Cinemafile

Mike Kaspar

5.0 (1)
Film Interviews

Cinemafile showcases the very best in independent, documentary and foreign films through our conversations with the more than 2,000 filmmakers who made them. Through Cinemafile we will do our best to bring the most interesting and accomplished filmmakers from around the world to your attention.

2d ago

Boutique: To Preserve and Collect - Director Ry Levey

Director Ry Levey’s wildly entertaining documentary BOUTIQUE: TO PRESERVE AND COLLECT chronicles the remarkable resurgence of collectible Blu-ray culture and the specialty labels around the world dedicated to preserving, restoring, and reintroducing long-lost obscurities and cinematic landmarks to new generations of audiences. Featuring filmmakers, performers, label representatives, historians, collectors, and devoted fans, the documentary is a heartfelt celebration of cinephilia and the people ensuring film history remains accessible and appreciated. To coincide with the Blu-ray release, the film will embark on an accompanying theatrical tour featuring special event screenings, filmmaker discussions, and community celebrations of physical media culture. About the filmmaker - For more than two decades, Ry Levey has used innovative and original strategies to elevate the profiles of independent and international cinema throughout North America and the world with multi-pronged film marketing, distribution and PR services. A specialist in documentary, LGBTQIA+, foreign, and genre cinema, Mr. Levey has spearheaded PR for filmmakers including documentary master Frederick Wiseman, Oscar-nominee Kirby Dick, Oscar-winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Oscar-nominee Christian Frei, acclaimed documentarian Sophie Fiennes (THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY) and Oscar nominee and Tony-winning powerhouse Julie Taymor. He has also handled theatrical distribution campaigns for films including MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MINE, MINE 9, VIOLET, DRONE, SLEEPLESS IN NEW YORK, NOWHERE TO HIDE, TWO LOVERS AND A BEAR and THE CREEPING GARDEN. He also brings a keen insight as a filmmaker himself, under his RBL Films production banner, having produced and directed the multi-award-winning documentary OUT IN THE RING and the upcoming BOUTIQUE: TO PRESERVE AND COLLECT.
2d ago

Louder Than Guns - Director Doug Pray

In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at The Covenant School in Nashville, Ketch Secor, lead singer of the popular country-bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show, decided it was time to speak out on gun reform. He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, “Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession with Guns.” It caught the attention of Ketch’s friend, David Greene, former NPR reporter and host of KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center,” and the two set out to kickstart an open dialog about gun rights and gun violence in America. Film director Doug Pray followed Ketch and David as the band toured rural and urban communities, creating the documentary LOUDER THAN GUNS named after a song Ketch wrote for the victims of the Covenant shooting. Smashing stereotypes, LOUDER THAN GUNS brings together the frustrations and hopes of citizens who are asked to listen to one another and try to find common ground. About the filmmaker - Doug Pray’s candid portraits of American subcultures and maverick individuals have led him to numerous festivals, critical raves, and awards. His feature documentary films include “Love, Lizzo” (HBO Max), “Big Rig” (a 21,000-mile road film about independent truck drivers), and the Emmy Award-winning “Art & Copy.” His first two films, “Hype!” the definitive story of the Seattle music scene, and “Scratch,” about DJs and the birth of hip-hop, are ranked among the best music docs of all time. In television, Doug executive produced Netflix’s 3-part series, “Arnold,” about Arnold Schwarzenegger; he won a Grammy for Best Music Film (plus 5 Emmy nominations) for his work as executive producer, writer and editor of HBO’s “The Defiant Ones.” He also executive produced “From Cradle to Stage” with Dave Grohl and the popular AppleTV+ series “Home.” Doug was born in Denver, raised in Wisconsin, and lives in Los Angeles.
2d ago

