David Brind Dishes on DARE

Filmmaker David Brind visited Bryn Mawr Film Institute on Wednesday, April 14 to teach a free Filmmaking Master Class and to introduce and discuss an evening screening of Dare, the high-school drama he co-produced and scripted. We have done a lot of really wonderful events here at BMFI since we re-opened in 2005, but this Master Class is one of my personal favorites. David was disarming and engaging, leading a no-holds barred discussion of Dare’s five-year journey from his MFA short at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program to the feature’s premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. He dished about screenwriting, fundraising, the role of producers, agents and investors, and struggling to get good distribution even after a much-hyped premiere and good reviews. Keep reading for excerpts about how Dare made it to the big screen.

Dare stars Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera, The Day After Tomorrow) as Alexa, a clean-cut aspiring actress in the spring of her senior year of high school who decides to push her limits after an arrogant actor (Alan Cumming) tells her that she lacks experience and challenges her to do something that scares her. Remaking herself into a free spirited risk-taker leads her to seduce her acting partner, the rebellious, popular Johnny (Zach Gilford, NBC’s Friday Night Lights). When her shy best friend Ben (Ashley Springer) also pursues Johnny, the three must navigate an increasingly complicated situation as the school year draws to a close. Told in three parts, one focusing on each of the teens’ perspectives, Dare is set in the suburbs of Philadelphia and was filmed locally.

Excerpts from David's class:

What was your inspiration for the short?
The central image for the short was two boys by a pool with a champagne bottle on a ledge. Thematically for me it’s about that moment in adolescence when you have a real connection with the most unexpected of people.

What inspired the feature?
Alexa was a peripheral character [in the short]. I got to capture in that moment [she shares a look with Ben after he has had an intimate encounter with Johnny] that she knows something’s shifted. That moment was my way into the feature film. ‘Who is this girl? What does she know about her friend? What are her feelings about Johnny?’ So I wrote a scene about their conversation in my file-o-fax on a train about 1-1/2 months after shooting the [short] film. That scene made it to the screen [in the feature] unchanged. I started the feature script in September 2004 and finished the first draft in August 2005.

What fueled the expansion of the story from the short to the feature?
So hard to say. With Dare it was extremely personal. It felt like I knew these characters and they were in my head. I’ve always loved high school movies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, and I wanted to subvert the stereotypes. Of course my own personal experiences from high school influenced the film as well, because you have to write what you know. It’s the oldest adage, but it’s true.

I never had any intention of exploring the same thing as the short. In the short I wanted to tell a twisty, sexy story about a boy who takes a risk and does something he doesn’t expect. In the feature I wanted to expand these three concepts of the good girl, bad boy, and outsider. The feature’s psychologically more complex and more personal. The short’s 17-18 pages, not much revision. With the feature, things get cut and rearranged and rewritten and some scenes don’t feel like my babies anymore.

How did you get support for the feature?
Strand Releasing [the distribution company for the short] connected us with different people to send the script to. There was one producer that courted us offering $500,000, but he wanted nudity and there wasn’t any in the script. (There’s sex, language, underage drinking and smoking, so I’m hardly a prude, but there’s no nudity.) The producer wanted me to add nudity and kept looking for places to do it: “Throw in a shower scene—I don’t know about you, but I shower naked.” Finally, he said, “If you want to get the nickel, you’ve got to show the pickle.” We said no.

Another person who really liked the script was Mary Jane Skalski (producer of The Station Agent, Mysterious Skin, The Visitor). After we passed on the one offer, we decided to throw ourselves at her mercy. She explained that she didn’t want to produce anything just then but said, “I really love your script so I guess I’ll have to produce.” She brought in casting director Kerry Barden (Good Will Hunting, The Visitor, Pineapple Express, Bad Boys II), and we started seeing a list of actors for roles.

Did the film change a lot in post-production?
We spent two months just editing the ending. The ending was found in the editing room.
The editor is hugely important. A film starts with a script, is retold by the director, and is retold again by the editor. Each one doesn’t know exactly what the other ones were thinking, so they bring their own unique spin to the project. It’s a collaborative medium and everyone contributes.

Did you intend to make a “gay film”?
I didn’t intend to tell a “gay” story. I felt like I wanted to tell this story and it had gay content. On a commercial level, having gay content is difficult, unless you’re gay, gay, gay all of the time. The question becomes, “Who do we market it to?”

A member of Bryn Mawr Film Institute’s advisory board, Philadelphia-born filmmaker David Brind wrote the screenplay and co-produced Dare, his first feature. He also wrote and produced the award-winning 2003 short film of the same name, which provided the basis for the feature. The short played at over fifty film festivals worldwide and was picked up by Strand Releasing as part of Boys’ Life 5, a series of gay-themed short films. David has also directed three short films, including Twenty Dollar Drinks with Sandra Bernhard and Tony Award-winner Cady Huffman, which premiered in competition at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Also a successful theater director, David directed Sandra Bernhard in her one-woman show titled Sandra Bernhard: Everything Bad and Beautiful, which ran for four months off-Broadway in 2006 and was restaged at Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theater in 2007. He participated as a director of the benefit performances of “The A-Train Plays” at New World from 2006 to 2008 and also directed Cady Huffman in her first one-woman show, which premiered at the Ars Nova Theater and later played at Birdland Jazz Club in 2007. Recently he directed a reading of playwright Jerome Kass’ Love Song that featured Matthew Broderick and Alan Cumming.

David received his B.A. from Yale University as a double major in Theater Studies and American Studies. He received his MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program.


Watch a trailer and find more information about Dare here.  

Sarah Schenk's SLIPPERY SLOPE

Sarah Schenck--writer/director, Bryn Mawr College alumna, and Hepburn Center Fellow--came down from New York to introduce and discuss her 2006 comedy Slippery Slope at Bryn Mawr Film Institute on Wednesday, February 24. Check out some highlights from the Q&A below.

In Slippery Slope, when an ardent young feminist needs cash to get her documentary "Feminism for Dummies" to Cannes, she takes a job directing an adult film... bringing her ideals to the set and awakening her own sexuality. The experience changes her professionally and personally in unexpected ways, jeopardizing her relationship with her politically-correct husband. The sexy screwball comedy gets big laughs, but also raises some serious issues about the uses and types of sexual imagery on film and the state of women's liberation. Slippery Slope premiered at the Montreal International Film Festival with three sold-out screenings and was honored with Best Film at the L.A. Broad Humor Festival.

You’ve done a lot of different kinds of jobs. How did you become a filmmaker?
I love film. I’ve always loved seeing movies.
While I was working at the City Comptroller’s office in New York doing education policy, I was at a party with a bunch of Columbia University film students and one had lost his art director. He knew I knew how to paint so he asked me to create a prison rec room set. I did, working nights and weekends, and took the opportunity to hang around the set while shooting. Watching him work with actors was transformative. Grad schools are a close knit community, and soon after I was asked to produce a short film. I’d run a political campaign, and producing a film is similar, there are a lot of transferable skills. Eventually I left my job at the Comptroller’s Office to become a full-time filmmaker.
I did other shorts as a director and writer and produced a feature just before Slippery Slope, Virgin, which got nominated for a bunch of Independent Spirit Awards. It helped that it had Robin Wright Penn in it. I knew that with Slippery Slope I needed to write scripts I could make on the money I could raise, with no stars.

