One-on-One Q&A with Kimberly Reed, Director - "Prodigal Sons"

One-on-One Q and A with Kimberly Reed – Director, “Prodigal Sons"

Opens February 26 at Cinema Village in New York via First Run Features

“Prodigal Sons” is a compelling family portrait and personal documentary told from the point of view of its director, Kimberly Reed, a transgendered woman who works as magazine editor in New York and goes back to her hometown in Montana for her 20^th high school reunion. While on her trip, she is reunited with her estranged older adopted brother Marc, who at the age of 21 suffered a brain injury after a car accident. Kimberly is the middle child of three, the oldest being Marc, and her youngest gay brother, Todd. Kimberly grew up as Paul and was the captain of the high school football team and was voted most likely to succeed. In the film, Kimberly tries to mend her relationship with brother Marc, who seems to come to accept her, but a breakdown with Marc ensues, and it gets harder and harder for them to reconcile, that is until a whopper of a revelation occurs as to whom Marc’s true grandparents were (I don’t want to give it away). Reed does an incredible job showing the complex dynamic between her and Marc and their family, which goes through several more ups and downs throughout the rest of the film. I sat down with Kimberly for the following One-on-One Q&A, where we talked about everything from her filmmaking choices, the emotional impact of the film on her, Marc and her family, to the reaction of others who have seen it in the LGBT community…and Kim also let me indulge my daytime television bug by asking her about the transgendered character of Zarf on "All My Children" a few years ago. What I learned from watching the film and talking with Kim was that the issue of being transgendered recedes from the identity one has within his or her own family, no matter what the genetic makeup.

TFPN: In "Prodigal Sons," you infuse your family’s super 8mm home movies of when you were young children, and then later when you and your brothers made your own films. Who shot the earlier footage when you were younger? Did that prompt your interest in making movies later on in life?

Reed: My dad shot the earlier home movies. He was always an early adopter. He was always the guy who had the super 8MM camera. Then he transitioned to video and was first on the block to have this two-piece video deck with a massive camera on his shoulder tethered to a VCR on his hip.

TFPN: What was your father’s profession?

Reed: He was an ophthalmologist. I often wonder if my fascination with understanding the world through vision, if you define being an ophthalmologist roughly enough, it kind of started to sound like being a filmmaker. I was fascinated with my dad’s job and how the eye works, but what really made me a filmmaker was experiencing films by being totally transported to a different place emotionally and sometimes even physically. Fairly early on, I was gathering all the kids in the neighborhood and coming up with these scripts and telling everybody what to do. The reason you didn’t see me in any of those later films was because I was behind the camera.

TFPN: So it was your brothers you directed in those films?

Reed: Yes. You can also see me trying to work out some gender issues pretty early on by forcing my younger brother to play the part of the girl. I knew that stuff was going on with me. There’s a reason I chose him and not Marc. I was in such denial of it at that age that I was so afraid of it that it would somehow magically transport me or I'd grow out of it. That’s what I wanted. I was afraid of the power it had and I knew from society that you’re not supposed to do that. I think a lot of people can relate to that. I did it vicariously through my younger brother.

TFPN: Did Marc know you were going to be filming him for your documentary before you both came back to Montana for the reunion? What was his initial reaction? Was he hesitant or cooperative?

Reed: Yes, he knew. I think you can tell from the early films he always wanted to be in the limelight. Sometimes that was him just being a troublemaker, doing crazy stuff that nobody else would do. I’ve kind of wondered if he had a limelight gene, and if he did, I think he got it [from the surprise relationship that Marc discovers that is revealed in “Prodigal Sons.”]

TFPN: By turning the camera on Marc and going down this path, do you think it in any way might have provoked him to have his outbursts, or would that have happened anyway?

