“Judy Stone has an eye for movies and a nose for politics. Her interviews are not just good journalism (and terrific reading), they belong to film history as well.”
—J. Hoberman, film critic, Village Voice

“A stunning collection of interviews with the best filmmakers of our time by one of America’s outstanding journalists. Judy Stone has the unusual gift of easily entering into the minds of these directors, with the result that she stimulates them into making highly original comments. I learned much from this book.”
—Daniel Talbot, President, New Yorker Films

“Judy Stone’s bright, exuberant, revealing conversations illuminate more about American and foreign filmmaking than any scholarly tome or deadly serious exegesis about “the cinema.” Sometimes funny, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, but always knowledgeable and intelligently written, these pieces offer fascinating observations, remarkable insights, and engaging commentary about the inevitable struggle to make films that are honest and entertaining and, yes, that also sell. A remarkable collection.”
—Lawrence K. Grossman, Former President of PBS and NBC News and author of
The Electronic Republic

“A rarity among those who write about film, Judy Stone has a genuine and all-too-rare curiosity about the world—not ONLY the “world of film.” She’s got a tremendous knack for getting people to open up and talk about themselves and their work—and that usually makes her interviews keenly rewarding.”
—Peter Scarlet, Artistic Director, San Francisco International Film Festival

“When other film journalists were chasing down stars to interview, Judy Stone went after directors, usually of so-called foreign films. There probably isn’t another writer in this country who could have put together this anthology of dispatches from the front lines of film making.”
—Jay Carr, critic, The Boston Globe

More than 200 filmmakers from forty countries are included in this unique and engrossing look at cinema around the world. They are profiled in discussions with Ms. Stone that get to the heart of these artists’ works and their underlying views of the world—the political and cultural contexts—that inform their works.

Definitely not a dry-as-dust academic survey, this inviting and enlightening blend of conversations and commentaries, most of which are drawn from the author’s long-running film column for the San Francisco Chronicle, is a must-read for all who enjoy intelligent filmmaking.

Among the filmmakers included are Alfonso Arau, Richard Attenborough, Hector Babenco, Bernardo Bertolucci, Kenneth Branagh, Luis Buñuel, Chen Kaige, Francis Ford Coppola, Constantin Costa-Gavras, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Federico Fellini, Milos Forman,
Jean-Luc Goddard, Agnieszka Holland, Neil Jordan, Philip Kaufman, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Akira Kurosawa, Spike Lee, Miki Leigh, George Lucas, Dusan makavejev, Nikita Mikhalkov, Mira Nair, Jan Nemec, István Szabó, Bertrand Tavernier, François Truffaut, Andrzej Wajda, Peter Weir, Wim Wenders, Lina Wertmüller, and Zhang Yimou.

Judy Stone has been writing about international cinema for the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications, including The New York Times and Ramparts, for forty years. She is the author of The Mystery of B. Traven.