Why did you make a comedy?
I love comedy, it’s an effective, direct way into the subconscious, a way to deal with sensitive and sore issues. Someone more articulate than myself said, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” And I agree with that—it's a challenging genre.

What would you do differently?
There’s an alternate ending [that BMFI’s audience got to enjoy, and which is also on the DVD], and I think maybe I chose the wrong one. Also, the sex scenes. I work with actors in a different way when nudity and sex are involved. Those scenes didn’t come out the way that I wanted; I wanted them to look more disorienting and a little less “soft-core”. I had story boards and had it all planned out, but other things took precedence and I wasn’t able to shoot those scenes the way I wanted to.

How long did it take you to write the script?
I wrote the script based on an idea I’d had for some time. Once I sat down to write it, it took about seven months or so, but I was also working on other things. Because I’d done some other scripts and produced a feature, I knew what I could do with the budget of a first-time filmmaker.

What was your budget and how long did it take to make Slippery Slope?
Slippery Slope had a $300,000 cash budget from eighteen private investors, as well as tremendous in-kind support, so it was about a $500,000 film, a much bigger budget than what I’d had to work on before. It took two years, including post-production and one day of re-shoots. We did 3-1/2 weeks of principal photography and then went to the cutting room, a pretty standard process.
For my current project, Primitive Streak, I didn’t feel up to fundraising again, so I am following an alternate model, using a smaller cast and shooting whenever time allows, then cutting and posting short episodes on line. Ultimately, we’ll re-cut and join the episodes to become a feature film.

What kind of distribution did the film get after its premiere at the Montreal International Film Festival?
It’s very difficult to get a theatrical release for a small independent film, so it’s a treat to get to see it on the big screen with you tonight. A distributor [Life Size Entertainment] did take us on, but not for a theatrical release. We sold to HBO Hungary, and some other markets. It’s a hard time for distributors, there are a lot of good films out there that never get released. The challenge with filmmaking is that it is such an expensive medium that if you’re not commercially successful, it’s hard to continue.

I loved Jim True-Frost on TV’s The Wire and it was so fun to see him in Slippery Slope. How was it working with your actors?
I think Jim True-Frost [who plays the protagonist’s very P.C. husband in Slippery Slope] is so wonderful to watch. There are people who really hate his character, so it’s interesting to see how the portrayal is received. His wife said to me that Slippery Slope is his favorite movie that he’s ever been in!
The hard thing about film, unlike painting, is that it’s a very expensive thing to do. Because we were able to pay SAG wages, we were able to get some wonderful actors. They were like racehorses, incredibly fine-tuned, and they brought great suggestions for the script and insight into their characters.

How did you go from working in Mother Theresa’s hospitals to being a filmmaker? How do those other experiences impact your thinking about your work?
It’s funny, I spoke earlier today at Bryn Mawr College about this. Every day I struggle with a sense of failure because there’s so much need [in the world]. I’ve taught kids to read and I know how to shingle a house, so wouldn't those activities be a better use of my time? But being a filmmaker is kind of like marriage. I think people get married when they feel like they have to be together; being an artist is the same kind of thing. You do it because you have to, because part of you can’t not. I love to communicate through film, and I also try to do little things to make the world a better place.

Sarah Schenck, a Bryn Mawr College alumna and Hepburn Center Fellow, made her feature directorial debut with Slippery Slope. She has written three other feature screenplays. In 2004, Sarah was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for producing Virgin, a $65,000 feature starring Robin Wright Penn and Elisabeth Moss. Her short films as writer/director/producer have won prizes in the U.K. and Belgium. She field produced the New York City segment of The College Track, a documentary about access to college for low-income students that aired nationwide in 2005 on PBS. Sarah has since made three documentaries for Project Renewal, New York City’s largest non-profit providing services to the homeless. She also makes half-hour documentaries on subjects relating to the food supply that air regularly on the Park Slope Food Coop’s cable television show. Sarah also recently began work as Video Producer and Director with Parent Earth, an internet start-up devoted to parenting, food, and environmental sustainability. She is currently raising funds for her next feature film, Primitive Streak.

Sarah received her B.A. in Art History from Bryn Mawr College and her M.A. in Political Economy from Stanford University. Before she became a filmmaker, Sarah served for six years as the New York City Comptroller’s Senior Advisor for Education Policy after working on public education policy for the 1992 Clinton/Gore presidential campaign. She has also worked for The New York Times in Rio de Janeiro researching a story on the sex industry; was a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and lectured on fifteenth century Flemish painting; worked as a product testing guinea pig for Procter & Gamble in Paris; and cared for patients in Mother Theresa’s hospitals in Calcutta.

Filmmaker presents HERB AND DOROTHY at Bryn Mawr Film Institute

How could a postal worker and a librarian acquire one of the foremost contemporary art collections? Over 140 people learned about two such collectors at Bryn Mawr Film Institute’s screening of Herb & Dorothy on Wednesday, January 27. Megumi Sasaki introduced and discussed her documentary about art collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who devoted their lives to filling their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment with one of the world’s finest collections of Minimalist and Conceptual art. Devin Wachs, BMFI’s PR Coordinator, got a chance to talk to Megumi about her film before the screening. Read the interview below.

Filmmaker Megumi Sasaki at BMFI's screening of Herb and Dorothy.

Herbert and Dorothy Vogel began collecting art in the early 1960s, and over the next thirty years the couple gathered an astonishing assortment of Minimalist and Conceptual art. Living on her salary as a librarian, the couple spent his postal clerk paychecks entirely on expanding their art collection. New pieces had to follow two rules: they had to be affordable and fit in the couple’s tiny, one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Before they moved their collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1992, every corner (including the bathroom and the kitchen) was filled with over 4,000 works by more than 200 artists. Featuring art by such luminaries as Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, and Lawrence Weiner—many of whom the couple also consider friends—the collection had appreciated considerably and was worth millions of dollars, but this remarkable couple never sold off a piece or treated the collection as a financial investment.

Megumi’s film captures how these unorthodox collectors see the art they love. Herb & Dorothy received the Golden Starfish Award for the Best Documentary Film and Audience Award from the 2008 Hamptons International Film Festival, as well as Audience Awards from the 2008 SILVERDOCS Film Festival and the 2009 Philadelphia Cinefest. The film was also named one of their “Best of Fest” of the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2009.

Filmmaker Megumi Sasaki on Herb & Dorothy:

How did you get involved with the Vogels?
I was filming a piece for Japanese television on a Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit and I saw the Vogels’ names everywhere. Someone told me who they were. I hoped to do something with that story. I went downstairs and bought the collection catalogue, but didn’t do anything with it then. One and a half years later I met the Vogels in person at an event for Christo and Jeanne-Claude in New York. I introduced myself to them and vaguely told them an idea for this project—I knew that it had to be visual, TV or film. One week later I was invited to their apartment. That was September 2004.

Did you know it was going to be such a big project when you started?
Before I started, I didn’t know anything about art or filmmaking. I thought I was making a small film about two small people. I thought it would take six months. [Underestimating the project] was a huge mistake—it took four years and almost bankrupted me. Herb and Dorothy taught me a lot about art, passion, and how to have passion for life. It’s a story about two small giants.

