FilmStew.com

Seattle Set to Exclaim a Big 'Hooray!' for Hillywood

2013-05-18T08:07:00.001-07:00

It's quite a switch from the projects co-directors Leah Warshawski and Christopher Tower usually make for Microsoft. But on May 29th, at the Seattle International Film Festival, the pair will complete a thrilling documentary journey.

Finding Hillywood, which began shooting in 2008, is all about an ongoing traveling film festival in Rwanda. By means of an inflatable screen, citizens in rural areas are given free access to inspiring, diverting cinema.

What makes the upcoming world premiere screening so special is that Warshawski and Tower were able to raise funds for the oldest member of the dedicated Hillywood festival crew to travel to Seattle to join them. Ayuub Kasasa Mago, a father of four, first got drawn into filmmaking as a location scout for The Last King of Scotland. His personal struggles with the legacy of his country's genocide, which claimed his own mother, frame the documentary.

Now, post-Memorial Day, this Rwandan of Tutsi descent - who, once, because of all the war and destruction struggled with drug and alcohol addiction - will bask in the glow of an appreciative SIFF crowd. From a recent Rwandan article penned by a friend and colleague:

If you were to say that Ayuub is one of the pillars of Rwandan cinema, you would not be far from the truth. He’s one of the few who has done everything in cinema and done it well. He’s been director, location manager and even an actor. He’s been doing it for ten good years.

The Seattle scenario gets better. Thanks to the upcoming fundraised trip from Africa to the Pacific Northwest, Mago will also get to present Fora, a seven-minute short he directed and stars in. It tells the tale of a father who learns a valuable lesson from his sons and will play in tandem with Finding Hillywood.

One of the people lucky enough to have already seen Finding Hillywood is Phil Alden Robinson, the writer-director of Field of Dreams. He raves: "Finding Hillywood gives me goose bumps. In an era of mega-budgets and special effects, here’s a fascinating, compelling and universal story about the power of… story. It reminds me of why some of us became filmmakers, and why all of us became film lovers."

In other words, borrowing from one of Robinson's most famous creative legacies and applying it to the hilly terrain of Rwanda: 'If you inflate it, they will come.'

[Finding Hillywood]

A 'Most Moving' Look at Mental Illness

2013-05-12T10:09:00.002-07:00

What better setting for a documentary about mental illness, six years in the making, than a screening at the 2013 American Psychiatric Conference?

Hidden Pictures, by Delaney Ruston, premiered in late March at the Conference on Global Mental Health in London. Since then, it has screened at the United Nations in India (May 3rd) and at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival (May 5th), where it won the prize for Most Moving Documentary. The American Psychiatric Conference showing will take place May 21st at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Left, right and center in today's news headlines are echoes of the sorry state of how this country cares for its mentally ill. Compounded by the fact that for reasons both documented and speculated, there are more such individuals in the U.S. of A it seems than ever before. The filmmaker has a direct family connection to this topic:

Ruston grew up under the shadow of her dad’s illness, schizophrenia. While reconnecting with him after years of estrangement (as seen in the award winning PBS documentary Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia), Ruston became interested in the experiences of other families around the globe.

How are people accepted or rejected? What is mental health care like? Given that the WHO estimates that 450 million people worldwide have a mental illness, why do we rarely hear about their lives? Ruston takes us on her journey to answer these questions, uncovering personal stories in India, China, South Africa, France and the US. What emerges are scenes of profound frustration, moments of true compassion, and haunting insights. The journey ends by exploring the force of change that individuals are bringing about, including actress Glenn Close’s movement to fight stigma.

Ruston is a Stanford-trained physician who pursued film in the Bay Area while completing her internal medicine residency and a Fellowship at the University of California, SF. Many more screenings of her latest documentary are at press time being finalized.

[Hidden Pictures]

Duluth is Horrible Set to Premiere in... Duluth

2013-05-09T22:15:00.003-07:00

It's in the can. And on June 11th, in Duluth, Minnesota, folks will finally get to see what all the fuss was about.

As writer-director Vincent Gargiulo points out, the 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. world premiere screenings next month are "a great opportunity to say hello or kick me in the nards." He also, given all the press coverage that was generated by the title Duluth is Horrible, rightly expects a sellout.

Here's how Gargiulo describes his short film:

The film is a series of vignettes chronicling a few lonely people in Duluth, MN searching for a connection in a bleak winter. There is no specific plot in its 17 minutes but some of the short vignettes connect loosely.

Scenes include the aftermath of a breakup from both sides, an older zookeeper on a online date, a Redditor complaining about his cat, a karaoke scene, a disillusioned Sex Chat girl, five people dressed as Carmen Miranda, a call from Enterprise Rent-a-Car and a little Disney magic thrown in for good measure. It will be the most personal and “dramatic” of my work. That said, I just have to throw in a few absurdist touches.

