Interview With "How To Shoot A Ghost" Director Charlie Kaufman & Writer Eva H.D.

The Next Best Picture Podcast

Tv & Film

4.2 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After Charlie Kaufman utilized one of Eva H.D.'s poems in his 2020 feature "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," the pair hit it off. While Eva had never worked in film before, Kaufman had likewise never directed another writer's work before. Nevertheless, the pair were kindred spirits, and set off to continue working together, and made their first short film together, "Jackals and Fireflies" in 2023. Now, they're back with another short film making the film festival rounds, "How To Shoot a Ghost." Set in Athens, the short follows two recently deceased people, played by Jessie Buckley and Josef Akiki, as they wander around the city, experiencing the afterlife. Kaufman and Eva were kind enough to spend some time speaking with us about their work and experience making the short film, which you can listen to below. Thank you and enjoy! Check out more on NextBestPicture.com Please subscribe on... Apple Podcasts - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/negs-best-film-podcast/id1087678387?mt=2 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7IMIzpYehTqeUa1d9EC4jT YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWA7KiotcWmHiYYy6wJqwOw And be sure to help support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month at https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture and listen to this podcast ad-free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to The Next Best Picture podcast, and this is Daniel Howitt's interview with the director for How to Shoot a Ghost, Charlie Kaufman, and the writer, Eva H.D.
0:09.9	They met on the day after the last day of their lives.
0:26.6	Or the fabric of existence was ripped. Possibility flooded in. What do you want to remember?
0:56.6	Charlie and Eva, thank you so much for your time today,
0:59.8	talking about how to shoot a ghost.
1:01.9	I love this short film.
1:03.8	This is your second short film together.
1:06.5	What brought the two of you together to make these films?
1:10.2	Well, we met in 2017 at an arts residency called McDowell and became friends and
1:17.3	subsequently put a poem of Evers in a movie.
1:20.4	I directed, called I'm Thinking of Anythings.
1:23.3	And I think during the pandemic, she was in Canada and she recorded a poem and her friend put it to music.
1:29.3	And she sent me the audio file.
1:31.6	And I thought, okay, this could be a movie.
1:34.1	And I was looking to do something, a short.
1:37.0	So we started figuring out how to finance that.
1:39.8	And we did that, Jackals and Fireflies.
1:42.8	And that's how it started.
1:45.2	Well, I do want to talk about this short film.
1:47.3	You open right at the start with that beautiful Tony Morrison quote about not needing photographs or even memories.
1:55.8	The beauty is enough.
1:58.3	I'm curious, as filmmakers and as writers, the art form itself for thrives on this
	...

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