Where there any stories that didn’t make it in the film? Did it change during editing?
I filmed over 120 hours of footage. All of the major stories made it into the film. However, when I first came up with the first cut, there was a lot of talking by curators and art historians and professionals. I didn’t know a lot about minimalist and conceptual art, and was relying on them to explain it. We did a test screening, and people hated it. It was almost a textbook kind of film about art. I learned that if I wanted to talk about minimalist and conceptual art, it had to be through Herb and Dorothy. That was hard though, because they don’t talk about why they like a piece of art; they just think it is beautiful. It is in their faces, how they see art. It was difficult to figure out how to show that.

How did your extensive background as a journalist and TV producer impact how you approached Herb & Dorothy, your first feature?
It did two things. First, it helped me to tell the story. I didn’t want to make just an art film, I wanted it to appeal to the general public. So in a way it helped me that I wasn’t part of the art world, so I could just tell the story from a lay person’s point of view and break down the language. I didn’t want to assume that the audience had prior knowledge of art, like most art documentaries. The second thing is that when I look back on it now, it looks like an extension of a television piece. I think that it’s maybe too informative, explaining too much, forcing my view.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a short sequel. The Vogel collection donated fifty works to fifty states as part of a nationwide gift project in art. I’m looking at the reaction of local museums, how the gifts are affecting them, and how local people accept them. I’ve been working on it since the end of 2008; it’s a matter of funding now.

Herb & Dorothy is available for sale and on Netflix. Visit the film’s official site for more information: http://www.herbanddorothy.com/.

Megumi Sasaki produced and directed Herb & Dorothy. Born and raised in Japan, she began her career as a freelance journalist whose big break came when she covered the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall for Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s highest-circulation newspaper. Megumi then spent four years at NHK, Japan’s sole public broadcaster (akin to the BBC), as an anchor, news director and reporter for Ohayo Nippon, a popular morning news program. As a freelance television documentary news director and field producer, she developed programs for Japan’s premiere documentary series, NHK Special, as well as for commercial networks including TBS, TV Asahi, Nippon Television and TV Tokyo. In 2002, Megumi founded her production company, Fine Line Media, to facilitate her new interest in feature documentary projects, of which Herb & Dorothy is the first.

More Than Your Money’s Worth: Tatia Rosenthal Talks "$9.99"

On Thursday, November 12, Bryn Mawr Film Institute hosted the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival’s screening of the innovative stop-motion animated feature $9.99. Based on the short stories of and co-written by famed Israeli author Etgar Keret, the surreal, existentialist drama “offers slightly less than $10 worth about the meaning of life.” The screening was followed by a Q&A with director and co-writer Tatia Rosenthal, as well as a special look at one of the puppets used in the film. Keep reading for highlights from the Q&A with Tatia.

Filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal signs BMFI's guest book

$9.99 is filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal’s feature debut. Born in Tel Aviv, Rosenthal is now based in New York where she graduated from the NYU Tisch School of Arts with a BFA in Film & Television in 1998. Her first short stop-motion animation Crazy Glue (1998) was also based on an Etgar Keret story. While working as an animator for Nickelodeon and Scholastic, she directed A Buck’s Worth (2005), an interpretation of the opening scene of $9.99 that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Rosenthal has received the $100,000 Richard Vague Production Fund Award and the 2002 Maryland Producers’ Club Award, and was a Fellow of both the Sundance Writers and Directors Labs in 2001.

Highlights from the Q&A with Tatia Rosenthal:

What was it like to work with Etgar Keret?
It was great. I brought a book of short stories by Etgar Keret with me on the way to film school in New York. I finished it all on the flight, and I said then, “I must work with him.”

How did you finance the film?
We wrote the screenplay together in 1999, but it took seven years to finance. Producers said, “Make it for under $1 million or don’t make it at all,” so we didn’t make it at all for seven years. It eventually got financed because a producer wanted to make the first Australian-Israeli co-production. The final budget was $3.5 million and it took six months for him to get it financed.

How do you work with the puppets and simulate things like water and fire?
They are silicon puppets with metallic skeletons called armatures, so they’re poseable. Everything was on a 1/6 scale, so the puppets were 11”. There were about three or five puppets created for each character. Their clothes are sewn separately and can be changed. It took two years to produce the film with five animators working at any one time, nine total. We shot it with consumer grade still cameras downloaded straight to computers. The water droplets are KY Jelly—there’s nothing better to simulate water in stop-motion animation—but the bodies of water and the fire were computer generated later.

Top: Tatia Rosenthal shows off a puppet used in her stop-motion film $9.99.
Bottom: The same character (on the left, in a different outfit) in a shot from the finished film.

Why do stop-motion animation?
I’ve always liked it. I love the textures. You don’t get that the same way with computer animation, although that is changing. Now, the more money you have for your production, the more that computer animation can look like stop-motion animation, and vice-versa. I never got into hand-drawn animation; I'm not that great of an artist.

What do you think the film means?
I think that Etgar is a very ambivalent writer, but I think that there’s a real emotional basis to these stories. You may not have one solution to the meaning of life, but as long as you get up in the morning and there’s someone who loves you, you’re doing okay.

Which character do you empathize with the most?
It’s funny, Etgar says that when a director makes a film, it’s about where they are in life. When I was making the short, he said I was about “if I don’t get the money I’m going to shoot myself.” [laughs] It’s not the plot [of $9.99] but the multi-organism nature of it that fit where I was. It is a bit melancholy—I was homesick, making the film in Australia far from the people that I loved. So maybe it’s not as funny as it could have been. But there’s hope in it, too.

In $9.99, the live-at-home slacker Dave buys a book for the low price of $9.99 that offers him the meaning of life, and he wants to spread the knowledge. However, his family and neighbors—including his father, a retiree with a live-in guardian angel, fighting fiancés, a debt-ridden magician, a fetishistic supermodel, and a little boy with a dream—are too absorbed in their own lives and quests for happiness to listen. Their intertwined stories are voiced by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, and a cast of talented Australian actors. The exquisite naturalistic animation took nine animators from around the world forty weeks to complete, working at the rate of four or five seconds of completed footage per animator per day.

The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Gershman Y, is the second longest running, critically-acclaimed series of its kind in the United States. The  complete schedule is available online at www.gershmany.org.

Find more information about $9.99, Tatia Rosenthal, and the process of creating stop-motion animation at www.9dollars99movie.com.

Kelly beats Astaire? You decide!

Yesterday Philadelphia Inquirer film reviewer Carrie Rickey mentioned BMFI's own Director of Education, Andrew J. Douglas, Ph.D., in her blog, Flickgrrl.

On November 18, Andrew will debate Drexel professor Paula Marantz Cohen about the merits of Gene Kelly over Fred Astaire. But why wait? Enjoy Andrew and Carrie's cases for Kelly and Astaire below.
Here's an excerpt of Carrie's argument for Astaire:

Fred Astaire defies gravity; Gene Kelly is earthbound. Astaire is spirit; Kelly flesh. Astaire is the embodiment of grace, Kelly of athleticism. For Astaire, dance is the vertical expression of horizontal feelings for another; for Kelly, it is the expression of self. Astaire made dancing look easy; Kelly made it look like a workout. Astaire begot Michael Jackson; Kelly begot Patrick Swayze.