Reed: Marc has explosive anger. It’s really interesting, because some people think the camera would make it worse, and some people think the camera would lessen the impact of it. I actually think in almost all cases where you see that, the camera didn’t matter because nobody knew it was on. There’s a scene on Christmas that nobody knew the camera was on, for instance. In that respect, I think the camera really did disappear. I think that it would be naïve to assume that the camera would ever disappear totally. I think if you’re ever going to be close to having a camera disappear, I can’t imagine getting closer than a really intimate family environment where everybody supports the making of the film. They’re used to me and others shooting and everybody’s on board. You’ve got a very open family that’s willing to share their story, warts and all. I think it’s my sense of Marc and almost all people that if the camera is on, it would lesson your anger not increase it. The decision to use (the footage) is also interesting. To that, I would say nobody wanted this film made more than Marc. Nobody. There were times when I was really questioning whether or not I should include some really rough footage. I took Marc as my guide. I took his advice. I followed his lead as to whether or not to show that. There’s a line in the film I really love when Marc says simply, “I don’t know about you, but the truth is the truth.” I learned a lot from Marc from that line, because I was in a situation where I was really hiding from my past in a lot of ways. His advice to me in that situation was “get over it!” It’s just the truth. It happened, deal with it. That’s how Marc feels in some of these explosive moments where we’re seeing warts and all. His response is bracingly honest and really refreshing. His actions may be hard for some people to interpret, because he has different principles, but I think some of those principles are bracingly honest.

TFPN: You seemed to have learned more because of that than you expected when you were going into making the film.

Reed: Absolutely. I had no idea we were going to get into all these family issues, and issues of sibling rivalry. It had always been there, but I had no idea it was really going to take over as much as it did. But probably a good portion of that was wishful thinking that it wouldn’t. You follow it where it goes. You follow your life where it goes, kind of in the same way you follow film where it goes.

TFPN: What has the reaction been by the LGBT community, in particular by those who are transgendered? Has anyone been impacted by the film?

Reed: I love the answer to that question because we’ve had almost completely uniform, positive reaction. We just had a story in Details Magazine, which is really getting the word out, and also recently in Jezebel. I hear from trans people whom I think were empowered and reassured by my story because they think, “Wow, I can do this!” I hear from the families of trans people. Before we even started editing I told somebody at Sundance the story of this and she said, “I’m so glad you told me that, because I’ve been freaking out because the day before I came to Sundance, I found out that my brother is going to be my sister. And my head has been spinning the whole time. I’ve spent the last three days with you and had no idea this was going on with you and it’s really reassuring that you can just share your story.” Even before you make your film, talking about it can reassure people, because a lot of people don’t quite know how to talk about it and hopefully our film will open up that discussion. I think an important element that I hear again and again from people is that, and this is always what I had in mind for the film, the way that the film confronts transgendered issues is important perhaps more because of how little it says about being transgendered, but about how willing the film is to let other things take over. I hear from people time and time again, “thank you for not letting that be the only issue.”

TFPN: I found the main through line of the film to be more about your relationship with Marc than your coming out to your family and friends.

Reed: Absolutely. That understatement, number one, represents my life.  It’s very important, but is it the only thing? No. It’s an aspect of who I am. To replicate that standing in the film, I think it’s important to let the topic recede in importance. As a storyteller, too, once you take it off the table, it’s also a lot of fun to put it back on the table. If you ask me, that’s the best way to affect social change is to put people in the shoes of somebody else and then let them forget that they’re in their shoes. Hopefully that happens with my character in the film. Hopefully it happens with Marc’s character in the film. I think he goes through a lot of issues with having a head injury and mental illness that people find very hard to imagine. If people can watch this film and feel like they really feel Marc, they know what makes him happy and what he’s frustrated by. I would be really happy to hear people have that response. I could have started with this side of the equation about people who have these kinds of head injuries and mental illness or with gender issues. This film is really just about family. It’s about siblings and family relationships and we’re all looking for love and want to be loved. In families, that’s such a big part of that currency that everybody is trading and it’s hard because there’s a lot of old pain and even hate sometimes. I think at the end of the day (these issues) operate metaphorically in the film…that thing that creates sibling rivalry. Sometimes I hear, “I was that sister who was envied by the other one.” I think if you have a sibling, you can understand sibling rivalry. In the end, it’s a film about family and love and how as we grow older, our identities change, not often as starkly as Marc’s or mine, but our identities change. We always have to renegotiate who we are within our families.

