Switchblade Sisters

This week, the wonderful Katie Walsh returns to chat with director Emma Tammi. Emma is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, whose most recent documentary films include Election Day and Fair Chair. She made her narrative feature directorial debut with the Western horror movie The Wind, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, and was released in April by IFC Midnight. The movie that Emma has chosen to discuss shares a number of similarities to her own lonely-haunted-woman film - Alfred Hitchcock's sole Best Picture winner, Rebecca. She and Katie discuss all of the masterful aspects of the movie - the mood, the set, the acting, the lighting. Emma shares how many of these attributes inspired her decisions on The Wind. Plus, Katie reveals some hilariously volatile memos between producer David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock. And Emma talks about her all-time favorite Hitchcock films, and what makes him such a genius. You can stream The Wind now. And if you haven't seen Rebecca yet, run -

Chelsea Stardust has been a horror film fan since the age of 10. After working for comedy legends Ivan Reitman and Judd Apatow, Chelsea found her horror home at Blumhouse Productions, where she served as the executive assistant to Jason Blum for several years. Chelsea’s first feature film, the science fiction thriller All That We Destroy, was part of Blumhouse series 'Into The Dark' and is currently available on Hulu. Her second feature film, the horror comedy Satanic Panic, written by novelist Grady Hendrix, and produced by Fangoria and Cinestate, releases nationwide theatrically, on VOD and digital HD on September 6th. The movie that Chelsea chose to discuss is near and dear to our hearts - Mary Harron's American Psycho. She and April go in deep on the making of the film - from the writing of the script by former Switchblade Sisters guest Guinevere Turner, to the studio's objection to the casting of Christian Bale. They dive into the film's portrayal of male vanity, the performance of Christian Bale as Patr

Jennifer Kent is probably best known for directing her 2014 film, The Babadook. The film screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014 to critical and audience acclaim, and has won over 50 international and domestic awards, including the Australian Director's Guild award for Best Director, the Australian Academy Award (AACTA) for Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Film, and the New York Critics Circle Awards for Best First Feature. This year now sees the release of her second feature, The Nightingale, a brutal colonial revenge tale about a woman who loses everything and joins up with an aboriginal tracker to find and inflict punishment on the men who wronged her. The movie that Jennifer has chosen to discuss is the 1961 classic, The Innocents. Jennifer elaborates on the aspects of the film that she used as direct influence for her own films. She talks about taking the young actor Noah Wiseman to the zoo in order to prepare him for the truly horrifying scenes in The Babadook. Plus, she divulges

Mo Perkins earned an MFA in directing from UCLA’s School of Film and Television. Her master’s thesis film, Piss Hat, was nominated for a student Academy Award. Her writer/directorial debut feature was an independent film called A Quiet Little Marriage starring Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Cy Carter, Jimmi Simpson, Michael O’Neill, Charlie Day and Melanie Lynskey. On the festival circuit, it won many awards including the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance, and it was distributed by IFC. Her second feature film was a comedy called The Last Time You Had Fun starring Demetri Martin, Eliza Coupe, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Charlene Yi and Kyle Bornheimer. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Most recently Mo directed the second season, six episodes, of a romantic musical comedy called I Ship It for the CW. The movie that Mo has chosen is just a delight - 1986's Little Shop of Horrors. Mo discusses how this movie meant so much to her personally, as it was one of the first fil

Mitzi Peirone was born and raised in Turin, Italy. After high school Peirone left Italy to study theater in New York City at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She ended up writing and directing a short film called “Chaosmos,” and directing another short called “Versperlings” while she geared up for a feature. The screenplay for Braid rapidly became her main focus, and in 2016 Peirone partnered up with entrepreneur Joseph Lubin to create a new business model to finance her film, which became the first one ever to be fully financed through a cryptocurrency equity crowdsale. The sale raised 1.7 million dollars in two weeks. The film premiered at Tribeca in 2018 and won Best Picture at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival. Braid, which tells the story of two women who decide to rob their wealthy psychotic friend - but must participate in the friend’s perverse game of make believe, received worldwide distribution via Blue Fox Entertainment. Mitzi then signed with ICM, and her next directorial effort is a sc