Flickgrrl stands firmly in the Astaire camp, while noting the paradox that though Astaire is the best screen dancer ever, Kelly's Singin' in the Rain is the best dance musical. Though she admires Kelly -- especially in An American in Paris, Singin', The Pirate and On the Town -- she cannot say that she likes him. Because however superb Kelly's choreography and artistry, his aggressive muscularity suggests that he thought there was something sissy about a man dancing.

And here's Andrew's rejoinder:

As usual, Carrie’s description of the two performers and her case for Astaire were eloquent and accurate, but I must take issue with two facets of her assessment, the first being the notion that Kelly gets docked because his physique implied he thought dancing was for sissies. If his physique was any kind of message at all, I think it's far more likely that Kelly thought that many American men of the mid-twentieth century thought dancing was less than masculine, and to give them pause long enough to take in one of his numbers (or better yet a whole musical), he emphasized his--and the art form's--athleticism. Think of him as a "big-tent" dancer.

I also object to the comparison to Patrick Swayze. While Swayze was a beloved actor and had far more dance talent than he displayed in Dirty Dancing (let alone in Ghost or Roadhouse), his skills, influence, and cinematic impact paled in comparison to Kelly's. I think a more appropriate heir to Kelly's place in the cinematic firmament is Jackie Chan. While he's an action star rather than a dancer, there is often impressive choreography, grace, and athleticism to his "numbers", he directs many (if not all) of his "performances", he (like Kelly) is involved in various aspects of the production of his films, and he's had a tremendous impact on the practitioners and audiences of his chosen form.

And I know what you're thinking: "Andrew, have you ever seen The Tuxedo?" That's a fair point, but over the course of a decades-long career, everyone is bound to have a few missteps. After all, Gene Kelly had Xanadu and Fred Astaire had The Amazing Dobermans. In any case, I suspect we won't be able to definitively settle this, but it sure is fun to debate.

The live debate takes place at International House (3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia) next Thursday, November 18 at 7:00pm as part of an evening celebrating the vanguard dancers sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art. Following the debate, screenings of Top Hat and An American in Paris will prove that no matter who's side you favor, both stars are winners.
Whose side do you favor?

Yoo-Hoo, Aviva Kempner!

On Sunday, November 8, Bryn Mawr Film Institute welcomed Aviva Kempner, director of the acclaimed new documentary Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg. A reception and Q&A with Aviva followed the 1:00 pm screening of her film, which explores the career of Jewish broadcasting maven Gertrude Berg whose radio and television shows The Goldbergs pioneered situation comedy. Many thanks to the event’s co-sponsors, the former Philadelphia Weekend Film Festival’s Lonnie Levin, Marsha Beck, and Pam Schneider. Keep reading for highlights from the Q&A.

Filmmaker Akiva Kempner (second from left) with Murray Levin, Lonnie Levin, David Beck, Marsha Dorman, and BMFI President Juliet Goodfriend (seated)

Aviva Kempner previously garnered rave reviews for her work as the writer, director and producer of The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, a film about the Jewish slugger who fought anti-Semitism in the 1930’s and 40’s. The 1998 film was awarded top honors by the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Greenberg received a George Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy. Akiva also produced and co-wrote Partisans of Vilna, a 1986 documentary on Jewish resistance against the Nazis, and was the executive producer of the 1989 Grammy-nominated record, Partisans of Vilna: The Songs of World War II Jewish Resistance. She also writes film criticism and feature articles for numerous publications, including The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

Akiva received the 1996 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2000 DC Mayor’s Art Award, the 2001 Women of Vision award from D.C.’s Women in Film and Video chapter, and the 2001 Media Arts award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. She recently received the 2009 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s Freedom of Expression Award for her significant contribution to creating positive images of Jewish heroes in film and her work as a Jewish film curator.

Akiva Kempner signs Bryn Mawr Film Institute's guest book at the reception

Highlights from the Q&A with Aviva Kempner:

How did you get into filmmaking?
I went to law school and did well but I was never good on standardized tests. My mother hates it when I say this, but I flunked the bar twice, so I became a filmmaker. My mother passed as a Polish-Catholic in Germany and her parents were killed in Auschwitz. My father was one of the American forces, a Lithuanian who had moved to Pittsburgh, and I was born in Berlin. My filmmaking is my way of working out being a child of survivors, and the need to make films about under-known Jewish heroes.

Why Molly?
Thirty years ago, I decided to make a film about Jews fighting Nazis and it turned out to be about the Partisans of Vilna, the Jewish resistance in the Vilna ghetto. As I was getting ready for the Partisans opening, I heard that Hank Greenberg had died, on September 4, 1986. For my dad, as an immigrant Jew, baseball was the way that you became American. I’m happy with that movie [The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg] because it counters the stereotype of the Jewish “nebbish”. When I was at the Jewish Museum in New York I saw an exhibit called Jews Entertaining America where they recreated the Goldberg’s living room and I said, ‘That’s next’.

Why don’t more people know about Gertrude Berg today?
Well, Shout Factory is releasing a DVD of Goldberg shows, but she is not known because the show was never syndicated, in part because it was shot in Kinetoscope, but also because of her co-star [Philip Loeb] being blacklisted. Also, I have a ‘pioneer theory’ that the first ones are not noted until there’s a New York Times obit or they’re awarded a Nobel Prize.

What’s your process as a documentary filmmaker?
For every film I’ve made there’s an hour longer film. With Molly, there was really a strong 2-1/2 hour version, but you can only do about 90 minutes. First I go for the best stories, interview the best people, and I overshoot. Then I research for the best [archival] footage and stills; I only think as a director. Then I still have to turn around at the end and think like a producer and pay for the incredible footage.

How did you film Molly?
My previous work was all shot on 16mm and edited on a Steenbeck before Molly; now I’ve given in. I shot Molly in high-end HD and used Final Cut Pro [to edit].

What are some of the things that didn’t make it into the final film?
I had to cut stories about Anne Bancroft and Steve McQueen appearing first on The Goldbergs and twenty more minutes of Eli Mintz stories [about the actor who portrayed Uncle David].
I’ll tell you one now about Philip Loeb [who played Mr. Goldberg]. He was a jokester. Zero Mostel and his wife Kate were his closest friends. One night Kate called Philip saying, “Come over tonight for dinner, come as you are.” The Mostels lived in a building where the elevator went straight to their floor. When the doors opened, there was Philip, naked, wearing just a tie. No one says a word about it all night until Philip’s about to leave. Then Zero says, “Your fly is down.”

Do you know how your documentaries will end when you begin?
I’ve been very lucky with my third acts. With The Partisans of Vilna, I knew that some survived. But I didn’t know that when Hank was unfairly traded to Pittsburgh in 1947 he was the most welcoming to Jackie Robinson, because he knew what it felt like [to be discriminated against]. When I started Molly, I didn’t know about the blacklisting of Philip Loeb. With that dramatic third act, there’s a much richer movie.