TFPN: Do you think that LGBT people, particularly those who are transgendered, are properly represented in the media such as film and television? Are they being represented as stereotypes? Can you think of any examples of transgendered people who are being properly represented?

Reed: A big motivation for me making this film was to give a real representation of someone who is trans and to go back to reactions we heard from people. That’s what people appreciate, whether you’re trans or a family member or a friend of a person who is trans, I think it’s really important to show everything else but that issue. That’s where the humanity lies. A lot of times I feel the transgendered issue is where gay issues were in the 1960s and earlier. I didn’t want to make the transgendered version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” In LGB cinema and media in general, the “T” has yet to really undergo that. I hope that our film takes a step toward that.

TFPN: Were you ever aware that there was a transgendered character on the daytime serial drama “All My Children” a few years ago?

Reed: Was the character’s name Cricket?

TFPN: No, actually the character was Zarf/Zoe (Jeffrey Carlson), a male to female transgendered rock star who was in love with Erica Kane’s (Susan Lucci) lesbian daughter Bianca (Eden Regal).

Reed: No, I didn’t. When was it?

TFPN: I think it was in 2007. I watched it and was blown away by it, but I can’t say 100% how realistic it was or not, but I was moved by it. So I was wondering if you had ever seen any of it.

Reed: No, but I ought to now. I thought you were going to tell me that people tell me I look like one of the characters on the show.

TFPN: People used to tell you that?

Reed: Yeah, it was Cricket, but I don’t think it was "All My Children." [Editor’s Note: If anyone does know what show Cricket was on, please leave it in the Comments.]

TFPN: I don’t remember a Cricket.

Reed: It was probably in the mid-1990s. You would know.

TFPN: Well, that’s not even really my show. My show’s "One Life to Live," which is on after AMC, but I occasionally watch it and when they had that storyline on, I found it fascinating. I don’t think it had ever been done before where they had a contract character that was transgendered in a major plotline.

Reed: The more stories like that, the better. One of the best reactions I ever had to the film that just floored me was when someone came up to me after a screening and said, “I think I fell in love with your brother Marc.” I love that, because Marc does some pretty intense things, which are hard to digest. The fact that you can go through that and experience it in the film, which is arguably more intense than in real life…and the fact that you can go through that and still see this other side of Marc that’s really sensitive and sentimental that’s terribly connected to our family and our past. I’m almost more proud of the fact that people can affiliate themselves more with Marc than they can with me. The thing about head injuries, the number of people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with head injuries…there are going to be so many people dealing with this, questioning where this explosive anger comes from? This is not the person who went off to war. At the end of the day, it’s just about humanity, whether we’re L or G or B or T or this or that. To hear Albert Maysles talk [at Stranger Than Fiction’s presentation of “Running Fence” on January 19] about the humanity in which he approaches his filmmaking and the compassion that he feels for his film subjects, which so comes through in his films, that is what I’m interested in.

One-on-One Q&A with Daryl Wein, Director - "Breaking Upwards"

One-on-One Q&A

Daryl Wein, Director/Co-Writer/Producer/Actor

Breaking Upwards

In anticipation for his narrative feature directorial debut, Breaking Upwards, at SXSW this weekend, Daryl Wein participated in a One-on-One Q&A with The Film Panel Notetaker. Wein's documentary Sex Positive debuted at last year's SXSW.

Q: Can you tell me a little about Breaking Upwards, how it all began? What's the story behind it?