Black Chariot - Director Robert Goodwin

Robert Goodwin wrote, produced, and directed this lost gem of American independent cinema. Opening during a tense meeting between members of an underground Black Power group that leads to a stunning foot chase, Goodwin’s film weaves past and present to tell the story of the social awakening of a character only referred to as “the drifter” (screen legend Bernie Casey in his first starring role!). Shot on both 35mm and video and boasting a fierce, early performance from L.A. Rebellion icon Barbara O. Jones, Black Chariot is a fascinatingly iconoclastic revelation. Though world-premiered at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1971, Black Chariot has remained under-screened for decades — until now. Film distributor Kino Lorber is releasing the 4K Restoration by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Additional funding provided by NMAAHC’s Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts. The all new 4K Restoration of Black Chariot opens at Anthology Film Archives in New York on July 10th before expanding the all new 4K Restoration of Black Chariot opens at Anthology Film Archives in New York on July 10th before expanding to select theaters nationwide.
2d ago

Time and Water - Director Sara Dosa

Renowned Icelandic poet and author Andri Snær Magnason is chasing something elusive. As the glacial ice of his homeland melts, he constructs a cinematic time capsule to hold onto this moment and send it to the future, before everything he loves slips away. Using his own collected archives, his grandparents’ photographs, and films, as well as traditional songs and folktales, Andri interlaces his family’s story with that of the land around him. From Academy Award®-nominated director Sara Dosa, TIME AND WATER is a universal reflection on the power of home and what it means to be alive amid profound epochal change. Oscar nominated (Fire of Love) director Sara Dosa joins us to talk about her frighteningly relevant clarion call to action. About the filmmaker - Sara Dosa is an Oscar®-nominated nonfiction filmmaker whose work centers on the human relationship with more-than-human nature. The films she has directed, “Fire of Love” (2022), “The Seer & The Unseen” (2019) and “The Last Season” (2015), have won numerous awards, including a Peabody and the Directors’ Guild of America Award, and were nominated for over 40 awards, including an Academy Award, BAFTA, Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award. Dosa’s work has been shown at festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, New Directors/New Films, CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel, and has screened in partnership with museums such as the MOMA, BAMPFA and the Louvre. In 2018, Dosa was named to the inaugural class of DOCNYC’s “40 under 40” and inducted into the Academy of Motion Pictures’ documentary branch. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a double major in sociology and anthropology and has a joint master’s in anthropology and international development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dosa lives and works in California.
3d ago

Welcome Space Brothers - Director Jodi Wille

WELCOME SPACE BROTHERS is a feature documentary about The Unarius Academy of Science, an extraterrestrial-channeling spiritual school and self-healing community established in the 1970s in El Cajon, California that became a wildly prolific filmmaking collective under the direction of outlandish spiritual leader and filmmaker Ruth E. Norman, AKA “Archangel Uriel.” About the filmmaker - Jodi Wille is a filmmaker, curator, and book publisher known for her in-depth work exploring American subcultures and visionary artists. She directed and produced the acclaimed documentary THE SOURCE FAMILY (2013), which world-premiered in competition at SXSW Film Festival and had a 60-city theatrical run. WELCOME SPACE BROTHERS is her second feature documentary. Wille is an award-winning book publisher and author who recently released the coffee table book FAMILY: THE SOURCE FAMILY SCRAPBOOK (Sacred Bones/Otherworld). She has curated national museum and gallery exhibitions internationally featuring the art and films of outsider artists and alternative spiritual communities. She recently curated a major exhibition at the Museum of Sex, New York City, titled “Utopia Now! Three Centuries of Sexuality in American Cults and Communes. The exhibition has been lauded as “a force majeure on multiple fronts” by Artforum. The New York exhibition ran October 10, 2025 through April 2026 and is traveling to Museum of Sex Miami to open May 7, 2026 and run through November 30. She has been presenting the films and artwork of The Unarius Academy of Science at museums, galleries, international film festivals and cinematheques since 2014 and has been actively documenting them since 2014.
4d ago

