We got a chance to talk with new directors Josh Weinstein and Yance Ford.
Every year for several decades, MoMa has hosted the New Directors New Films festival celebrating new filmmakers who are breaking new ground in the art. This year is no different. I’ve already gotten a chance to review the opening film Patti Cake$, which was a great crowd pleaser. The opening night was also filled with several other talented new filmmakers whom this festival celebrates. I got a chance to chat with them about their films, their inspirations, and how they became directors. Among the directors I got to interview was Josh Weinstein and Yance Ford. Josh, who directed Menashe, shared insights on his film, it’s interesting angle on a very overlooked community, and what makes a subject interesting to him. Yance, who directed Strong Island, gave us some depth on her personal connection to the story and why she wouldn’t exactly consider it a personal story. Check out our interviews with the directors below:
Josh Weinstein:
Tell me a bit about your movie
Menashe is a humanist drama film featuring a cast of all Hasidic religious Jews. It’s a place that’s never been captured by cinema before that tells a new story to open up our eyes to a society that we’re not used to seeing.
Why that community?
I was interested in it because it’s very hard to get access to. No one’s filmed it before and also, these people are my brothers and I don’t really know them. I mean I’m a Jew but I’m not a religious Jew, so to understand who they are, to understand what makes them who they are is fascinating to me. By definition I want to make a film that tries to understand why people stay in religious communities.
Did you set out to accomplish something with the film?
The film had discreet goals, but for me, making films is like doing research. If I’m not learning, I’m not interested in making that type of film. I did learn a ton about the the ultra orthodox world and I’m really excited to share with people all these intimate details that they don’t know about.
What inspired you to become a director?
I couldn’t get other jobs. I think if you have an intimate point of view, it excites me to go outside to study the world and share it with people. The concept that I’m exploring and sharing and communicating new truths that aren’t known insights.
What directors inspired you?
Satyajit Ray, John Cassavetes, Coen Brothers, Dardenne Brothers really any set of brothers.
How was working with the actors?
Working with non professional actors is difficult. They don’t make their marks, they don’t make their lines. But there’s something about non professional actors that give you performances that you could never get with actors. Certain truths and realities that can only be done by the people in the movie. They were adding a context and a texture to their lives that I could never make up.
Yance Ford:
Tell me a bit about your movie.
Strong Island is a film that looks at the fallout of the murder of my brother 25 years ago. It looks at the way in which race wrote the narrative of fear and justification in this case. It also looks at the long tail of his murder and the aftermath as it played out.
This is a very personal story, why did you decide to make a film about this?
It’s personal only in that it’s my family. The truth is that there are hundreds of families, this evening especially, about Michael Brown’s family, and all the revelations from the civil suit that came out just a few hours ago. So Strong Island is personal only in that it’s me, but really it could be any family. It’s an intimate thing because I think telling a story from the inside out is the best way to help an audience experience something on a visceral level. It’s not personal in that it’s not only my family.
What inspired you to become a director?
I was studying photography and performance art when my brother was murdered. I aspired to a career in the arts, but iI didn’t know where it’d take me. I did a workshop in 1996 and 1997 and I realized that I really could be a film director.