Wein: Breaking Upwards was inspired by an open relationship I was in with my girlfriend (and co-star/writer/producer), Zoe Lister-Jones a few years ago. As a means to ultimately separate, we decided to strategize our break up over a period of 12 months. It was neurotic and insane, but somehow worked for us and, rather than process the insanity of it all, I immediately entered filmmaking mode, and saw a totally unique but entirely relatable story that I wanted to share. I felt like we had seen enough relationship movies about the moment a couple falls in love. I was more curious about how you grow apart with someone, and what it’s like to negotiate that space. There was also an aspect of frustration that fueled it, as I had been seeing a lot of films that were supposed to be representing my generation in complicated relationships that I felt were falling short on a lot of levels; craftsmanship being the most obvious.

Q: The promos for Breaking Upwards are very clever and hilarious. Zoe is super funny. Did you write and direct the promos yourself? Who came up with the concepts?

Wein: Zoe wrote all the promos, and we alternated directing them. She conceived all of them and then, because there was a lot of post production involved in the three greenscreened promos, I added some final touches during the editing process. Because we have no money, and no publicist, we decided to create a viral marketing campaign on our own. We've had so much fun making them, and the response has been overwhelming. It seemed foolish not to take advantage of the marketing capabilities that the Internet now lends to anyone and everyone. It's pretty amazing.

Q: Had you seen Arin Crumley's and Susan Buice's Four Eyed Monsters, which is a fictionalization of their then real-life relationship? Did that have any influence on you for Breaking Upwards? Are there any other films or filmmakers who have influenced your work?

Wein: I did see Four Eyed Monsters. When I heard about that movie, I got really excited. I thought it was really cool what they were doing. Posting the movie on Youtube was awesome. Using technology in all the ways it did was awesome. Being a real couple was awesome. Basically, they took the whole do it yourself model to the next level. It definitely inspired me. I love to see my peers elevating the form. I can't say it directly influenced me, but it lies somewhere in my subconscious for sure. Our aesthetic is definitely different though. I like to use more actors it seems, more structured story...etc. As far as films that influenced me in relation to Breaking Upwards, I would say they are: Manhattan, Jules and Jim, Annie Hall, Water Lillies, Brief Encounter, Good Will Hunting, Amelie, Badlands, Days of Heaven, Moonstruck, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Me You and Everyone We Know.

Q: I recently went to the Upright Citizens Brigade for the first time to watch an improv show. From watching the trailer, it seems like you and Zoe might have some improv or sketch comedy in your funny bones? Is Breaking Upwards completely scripted, improvised, or a bit of both?

Wein: It's completely scripted. Zoe, our co-writer Peter Duchan, and I spent over a year finessing the script. It was really important to us to infuse every character with their own energy and arc. And to have the piece be highly structured. That said, once on set we all did a bit of improvising, as actors are won't to do, but for the most part we stuck strictly to the page.

Q: Sex Positive, your feature documentary that debuted at last year's SXSW Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at L.A. Outfest, is about 1980s gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz who contributed to the invention of safe sex. How did you get involved in the making of that film, and what was it like to transition from making a documentary on a serious topic to a seriously funny narrative feature on the topic of a straight couple breaking up?

Wein: I met Richard Berkowitz at Zoe's mother's house in Brooklyn for their annual feminist Seder. Zoe had told me about his life, and her mother, a video artist named Ardele Lister, told me I should read his book. So knowing nothing about that time in history, I was immediately captivated. And Richard is such an amazing subject, after our first (6 hour!) interview, I knew I had a great film in the making.

To move on to Breaking Upwards was a nice shift of pace. I think more than the change in tone, the most intense transition was on a producerial level. Making a documentary for nothing has its challenges, but to make a narrative feature using a SAG contract, esteemed theater actors, acquiring insurance, permits, etc...all the logistics of it on top of acting, writing and directing was seriously overwhelming. But I think in terms of story, it's always important as a filmmaker to explore what you know and what is foreign to you. So I'm happy to have begun balancing the two.

Q: What was it like developing an all original soundtrack for Breaking Upwards that Zoe wrote lyrics for and you both sang on?

