundreds of people again on red carpets. Here’s hoping that well-earned vacation was rejuvenating!

[The following interview has been condensed for clarity]

NATHANIEL: Audiences rarely think of animated films in terms of directors but studios… but your films originate with you. 

CHRIS: Our process is probably different from the biggest studios. You know, I originally went to Laika to work for six months and that was 13 years ago!  So yeah, clearly there was an opportunity there that was worth pursuing. What it was was absolute creative freedom...

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