Mark Brennan Joins Directors Notes

A face many of you will be more than familiar with—be that in his roles as Director of the BIFA-qualifying Exit 6 Film Festival, as Festival Strategist & Liaison at Festival Formula or as a screenwriter for the comedy/horror short Bleep or the upcoming Mischa Barton starring mystery feature, Murder at the Embassy—we here at DN have long admired both Mark’s work across the film industry and his superhuman staying power when it comes to propping up the bar at film festivals across the globe! So please join us in welcoming him as a core member of team DN, and be sure to check out his debut interview under our banner.

Sisters

We sit down with director Steph Barkley alongside producer Brooke Dooley and cinematographer Mario Contini to learn how they used the physicality of a brutal extended fistfight, unfolding in Ireland's verdant landscape, to express the often unfathomable love/hate bond between siblings in the near dialogue-free Sisters.

The Dancing Girl and The Balloon Man

David Ma reveals how he developed the documentary style cinematography so key to the voyeuristic feel of The Dancing Girl and The Balloon Man, a migrant story where romance blooms between a dim sum shop assistant and a street performer in Sydney's bustling Chinatown.

Palookaville

Theodore Collatos discusses jarring audiences with a kaleidoscopic mix of 16mm, archival footage, and fantasy sequences in his surreal Slamdance Grand Jury-winning film Palookaville, where a young New Yorker finds his reality and identity fracturing after a random violent attack.

Mate

George-Alex Nagle speaks to DN about writer Daniel Philip Corboy’s simple but thematically rich premise that was the genesis of Mate, their emotionally taut short which depicts the relationship of a teenage son hoping to get to know his father, a deadbeat whose self-destructive nature threatens to derail their reunion.