How did you get to interview Ruth Bader Ginsberg for Molly?
I saw her at an embassy party and went over and introduced myself... After we finished filming her interview at the Supreme Court, I sent an email to all of the people I went to law school with saying, ‘Aviva finally made it to the lawyer’s lounge of the Supreme Court, but she did it her way!’

What’s the international response to Molly been like so far?
The film plays best to us Americans who remember her, but it does have universal appeal. So far it’s playing in Canada—Toronto right now, and the reviews were good—but not as many Canadians grew up with her. I’m waiting to hear from the Berlin Film Festival. I try to show all my films there... Molly will show in Israel this summer.

What’s your hope for this film?
Well, I spent last night talking to Alan Ball [Six Feet Under, American Beauty], and I told him that the one thing I hope to get out of this film is that someone make a dramatic film about [blacklisted actor] Philip Loeb. He was never a communist, just a dedicated Union activist. He unfairly lost his livelihood for his union beliefs.

What’s next for you?
I’ve co-written a script with a Native American screenwriter. It is not about an underdog Jewish hero; it is about an underdog Native American hero, but it is still tribal. For me, there are two more documentaries I really want to make. The first is about the “Rosenwald schools”, started by Julius Rosenwald, a part-leader of Sears, Roebuck who worked with Booker T. Washington and built over 5,000 schools in the Deep South to promote the education of African-Americans in the first half of the twentieth century, before Civil Rights. The second project is about union leader Samuel Gompers, first President of the AFL [American Federation of Labor].

Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg, the first woman of television
(Courtesy of the Goldberg Family Estate)

Gertrude Berg began her media career as the creator, principal writer, and star of The Goldbergs, a popular radio show about a Jewish family living in New York City. The radio program premiered a week after the stock market crash in 1929 and remained a favorite for its seventeen years on the air. Following World War II, Berg took the opportunity to reinvent the show for the exciting new medium of television, and, in 1949, The Goldbergs became television’s first character-driven domestic sitcom. Combining social commentary, family values, and lots of humor, Berg won the hearts of America and blazed a trail for women in the entertainment industry. The Oprah of her day, she published a cookbook, created a clothing line for housewives, and wrote an advice column called Mama Talks. Her television show was even made into a Paramount Pictures movie called Molly, with Berg as screenwriter and producer. In 1950 she received the first ever Best Actress Emmy, and in 1959 she won a Tony for Best Actress in A Majority of One.

Akiva’s documentary explores this fascinating and powerful woman’s journey by using archive footage and interviews with luminaries including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actor Ed Asner, producers Norman Lear (All in the Family) and Gary David Goldberg (Family Ties), and NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg.

Find more information about Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Aviva Kempner, and Gertrude Berg at http://www.mollygoldbergfilm.org/.

Filmmakers' Perspective on ANAMORPH

Although they lived just six blocks from each other outside of Philadelphia—and watched movies at the Bryn Mawr Theater—it wasn’t until they both enrolled in an 8mm film production workshop at the University of Southern California that writer/director Henry S. Miller met co-writer Tom Phelan. On Wednesday, October 21, they returned to their old stomping grounds for a screening of Anamorph, their first feature film collaboration, at Bryn Mawr Film Institute. Keep reading for highlights from the post-film Q&A with Henry and Tom.

Locally-raised filmmakers Henry S. Miller and Tom Phelan
pose with their mothers at BMFI's screening of Anamorph

Willem Dafoe stars in Anamorph as Stan, a guilt-ridden New York City detective. When a new serial killer starts to emulate the notorious “Uncle Eddie”, who Stan caught and killed five years before, Stan is enlisted again to help on the case. The serial killer seems to design the crime scenes for Stan, leaving him hidden clues through the positioning of the victims’ bodies, which are all displayed using Renaissance artistic devices. Each crime scene becomes a gruesome lesson in scale and perspective, incorporating a camera obscura, a viewing grid, a pantograph, and anamorphosis, a style of painting that manipulates the laws of perspective to create two competing images on a single canvas. As Stan races against time to piece together the clues in order to prevent the next murder, he realizes that catching the killer might be his own undoing. Scott Speedman (Underworld, TV's Felicity) and Clea Duvall co-star in this R-rated suspense thriller, released by IFCFilms.

Filmmaker Q&A Highlights:

Q: How did you get involved in film?
Henry S. Miller: After college I was helping out at Tuff Gong in Jamaica, Bob Marley’s record label,  in Jamaica and they needed someone to help on a music video for a day. I knew then that that's what I wanted to do.
Tom Phelan: I wrote a paper on Werner Herzog's Nosferatu for a Vampire Film and Literature course [at UPenn], and the professor, Nina Auerbach, recommended that I study film. Before that I'd been set to study Renaissance literature; I hadn't even known there was such a thing as Critical Studies [in Film] before then. It's great that I met Henry in L.A. and teamed up with him, because he is one of the few people I trust in the film industry. We were lucky enough to be able to work together long distance while I was in L.A. and he was in New York, before I moved back to the East Coast.

Q: How did you come up with Anamorph? What does the film mean to you?
TP: We started out wanting to write a noir film, but it mutated when we added the crime scenes. We started to think about anamorphosis and how that works in the art world, how the viewer's perspective changes the meaning of what you're seeing. Stan has one narrative of his life, but someone else, the killer, has a completely different take on him. The serial killer is a sort of cipher; he triggers Stan's shift in perspective, forcing him to see himself through someone else's eyes.
HM: We were looking to do a genre movie for our first film together because we thought we could sell it better. The most successful Hitchcock thrillers are based on concepts that work on multiple levels—thematically, visually, psychologically—and that's what we wanted to do too. In our film, the protagonist has basically "framed" what he did in the past, until the serial killer comes along and breaks that frame.

Q: How did you get Willem Dafoe involved in the film?
HM: It took a while. When we wrote the script we had Willem in mind as the ultimate Stan, but with your first film, you don't usually get your first choice actor. A New York casting director, Billy Hopkins, who does films with a lot of people, saw my previous film at the Tribeca Film Festival and told me "with your next film, I'd love to read the script," and we got him involved in Anamorph. He sent the script to Willem, but we didn't realize he was on his honeymoon, so it took three months to hear back. But it was actually something totally different that got him. When our producer went to board a plane, she was on board with Willem. They talked about the script, and he believes in cosmic energy, so he thought that, after meeting her like that, he should at least read the script. But when Tom and I went to meet with him for the first time, it poured rain outside, and that was a bad omen. The meeting didn't go well; he said he wasn't sure he wanted to work with first-time directors on a project as ambitious as Anamorph with a limited budget, which makes sense. However, he was willing to consider it and we started meeting at his house about the script. But even with months of meetings, he still didn't commit to doing the film. Finally, after about three months of working together, he just said yes.

Q: Stan's an interesting character--an alcoholic, OCD detective with a past and a passion for antique chairs. How'd you come up with him?
TP: Most of the character's flaws come from his extreme alienation. He could have helped Sandy [his friend, played by Clea Duvall], but by excluding himself from her life, he repeats a past mistake.   
HS: The OCD mixed with alcoholism is interesting because one is about being in control and the other is not. Willem wanted to show both by keeping it neat, using discrete little bottles.
TP: OCD is about repeating and compartmentalizing and little rituals to control yourself and the world around you, but you can never control enough. Stan tries to control himself, but can't compartmentalize his past, so he falls harder when it comes back to haunt him.
HS: The chairs [that he collects] are a double metaphor. For Stan they are about containing his memories, and the killer uses them to hint at the Pope's throne [inspired by Francis Bacon's distorted paintings of the Pope, featured in the film].

