What’s it like to film a supernatural thriller in darkness at minus 17 degrees? - Highlights - FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER

What’s it like to film a supernatural thriller in darkness at minus 17 degrees? - Highlights - FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER

Academy Award-nominated Cinematographer
HBO’s True Detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster · Kali Reis · Fiona Shaw

I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other.

FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER - Cinematographer - True Detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster & Kali Reis

FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER - Cinematographer - True Detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster & Kali Reis

Academy Award-nominated Cinematographer
HBO’s True Detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster · Kali Reis · Fiona Shaw

I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other.

JULIE ANDREWS - PAUL SCHRADER - JULIAN SCHNABEL on Filmmaking & Creative Process

JULIE ANDREWS - PAUL SCHRADER - JULIAN SCHNABEL on Filmmaking & Creative Process

“Taxi Driver, the first script I wrote, it is very much a young man's film. And it's full of, the anger of a young man. And the striking out. And also it's full of the pathology of suicidal glory.”

”Tony Walton, when he was designing the costumes, he said, ‘I think somehow Mary Poppins has a bit of a secret life. She's a bit naughty..’ And it was a great clue for me because that little wicked thing that she has occasionally. And then while doing and thinking and talking to the director, you do form certain things like flying with the feet turned out and the way she walked. I tried to make her walk almost as if she weren't quite touching the ground.”

“I think that the truth of the movie is maybe as true as I could tell the story. What I thought was possible. It's a movie. And in working with actors. I mean, what are we doing when we're doing that?…A story can be true to whatever narrative, but it can be very boring to watch. I think that Willem's performance is probably the best performance he gave in his life.”

Highlights - ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON

Highlights - ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON

ATHLETE · ACTOR · AMERICAN · ACTIVIST
DIAN HANSON discusses photographic homage to ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.
– ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

It's not just that he grew up in a rural environment too. He was born on July 30th, 1947. And most of us today don't have any understanding or relationship to what Europe was like right after World War II. The winter of 1946/1947 in Austria was the most brutal in decades. The people already had too little food. They were in an occupied country. The summer potato crops failed. As Arnold has said, his mother had to go from farm to farm to farm, begging for food to be able to feed her children. His father, like all the men in the village, was defeated by the war. And he saw them all physically, emotionally, intellectually defeated and taking it out on their wives and children, that he was beaten and his mother was beaten. All the neighbor kids were beaten, and they were beaten into a kind of placid defeat. And he alone would not accept that. He could not see that life for himself. And so he wanted out of that. And as a poor boy, he had nothing but his body to work with. That was it. There was not going to be any college. There was not going to be any of that. There was going to be some kind of menial job, or he could use what he had - his body - to get him out of there.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON

ATHLETE · ACTOR · AMERICAN · ACTIVIST
DIAN HANSON discusses photographic homage to ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.
– ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

It's not just that he grew up in a rural environment too. He was born on July 30th, 1947. And most of us today don't have any understanding or relationship to what Europe was like right after World War II. The winter of 1946/1947 in Austria was the most brutal in decades. The people already had too little food. They were in an occupied country. The summer potato crops failed. As Arnold has said, his mother had to go from farm to farm to farm, begging for food to be able to feed her children. His father, like all the men in the village, was defeated by the war. And he saw them all physically, emotionally, intellectually defeated and taking it out on their wives and children, that he was beaten and his mother was beaten. All the neighbor kids were beaten, and they were beaten into a kind of placid defeat. And he alone would not accept that. He could not see that life for himself. And so he wanted out of that. And as a poor boy, he had nothing but his body to work with. That was it. There was not going to be any college. There was not going to be any of that. There was going to be some kind of menial job, or he could use what he had - his body - to get him out of there.

Highlights - CHRISTOPHER GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Highlights - CHRISTOPHER GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Founder & CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival
Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

I've been fortunate over the last 13 years to meet some of the world's leading conservationists. Dr. Sylvia Earl, David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, his Royal Highness Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who came to the film festival in 2014, where we showed some films from his foundation. And there have been a number of others, award-winning filmmakers, and a number of celebrities that have come to the film festival, Academy Award Winner James Cromwell. We've had other celebrities, from Paul Giamatti to Alec Baldwin to Sigourney Weaver, all of whom may have a passion for, if not saving wildlife, then for the environment. And I have found them very humble, very easy to speak to, and I'm immensely grateful that they took the time to come to WCFF from their busy schedule. And we hope to build more relationships.

CHRISTOPHER J. GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

CHRISTOPHER J. GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Founder & CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival
Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

I've been fortunate over the last 13 years to meet some of the world's leading conservationists. Dr. Sylvia Earl, David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, his Royal Highness Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who came to the film festival in 2014, where we showed some films from his foundation. And there have been a number of others, award-winning filmmakers, and a number of celebrities that have come to the film festival, Academy Award Winner James Cromwell. We've had other celebrities, from Paul Giamatti to Alec Baldwin to Sigourney Weaver, all of whom may have a passion for, if not saving wildlife, then for the environment. And I have found them very humble, very easy to speak to, and I'm immensely grateful that they took the time to come to WCFF from their busy schedule. And we hope to build more relationships.

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

(Highlights) PETER SUTORIS

(Highlights) PETER SUTORIS

Anthropologist, Educator, Writer & Filmmaker

As a culture, how do we approach the environment? How do we approach the planet? Within our education systems are we emphasizing our arrogance? Or are we emphasizing our humility in the face of planetary-scale challenges? I think at the moment, from what I’ve seen in a number of countries, this huge focus on the natural sciences, hard science as a way of mastering nature. And perhaps less of a focus on social sciences, humanities that allow us to reflect a bit more deeply on our relationship more fundamentally with the planet.

PETER SUTORIS

PETER SUTORIS

Anthropologist, Educator, Writer & Filmmaker

As a culture, how do we approach the environment? How do we approach the planet? Within our education systems are we emphasizing our arrogance? Or are we emphasizing our humility in the face of planetary-scale challenges? I think at the moment, from what I’ve seen in a number of countries, this huge focus on the natural sciences, hard science as a way of mastering nature. And perhaps less of a focus on social sciences, humanities that allow us to reflect a bit more deeply on our relationship more fundamentally with the planet.

ANA CASTILLO

ANA CASTILLO

Award-winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist, Artist
Author of My Book of the Dead
One of the things of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.