Change Your Image
kazps
She has made five short films which have screened at festivals domestically and abroad, directed a handful of music videos, and been the grateful recipient of fellowships and grants from the likes of AFI, Cinereach, Eastman Kodak and the Jerome Foundation. She is an alumna of AFI’s prestigious Directing Workshop for Women and won the Institute’s Jean Picker Firstenberg Award for her DWW short, MEGAFAUNA, which featured cinematography by Reed Morano (HANDMAID’S TALE). Her most recent short, ASH starred Jason Butler Harner (OZARK) and Dale Soules (ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK), and is currently making the rounds on the international festival circuit.
As a screenwriter, Kaz has multiple projects in development including CRADLE WILL FALL at Intrepid Pictures, BLACK RIBBON at Gunpowder & Sky with Nick Moceri (A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT) attached to produce. Her script WATERLINE placed as a semi-finalist in the Academy Nicholls Screenwriting Fellowship.
As a video designer she has presented work in France (Theatre de Chaillot, Paris; Les Subsistances, Lyon; Le Quartz, Brest), Poland, Denmark, Russia, Australia, the UAE, and across the US (A.R.T, Cambridge MA; Bumbershoot, Seattle, WA) and is the video artist in residence with internationally acclaimed NYC-based dance theater company, Witness Relocation. Her video design work has been called “hallucinatory” by the New York Times, and described as “audio-visual anarchy” by New York Magazine.
Kaz graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University with a BA in English and a Certificate in Creative Writing. She was born in England, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, lived in NY for sixteen years and now calls LA home.
Reviews
The Monster (2016)
Monsters come in all forms
Just watched this and loved it. Another smart addition to the encouragingly robust genre of smart and allegorically innovative horror movies.
My take? The monster is simply Kathy's addiction, as experienced by daughter Lizzy.
- it attacks when she's vulnerable
- it removes people who are there to protect her (Lizzy's father (the actual addiction)/ the tow truck guy and the paramedics (the metaphorical monster))
- shining a light on it/ acknowledging it weakens it
- once you've acknowledged it, you're in a better place, but you still have to go through withdrawal and might be too damaged to pull through (Kathy vomiting blood in the woods due to her internal injuries)
- despite your best intentions, innocents will still suffer because of it. (Lizzy undergoes her mother's "overdose" and death, and then still has to grapple with the monster on her own.)
- Finally, the ultimate version of "shining a light on something", i.e. setting it on fire, is what allows her to be free, albeit with a forever altered view of her own safety, and the security of the world in general. [ Fun add on-- she had to sacrifice her childhood/ innocence, i.e. her singing teddy bear, in order to finally overcome the monster. ]
A lot of people are commenting on the weird/ unbelievable choices made by the characters in the third act. If you're looking at it as a straight up horror movie, I could understand that. But seeing it through the lens of the pretty obvious analogy that was being made about addiction, they all felt totally spot on to me.
Definitely recommend!
44 Inch Chest (2009)
clever, brilliant, moving film.
44 inch chest is basically reservoir dogs meets jacobs ladder. a man's wife confesses that she's met someone else and, in a rage, he calls in his team of thuggish friends to capture the "loverboy," so that he can interrogate, torture and eventually kill him. typical revenge fantasy stuff. except it's all exactly that. a fantasy.
his friends, the "thugs" that populate the whole film, don't exist. rather, they're each a facet of his own personality, the tough bigot, the sensitive flamboyant hedonist, the down to earth pragmatist and the volatile gentleman. they goad, restrain, and goad again, painting an indelible picture of the turmoil Colin is experiencing in the wake of his wife's confession of infidelity. some of the best writing about relationships and marriage that I've ever seen. incredible characterization, of all of them but in particular Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone.) damn, dude. breaking up is hard to do.
kudos to mellis, scinto and venville. great work.