For those who can't wait, there's a DVD for sale right now for $11.00. Should be quite the event in Duluth on June 11th.

[Duluth is Horrible]

We're Not in Aberdeen Territory Anymore?

2013-05-04T08:04:00.002-07:00

A very special guest will be speaking at the Sunday May 5th stage performance of The Wizard of Oz at the Sioux Empire Community Theatre in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Carey Graeber is a past president of New Work Women in Film and Television and a documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on PBS, MSNBC and Detroit's local NBC affiliate. She's currently working on a new project called Rediscovering Dorothy.

Through various interviews, the film retraces the critical importance to The Wizard of Oz narrative of both author L. Frank Baum's experiences as a newspaper editor in Dakota's Aberdeen Territory and the accomplishments and advice of his mother-in-law Matilda Joslyn Gage (pictured). Along with urging her son-in-law to write down the stories he liked to tell rapt young audiences, Gage is also acknowledged as having created the foundation for radical feminist thought.

From the movie project's website:

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898) was as significant in the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the first wave movement as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The tree shared decades of activism, leadership and camaraderie, but Gage had a more revolutionary grasp of complex issues than either Stanton or Anthony...

The rift between the suffrage leaders never healed. And although Gage was the youngest, she died before Stanton and Anthony. After Gage's death, her contributions were minimized and ignored. The official biographies, memoirs and reminiscences relegated her to the footnotes.

Aberdeen native Graeber is partnered on Rediscovering Dorothy with writer Mona Kanin, with whom she has worked before, executive producer Alexis Alexanian and Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation director Sally Roesch Wagner. The teaser for the film is tantalizing and suggests the project will make a big splash when completed.

Ahead of this Sunday's talk, Graeber spoke with Argus Leader columnist Jill Callison, explaining that instead of a documentary, Rediscovering Dorothy may actually wind up being some sort of enhanced experience for tablets and e-readers. Read that article here.

[Rediscovering Dorothy]

World's Oldest Student Television Station Bags Musical Award

2013-04-30T10:59:00.001-07:00

To go along with the diploma Martin Heron recently earned from Glasgow University, there is now also this very sweet post-graduate memento.

Heron's slick five-minute short A Musical GUSTravaganza recently nabbed a Best Video to Music prize at UK's National Student Television Association Awards (NASTA). Featuring performers from Glasgow University Student Television (GUST), the video has cast members lip-synching various bits from famous musicals. Many of the works highlighted date from after 1964, which is when GUST - the world's oldest student television outlet - first hit the airwaves.

Heron told his local paper the Paisley Express that his award-winning project had a Yuletide spark:

“The idea for this video actually stemmed from a short film I made before, where it was people singing along to well-known Christmas songs,” he said. “The film proved popular so I thought of ways I could carry that on and came up with the idea of musicals."

"GUST includes a lot of very talented actors and singers and it was great how enthusiastic they were to be involved."

Heron's prize was one of three won this year at NASTA by GUST. Last year, the Glasgow University station claimed for Best Comedy with Spooning.

[GUST]

Khmer Rouge Child Soldier Lives Happily Ever After

2013-04-27T09:53:00.004-07:00

The Gardner Documentary Group tandem at the heart of Lost Child: Sayon's Journey is an extremely impressive one.

Director-producer Janet Gardner has worked previously for NBC News and CBS News, as well as done print journalism stints for Cleveland's Plain Dealer and the New York Times. Cinematographer Kevin Cloutier meanwhile is a four-time Emmy Award winner with credits such as 60 Minutes and Bill Moyers Journal.

On Tuesday April 30th, Gardner will be back in her native Princeton, NJ for a free screening of Lost Child at the local public library. Joining her for the Q&A will be Rutgers University anthropology professor Alex Hinton and co-producer Sopheap Theam. The documentary's central subject, Sayon Soeun, was abducted at age six and put into servitude as a member of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.

From the film's official website:

Painful questions persist concerning the years Sayon Soeun spent under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. After more than 35 years, he recently made contact with five brothers and a sister he assumed were dead. They say that they are sure he is their brother "Yon."

Sayon will follow these clues to Cambodia where he searches for the truth about a family he barely remembers and comes to term with his own experiences as a witness to genocide. The above picture is all that Sayon had left from his family in Cambodia.

The best part about all this is that Sayon now lives, happily, in Lowell, Massachusetts with the aforementioned Theam and four dogs. Another wonderful testament to the indomitable strength of the human spirit.

[The Gardner Documentary Group]

Previously on FilmStew:
Cambodia's Forgotten Killing Field

Dee Snider's Son Gets Mugged on His Way to Tribeca

2013-04-22T20:22:00.006-07:00

The most interesting aspect of Cody Blue Snider's dark comedic short Fool's Day is nowhere to be found on the movie's Tribeca Film Festival page. For that, readers must turn to a nearby Patch site.

