Allison Anders
Allison Anders
Allison Andersis an American independent film director whose films include Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart. Anders has collaborated with fellow UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate Kurt Voss and has also worked as a television director. Anders' films have been shown at the Cannes International Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival. She has been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant as well as a Peabody Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth16 November 1954
CityAshland, KY
CountryUnited States of America
I had breast cancer. I caught it early.
Sundance is the only hand that feeds for women directors.
Do we have to be rail thin to possess 'outer beauty' and sex appeal and to be capable of attracting lovers?
Nothing feels worse than knowing that people didn't see your movie. That they wanted to and the critics loved it but nobody knew where it was because it didn't do what it was supposed to do opening weekend. It used to be that independents were allowed to stay in the theaters, build word of mouth.
It was such a struggle for me to make it off welfare. I was getting $630 a month for myself and my children with no support from their fathers. The rent was $600 a month, and if you got a job, they took it out of your welfare.
The women I cast have to embody all sorts of contradictions... I have to find the right woman to speak to other women.
I've worked on movies where there's all these people coming and going, and I don't even know who they are.
There's a persona that musicians carry with them. I like to find what's under the persona.
This practice of skinny actresses donning fat suits is essentially the new and acceptable blackface in Hollywood.
I've been amazed watching people who are not ready with their scripts when they're getting a lot of attention.
Roman Polanski is one of my favorite filmmakers, and John Phillips one of my favorite songwriters. I had the honor to meet each of these men and was almost giddy to be blessed with the chance to tell each artist what his work meant has to me.
Nowadays you don't get to see composition in a movie because nobody ever keeps the camera still long enough to see it. Actors don't have the thrill and the power of working with space.
During the '90s, a lot of us in the indie film world were not making our money off our movies. We were screenwriters doing scripts for hire for studios.
You still get the movies made. A filmmaker can always scrape up money to do a movie. The passion drives it. And you'll get the money. Money's the easiest thing. But the hardest thing is finding a way for people to see your movie.