Q&A with Ted Braun

What was your original artistic challenge when you were approached with this project? A profile of one person is quite different than your previous work.

Ted Braun: The previous films I’ve done, feature documentaries I’ve done (Betting on Zero, which looked at allegations of global economic criminality, and Darfur Now, which looked at allegations of massive, systemic violent crimes in Sudan) were, in different ways, ensemble stories about people trying to expose wrongdoing.

Q&A with Simon Rex

What were your first thoughts, after reading the script?
Simon Rex: I was just like… whoa. Whoa. WHOA!

Q&A with Robert Machoian and Clayne Crawford

Can you discuss your inspiration for writing this story?
Robert Machoian: It was really motivated, to some degree, my own life in the sense that I’ve been married for quite a while, and I have children, and coming to this period in life where many friends of ours were starting to separate.

Q&A with Richard Tanne

What did your writing process entail?
It kind of had the whiff of destiny, from the time I read the book.

Q&A with Paul Greengrass and Helena Zengel

Can you tell us about the origins of this film?
Paul Greengrass: I think the origins of it lie in the last film I made, actually, 22 July, which was a pretty tough film about violent right-wing extremism in Europe.

Q&A with Oliver Hermanus

What was your experience working with the author of the memoir on which the film is based?
Oliver Hermanus: The first thing I did, when I was certain I would tackle it, was I met with [author Andre Carl van der Merwe] a few times.

Q&A with Nicole Riegel

The film is visually stunning. Can you talk about your approach, and how you worked with your collaborators?

Nicole Riegel: I knew the color palette I wanted to use before I began collaborating with my production designer and cinematographer.

Q&A with Michael Morris, Andrea Riseborough, Marc Maron, and Andre Royo

Michael, how did the script find its way to you?
It came to me through Arlie [Day], our producer and casting director. What I like to think she saw it in for me was that the great subject of the film was empathy. It’s about how to look at other people’s lives and experiences uncolored by any sense of judgment.

Q&A with Lucy Walker

It was fascinating to learn that you had already been in the process of making a film about wildfires when the camp and woolsey fires occurred. Can you tell us about that?
Lucy Walker: That’s right. The reason I was able to really embed, and I knew what I was looking at and could just jump in, and start asking the right questions was because I’d actually been working on the film already for about a year at that point.

Call Me by Your Name photo

Q&A with Luca Guadagnino, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Timothée Chalamet

The final scene between the father and son is so moving and beautiful, what was it like shooting that scene and what did it mean to you?
Michael Stuhlbarg: Rarely in filmmaking does one get to shoot things in order, but in this case, I had plenty of time because we shot that at the very end of the production.