Film director (and former University of Iowa professor) Sasha Waters first recalls being struck by the work of Mary Oliver as a new parent, listening to A Prairie Home Companion in her Iowa City kitchen. Years later, PBS would ask her to make a documentary about the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet for the American Masters […]
filmmaking
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Behind the ultimate rock-umentary — and its 20th anniversary re-release, ‘Dig! XX’ — is a sister-brother duo with an eye for mad genius
Multi-award-winning filmmaker Ondi Timoner has amassed a wide-ranging body of work about people she calls “impossible visionaries.” Her documentary subjects tend to stray from social convention and take the path less traveled, which can sometimes put hers in impossible situations. I imagine that nothing was more difficult than making Last Flight Home, a 2022 film […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Donna Reed and her Iowa science teacher sought to spotlight the horror of the atomic bomb. Then the White House got involved.
The studio promised it would be a prestigious motion picture, with big stars and stunning visual effects. The movie would tell the true story of the creation of the atomic bomb, and give people a fuller understanding of what it means to live in a world with such weapons. It was 1947, 76 years before […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A-List: Bruce Campbell’s new book charts the second phase of his career
Actor, director and writer Bruce Campbell has crafted a career out of a certain kind of off-beat character. As an actor, he doesn’t disappear into a role, but rather imbues each with an almost ludicrous uniqueness, a deeply specific sense of self. This kind of interplay between the fantasy and reality of his existence is a perfect precursor to his alternate career as a memoirist.