Q: Who composed the great musical score?

HM: Well, the first composer had a breakdown, so we had to bring in a new team, a German [Reinhold Heil] and Australian [Johnny Klimek], who did the music for Run Lola Run, which had this great techno-driven musical pulse. They believe in the old film style that movies should have musical themes, so they came up with six repeating themes for Anamorph. One of the things we kept in mind was how the score in Taxi Driver uses a percussive beat to drive the film, because it's a mood piece, there's not much story; we kind of used the beat the same way.

Q: The crime scenes often had only one or two detectives at them, not like what we are used to seeing in procedural shows. Why?
HM: In New York they only have one central crime lab, in Queens, and I did some research there. TV shows like NCIS already get the techniques they use to solve crimes pretty right. We'd already decided that we wanted to make a French policier set in New York, so we weren't trying to outdo the details of procedurals.  
TP: We were more focused on trying to create an atmosphere and mood.
HM: If you ever get a chance to go the crime lab, they keep all of the crime evidence--the gun that killed John Lennon, the Son of Sam stuff--all on display. I never thought objects held evil before I went there.

Q: Where'd you get the idea for some of the artistic references, like Francis Bacon's obsession with the Pope?
HM: The first time I saw Bacon's paintings of the Pope, I was visiting my uncle in Italy, and there was a museum with Bacon's Pope right around the corner from his apartment. It was terrifying. Later a professor in college had the same picture in his office! So that stuck with me. Then after school I worked as a security guard at the Met [Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York], so I was basically surrounded by paintings for two years.

Q: What were some of the things that you had to cut?
HM: We had to cut two scenes before shooting because we were low-budget. Then afterwards we had to cut some scenes--of Stan alone in the museum that showed his alienation--because of pacing. This was the first film I worked on that had enough footage that there was actually the possibility of taking the film in different direction, so it was a tough adjustment; you lose a lot that you care about. The editor though was a classmate of ours, Geraud Brisson, a very competent Frenchman from Lyon who brought a lot to the film--he's been the first assistant to a lot of award-winning editors, paying his dues.

Q: What's next for you?
HM: We're casting two scripts now. One is The Beautiful Cigar Girl, a speculative mystery based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe co-written with Tom Phelan, Stephen Jeffreys (The Libertine), and Steven Katz (Shadow of the Vampire). We also have a project being workshoped right now [at the LAByrinth Theater] called Masoch that will probably be made into a film, about masochism's namesake and his muse... so that's a family film. [Laughs]. I also have begun a partnership with Massimo Carlotto, an acclaimed Italian crime author writing in the Mediterranean Noir movement, which is really exciting.
TP: I co-wrote the Poe project with Henry and am currently working on a script called Byzantium, a science fiction thriller that deals with personality uploading.

Henry S. Miller previously directed I Remember You Now..., a short starring Blondie’s Debbie Harry (who also has a cameo in Anamorph), and wrote and directed the feature comedy Late Watch, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004. Anamorph, Henry S. Miller’s second feature film, premiered at Camerimage in Europe. A graduate of The Shipley School, Henry has an MFA from the University of Southern California in Film Production.

Before settling in Manhattan, co-writer Tom Phelan studied English Renaissance Drama at the University of Pennsylvania and Film Theory at the University of Southern California. An alumnus of Malvern Preparatory School and Waldron Mercy Academy, Phelan grew up in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Thanks for a wonderful evening, Henry and Tom. We hope to have you back for your next feature film!

BMFI's Juliet Goodfriend honored by Governor Rendell and First Lady!

On Wednesday, October 21, Governor Edward G. Rendell and First Lady Judge Marjorie O. Rendell recognized the accomplishments of Bryn Mawr Film Institute President Juliet Goodfriend, honoring her as one of the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania.

The Hon. Marjorie O. Rendell (left) smiles as Happy Fernandez introduces honoree Juliet Goodfriend.

The Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania awards began in 1949 as a way to recognize influential women for their leadership, distinguished service, and contributions to the state through their professional and/or volunteer service. To date, 450 women have received the award and recognition, including Grace Kelly, Pearl S. Buck, Mamie Eisenhower, singer Marilyn Horne, and philanthropists Dorrance H. Hamilton and Marguerite Brooks Lenfest.

Before breathing new life into the historic Bryn Mawr Theater, Juliet Goodfriend founded Strategic Marketing Corporation, a global custom marketing research and consulting firm to the pharmaceutical industry. Following her retirement as President of SMC, Juliet founded Bryn Mawr Film Institute, which serves over 6,000 members and provides a year-round program of art house movies and film courses for students of all ages. Her experience inspired her to help create NELI, the nonprofit executive leadership program at Bryn Mawr College. Juliet continues to address national audiences and undergraduates around the country as a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow.

To be selected as a Distinguished Daughter, women must be nominated by organizations within the state for accomplishments of statewide or national importance. Medals and citations are presented to honorees at the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg.

“This year’s Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania have done extraordinary work in many different capacities,” said Governor Rendell. “Their contributions to Pennsylvania and the nation have benefited everything from academics to athletics, the arts to the military, as well as businesses and communities. I am grateful for the work that these women have done on our behalf to strengthen our state and the quality of life for so many residents.”

“It is a privilege to honor the dedication and commitment of these extraordinary women of Pennsylvania,” said Judge Rendell. “Their legacy of leadership is making a difference across the state.”

In addition to Juliet Goodfriend, this year the Govenor also honored Judith R. Shapiro, Rosemont; Judith Joy Ross, Bethlehem; Eva Tansky Blum, Toi Derricotte and Jacqueline C. Morby, all of Pittsburgh; C. Vivian Stringer, Princeton, NJ; and Veronica Zasadni Froman, San Diego, CA.

 

Congratulations, Juliet, from all of us at Bryn Mawr Film Institute!

MY BIG BREAK a star at BMFI

On Wednesday, September 23, Bryn Mawr Film Institute welcomed filmmaker Tony Zierra, producer Elizabeth Yoffe, and actor Chad Lindberg (October Sky, The Fast and the Furious) for a special screening of the hot new documentary, MY BIG BREAK. Zierra's fascinating film, ten years in the making, captures the struggles of his four actor roommates as they try to make it in Hollywood and what happens when three of them miraculously achieve their Hollywood dreams.

(L to R) Filmmaker Tony Zierra, Producer Elizabeth Yoffe, and actor Chad Lindberg sign BMFI's guest book before the screening

In 1996, filmmaker Tony Zierra found himself with no budget, stars, or crew. So he filmed the only thing he could—the daily struggles of his four actor roommates. Unexpectedly, three of them—Wes Bentley (American Beauty, Ghost Rider), Brad Rowe (Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss), and Chad Lindberg—get their big breaks as Zierra's camera rolls. As the three become famous, the fourth actor, Greg Fawcett--pushing thirty and with no work in sight--gets increasingly desperate. My Big Break uniquely captures on camera both the good and bad that comes when someone achieves their dreams.

