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Jonathan Liebesman - On the Way Up

At 26 Liebesman has already directed his first feature, the box-office hit Darkness Falls, as well as an award winning short film called Genesis And Catastrophe.

When you made Genesis And Catastrophe, did you expect it would lead to this?
When I sent the film to the Sundance Film Festival I did think 'this is my big career move'. But then I got a rejection letter...and I thought my career was over. I was going to come home to South Africa and make an independent film, but then some agents saw Genesis And Catastrophe and wanted me to meet them in Los Angeles so I decided to stay and play it out.

You were only 25 when you made Darkness Falls, did you ever feel overwhelmed?
Ja, sure. I remember the morning before we started shooting - I was watching Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind because I couldn't sleep. As I watched the way Spielberg moved the camera I realised I had always assumed that stuff was taken care of by the professional cinematographers...I realised I was going to have to think about it myself, because I was the director. But when we finally watched the film in front of an audience, we all breathed a sigh of relief. We realised we had found its market.

Tell us about your next project Immortals.
Its about three kids who are offered immortality, in the vibe of Flatliners. It's a supernatural drama.

Have you decided to make America you home? Or are you going to return to South Africa at some point?
I'm leaving it open. I'll go wherever I need to make the great stories, to make the great movies. If there's a great story here - then I'll be back here making it. I definitely think my best films will be South African stories.

Where do you want your career to go? Do you want to concentrate on making fun movies or make something more serious?
I'd love to do something great. My favourite films of the last 13 years are things like Unforgiven, The Shawshank Redemption, Dances With Wolves. I'd love to somehow find a great movie. The kind of movie you come out of and say "Wow!". That's the stuff that makes me want to make movies, and those are the movies I want to make.

Darkness Falls has received some harsh reviews. What do you feel about them? Do you care?
It does hurt me, obviously, but I went into the movie with my eyes open. It was all about weighing the pros against the cons, knowing what the movie is but knowing at the same time that if I can take this material and make it into a product that the studio is excited about, then that could open a ton of doors for me. It wasn't a creative passion project. It was a fantastic learning experience and a great stepping-stone.

Was it tough getting into Hollywood?
I think if you have the right material and perhaps the right ideas you're going to crack it one way or another. It's just a matter of how long. For me I'm just lucky it happened sooner rather than later.

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