Just a few weeks ago, Cody Blue was mugged as he headed out of a New York City location with his final digital film print in hand on a hard drive in his backpack. The thieves got away with his phone and almost, as well, his wallet.

But as Cody Blue told Three Village Patch, there's no way he was going to surrender his latest artistic work:

“Have you ever had anything that doesn’t feel real? You go into autopilot,” Snider said in an interview with Patch. “I was just glad I didn’t get stabbed.”

Fool's Day, about an elementary school prank gone horribly wrong, was actually written by two sons of Twisted Sister rocker (and executive producer) Dee Snider - Cody Blue and Shane. It played April 18th and 21st, and is scheduled to screen twice more at Tribeca on April 24th and 28th.

Snider's second short was made with the help of some 2012 Kickstarter funding.

[Fool's Day]

Stripping Down the Stereotype of 'The Wealthy Jew'

2013-04-20T07:34:00.003-07:00

The tagline for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival is pretty cheeky: 'Film. It's What Jews Do Best.' But on Sunday, April 21st, that will be trumped by the title of one the event's 2013 entries.

After screening in the U.S. for the past few months, Jews and Money finally shows in Montreal-born director Lewis Cohen's home-country of Canada tomorrow night at 5:15 p.m. (with the filmmaker in attendance). The movie uses as its starting point the horrific 2006 Paris kidnapping, torture and murder of cell phone salesman Ilan Halimi, and the admission by the leader of the gang responsible for these heinous acts that the 23-year-old victim was targeted because "all Jews are rich."

Among the experts interviewed in the film is University of Toronto professor Derek Penslar. Cohen's film was most recently screened Wednesday at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, prompting a nice write-up in New York's The Jewish Daily Forward:

Cohen mentioned [during the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Q&A] that it was difficult to get the Parisian Jewish community to open up to him. He also said that the only reason a couple of young men from the housing projects would agree to speak to him on film was because he wasn’t from the French media.

The filmmaker clearly prevailed against such challenges, creating a complex yet cohesive narrative. Even those already familiar with the Halimi case and with the history of anti-Semitism come away emotionally rattled by how Cohen managed to put it all together.

Following this weekend's Toronto debut, Jews and Money is scheduled to be shown on Canadian television.

[Jews and Money]

Massachusetts High School Yields Strange, Surprising Encounter

2013-04-17T23:01:00.003-07:00

This one is hard to believe. But it happened Tuesday April 16th at Lowell High School in Lowell, MA.

Per a report in the Lowell Sun by Pete McQuaid, Cambodian filmmaker Kalyanee Mam was there to screen her 2013 Sundance award-winning documentary A River Changes Course. At the end of the presentation, a 19-year-old student in the class asked a schoolmate what the visitor's name was again, then exclaimed that he knew her. He sure does.

The student, Mohammed Alasadi, was featured along with his Iraqi family in Mam's 2009 documentary Between Earth and Sky. She filmed them in Egypt a year earlier and had not seen them since.

From McQuaid's article:

"I was shocked," said Mam. "He just came up to me saying, 'Kalyanee? It's me, Saoud's brother.' It's such a small world." She reunited with his family after school Tuesday, a surprise to her considering she had no idea they now live in Lowell.

Mam spent time with Mohammed's parents and two sisters. Older brother Saoud, a painter featured prominently in Between Earth and Sky, is currently studying in New York. Mam plans to meet up with him there when her film tour takes her to Manhattan.

The Alasadi family settled in Lowell just eight months ago after stints back in Iraq and then Jordan. During that same interim, Mam was also the cinematographer for the Oscar-winning 2010 documentary Inside Job, about the Wall Street financial crisis.

Texas Student Tells the Story of His Childhood Friend, Killed by a Drunk Driver

2013-04-13T09:37:00.001-07:00

At first, the title 1:36 slightly baffles. Is this a reference to one minute and 36 seconds, perhaps within the context of an athletic event such as track and field? Is it an indication that we are about to watch a very short short?

None of the above. 1:36 is a 24-minute documentary by Texas Christian University senior Caten Hyde. Screening Monday April 15th at Houston's WorldFest, the movie is titled to chillingly remind one and all of the exact time the early-morning 911 call came in to the Sheriff's department of Harris County, Texas. At that moment, on June 25th, 2011, the life of 20-year-old Aaron Pennywell had just been cruelly extinguished by the reckless actions of 38-year-old Michael Giacona, a DWI offender back on the road with three times the legal limit of alcohol coursing through his veins.

Hyde's film has been accepted at several other festivals. One can only imagine how emotional some of the Q&As could be, as the tragedy of drunk driving is one that now touches so many.

He has received some nice initial local media coverage from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Houston public radio. Per the newspaper article, here is a reminder of why the subsequent criminal investigation, lack of eyewitnesses and minimal prison time for Giacona made national headlines:

Court-at-law Judge Michael Fields ordered Giacona, as part of his probation, to wear a giant sign that read, "I killed Aaron Coy Pennywell while driving drunk," on four consecutive Saturdays. Giacona served one Saturday before the judge waived the sentence because of threats made against him.

