Having canceled out on Master Class folk roundtable sit-downs, I would have been peeved to miss out on speaking to the talents behind a film that I discovered at TIFF and counts as one of my favorite discoveries of 2015. A Venice winner, and ranking number one on our 2015 TIFF Top 10 New Voices, Gabriel Mascaro‘s Neon Bull is cinema in its purest form and it employs what I call the Dardenneian way to show people in their work space. While I didn’t get a sit-down with Mascaro (and I wouldn’t later down the round either) I did speak to a close collaborator of his in producer Rachel Ellis. Interview coming soon.
My highlight of the day was participating in a sit-down with jury person Anton Corbijn whose work before becoming a filmmaker was highly influential during my teenagedom (Barrel of a Gun is in reference to his shot in Marrakech music video for Depeche Mode. I was shocked to learn that he almost lost his savings and the shirt off his back with Control – his brilliant debut that I caught on the Croisette back in 2007. Thankfully he bounced back and made three features since.
