Beyond Crossroads...Starring Tamra Davis
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
Release Date: 06/03/2025
That's a Wrap...Starring Erin Keane
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
How do you wrap up a series featuring amazing women doing amazing work? Easy: by featuring another amazing woman who is doing amazing work. When not in her role as Chief Content Officer for Salon, my friend Erin Keane writes books (Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me, Death-Defying Acts, The Gravity Soundtrack, and more), pours a good drink or two, and loves loves loves movies. I thought who better to speak to than someone who admires the directors featured in Break the Frame and can provide a thoughtful and critical analysis of their work? If you haven’t had a...
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Access and Archives... Starring Chris Hegedus
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
For over four decades, Chris Hegedus has shaped the documentary landscape with her empathetic approach and compelling narratives. She first rose to prominence co-directing The War Room (1993) with D.A. Pennebaker, which earned the duo an Academy Award nomination. In films like Startup.com, Kings of Pastry, and Unlocking the Cage, she provides intimate, behind-the-scenes portraits of politics, culture, and the arts, giving us a side not normally seen on camera. With works that often ask us to explore and examine ambition, creativity, and change, she continues to look beyond a headline and give...
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No Simple Favors...Starring Jessica Sharzer
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
"Want to trade confessions?" I’ll admit that I’ve seen A Simple Favour more than a dozen times. When I shared this confession with the screenwriter, Jessica Sharzer, she told me that people still come up to her on a regular basis quoting lines from this very quotable movie. Jessica is also the director of the 2004 film Speak, which was the first role for a little known actress named Kristin Stewart; not too sure what she’s been up to these days (wink). I got to catch up with Sharzer from her office between meetings and calls to discuss writing, working with actors, and translating...
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The Directing Woman...Starring Cheryl Dunye
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
When you create a style of storytelling that merges your life with fiction, you need to give it a name. What better name to describe the works of filmmaker, scholar, and trailblazer in Black queer cinema than the Dunyementary? Cheryl Dunye first burst onto the scene with her groundbreaking 1996 debut feature The Watermelon Woman, becoming the first openly out Black lesbian to direct a narrative feature. A witty, self-reflexive exploration of erasure in film history, this first Dunyementary was added to the National Film Registry in 2021. Her recent work has brought her distinct style to...
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Captain Marvelous...Starring Anna Boden
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
Directing in a team with Oakland-born Ryan Fleck, Boston Anna Boden has taken us into the centre of a addict’s pain to the far reaches of space. And while a Boden Fleck joint is often about characters failing to overcome their limitations, their movies do not revel in despair but look with great tenderness into the eyes of the despairing. Their time and concern for how a character tries, fails and tries again is a large part of why the world's most famous actors--Ryan Gosling, Brie Larson, Pedro Pascal--seem to continually want to work with them. Fresh off the...
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The Bones of Directing... Starring Debra Granik
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
Known for her powerful, character-driven storytelling and focus on marginalized communities, Debra Granik gained widespread recognition for the critical and box office hit Winter’s Bone (2010), which launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career and earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her distinct style of storytelling and an empathetic lens results in films that serve to highlight and remind us of America’s overlooked and misunderstood. I had a chance to catch up with Debra just before I headed out on tour for the books and she was taking a...
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Beyond Crossroads...Starring Tamra Davis
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
Who says a director should only direct just films or just television? Tamra Davis has shown that you can have a multifaceted career that includes music videos, feature films, television, and documentaries. Her unique visual style and collaborative approach has resulted in genre-defining music videos for Hanson, Tone Loc and NWA as well as career defining roles for Adam Sandler, Britney Spears and Drew Barrymore. Tamra Davis’s versatility and commitment to storytelling continues with episodes of our favourite TV shows, films, and documentaries. Selected Filmography 13 (2022) Jean-Michel...
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Harvesting Honey - Starring Felicia Pride
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
In a world where women of a certain age or of a certain shade are often overlooked, Felicia Pride tells stories that center Black women and their nuanced experiences. The acclaimed writer, director, and producer who initially started out as a journalist made the switch to screenwriting in her mid-30s. Pride contributed to such hit television series as Queen Sugar, Grey’s Anatomy, and most recently the Fresh Prince reboot, Bel-Air. Her directorial debut, the short film Tender, explores the intimacy between two Black women post one-night stand. From there, Pride wrote and executive...
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Real Women Make Movies... Starring Patricia Cardoso
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
The stand out monologue by America Ferrara in 2023’s Barbie may not have happened if it weren’t for the trailblazing director Patircia Cardoso, who first cast Ferrera in her in her debut feature, Real Women Have Curves (2002). Cardoso who set out to become a anthropologist became the first Latinx director to win the Sundance Audience Award, and to have a film inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Cardoso’s anthropological background informs her storytelling, bringing depth and authenticity to underrepresented voices. She looks for the beauty in the...
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But I'm a Director! Starring Jamie Babbit
Break the Frame: The Companion Podcast
Known for her sharp, satirical storytelling and commitment to LGBTQ+ representation, Jamie Babbit’s career has been shaped by her own life experiences. In this episode we dive deeper into the film that made both her and its star, Natasha Lyonne famous. But I’m A Cheerleader is Babbit’s debut and centers around a high school cheerleader whose parents send her to a residential in-patient conversion therapy camp to "cure" her lesbianism. Learn how improvised moments made it into the final cut, how Jamie’s eye for talent has turned small scenes into bigger roles, and what films by women...
info_outlineWho says a director should only direct just films or just television? Tamra Davis has shown that you can have a multifaceted career that includes music videos, feature films, television, and documentaries. Her unique visual style and collaborative approach has resulted in genre-defining music videos for Hanson, Tone Loc and NWA as well as career defining roles for Adam Sandler, Britney Spears and Drew Barrymore. Tamra Davis’s versatility and commitment to storytelling continues with episodes of our favourite TV shows, films, and documentaries.
Selected Filmography
13 (2022)
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010)
Crossroads (2002)
Half Baked (1998)
Billy Madison (1994)
CB4 (1994)
Guncrazy (1992)
Dead to Me (2020)
You're the Worst (2017)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015)
Gray's Anatomy (2007)
Music Videos
"MMMBop" - Hanson (1997)
"Kool Thing" - Sonic Youth (1990)
"Closer to Fine" - Indigo Girls (1989)
"Wild Thing" – Tone Loc (1988)