Pennywell's parents have become active anti-drunk driving campaigners and are currently pursuing a wrongful death civil suit against Giacona. Via Facebook earlier this month, Hyde revealed that veteran CBS News anchor-correspondent Bob Schieffer has watched the film and is sending along a letter with his thoughts.

The film premiered March 16th in Houston at the Cypress United Methodist Church. RIP.

Update - 04/24/13: Hyde's film was awarded a "Platinum Remi" at WorldFest Houston for Biographical Film. The award was accepted by Kae Pennywell, Aaron's mother. 1:36 previously won a Rellie Award from the Glen Rose Neo-Relix Film Festival.

[1:36]

Vermont Students Pick Up Where Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward Left Off

2013-04-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Premiering Wednesday April 10th at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro, Vermont, Northern Borders has a couple of names that are immediately recognizable: Bruce Dern and Genevieve Bujold.

But the biggest stars of Jay Craven's latest adaptation of a Frank Howard Mosher novel are arguably the 34 students who helped keep the budget under $500,000. For this movie, Craven - a tenured professor of film at Marlboro College - created a semester-long intensive called "Movies from Malboro." The initiative rounded up students not just from Malboro but more than a dozen other Vermont colleges and dropped them into the start-to-finish Northern Borders mix.

From a report in the Brattleboro Reformer:

"This is independent filmmaking to the extreme," said Jean M. King, a Wellesley College graduate who served as assistant to the director, last March.

Craven couldn't be more pleased with the results. The students pulled their weight, overcame their lack of experience with passion and grit and got the job done. In the process, many advanced their careers. Craven said 18 of the students have found some kind of film and media industry work since working on Northern Borders.

The plan with this long-gestating project was initially to have Jake Eberts produce and real-life superstar couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward star as the cantankerous grandparents. In the film, the arrival of the pair's 10-year-old grandson throws everything into even more exacerbated turmoil.

The Vermont filmmaker told Reformer reporter Jon Potter that Northern Borders was not just the best moviemaking experience of his career, but also his top-ranked brush with education. It's as if the indomitable spirit of Newman and Woodward was guiding the entire, reborn operation.

Following tomorrow night's debut, Northern Borders will move on to the Bellows Falls Opera House (April 11th), Montpelier (April 12th), Burlington (April 13th) and Lyndonville (April 14th). The Sunday showing is priced to support the film production program of the company co-founded by Craven and Bess O'Brien and encompasses an optional $80.00 pre-show reception.

[Photo courtesy: Kingdom County Productions]

For Ithaca College Student, Not Quite an Orwellian Nightmare

2013-04-06T09:01:00.002-07:00

Among the 11 shorts screening today at the Lewiston Auburn Film Festival's first-ever student competition is Ambert Thibault's The End.

However, Thibault - a sophomore at Ithaca College - will not be in attendance in Lewiston, Maine to gauge audience reaction to her movie about university students inhabiting an Orwellian nightmare. It turns out that she was already committed, on this very same weekend, to volunteering as an intern at her school's Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.

Per a recent Thibault blog item:

Being in a film festival and interning for a film festival at the same time is so weird. Just got called by the Sun Journal inquiring to interview me about my film and was just thinking I need to follow up with the musician I need to interview for the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival. It is truly very strange to be on both sides of the playing field...

But I realized something. I now know first-hand how the people I interview for FLEFF feel prior to an interview. This is invaluable information and will definitely inform how I approach people.

In the subsequently published Sun Journal interview, Thibault explains that in her stead today at the non-Ithaca event will be friends and family. Based on her interview, it appears she does not have a real-life "big brother." Just a movie riffing on George Orwell's celebrated view of the term and some unique duplicity today as she puts in some extra hours at the Ithaca end.

Michigan Indie Gets Hacked

2013-03-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

There's an unusual headline blaring across the website for Michigan psychological drama The House That Jack Broke. It reads: "Our Regular Website Will Be Back Up and Running Soon!"

That's because for some unknown reason, a hacker recently decided to play havoc with the online assets of the film, written and directed by John W. Bosley. Everything was fine when the movie debuted February 16th in Coleman, MI. But the day after a second screening March 14th in Royal Oak, it all suddenly went haywire:

A hacker crashed every site pertaining to film and-or film productions located on the production’s server, leaving only one non-film-related site still up and running. Each time the webmaster fixed the sites or switched servers, the hacker returned. With only a week in between the Detroit and Lansing premieres, the hacker seemed to be intentionally targeting the ticket sales and promotion of the film specifically for the final premiere in Michigan’s capital.

