For the third consecutive year, KVIFF honours a prominent figure from one of the film industry’s less visible professions. This year, the spotlight is on Francine Maisler, one of the world’s top casting directors. Maisler, who has won numerous awards including an Emmy, is renowned for casting films such as Dune, The Big Short, Birdman, and Little Women. In Vary, she presented the new film The Bikeriders, featuring a stellar cast including Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Austin Butler.
The Bikeriders is based on a book of the same name, where American photographer Danny Lyon captured striking images of real biker gang members from the Chicago suburbs in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “When director Jeff Nichols saw the photos, he recognised them for such vivid characters that he immediately began writing the film. For me as a casting director, it was a gift to draw on such rich reference material. “We had a lot of fun assembling a diverse group of colourful characters,” Maisler said during the introduction at the Pupp cinema. On Tuesday at 12:30 p.m., you can learn more about Francine Maisler’s work during her KVIFF Talk in the Congress Hall.
