The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Director Paul Greengrass discusses his film, 22 July, with fellow director Brian Helgeland. The film dramatizes the true story of Norway's worst terrorist attack, following the survivors and grieving families as they rally the country for justice and healing. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Dec2018/22July_QnA_1018.aspx

Director Alison Chernick discusses her film, Itzhak, with fellow director Robert Weide. The film follows celebrated violinist Itzhak Perlman, looking beyond his performances to see the polio survivor whose parents emigrated from Poland to Israel, and the young man who struggled to be taken seriously as a music student when schools saw only his disability. See photos and a summary of this event bel...

Director Felix Van Groeningen discusses his film, Beautiful Boy, with fellow director Mike Mills. Based on the pair of memoirs by father and son David and Nic Sheff, the film chronicles the heartbreak experienced by a family coping with addiction over many years -- including survival, relapse, and recovery. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Nov2018/Beaut...

Director Jonah Hill discusses his film, Mid90s, with fellow director Bennett Miller. The film follows thirteen-year-old Stevie, who spends summer in 90s-era LA navigating between his troubled home life and a group of new friends that he meets at a Motor Avenue skate shop. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Dec2018/Mid90s_QnA_1018.aspx

Director Bradley Cooper discusses his film, A Star is Born, with fellow director Jason Bateman. The film features Cooper as a seasoned musician who falls in love with a struggling singer and actress named Ally, played by Lady Gaga. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Nov2018/AStarIsBorn_QnA_1018.aspx

Director Drew Goddard discusses his film, Bad Times at the El Royale, with fellow director Matt Reeves. The film follows seven strangers who meet at Lake Tahoe's El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. As secrets come out and lives are entangled over the course of one night, everyone will have a last shot at redemption. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/...

Director Damien Chazelle discusses his film, First Man, with fellow director Darren Aronofsky. The film tells the riveting stories of NASA's mission to land the first human being on the moon, and of Neil Armstrong, the astronaut chosen to make the one small step for man and giant leap for mankind on July 20, 1969. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Nov201...

Director Tamara Jenkins discusses her film, Private Life, with fellow director Mike White. The film stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti as a couple struggling to conceive who undergo multiple fertility therapies. But the process of trying to add to their family challenges their relationship with each other as they descend deeper and deeper into the world of assisted reproduction and domestic adop...

Director Dan Fogelman discusses his film, Life Itself, with fellow director Ron Howard. The film centers on the story of a young New York couple who experience unexpected twists in their journey from their college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, creating reverberations that echo across continents and through lifetimes. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://w...

Director Yann Demange discusses his film, White Boy Rick, with fellow director John Singleton. Set during the height of the crack epidemic and the War on Drugs in 1980s Detroit, the film tells the true story of Rick Wershe, Jr., a teenager who was convinced by federal agents to become an undercover drug informant in exchange for keeping his gun dealing father out prison. Seduced by the lure of eas...

Director Nicole Holofcener discusses her film, The Land of Steady Habits, with fellow director Greg Mottola. The film tells the story of Anders Hill, a man who feels trapped in the wealthy enclave of Westport, Connecticut. Seeking to renew his lust for life, he quits his job in finance and leaves his wife and family, but is quickly confronted with the harsh reality of his choices. See photos and a...

Director Wash Westmoreland discusses his film, Colette, with fellow director Scott McGehee. Set in the dawn of 20th century, the film tells the story of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, a talented young writer who moves from her childhood home to Paris after she weds a writer known commonly as "Willy." Convinced by Willy to ghostwrite for him, Colette pens a bestselling semi-autobiographical novel that...

Director Ethan Hawke discusses his film, Blaze, with fellow director John Patrick Shanley. Adapted from Sybil Rosen's memoir, Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze, the film tells the story of Blaze Foley, a songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw music movement that spawned superstars like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org...

Directors Jonathan Baker and Josh Baker discusses their film, Kin, with fellow director James Ponsoldt. Based on the Baker brothers' 2014 short film Bag Man, the film tells the story of an ex-con named Jimmy and his adopted teenage brother Eli, who are forced to flee their home after Jimmy lands in trouble with a local crime boss. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/E...

Director Daniel Adams discusses his film, An LA Minute, with fellow director Bill Fishman. In a satirical look at fame, the film tells the story of Ted Gold, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who gave up being a serious writer to cash in by penning trashy bestsellers, His world is shaken when he meets Velocity, a young beautiful and homeless performance artist, whose passion and integrity i...

Director Rob Reiner discusses his film, Shock and Awe, with fellow director Jeremy Kagan. Based on a true story, the film takes us back to the time after 9/11 when the Bush-Cheney administration claimed that then-President of Iraq Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, during their push to ramp up support for the invasion of Iraq. However, journalists at the Knight-Ridder news agency were...

Director Eugene Jarecki discusses his film, The King, with fellow director Marilyn Agrelo. The King explores the legacy of Elvis Presley forty years after his death by taking viewers on a musical road trip across America in his 1963 Rolls Royce during the 2016 presidential election. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/Events/2018/Sept2018/NYDocSeries_TheKing.aspx

Director Jon M. Chu discusses his film, Crazy Rich Asians, with fellow director Jon Turteltaub. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Kevin Kwan, the film tells the story of Rachel, an American-born Chinese professor, who travels to Singapore to accompany her boyfriend Nick to his best friend's wedding. She soon discovers that Nick is from a family so wealthy that he is considered one of the most...

Director Spike Lee discusses his film, BlacKkKlansman, with fellow director John Singleton. Set in the early 1970s amid the ongoing struggle for civil rights, the film tells the true story of Ron Stallworth, the first African-American detective on the Colorado Springs Police Department. Ron's arrival is greeted with skepticism and open hostility by the department's rank and file, but he soon makes...

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber discusses his film, Skyscraper, with fellow director Joe Carnahan. The film tells the story of Will Sawyer, a U.S. war veteran who now assesses security for skyscrapers. When the tallest building in the world is set ablaze, Will finds himself framed for the crime of arson. Now he must use all his skills to both clear his name and rescue his family who are trapped i...

Director Shana Feste discusses her film, Boundaries, with fellow director Jake Kasdan. The film tells the story of Laura, a single mother who always puts the needs of others before her own. When her pot-dealing, carefree father Jack is kicked out of yet another nursing home, Laura agrees to drive him to Los Angeles to live with her sister Jojo. See photos and a summary of this event below: https:/...

Director Lauren Greenfield discusses her film, Generation Wealth, with fellow director Marina Zenovich. The film continues Ms. Greenfield's examination of wealth culture and the pathologies that have created the richest society the world has ever seen by examining materialism, celebrity culture, and social status.

Director Jim McKay discusses his film with fellow director Rebecca Miller. The film examines the plight of undocumented immigrants by focusing in on a pivotal week in the life of Jose, a delivery man who works long hours six days a week trying to survive and make it in America.

Director Amy Scott discusses her film with fellow director Chuck Workman. Set against the backdrop of "New Hollywood" in the 1970s, the film celebrates the life and work of director Hal Ashby whose filmography includes Coming Home, Harold and Maude, Shampoo, and Being There. Ashby's obsessive genius but uncompromising nature became an archetypal story of art versus industry.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar discusses his film with fellow director John Hamburg. The long anticipated follow-up to the 2001 cult comedy Super Troopers continues the story of the wacky Vermont Highway Patrol officers who were fired for their shenanigans in the first film.