"It was very clear that the hacker spent a considerable amount of time setting up the exact time to launch their attacks against our site," Bosley said. "They were watching our marketing on social media so that they would know exactly when our new servers went online and when our sites were able to start selling tickets again. Someone wasn't happy about our success with our film production and wanted to make sure that we didn't gain momentum, but their attack only strengthened our resolve."

Bosley used the power of online "Demand-It" campaigns for his trio of Michigan screenings (that final, above-referenced Lansing one took place March 21st). Since the film is set in Maine, he is now looking at taking it there next. He has also been contacted by a Los Angeles screening series.

It's entirely unclear why a hacker would be so concerned with a grassroots, Michigan independent film about a couple whose relationship becomes strained by an FBI investigation into a recent murder. A personal vendetta perhaps?

Update - 03/31/13: We heard after publication from Mr. Bosley, who offers some intriguing details in response to FilmStew 's questions:

"On the law enforcement front, we are pursuing that issue this week. We were bouncing back this week from our constant marketing and had not found the time yet to file an official police report."

"From the information we've received, we believe the hacker may be another filmmaker (possibly one located in Michigan). I was told by another filmmaker and an artist who has a website that when they went public on promoting their material online and gaining attention, that both their competition hacked their sites. I'm concerned that this might be a trend developing and these people need to understand that it is an illegal practice to hack someone's site."

"We are looking into Phase Two of our exhibition of the film and have decided to do a three-day weekend online exhibition for people to see. Our concern is that film festival runs or even touring it in other states on our own slows the process down too much. We have too many people in different places that all want to see it and the best way to get it to them as fast as possible is online."

"But the hacker issue still concerns us, so we will be exhibiting the film on Vimeo, where we believe it will have the best security."

[The House That Jack Broke]

Documentary Celebrates the Glory of Early Kubrick

2013-03-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

At LACMA in Los Angeles, an acclaimed exhibit dedicated to the entire oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick continues through the end of June. Meanwhile, this weekend in Lakewood, Ohio, lucky patrons of the local library will get a more focused Kubrick master class.

Anatomy of a Film is unusual, to say the least. The documentary frames a repeat of the 1957 World War I film Paths of Glory with enhanced multimedia materials, and more.

From the official description:

Unlike the commentaries that often accompany the DVD release of films, the method used here is not simply a voice speaking casually over a silent version of the film as it runs in actual screen time. The technique of this new form is the use of all the tools at the filmmaker’s disposal; scripted narration, interviews, photographs, documents, slow-motion, freeze frames, clip rewinds and image comparison to examine the film’s structure, methodology and themes.

The editorial approach is to let the film play with full visual and aural continuity so that its story line can be followed. The narration and commentary intervene to illustrate artistry and technique, or to put the film in historical, social and industry context. An introduction by Kirk Douglas and commentary by producer James B. Harris and Richard Anderson, who played a leading role, augment the treatment. With a projected running time of 125 minutes, it is divided into three chapters or sequences.

Co-producer Charles Moore is a native of Lakewood, adding extra meaning to the Saturday March 30th screening. The documentary was written, directed and is narrated by David Spodak, an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. He hopes to make more thorough cinematic explorations of this nature in the future.

[Anatomy of a Film]

Chilly Flick Gets Warm Idaho Reception

2013-03-18T22:52:00.002-07:00

It's funny how a film festival can make a low-budget film shoot sound a lot more glamorous than it actually was. At the just-completed 2013 Sun Valley Film Festival, Craters of the Moon world premiered and went on to win the $1,000 Gem State Award for best reflecting the "beauty and diversity" of the state of Idaho.

As opposed to how the filmmakers put it on their official website: surviving 12 days and nights of shooting "in the brutal, sub-zero weather of the winter desert." The $25,000 indie feature, about a couple stranded in middle of nowhere, was written and directed by Jesse Millward. Only a small portion of the psychological thriller was shot in the National Park of the title, the rest in surrounding areas.

One of the funniest Craters website materials is the archived link to a local NPR interview that reminds just how long the movie has been gestating. At one point during the conversation, the host marvels at a strange new website called "Kickstarter."

Similarly, the film's Twitter account at press time is frozen in early 2011 time and, like Roger and Molly's car, desperately needs to be moved forward. But it's all part of the local color for this snowbound independent thriller.

[Craters of the Moon]

Tonight in Suffern, Many Moments of Sound for Victims of 1972 Munich Olympics Terrorism

2013-03-16T08:57:00.002-07:00

After two years of diligent work, Joe Allen finally gets to share tonight his documentary about efforts to get the IOC to remember the victims of terrorism at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

20 Million Minutes premieres at SUNY Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York, not far from the area Jewish Community Center that spearheaded attempts to have a minute of silence for the "Munich 11" at the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Although the campaign was unsuccessful, the documentary stands as a great testament to this sentiment. Allen will be there tonight, as will Munich widow Ankie Spitzer.

