Everything about Truth on Cinema was magnificent. But nothing I got to do for the site was as spectacular as the opportunities afforded to me by the Dallas International Film Festival. I was probably a better reviewer than I was an interviewer — and I was certainly unqualified in both respects when I started — but that didn’t make any of those interviews any less spectacular to me. What I do for a living now is intimately tied to the fun I had talking with other people about their passion( project)s during DIFF.
The exclusive interviews we ran here are probably mediocre at best, and there’s a whole bunch that we never published because they were bad or I was overbooked and couldn’t find time to edit them. But some of these men and women are so fascinating and talented that they make even my terrible interviews look good (pardon the sound and video quality… they were all filmed on my tablet and phone). Here are my favorite interviews from the last few years:
10) In Over My Head with Alison Armstrong
Alison Armstrong is a professional journalist who made a documentary about a high-profile murder case. I think you can see me trembling in apprehensive terror throughout our interview.
9) Hanging Out With Fellow History Dorks
When the credits started to roll on Echoes of War, I was aghast… in a good way. This was an indie film that felt honest and complete, and it was set in the years that followed the Civil War. Kane Senes, John Chriss, and I talked for about an hour about their feature, and I was eventually told to stop hogging the press room.
8) Jamming with James Hand
James Hand is a country music legend. I do not listen to country music, so that fact was sort of lost on me. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool that he let me join him for long enough to ruin this song. His exact words were: “you ever see a drummer moving his arms around that much, he better be swatting flies.”
7) Making a Mixtape with J-Mack
James Mackenzie is one of my favorite people. He’s the only reason I ever went to a Short Films presentation during the festival. And he shares my taste for beards and weird indie music. This was the start of a beautiful friendship.
6) When I Was Almost Jimmy Fallon
When the 2015 Dallas International Film Festival rolled around, Jimmy Fallon was taking the Late Night world by storm. Naturally, we copied his “let’s play ridiculous games together” format. Fortunately, the Pepper and Paula team was up to the task.
5) Reunited and It Feels So Good
Where Hope Grows (aka ‘Produce‘) was one of the first faith films I encountered that gave me hope for the genre. Over the course of the year between our screening and and its national release, we got to really connect with the cast and crew. So much so that, when I ran out of questions during one of our later interviews with McKaley Miller, we just sort of shot the breeze for a while. This was the most comfortable interview series of my career.
4) “You’re Fat, But You’re Not That Fat”
We got two interviews in four parts out of Tim Skousen, the talented filmmaker behind Thunder Broke the Heavens and Raiders! My favorite, by far, was his discussion of the hijinks that led to one of the greatest cult films of all time. Also, his wife tweeted at me to thank us for our reviews. It was the kind of down-to-earth, sweet human moment that reminds you why you love the indie film world more than Hollywood.
3) When I Wore Many Hats (Literally)
Leah Meyerhoff is a fantastical woman. Her film, I Believe in Unicorns, is at once beautifully innocent and powerfully mature. It’s reflective of her own personality, one that is sweet and fun-loving without sacrificing intelligence and strength. When we set up our interview, I prayed that she would be as right-brained as she seemed and brought props and silly accents along with me. She was. Possibly more than I had hoped.
2) Getting Crazy with Kat Candler
My love for Kat Candler knows no bounds. She’s a kind soul with a creative flair and the ability to capture ideas and experiences that are completely foreign to her, but to make them feel totally organic. She was our last interview at DIFF 2014, recorded on a dying tablet that couldn’t handle video. And she was magnificent.
1) Learning About Learning
Most Likely To Succeed is one of my most-recommended films of all time. It’s an incredible documentary with real weight and consequence, made by two guys who really care about the matter at hand. The interview we got with them was all but perfect. We talked with confidence, covered a lot of ground, and had a good time. They stopped me at one point to tell me how talented I was, which meant a lot to me because I was hitting a transitionary period in my life at the time. But most importantly, I had a camera man for the first time that day: my dad was on hand for the whole thing.
Honorable Mention: Talkin’ Takin’ Pictures with Alexandria Bombach
There was nothing personally meaningful about my interview with Alexandria Bombach, but she was a passionate and hardworking documentarian who turned out one of the best documentaries we’ve ever screened in Frame by Frame. This conversation isn’t as sentimentally valuable to me as the others listed above, which is why it didn’t make my personal list. But it was too good to ignore completely.
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