Melanie Kirschbaum started her LA career working for Jeff and Jackie Filgo, and then Vali Chandrasekaran on Modern Family, while Alexandra Decas was with Jonathan Groff on Black-ish. The two met when their bosses were working on a pilot together, and they decided to join forces when they found themselves standing outside of their offices at Disney, bemoaning their crappy Tinder matches. They wondered, presumably aloud, "If Elizabeth Smart has it all figured out — a husband, a career, great hair — what’s our excuse?" So they wrote a one-act play entitled "Smart" to get to the bottom of it, as well as a comedic one-act about 9/11 called "Center of the Universe." After that, they joined the Netflix/Dreamworks show The Boss Baby: Back in Business as staff writers, but then hit some network gold when they were staffed on the critically acclaimed hit show Grown-ish, a spinoff of Black-ish that follows Zoey Johnson as she navigates college life. Grown-ishwas just renewed for season 3 and can be seen on Freeform. The

Born in Haiti and raised in small town USA, Numa Perrier is a Los Angeles-based actor, filmmaker, and artist. Early in her acting career, she landed a recurring role on General Hospital, but now you can see her on SMILF and films including Florida Water, Jerico, In The Morning, and Beautiful Destroyer. An early creator in the digital space, she starred in and was co-writer of the web series 'The Couple' which landed an HBO deal. She later started writing a script for her first feature, which would become Jezebel. That project was accepted into the Tribeca Film Institute "Through Her Lens" incubation program. Now Jezebel is premiering at SXSW 2019. The film follows 19-year-old Tiffany as she deals with her dying mother and tries to make ends meet when her older phone sex operator sister grooms her to become one of the first black webcam girls in the 1990s. The movie that Numa has chosen to discuss is a classic - 1972's Blacula. She and April go deep on their discussion of William Marshall's intense, Shakespear

Kelli first got her big break in daytime TV, both as the evil adolescent Kimberly in Ryan's Hope and then as vengeful Tina in One Life to Live. Her film debut as the ‘Spirit Bunny’ Cindy Carr in Fast Times at Ridgemont High caught a lot of attention, but Kelli achieved her greatest enduring cult popularity with her delightful turn as the endearingly spunky Samantha in the science-fiction end-of-the-world Night of the Comet. She’s especially memorable as the sweet, killer-robot slayer Alison Parks in the entertaining romp, cult classic Chopping Mall, and as Jamie, a strong female survivor in The Zero Boys, as well as many other films. The movie that Kelli has chosen to discuss is especially prescient because our host April Wolfe just happens to be writing the remake of the film. That's right, Kelli has chosen to discuss the 1974 classic, Black Christmas. She and April discuss Kelli's career in horror, and how Kelli takes great joy from the fact that horror has recently received the respect it has always deserv

Allison Anders is an award-winning screenwriter, film and television director who was born in Kentucky and raised in LA. She attended film school at UCLA, where she co-directed the 1987 feature film Border Radio. Her first solo feature film, starring Fairuza Balk and Ione Skye, Gas Food Lodging premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and earned her Independent Spirit Award Nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. She went on to write and direct the feature films Mi vida loca, Grace of My Heart, and Sugar Town, as well as Things Behind the Sun, for which she won a Peabody award. She’s directed episodes of Sex and the City, Orange Is the New Black, Southland, Riverdale, Murder in the First and recently Sorry for Your Loss. The movie that Allison has chosen to discuss is a deep cut, but a good one. It's the moody, horror, thriller Night Tide. Allison discusses her early fascination with the film and how it keeps re-emerging in her life. She elaborates on the beginning of her career, and how it

3 Days of the Condor   Adrienne Barbeau was born in Sacramento, California, and caught the showbiz bug while entertaining troops on Army bases in Southeast Asia as part of the San Jose Civic Light Opera. She moved to New York City in the 1960s and made her Broadway debut co-starring in Fiddler on the Roof with Bette Midler. She went on to star in more than 25 musicals and plays, originating the role of Rizzo in the Broadway production of Grease, for which she was nominated for a Tony. From 1972 to 1978, Adrienne starred in the sitcom Maude as Carol, the daughter of Bea Arthur’s character. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for that role. She also made appearances in numerous TV shows, movies of the week and game shows. In 1980 Adrienne starred in her first theatrical film, John Carpenter’s The Fog, as radio deejay Stevie Wayne. That film established her as a genre film star. She went on to star in sci fi and horror classics such as Escape from New York, Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing, and the Steven King adaptati