Middle Life - Director Pavan Moondi

MIDDLE LIFE follows Andie, a perfectionist wedding planner in her mid-thirties and a new mother, who has meticulously crafted her life but still feels unfulfilled. Fresh off maternity leave, she saves Ryan, a blue-collar plumber, from a roadside accident. As their paths intertwine over the next year, her craving for change and his newfound perspective on life spark an unexpected connection, leading her to discover that life could be great. MIDDLE LIFE is a throwback romantic dramedy inspired by the character-driven relationship films of the 1970s and '80s, like An Unmarried Woman (Mazursky), Broadcast News (Brooks), When Harry Met Sally (Reiner), and Crossing Delancey (Silver). The film stars two acclaimed musicians from the Canadian Alt-rock band July Talk, frontman Peter Dreimanis, (Ryan) who made his big screen debut last year as Bert in Ryan Coogler's SINNERS, alongside his bandmate Leah Fay Goldstein, (Andie), who was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for her starring role in Moondi's DIAMOND TONGUES. About the filmmaker - Writer/Director/Producer/Editor Pavan Moondi (pronounced “Pav-in”) is a Los Angeles-based writer and director originally from Toronto. He has written and directed three critically acclaimed feature films, including the Canadian Screen Award-nominated Diamond Tongues, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival, and Sundowners, which co-stars Tim Heidecker. In television, Pavan directed all eight episodes of the CBC single-camera comedy Four in the Morning and worked in the writers’ room on Schitt’s Creek, which was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series. Middle Life is his fourth feature film, which he wrote, directed, edited, and produced.
5d ago

WILD INSIDE - Director Penny Lane

What would happen if a captive-born owl with no survival skills tried to make it on his own in New York City? In WILD INSIDE, we discover the answer is more incredible, and more consequential, than we could have ever imagined. In February 2023, a Eurasian Eagle-Owl named Flaco escapes from the Central Park Zoo and sets off on a magical odyssey through the island of Manhattan. Flaco answers the call of the wild – and discovers he was wild inside all along.WILD INSIDE is an underdog story of resilience and self determination as Flaco the Owl beats the odds and accomplishes the impossible. The remarkable story of Flaco raises some questions: is it right to keep a bird in a cage? Is there any real distinction between “zoo animals” and “wild animals”? How can we be better to our non-human neighbors? About the director - Penny Lane has been making award-winning, innovative documentaries for over a decade. This includes 8 feature films, most recently CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN(Netflix, 2023), LISTENING TO KENNY G(HBO, 2021) and HAIL SATAN? (Magnolia Pictures, 2019). A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, Lane has received grants and awards from the Sundance Film Festival, Cinereach, Creative Capital, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Tribeca Film Institute, Wexner Center for the Arts and many others. She has been honored with mid-career retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, San Francisco DocFest, Open City Documentary Festival and Cinema Moderne. She co-owns the Brooklyn-based production company Spinning Nancy and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And yes, Penny Lane is her real name.
5d ago

The Last Picture Shows - Director Rustin Thompson

Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving. Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film, The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Shows is not only a timely portrait of an industry in crisis, one facing the headwinds of consolidation, streaming, and the diminishing theatrical experience, but it also reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder, contemplation, and connection. About the filmmaker - Director Rustin Thompson is a writer, filmmaker, and deejay based in Seattle. His recent films include The Last Picture Shows and Died Without Issue. His hybrid essay film, Slow Revolution, played in several international film festivals, and his film My Mother Was Here won Best Documentary at the Tacoma Film Festival. His very first documentary, made in 2000, 30 Frames A Second, won several Best Documentary awards, was named one of the Top Ten films of the year by the American Library Association, and one of the Best Undistributed Films of 2001 by The Village Voice. Rustin’s first book, Get Close: Lean Team Documentary Filmmaking is available from Oxford University Press. Rustin is a volunteer deejay for KBCS 91.3FM in Seattle, where he hosts Road Songs and the world music show, Night Train.

Cinemafile showcases the very best in independent, documentary and foreign films through our conversations with the more than 2,000 filmmakers who made them. Through Cinemafile we will do our best to bring the most interesting and accomplished filmmakers from around the world to your attention.

Creator

Mike Kaspar
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

232
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Copyright 2026 Mike Kaspar
Show Website

Cinemafile