The initial cut of the film—then titled Carving Out Our Name—made waves at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, and overnight Zierra became the toast of Hollywood. However, that version of the film was never released because some thought that it would negatively impact the careers of the rising young actors involved. Frustrated, Zierra destroyed the film and disappeared from Hollywood for five years. Now, Zierra has reemerged with this brand-new cut, culled from over 200 hours of raw footage, which also includes a 2008 follow-up on the roommates’ careers.

The audience was full of questions at the Q&A following the screening.

MY BIG BREAK Q&A:

Q: What was it like, having three rising stars living in one house?
Chad Lindberg: Between the three [working] actors, there was no ego in the house. We were all happy for the others when they got parts.

Elizabeth Yoffe: You’ve got to understand, the house was this crazy place; when the guys started to make it, everyone wanted to hang out there, party there, crash there. It was just incredible, the astronomical odds of three actors making it in one house. And it's not like the house looked like anything special, but people thought it was. I was always kind of on the fringe of the group, but I remember a friend asked me one time if I could get her into a party there because she thought that something might rub off on her, some of the good luck.

Tony Zierra: And we didn't want to leave. Wes had a hotel room [after he was famous], but he was crashing there all the time.

CL: Yeah, I moved out, but I was back every day. The house just kind of glowed. There was a lot of love there.

Q: What are the relationships with the roommates like now?
TZ: The movie has two sets of credits, one for Carving Out Our Name and one for this version. All three actors were listed as producers on Carving; Chad has been supportive the whole time, and he's here, but the others are not. The great thing about this movie is it is not about these guys; I use them to tell the reality of what happens. One day I hope that we're all here and can do the Q&A together.

Q: Tony, what did you do to support yourself when you weren't filming?
TZ: Besides the occasional garage sale, I was working in a dub house. It was strange--I would get the tapes of American Beauty and I would know that Wes [Bentley, who played Ricky Fitts] was there at home. That was interesting.

Q: What are some of your favorite scenes in MY BIG BREAK?
TZ: I love Wes on the roof, talking when he was at the peak of his career; when Chad agreed to have the operation [plastic surgery] on camera. Also on the farm with Greg [Fawcett, when he breaks down].

Q: Chad, what was your acting training like?
CL: I started acting in high school, doing school plays, and I realized that that's what I was good at and wanted to do. Jim Caviezial (The Passion of the Christ) was also from my home town [Mt Vernon, Washington]. I saw him in a spread in the paper about being in Wyatt Earp, and I said, 'If he can do it, I can do it.' So I picked up a paper, made some calls, and got myself an agent in Seattle. I worked for a few years there before graduating, then moved to L.A., where I was fortunate enough to get work right away.

Q: [Spoiler] What changed your decision about plastic surgery, Chad?
CL: I always knew there was something I didn't like about the way I looked, growing up, but I could never put my finger on it. Going to Hollywood, they're very quick to point out what they don't like about you. I would go to my agent and aks her, 'Why aren't I getting these lead parts?' and she said, 'I gotta be honest with you, it's your chin.' So I took out a loan and was all ready to get plastic surgery [at age 22] but my friends talked me out of it at the last minute. It was the right decision. Doing that, I grew into myself and I really felt good about myself for the first time. I pushed down any dissatisfaction about my looks for like ten years, until one day I was home, playing a board game with my mother and sister, and it struck me again how dissatisfied I was about my chin. My family sat me down and told me I should get the surgery if it would make me feel better about myself. Their blessing made all the difference. So I called Tony and told him I was getting it and asked him if he wanted to film me. It's the reality of the business to change your looks--everyone does it, big stars included--and even though I did the surgery for me, but I just wanted to show it. I wanted to be truthful. We wanted to make this film as a teaching tool for actors and those interested in the business, not just a candy-coated version of Hollywood like Entourage, so it was really important to be honest.

Q: There’s a gap in the documentary from about 2001 to 2008. What did you do in between?
CL: Well, I was on my way to film The Rookie, and my agency decided to clean house and dropped me. My agent was out of town at the time, so she didn't even call me, my manager did. I got some work but things were rough and I moved back home for awhile with my parents, at age 30. It's tough, especially when you get recognized every day but can't pay your bills. But things have been good lately. I just finished filming a movie with Ed Harris, Once Fallen, which was incredible.

Q: What made you revisit the project, Tony?
TZ: The film is dedicated to Heath [Ledger], who was a friend. His death woke us up to the importance of getting this project done, so people could learn from it. It's a messy world in L.A., these guys are like commodities. Everything's given to you for free if you're on top, but the town will spit you out if you fall.

Q: Was it all worth it?
CL: For me, yeah, because acting is in my blood. I have that drive, since I was little. It's blood, sweat, and tears, and there have been many times where I said I'd had enough, but I love it still. I love those highs and even those lows are good sometimes too. I'll do it until I die. It's a very seductive town--very enchanting and very hellish. I call it "Hell-A", but I love to act and perform and it makes it all worth it.

TZ: It's hard for people who can't get parts or work, and it’s hard in a different way for the people who are famous. But we still love it. Even when you're out of work, the hope still comes--that one part, you pay your rent for a year.

CL: You can't give up. If it's in your heart you can't give up.

EY: It's important to realize that this was a movie about four guys. For women and young girls it’s that much harder. The pressures for looks and competition is that much worse. If you're going to L.A., be prepared, and don't take it personally.

Q: The release of Carving Out Our Name got blocked in 2001. What's the key to your exhibition strategy this time?
TZ: I learned my lesson. Last time we started in L.A. and were going to move East. This time I'm doing the exact opposite--we're working the East Coast now and about to premiere in London. So far no one in L.A. has seen it and that will be the last place it will be shown.

Find more information about MY BIG BREAK and watch a trailer online at http://www.mybigbreakmovie.com/.

Toronto International Film Festival 2009 - Juliet Goodfriend's Notes

A failed tweeter, I submit in good, old-fashioned prose my comments about the 30 films I viewed in part or in their entirety. As has become the custom, they are grouped in approximate descending order of appeal to what I take to be our audience at BMFI. Remember, too, that I have previously submitted notes on the couple dozen films we saw at Cannes ’09, some of which were major hits here at Toronto.

Emerging themes from Toronto: Uncertainty, infidelity, intoxication, and apocalypse—any relationship you see among them is purely intentional. What I noticed most was that there was very little blood in “My Toronto”. So here goes:


Worth showing and seeing
(I only hope we can screen them. Some we will not be able to get, of course, due to the unruly, anti-competitive, and downright annoying practices of certain distributors, or due to timing problems. But we will try.)

A Serious Man (Coen Brothers, USA)
One of the very best in fest from every angle. Is this the Coen brothers writing Woody Allen? Manhattan Murder is surely an ancestor. The pathos of uncertainty, the pretension of religion, and the humor of apocalypse. I smile just thinking of this film, filled with unknown actors and sly ideas. Damn the distributor who won’t let us make them money showing it! See it at the Ritz, unless you hear otherwise from us.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam, UK)
Heath Ledger’s last role and a showpiece for Christopher Plummer, this film demonstrates the glories of computer generated effects as it explores the “Devil’s Bargain”. I fell asleep a few times only to wake in the dream world of this delightful piece. No uncertainty about this fantasy world.