Shaun of the Dead Naomi Ekperigin is a stand-up comedian, writer, actress, and podcaster (gotta be a multi-hyphenate these days!). She was born and raised in Harlem, New York, and studied Film and English at Wesleyan University, where she and guest host Katie Walsh made student films together, and she also started her comedy career, doing improv. After college, she toured with the National Theater for the Deaf, and started stand-up in New York in 2007. She has a half-hour stand up special on Comedy Central, and she’s also appeared on HBO’s Two Dope Queens, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and she has written for Broad City, Difficult People, Great News, and Mrs. Fletcher. You can find Naomi doing stand up around town in LA and New York, and she co-hosts the monthly standup show Couples Therapy in LA at the Virgil, the first Saturday of every month, with her fiance Andy Beckerman, and Couples Therapy is also a podcast, where she and Andy talk about

Unfaithful   Miranda Bailey is a producer, actor and director. She’s produced over 20 films, among them the Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale, the Spirit Award-winning The Diary of a Teenage Girl, as well as James Gunn’s Super, the Sundance hit Swiss Army Man and the critically acclaimed Norman. Her directorial debut came in 2010 with the documentary Greenlit, a humorous piece examining the hypocrisy inherent in Hollywood’s green movement, which premiered at SXSW. Bailey’s directorial narrative feature debut Being Frank, an offbeat family dramedy premiered in the Spotlight Section at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and 2018 Los Angeles Film Festival. The film stars Jim Gaffigan, Anna Gunn, Samantha Mathis and Logan Miller. The movie that Miranda has chosen to discuss is the super sexy Unfaithful. She and April talk about the art of seduction in film, and Miranda relates some stories of directing sex scenes in her own movies. Miranda shares her experience working with Richard Gere and why she feels she could

Aline began her screenwriting career in 1999 with her first produced feature, the romantic comedy Three to Tango, starring Neve Campbell. That film established Aline as a go-to writer of realistic drama and romance. She followed that film up with 2004’s Laws of Attraction, starring Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan. But her best known work came with the film adaptation of the popular novel, The Devil Wears Prada, a modern classic, and features one of Meryl Streep’s signature roles as the imperious magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. In 2014, Aline added television to her resume when she co-created the critically acclaimed, Emmy award-winning comedy series, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, on which she served as head writer, showrunner, and executive producer. The series just finished airing its fourth and final season on the CW. The movie that Aline has chosen to discuss is the wonderful Steven Spielberg film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She discusses how the film has become one of her favorites over the years, and one th

Guinevere Turner is a writer, director and actor who has been working in film and TV since her 1994 debut feature Go Fish, which she wrote, produced and starred in. The film premiered at Sundance and then got picked up by Samuel Goldwyn. Next, Guinevere teamed up with director Mary Harron to write the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho, starring Christian Bale as a psychopathic finance guy who murders people for fun and to see how much he can get away with. Guinevere also worked with Harron writing The Notorious Bettie Page. She was a writer, story editor, and played a recurring character on Showtime’s The L Word. Her latest screenplay, Charlie Says, tells the story of the women who killed for Charles Manson as they serve out the first few years of their decades-long prison term. Charlie Says is directed by Mary Harron and is in theaters now. The movie that Guinevere has chosen to discuss is An American Werewolf in London. She and April elaborate on just how groundbreaking this film was in

Roxanne Benjamin is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, who began her career in creative development, analyzing story for film festivals and production companies. In 2010, she moved up the ladder at a company called The Collective, where she went on to produce the well known anthology horror films V/H/S and V/H/S/2, which premiered at Sundance Midnights. Roxanne then helmed the short “Don’t Fall”, part of Magnolia Pictures’ all-women-helmed horror anthology, XX. She served double duty on the film, co-writing and producing the segment “The Birthday Party” for musician-turned-director Annie Clark aka St. Vincent. Body at Brighton Rock is her solo feature directorial debut. It tells the story of a young woman working the trails of a mountainous park, who finds a dead body in the middle of nowhere and is given orders to guard the scene, facing down all her worst fears. Roxanne is currently working on a remake of Night of the Comet for Orion Pictures. The movie that Roxanne has chosen to discuss is a giallo classic - T

