For the first time in four years, screenwriter and Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum David Kajganich is back in Iowa City for the FilmScene premiere of his genre-bending, spine-tingling new work. Bones and All is the third adapted screenplay Kajganich has crafted for director Luca Guadagnino — audiences packed FilmScene during the 2018 Witching Hour Festival to hear Kajganich discuss his work on Guadagnino’s Suspiria — and follows a pair of young outcasts (played by Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet) who happen to be cannibals.
Little Village caught up with the Ohio-born filmmaker ahead of Bones and All’s debut at the new ReFocus Film Festival at FilmScene on Thursday, Oct. 6. ReFocus is designed to explore the intersection of cinema and literature.
“When I adapt a book, because of my training, and because of the respect I have for how authors work and what it takes to write a book, I think I can separate out the soul from the body of a book,” said Kajganich, who earned his MFA in Fiction Writing at UI before embarking on a career in film. “Even though I might have to break some bones….”
In this interview with LV editor Emma McClatchey, Kajganich gushes over FilmScene’s Chauncey expansion; dissects cannibalism as a motif in his work; discusses how a big financial risk he, Guadagnino and the film’s stars took on Bones and All paid off; and reveals why he’s especially excited to gauge an Iowa City audience’s reaction to the film.
Bones and All releases in theaters across the country on Nov. 23.