In a recent interview with Nyack News & Views, Allen outlined the details of his project: two trips to Israel; one visit to London; 45 interview subjects; and a grassroots movement:

The [online] petition garnered 111,929 signatures [...] It was supported by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and was the catalyst that sparked more than 10,000 articles and awakened governing bodies in the United States, Israel, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia to name a few. [...]

“One of the amazing things was to meet and deliver the petition personally to Jacques Rogge, then President of the IOC. He may not have agreed to do the minute of silence but we got a chance to tell him that people all over the world thought he was wrong” explained Allen.

The documentary is scheduled to screen again in West Nyack on April 10th as part of the JCC Film Festival.

[20 Million Minutes]

A Confluence of Firsts in St. Albans

2013-03-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Among the winners at this past weekend's St. Albans Film Festival in the UK was short film Gracious Awakenings. Which is entirely appropriate, because at what was the first edition of this city event, this was also Ben Jacobs' narrative-short directing debut.

But that's not part of the story that is going to garner headlines elsewhere. Per an article in The Independent, it is the budget of photographer Jacobs' film that catches the eye. Here's how the filmmaker summarized the cash outlay needed for his tale of a man who inexplicably wakes up naked in the countryside:

"The £10 [$13.03 U.S.] covered a jar of jam - a prop for the film - a four-pack of beer for our mates who were helping us, and the petrol to get to the location.”

Making it all the sweeter is the fact that Jacobs is a native of St. Albans. So out of the gate, with a ten-pound note and lots of help, he lands the Special Mention (runner-up) prize in the Short Film category. That's some solid grassroots work in a town largely associated on the cinematic front with the great Stanley Kubrick. Jacobs has previously made a number of promos and music videos.

[Benji Photography]

Amplifying Some Very Wise Ira Glass Advice

2013-03-10T13:34:00.003-07:00

The short film Still Life, currently available for paid viewing and download at TwistFlix.com, could have easily turned out differently. If not for some advice about storytelling from This American Life public radio host Ira Glass.

“Originally, the main character of Martin was very angry and defensive,” writer-director Chris Esper tells FilmStew. “He didn't have any redeeming qualities. Then, when I was in school one day, my motion graphics teacher showed my class a kinetic typography piece.”

A protagonist finding his way

That 2011 piece is based on something Glass first told an interviewer in 2009; it's all about the “creativity gap” at the beginning of an artist's career. As the radio maestro explains, though an individual's taste may already be "killer," it naturally takes time for a person's finished artistic products to catch up to the vision. Glass confesses that he himself “took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met.”

The Glass quote is title-carded in full at the beginning of Still Life and informs the drama of photo student Martin (Tim Bonavita) taking in feedback and beginning to find his way as an artist. “I think it was the passion in Glass's voice that intrigued me,” explains Esper, who graduated from the New England Institute of Technology last fall. “So I went back and rewrote Still Life from scratch and the character changed along with it. I even got permission from Glass's company to use the quote. So, the quote really helped in the end.”

Esper, working as an assistant cameraman

The short also benefits from some melodic piano soundtrack music provided by Ryan Campos , a very clever title (given the name of Glass's beloved weekly program) and crisp black and white cinematography by Mark Phillips. "Martin sees things very black and white,” notes Esper. “He doesn't think that he's growing or anything, he thinks he has to be either bad or good.”

“That's also why the flashback scene is in color, because as a child things are happy all the time,” he adds. “Martin is very much based on myself... I'm always nostalgic of my childhood because I think as kids, we aren't told when something we do, creatively, is bad. Anything we did was amazing and this is why sometimes when we enter the "real world" of being an artist, we are hindered and taken aback by being critiqued, because we grew up thinking we could do no wrong.”

Still Life has not screened at any competitive film festivals. However, after showing the short through some local filmmaker showcases, Esper was put on to TwistFlix by a friend. “It went live last month,” Esper says (at $1.99 to view, $3.99 to download). “I sent the film in, not thinking anything of it. That very night, I got an e-mail from the head of the company and he really liked Still Life and asked if I'd be interested in distributing it. Of course, I said yes.”

Esper says he is currently at work on a comedy short as well as the script for his first feature-length project. He also continues to direct music videos and freelance on other projects. Purchase Still Life here.

[Chris Esper]

A Long Walk Through Switzerland

2013-03-07T00:29:00.005-08:00

For first-time Ottawa filmmaker Neeko Paluzzi, the mid-life crisis came long before he hit his forties.

Five years after planting a letter to his future self in Switzerland, Paluzzi returned last spring to begin the journey of retrieving it. He had it all mapped out.

But fate immediately intervened, and the result - Wanderweg, premiering Thursday March 7th at Ottawa's Mayfair Theatre - is very different from what this Master's of Communications student first envisioned. From his Director's Statement:

I returned to Switzerland on May 3rd, 2012 (a day after my twenty-fourth birthday) with nothing more than a pair of hiking boots, a backpack and a camera. What I was physically carrying with me, however, did not equal the emotional baggage. After only a day of walking and filming, I found myself experiencing a debilitating mental and physical breakdown.

