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July 2016

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DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 10 POST JULY 2016 anish director and screenwriter Nicolas Winding Refn was born with movies in his DNA; his father edited Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, Antichrist and several others, and his mother was a DP and photographer. He first arrived on the international stage with 1996's Pusher, his violent look at crime in his hometown of Copenhagen, following that up with another crime thriller, Bleeder. In 2003, he made his first English- language film, Fear X. Since then, he's cemented his reputation as a director with a bold visual style who's never afraid to take risks, thanks to such films as Pusher II (2004), Pusher III (2005) and 2008's Bronson, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Refn next wrote, directed and pro- duced Valhalla Rising, a period piece about the Vikings, starring his long-time collaborator Mads Mikkelsen, and then made the retro-noir thriller Drive with Ryan Gosling, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and won for Best Director. It made Refn a bankable name after it earned over $100 million worldwide. He followed that success by reteaming with Gosling on Only God Forgives, a crime thriller which also pre- miered at Cannes in 2013. His new film, the awesomely-titled and ultra-intense The Neon Demon, is his 10th — and marks the director's first horror film and first film with a female lead. Set in the glossy world of high fashion, it stars Elle Fanning (Maleficent, Super 8), as an aspiring model who moves to Los Angeles, where her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will use any means neces- sary to get what she has. The film also features a stellar behind-the-camera team that includes cinematography by Natasha Braier (The Rover, The Milk of Sorrow), editing by Mat Newman (Drive, Only God Forgives), music by Cliff Martinez (Drive, Spring Breakers, Only God Forgives) and sound design by Eddie Simonsen and Anne Jensen. Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, Refn talks about making the film, his love of post, and his color-blindness. What sort of film did you set out to make? "I never have any agenda when I start, I just want to experience an experience, if that makes sense. It's the only way I could move ahead with it. I thought it'd be very interesting to do a horror film about beau- ty, as it's such a dominating factor in our lives, and to set it in the world of fashion, which is a place of heightened beauty. I felt it'd make a very funny background, as it's so full of glamour and vulgarity, and NICOLAS WINDING REFN: THE NEON DEMON A DIRECTOR WITH A BOLD VISUAL STYLE WHO'S NOT AFRAID TO TAKE RISKS BY IAIN BLAIR D Refn (left) shot his latest feature, starring Elle Fanning, on Arri's Alexa XT.

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