The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (Judith Ehrich & Rick Goldsmith, USA)
Even though, or maybe because, I lived through this time I found this re-telling riveting. If five Presidents lied how can we trust any? The protagonist looks old, but the story feels very up to date.

Ahead of Time (Bob Richman, USA)
How is it we did not know the wonderful story of this remarkable and charming woman, now in her late 90s and still smart as a whip. Ruth Gruber was the youngest Ph.D. from the University of Cologne and landed jobs as a journalist that took her to the Soviet Arctic and just about everywhere else on earth. I hope we can invite her to show this film!

The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais, Mathew Robinson, USA)
Lighthearted though it is, this film annoyingly confuses absence of super-ego and free-wheeling id with the inability to lie. You will laugh as I did at the situations this absence provokes. But it is so reminiscent of Jim Carrey and The Truman Show, etc. that it doesn’t seem as fresh as its creators would like.

Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, USA)
Talk about apocalypses—we are living one and it’s called capitalism. Is Moore overstating the evils of capitalism? I doubt it the way things are going. I cried in this one, so disturbing is it. See it starting Oct. 2 at BMFI—maybe you will just enjoy it and not cry. Maybe we should be screening Sicko again! Where is FDR when we need him?

The Art Of The Steal (Don Argott, USA)
This is the Barnes story written as the Rape of Philadelphia. After seeing it one yearns for hear the “other side”. Full of people we know (the first person on the screen is my friend since kindergarten!), this film needs to be screened at BMFI and followed by a panel discussion. But for now, hey, it changed my view of the Barnes’s move and made me question the means to the end and the end as well.

Lebanon (Samuel Maoz, Israel)
Imagine Das Boot and Hurt Locker then squeeze yourself into the inside of a tank that gets lost in a battle and you have the feeling this extraordinary film evokes. All of it takes place in a tank and it could be a tank in any battle on earth. You would still come away sure that war is hell and then you die! Filmmaking at its best.

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog, USA)
He’s done a splendid feature with a dry and degenerating Nicolas Cage as a policeman gone bad. Herzog’s genius keeps right on working. Oddly enough he denies any relationship to the earlier film of the more or less same name. If you love police dramas this twisty, quirky one will have you laughing! One of the best of fest. Look for the talking alligators and iguanas.

The Time That Remains or “The Present Absentee” (Elia Suleiman)
This is a fascinating tour de force of cinema, though its slow and quiet pace makes viewing it a bit trying. Influences of Tati abound in his use of sound and in a few funny scenes. It depicts five or six decades of life for a Palestinian family (Suleiman’s) in Israel. That nothing changes is the point. Who is present and who absent is hard to tell. Israel’s inability to effectively govern the Palestinians is subtly but definitely part of the message.

Leaves of Grass (Tim Blake Nelson, USA)
Edward Norton plays two identical twins: one a philosophy professor and the other a brilliant marijuana grower. The teaching scenes demonstrate Tim’s love of classics and his liberal arts education. The other twin’s scenes take place in what is meant to be Tulsa, Tim’s hometown, and its depiction of the Jewish life in Tulsa is right out of his childhood there. Very smart and very funny till the last “act” where it falls into teenaged slapstick and stoops to an audience that would not have loved the first two acts! A problem. Nevertheless the first two acts and Norton’s and Nelson’s performances are worth the price of admission.

Almost, But Not Quite There, Definite Maybes
Shameless (Jan Hrebejk, Czech Republic)
As a husband realizes his wife’s nose is too big, we realize that their marriage has even bigger problems. This film captures domestic decline in a fairly charming manner.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Don Roos, USA)
The story of how a blended family can go wrong. If Natalie Portman could be any more self absorbed and destructive I cannot imagine. No one to like in this film, other than the stepson.

Snowblind (Vikrum Jayanti, USA)
The Iditarod as seen through the eyes of a team accompanying a legally blind young woman. Her drive is spectacular, the movie not so, but if you never expect to get to Alaska on snow team, then see it for the wonderful photography.

Google Baby (Zippi Brand Frank, Israel)
A documentary demonstrating the global surrogacy industry, with eggs from the US, carried by impoverished, desparate Indian women, and passed on to would-be parents from almost anywhere. While it is shocking and interesting, it is not quite crisp enough. The entrepreneur running this business is more likeable than the gun-slinging egg donor whose lifestyle we hope is not in her genes. Do we need more babies who grow up to be rednecks?

Creation (Jon Amiel, UK)
If only it had been less about Darwin’s grief over his daughter’s death and more about the origin of the Origin of the Species, I’d have liked it more. The “war on god” theme may have interesting responses, but the movie descends into sappiness. Would that Toby Jones as Huxley had a bigger part.

The Men Who Stare At Goats (Grant Heslov, USA)
George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey have more fun in their roles than I did watching it, though a satire on the US in Iraq is always some fun!

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, USA)
George Clooney, always wonderful to watch, plays the consummate road warrior, at home in the airport. A simple moral: the value of family. Not quite BMFI fare, but good to watch on a plane!

Chloe (Atom Egoyan, France/Canada)
Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore almost make this movie a success, but not quite. It is uncertainty about infidelity (there are the themes), but overwrought.

Le Refuge (Francois Ozon, France)
To be honest, it was with some discussion that I figured out the movie was about motherhood—of all types: selfish, aloof, frantic, abandoning. Very slow and lovely. Well made, but not long-lasting. A lot of focus on the pregnant belly.

Accident (Pou-Soi Cheang, Hong Kong, China)
A fast moving and very smart film of a hit gang who make every murder look like an accident. The protagonist believes he and his mates are themselves targeted to die. You have to watch it carefully.

The Search (Pema Tsedan with Pierre Rissient, China)
The scenery of Western China or Tibet is beautiful and the arch of the slowly emerging love story carried me along. A filmmaker's long search fails to find the right local and classically trained actors to use in a movie of a famous myth about a king who gives away everything including his eyes. Is this about Tibet giving away everything to China? Could be.

Definitely Not Going to Screen at BMFI; Missable

The Road (John Hillcoat, (USA)
If this were one hour shorter, or even 30 minutes shorter, I would have thought it a success. But this apocalypse takes too long to climax. Read the book.

Dorian Gray (Oliver Parker, UK)
How disappointing: great story reduced to drunken party scenes. Such high production values and Colin Firth don’t save it. And the music… ugh.

The Last Days of Emma Blank (Alex van Warmerdam, Netherlands)
So dreary a subject nothing could get me to stay through it.

The Hole (Joe Dante, USA)
3-D is made for showing holes with no ends, but I ended this one early.

Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (Manoel di Oliveira, Portugal/Spain/France)
Though the director is now 102 years old, he manages to tell a short story of a young man who cannot escape one unfortunate predicament after another in trying to do good and marry his dream girl.

White Material (Claire Denis, France)
What happened to clarity, Claire? Enough hand held, out of focus pans to make anyone ill. And no one I spoke to had any idea of who was who! But as an atmosphere piece, OK. Now I know what it is like to be a white coffee plantation owner with an insane son and a couple husbands who feels she must continue and risks everyone’s safety from the marauders who are freeing the country from colonialism or something.