I locked myself in a hotel room for two days, hoping I could return to my filming schedule. I could not. After five years of waiting to return, the first few days of filming Wanderweg were among the most difficult of my life. In that moment, I thought I had failed. And then time past.

Paluzzi spent two months wandering across Switzerland and, somewhat improbably, managed to finagle sponsorship from Swiss Tourism. As he points out on his production blog, he is one of the few foreigners to have spent time in all 26 of the country's cantons - Switzerland's equivalent to a state or province.

[Wanderweg]

Texas Filmmaker Screens In-Progress 'San Antonio Four' Doc

2013-03-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

This afternoon at San Antonio's CineFestival, Austin-based journalist, photographer and filmmaker Deborah S. Esquenazi will screen 45 minutes of footage from her upcoming feature documentary The Recantation.

The title says it all. As Esquenazi delved into the controversial case of four Latina lesbians individually sentenced in 1998-2000 to 15 and (in one case) 37 1/2 years for sexually assaulting two young girls, something remarkable happened.

Per a recent article in San Antonio's The Current:

Last year, one of the "victims" recanted, telling Innocence Project of Texas (IPOT) lawyers and Esquenazi, on camera, that she was coerced and threatened into making up the whole story. Indeed, the [now in her mid-20s] woman's recantation is one of the more powerful clips in Esquenazi's arsenal. For nearly a year Esquenazi has followed the women's case, interviewing them in prison and following the developments as they unfold.

Anna Vásquez (pictured), the first of the "San Antonio Four" to be paroled last November, was not cleared by the parole board to join Esquenazi at this afternoon's CineFestival event. Following the screening, the director will take part in a panel discussion featuring attorney Mike Ware, advocate Mary Sue Molnar and moderator Elvia Mendoza, who is writing a dissertation about the film-case.

When the women were tried and convicted in 1998 and 2000, there was shockingly no major hard evidence logged against them. Instead, the quartet was largely done in by the testimony of a local medical expert and some general hysteria at the time about "satanic ritual" whisper-cases.

Esquenazi is a dynamic force in Austin. She also runs "Stories from Deep in the Heart," an NEA-funded initiative through which she makes radio documentaries with under-served teens. There is no doubt that once The Redemption is complete, it will garner a whole new level of media attention. The movie's ultimate goal is to speed the release of Elizabeth Ramirez, who received a 37 1/2 year sentence, and Cassandra Rivera and Kristie Mayhugh, sentenced at that same time (2000) to 15 years each.

[The Recantation]

Rhode Island Film Student Takes a Page from Woody Allen

2013-02-27T04:51:00.002-08:00

Remember how easy it was for Gil to catch a ride back in time each night in Midnight in Paris? Well, it's just as instantaneous for Charlie (Edward Patrick) in I'll Be Seeing You, a 50-minute drama premiering Saturday March 2nd in Cranston, Rhode Island.

In Charlie's case, it's a matter of bumping his head in the basement of his grandfather's bar. When he heads back upstairs, he suddenly finds himself at the tail end of Prohibition in 1933, sitting next to his much younger Grandpa.

The movie was written and directed by now-graduated University of Rhode Island film student Ryan Casey for Professor Keith Brown's Advanced Narrative Production class. With help from Indiegogo, where 27 donors contributed a total of $5,000 that was spent on things like the rental from a local collector of a 1934 Packard limousine and 1929 Rolls Royce.

Casey was able to get the Biltmore Hotel in Providence to donate a ballroom location for three nights of filming and also got an assist from the East Greenwich Police Department, who blocked traffic there on Main Street for another day of overnight outside shooting. "I feel so blessed and honored to have had this opportunity,” Casey says via a URI release written by public relations major Danielle Sanda. “Whether it’s a great success or Rotten Tomatoes gives it a poor ranking, I’m still very proud of the film, and the support I’ve gotten from other people means the most to me.”

The film was originally scheduled to screen February 9th but got whacked by Winter Storm Nemo. It should be a good time in Cranston this weekend, as Casey says he expects about 500 people to join him at the Park Theatre in Cranston.

[I'll Be Seeing You]

A Pinball Museum Wizard

2013-02-21T23:25:00.004-08:00

From the Fresno County town of Clovis, Wade Krause is doing his best to keep the pinball rodeo going.

His transformation of old games into pieces of art for museums and galleries, often with the help of artists like Dirty Donny, Brian Holderman and Mike Budai, is the focus of the documentary short Wade Krause: Pinball Artist. The movie will screen February 28th, March 8th and March 9th at San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival.

The movie was directed by Anna Newman, and perhaps more intriguingly, was shot by her first film teacher, Don Starnes. Per a recent interview in the Porterville Recorder, she apprenticed with him for a year and a half after that 2008 course and now has him roped into her directorial debut.