Madeleine Olnek is a New York City based playwright and filmmaker. She began her career with award-winning and widely screened comedy shorts. ​Countertransference ​(2009) and Hold Up ​(2006) were official selections of Sundance, while ​Make Room For Phyllis ​(2007) premiered at Sarasota. Olnek was also awarded best female short film director at Sundance in 2009 by LA’s Women In Film organization. Her debut feature, ​Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, told the story of three lesbian space aliens who come to Earth, and one of them falls in love with an earthling. It ​premiered at Sundance 2011 and is now translated into eleven languages. Her second feature, ​The Foxy Merkins,​ is a kind of buddy-comedy homage about two lesbian prostitutes. She is one of the authors of The Practical Handbook for The Actor (with a foreword by David Mamet), a widely used acting textbook. And now she’s back with her third feature, Wild Nights with Emily, a perhaps more truthful yet comic telling of the life of Emily Dickin

Amy Seimetz started out writing, directing, and acting in short films and made her feature debut in a pair of films, Black Dragon Canyon and the indie cult hit Wristcutters: A Love Story. She appeared in films such as Gabi on the Roof in July, Tiny Furniture, You're Next, and The Myth of the American Sleepover before directing her own feature debut, Sun Don't Shine in 2012. Amy went on to co-create and executive produce the critically acclaimed Starz series The Girlfriend Experience. In 2018, Amy directed two episodes of the acclaimed FX series Atlanta and subsequently signed a first look television production development deal with the network. But yes, she continued acting throughout that time as well, and you’ve seen her in Upstream Color, Alien: Covenant, The Killing, Stranger Things, Wild Nights with Emily, and Pet Sematary. But the movie that Amy chose to discuss has nothing to do with any of that! She's chosen The Peanut Butter Solution, a Canadian children's movie from the eighties that most people tho

To quote the Tribeca Film Festival, director Nia DaCosta is “a name you’re gonna need to get familiar with.” Nia DaCosta was born and raised in New York City and attended NYU’s Tisch. She started her film career paying her dues in production, on the documentary series, Ke$ha: My Crazy Beautiful Life, while also writing and directing shorts. In 2015, she took an early draft of her script for a film called Little Woods to the Sundance Directors Lab. There, she hooked up with Tessa Thompson, who read the part of a woman named Ollie, who’s caught in a poverty trap in rural North Dakota and must decide whether she’ll re-enter a life of crime to help her pregnant sister. Tessa Thompson continued with the project, and Nia then cast Lily James to play her sister. The film premiered in 2018 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Shortly after that, it was announced that Nia would be directing the “spiritual sequel” to Candyman off a script penned by Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, which will be released by MGM. The movie Nia h

Roxann got her first job playing Diana Morales in the Broadway production of A Chorus Line. But fans probably know her best for her role as B'Elanna Torres in Star Trek: Voyager. Voyager offered her the first opportunity to direct and she proceeded to direct 10 episodes of the next Star Trek series, Enterprise. Since then, she’s directed The Deuce, House of Cards, The Americans, The Path, Bates Motel, Crossing Jordan, Lost and many others. She will also be directing the upcoming Morning Show, starring Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carrell, and Jennifer Aniston. She makes her feature film directing debut with Breakthrough, starring Chrissy Metz, Josh Lucas, and Topher Grace, an adaptation of Joyce Smith’s memoir, The Impossible: The Miraculous Story of a Mother’s Faith and Her Child’s Resurrection. The movie that Roxann has chosen to discuss is, kind of, the exact inverse of her own upcoming film - 1956's The Bad Seed. Maintaining such a prolific acting and directing career, Roxann has so much insight into the craf

Julia Hart was a school teacher for eight years before she quit to make a go of screenwriting. Her debut screenplay, The Keeping Room, landed on the 2012 Black List and was made into a feature directed by Daniel Barber (Harry Brown) and starring Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld and Sam Worthington. Julia's directorial debut, Miss Stevens, is based on Julia’s experience as a teacher. It starred Lily Rabe, Timothee Chalamet, Lili Reinhart, and Rob Huebel. In 2018, Julia’s second feature, Fast Color, debuted at SXSW. It tells the story of a family of women afflicted/blessed with a mysterious power and stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, and David Straithairn. Most recently, Julia directed and co-wrote (with Jordan Horowitz) Star Girlfor Disney, starring Grace Vanderwall and based on the best-selling book by Jerry Spinelli. Although Julia only recently saw One False Move, she was shocked at how thematically similar her film Fast Color compares to it. She and April discuss the use of violence in cinema, and h