Ben Wheatley is an English filmmaker who started in shorts, sketch, viral videos and animation, before transitioning to make three distinctly English, variably horrific features: Down Terrace (2009), Kill List (2011), and Sightseers (2012). Expertly weaving seemingly disparate genres, Wheatley’s films have a visceral immediacy that sometimes belies their formal complexity.

Ben brought Sightseers to the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it played to enthusiastic audiences in the Vanguard program. We sat down with Ben after a long, hot day in our studio space hosted by Onsite [at] OCAD U and were thrilled to talk to him about each of his films’ development, production, and reception at length.

Our interview with Ben Wheatley was a feature interview in the eighth monthly issue of The Seventh Art as a “video magazine.” It was released in October 2012 and was shot as part of our Toronto International Film Festival coverage. Other TIFF 2012 interviews on video from that year include Thomas Vinterberg, Margarethe von Trotta, Miguel Gomes, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Ernie Gehr, Costa-Gavras, João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata, Matías Piñeiro, Rodney Ascher & Tim Kirk, Peter Mettler, and William Vega.