Both Newman and her subject have Hollywood connections. She works as a software engineering manager for Dreamworks in San Francisco, while Krause's grandmother was an inking and drawing worker at Walt Disney Studios.

[Wade Krause: Pinball Artist]

Jamming with Jackson Pollock

2013-02-16T10:05:00.001-08:00

Now in its 25th year, the U.S. Super 8 Film and Digital Video Festival (February 15th-17th) at Rutgers University continues to shine a light on all sorts of great experimental work. Case in point: The Art of Forced Collaboration, debuting tonight.

Director Jet Wintzer stars as a down-on-his-luck artist who decides to visit the East Hampton, New York home and grave of Jackson Pollock for inspiration. With prodding from his girlfriend (Natalie Caruso), he then takes it a step further by recording her breathing off one of the late artist's paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (!) and sourcing that recording for posthumous collaboration.

Speaking recently with the Suburban newspaper, Wentz described his short as "Rosemary's Baby meets Weird New Jersey." His film this year is one of 19 out of 166 entries selected, and comes on the heels of him winning a prize last year at the same event for Best Feature.

Old Bridge, New Jersey native Wintzer has been going to the Rutgers Co-op to view films since the early 1990s. The man who organized those weekly screenings, Rutgers University Cinema Studies lecturer Al Nigrin, is also responsible for starting the Super 8 Film Festival in 1988.

Tonight's festival program also includes Last of Our Kind, a modern interpretation of the Persephone myth featuring an original soundtrack by Cocteau Twins founder Robin Guthrie, and a tribute to the work of film diarist (and Super 8 Film Festival regular) Anne Charlotte Robertson, who passed away last year. RIP.

[2013 U.S. Super 8 Film and Digital Video Festival]

This Circle of Cardboard Art is Now Complete

2013-02-13T06:27:00.001-08:00

Rome's Trevi Fountain has its own website and a long list of film credits that includes La Dolce Vita and Roman Holiday. It can also be connected to a giant cardboard sculpture by artist James Grashow which, by his own design, was allowed to slowly disintegrate last spring in front of the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

What remains a year later is the feature documentary The Cardboard Benini, a reference to Trevi creator Gian Lorenzo Bernini. After the movie screens this Friday February 15th at the Ridgefield Playhouse (with Grashow and director-producer Olympia Stone in attendance), there will be an after-party at - you guessed it - the Aldrich Museum.

Grashow proclaimed last May when he took his degraded work to the dumpster that it was "ashes to ashes, mush to mush." But it turns out, for one night at least, to also be a case of "mush to movie."

The artist lives in neighboring Redding and counts the filmmaker's father Allan Stone as his art dealer. As Olympia's Director's Statement outlines, the goal of The Cardboard Benini was to also tie the giant sculpture to an even larger life-issue:

From its conception, Jimmy intended this work to be put outside to disintegrate. Work on the fountain began in 2007 and was completed in 2010... My film is an intimate glimpse of an artist at work on what he considers might be his “final epic.” We follow Jimmy as he asks what is the point of art and creation? What is the connection between creation and destruction? And, ultimately, what is the point of our lives in the face of our mortality?

The work premiered in June 2010 at the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia. It went to show in New York and Pittsburgh before coming home to Ridgefield. Stone launched Floating Stone Productions as a personal response to 9/11 and for her first, previous feature doc profiled her aforementioned art dealer dad.

[Floating Stone Productions]

Dracula Short Gets Wisconsin Encore

2013-02-10T10:06:00.002-08:00

From the get-go, the script for comedy short The Vampire Formerly Known as Dracula was in good shape.

Three of the five directors who participated in the final pitch-phase of last summer's Milwaukee Film Collaborative program chose the screenplay written by local High School for the Arts freshman Ian Walls as the one they wanted to make. Out of that prospective group, Nathaniel Schardin – a recent graduate of Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) – won the honors and guided an industry-mentored Friday-to-Sunday single weekend shoot.

After premiering last fall at the Milwaukee Film Festival, The Vampire Formerly Known as Dracula will screen at the 2013 Beloit International Film Festival this coming Friday and Saturday, (February 15th-16th). The well-received short chronicles how the old-school titular vampire tries to adapt to the popularity of new-breed Twilight blood suckers.

At the time of Milwaukee Film pitch-off, education director Susan Kerns had this to say: “Ian’s script immediately won over the Collaborative Cinema screenwriting mentors with its wit. In Nathaniel’s pitch, he followed the script’s lead and sold us on an amusing, historically based tale of past meeting present and cultures colliding.”

[Image of Schardin and lead actor Rick Pendzich courtesy Third Coast Digest/YouTube]

Update - 02/18/13: The Vampire Formerly Known as Dracula won the Beloit Film Festival's prize for Best Student Film.

Previously on FilmStew:
A Kinder, Gentler Vampire
A Multimedia Dracula