Highlights - APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

Highlights - APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

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Artist · Environmentalist
Co-founder of The Church · Arts & Creativity Center
Co-director of Sag Harbor Cinema Board

I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se. I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

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Artist · Environmentalist
Co-founder of The Church · Arts & Creativity Center
Co-director of Sag Harbor Cinema Board

I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se. I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

Highlights - JIM SHEPARD - Award-winning Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, The World to Come, Like You’d Understand, Anyway

Highlights - JIM SHEPARD - Award-winning Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, The World to Come, Like You’d Understand, Anyway

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Author of The Book of Aron · Project X · The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston
Winner of the PEN New England Award · The Story Prize · Ribalow Prize for Jewish Literature

In terms of what I'm writing, I'm always trying to make myself a more interesting human being. And so that means I'm coming across these human dilemmas where I'm like what would it have been like to be in that position? And that snags my emotional imagination. I do think that literature is all about extending the empathetic imagination. And so I'm always looking to educate myself in emotional terms, too. Because I'm very interested in the way we respond in those situations where it feels like we both have responsibility, and we don't have responsibility.

JIM SHEPARD - Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston

JIM SHEPARD - Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston

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Author of The Book of Aron · Project X · The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston
Winner of the PEN New England Award · The Story Prize · Ribalow Prize for Jewish Literature

In terms of what I'm writing, I'm always trying to make myself a more interesting human being. And so that means I'm coming across these human dilemmas where I'm like what would it have been like to be in that position? And that snags my emotional imagination. I do think that literature is all about extending the empathetic imagination. And so I'm always looking to educate myself in emotional terms, too. Because I'm very interested in the way we respond in those situations where it feels like we both have responsibility, and we don't have responsibility.

BENOIT DELHOMME - Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate w/ Willem Dafoe, The Theory of Everything w/ Eddie Redmayne - Part 1

BENOIT DELHOMME - Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate w/ Willem Dafoe, The Theory of Everything w/ Eddie Redmayne - Part 1

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Award-winning Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate · The Theory of Everything
The Scent of Green Papaya · Minamata
Artist Painter · Director

If you want to do your art well, you need to have some pleasure. If talking is not a pleasure, it's horrible. And when filming on a set is a bad experience, it's one of the worst things in life. As a cinematographer, if you can't make what you do personal to you, there is no soul. You need to make it personal. I certainly like a handheld camera, It's a bit like playing a saxophone. It's like the pace of walking or how I stop or I decide to go closer to the actor or to take more distance is so free. No one is telling me to go one step forward or one step back. I have to decide on the spot. So there certainly a freedom like a painter with a brush. It's nice because you have even the vibrations, your rhythms, the actor's rhythms. It's this dance.

FABRIZIO MANCINELLI - Composer, Songwriter, Conductor

FABRIZIO MANCINELLI - Composer, Songwriter, Conductor

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Composer · Songwriter · Conductor
The Land of Dreams ·The Snow Queen 3 · The Boat · Food 2050 · Green Book

I'm always trying to find my place here because, yes, I'm American. I'm an immigrant. I don't want to talk about the difficulties I face in my coming here, but it was not easy. So when I was writing the song called “Give Up”, and it's like a song that I'm singing to myself. Those are things, like there is a lot of personal experience. I was a luxury immigrant on a Fulbright grant on a J-1 Sponsor Visa, you know, with a solid family I could go back to in Italy in case anything went wrong. But at the same time, it was not easy. I want to do my job with a smile on my face, and it brought me to write the lyrics like: 'It's my turn. My time is now.' It's like something that I'm trying, we all try to get our turn to be our moment, to shine our moment. We're all waiting. We don't know if it will happen, but we need to try at least. We need to grab our life with our hands and make it work one way or another. So that's what I mean in my song “Orlando Dreams.”

Highlights - CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer - Blonde starring Ana de Armas, Beyonce: Lemonade, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

Highlights - CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer - Blonde starring Ana de Armas, Beyonce: Lemonade, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

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Award-winning Cinematographer
Blonde starring Ana de Armas · Beyonce: Lemonade · Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

That's all I can do on a movie. I can't really make a movie good or not because that's decided by the spectator. That's not in my control. All I can do is give it everything that I have. Like that's just the love I have to give. So why bring in all these other things? Just set it up so you can give it everything that you've got each time. In those theoretical considerations about how a scene can function or be rendered or shot or executed or all these things, just think of it as, "Oh, this is the challenge." I want authenticity. How do we create an environment where that's more likely to happen? Because it's never going to be something that I can enforce, and the more I try to enforce it, the less likely it'll happen. For me, the more risky things, the more things that defied expectations are really important to me. I guess it even goes down to just novelty. How do you create a need or a yearning? And the spectator, you create a particular rhythm and then you change that rhythm, and then it's almost like you try to sensitize your spectator to these ideas by defining a particular rhythm that you've set for them.

CHAYSE IRVIN - Cinematographer of “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Kahlil Joseph, The Weekend, Netflix, Charlotte Rampling

CHAYSE IRVIN - Cinematographer of “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Kahlil Joseph, The Weekend, Netflix, Charlotte Rampling

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Award-winning Cinematographer
Blonde starring Ana de Armas · Beyonce: Lemonade · Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

That's all I can do on a movie. I can't really make a movie good or not because that's decided by the spectator. That's not in my control. All I can do is give it everything that I have. Like that's just the love I have to give. So why bring in all these other things? Just set it up so you can give it everything that you've got each time. In those theoretical considerations about how a scene can function or be rendered or shot or executed or all these things, just think of it as, "Oh, this is the challenge." I want authenticity. How do we create an environment where that's more likely to happen? Because it's never going to be something that I can enforce, and the more I try to enforce it, the less likely it'll happen. For me, the more risky things, the more things that defied expectations are really important to me. I guess it even goes down to just novelty. How do you create a need or a yearning? And the spectator, you create a particular rhythm and then you change that rhythm, and then it's almost like you try to sensitize your spectator to these ideas by defining a particular rhythm that you've set for them.

Highlights - Claudia Forestieri - Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz - “Gordita Chronicles”on HBO Max

Highlights - Claudia Forestieri - Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz - “Gordita Chronicles”on HBO Max

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Claudia Forestieri (Creator) & Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Showrunner)
Gordita Chronicles

When you immigrate, it's kind of like you're going through adolescence because you're in a new place. You feel weird in your own skin. You're learning new things. Everything is changing. You feel awkward. So that also helped us connect the adult stories to the children's stories.

Claudia Forestieri - Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Creator - Showrunner) “Gordita Chronicles”

Claudia Forestieri - Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Creator - Showrunner) “Gordita Chronicles”

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Claudia Forestieri (Creator) & Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Showrunner)
Gordita Chronicles

When you immigrate, it's kind of like you're going through adolescence because you're in a new place. You feel weird in your own skin. You're learning new things. Everything is changing. You feel awkward. So that also helped us connect the adult stories to the children's stories.

Highlights - Florian Hoffmeister - Award-winning DP, “Pachinko”, “Great Expectations”

Highlights - Florian Hoffmeister - Award-winning DP, “Pachinko”, “Great Expectations”

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Florian Hoffmeister · Emmy & BAFTA Award-winning Director of Photography
Pachinko · Great Expectations · Official Secrets

Every time I ask, ‘What do you need? What do I want? What does the director want? How do we collaborate? What is generated during the collaboration? What ideas, questions come across? And then I can start constructing something like a look.

Florian Hoffmeister - Emmy - BAFTA Award-winning Director of Photography

Florian Hoffmeister - Emmy - BAFTA Award-winning Director of Photography

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Florian Hoffmeister · Emmy & BAFTA Award-winning Director of Photography
Pachinko · Great Expectations · Official Secrets

Every time I ask, ‘What do you need? What do I want? What does the director want? How do we collaborate? What is generated during the collaboration? What ideas, questions come across? And then I can start constructing something like a look.

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 2)

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 2)

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Art and Theater Director, Costume Designer

Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator.

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 1)

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 1)

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Art and Theater Director, Costume Designer

Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator.

(Highlights) DOUGLAS WOLK

(Highlights) DOUGLAS WOLK

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Author of NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics
Host of the Voice of Latveria podcast

I like the idea that your actions in the world can be motivated by both idealism and realism about how to achieve those ideals. I like the idea that morality is not simple. There is this idea that there are the heroes and there's the villains and you can easily tell who's who, and that's not so true as it used to be in comics and that's meaningful. One thing that is interesting about the Marvel story is there’s basically nobody who's just a bad guy to be a bad guy. Everyone has their reasons. Almost everyone is capable of redemption in some way, even the worst of the worst are capable of tremendous heroism and tremendous idealism and genuinely wanting to heal the world make it a better place.

DOUGLAS WOLK

DOUGLAS WOLK

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Author of NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics
Host of the Voice of Latveria podcast

I like the idea that your actions in the world can be motivated by both idealism and realism about how to achieve those ideals. I like the idea that morality is not simple. There is this idea that there are the heroes and there's the villains and you can easily tell who's who, and that's not so true as it used to be in comics and that's meaningful. One thing that is interesting about the Marvel story is there’s basically nobody who's just a bad guy to be a bad guy. Everyone has their reasons. Almost everyone is capable of redemption in some way, even the worst of the worst are capable of tremendous heroism and tremendous idealism and genuinely wanting to heal the world make it a better place.

(Highlights) JP OUELLETTE & DYLAN MATLOCK

(Highlights) JP OUELLETTE & DYLAN MATLOCK

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Producers of the Award-Winning Mass starring Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs & Martha Plimpton

“Usually we just see the soundbites and the news and then there's a new one or a new story, the politics that takes away from what these families are going. These people in these towns are just glossed over, looked over. And that's not the case in real life. They live with this trauma forever…What I hope the next generation takes us just to absorb everything from our generation and our parents’ generation. There are a lot of living generations right now. The longevity of people and the young families, it’s amazing. I had five generations of my family alive at one point in my life, and it was just the most amazing I've ever been a part of.” –JP Ouellette

JP OUELLETTE & DYLAN MATLOCK

JP OUELLETTE & DYLAN MATLOCK

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Producers of the Award-Winning Mass starring Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs & Martha Plimpton

“Usually we just see the soundbites and the news and then there's a new one or a new story, the politics that takes away from what these families are going. These people in these towns are just glossed over, looked over. And that's not the case in real life. They live with this trauma forever…What I hope the next generation takes us just to absorb everything from our generation and our parents’ generation. There are a lot of living generations right now. The longevity of people and the young families, it’s amazing. I had five generations of my family alive at one point in my life, and it was just the most amazing I've ever been a part of.” –JP Ouellette

(Highlights) IAN BURUMA

(Highlights) IAN BURUMA

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Ian Buruma is the author of many books, including A Tokyo Romance, The Churchill Complex,Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism and God’s Dust. He teaches at Bard College and is a columnist for Project Syndicate and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. He was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to European culture" and was voted one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals
by the Foreign Policy magazine.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Lexi Kayser with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

IAN BURUMA

IAN BURUMA

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Ian Buruma is the author of many books, including A Tokyo Romance, The Churchill Complex,Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism and God’s Dust. He teaches at Bard College and is a columnist for Project Syndicate and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. He was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to European culture" and was voted one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals
by the Foreign Policy magazine.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Lexi Kayser with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).