Wein: It was really fun, but like all things indie, a huge amount of work. Our friend Kyle Forester composed all the music, and is a genius, so we really owe it all to him. But the process basically entailed Zoe writing the lyrics, sending them to Kyle along with a general idea for the style of the song she was looking for. He'd compose it and send it back to us and then a dialogue would ensue. We spent a lot of days in the studio, driving Kyle crazy, but Zoe and I are both serious type A folk so we had to make sure every detail was perfect. We're really proud of the soundtrack, which is now available for download on iTunes. We'll also be selling copies at SXSW after our screenings.

Q: What's next after SXSW? Do you have any other projects in the works?

Wein: We have a few in the works, but I'll have to keep you posted once they're fully formed.

One-on-One Q&A: Hugo Perez - Director/Producer, "Neither Memory Nor Magic"

One-on-One Q&A with Hugo Perez
Director/Producer, Neither Memory Nor Magic

Hugo Perez

I recently sat down with filmmaker Hugo Perez to discuss his documentary feature film debut, Neither Memory Nor Magic, in preparation for its New York premiere during the 2009 MoMA Documentary Fortnight on Feb. 22. Neither Memory Nor Magic beautifully and hauntingly tells the story of Hungary’s most celebrated poet, Miklos Radnoti, whose notebook of poems was discovered in his coat pocket when the mass grave he’d been shot and killed in during the Holocaust was later unearthed. The film presents interviews with those close to Radnoti interspersed with incredible super 8mm footage vocalized by readings of verses from Radnoti’s poems, and narration by ACADEMY AWARD® Nominated actress Patricia Clarkson. Make sure to mark Neither Memory Nor Magic down on your calendar, as not only will Perez be answering your questions during the post-screening Q&A, but special guests will also make an appearance to read a selection of Radnoti’s poems. Already confirmed are Hungarian photographer Sylvia Plachy and poet Howard Altman. (Look below this One-on-One Q&A for two deleted scenes that didn't make it into the final cut of the film.)

TFPN: How did you first hear about this story and what compelled you to make a documentary about it?

Perez: Poetry is one of these traditional art forms that are fast disappearing in this fast food, reality TV era that we live in. I had met Greg Carr who ran the Carr Foundation. At that time they were supporting documentaries. He felt poetry was given short shrift and wanted to see if there could be a documentary that somehow conveyed the power of poetry to be something more than words on a page. I had read the work of Radnoti in an anthology. I pitched Carr on the idea of doing something on poetry of witness, which is a whole genre of poets who have lived through wars, genocides, political purges and have documented their times through poetry. Initially, the film was going to be about poetry of witness and Radnoti was one of five poets I was going to interweave their stories. It soon became apparent that what I was proposing was something really complex and ambitious. We weren’t sure it was going to work, so we decided to take one figure that exemplified this idea of poetry of witness and tell his story. When I think about the film now and when I think about Radnoti, I think about this man who tried to apply his craft under the darkest possible circumstances and continued to believe in the value of what he was doing, especially when he was on a forced march and people were being killed all around him. He must have known at this point that there was a good chance he wasn’t going to make it. To continue to write poetry under those circumstances when you don’t even know if anybody’s going to read these poems, I think it shows a great belief in the importance of creating art.

TFPN: Do you have a background in poetry and/or Hungarian history?

Perez: I had never been to Hungary. I don’t speak Hungarian. When I started to go to Hungary and interview people and do research, everybody thought it was the funniest thing that a Cuban American from New York would be coming to Budapest to make a film about Miklos Radnoti. One of my great goals for the film was to let the world know and encourage people to find out more about Radnoti and to read his work. In Hungary, everybody reads his work. School children memorize his poems. In the United States, outside of academic fields, he’s totally unknown. His work (the translations that I used) is currently out of print in this country. I was hoping at some point, a publisher might become interested in republishing his work in this country.

TFPN: How did you find the people interviewed in the film?

Perez: I was very fortunate because one of the people in the film, Zsuzsanna Ozsvath, whose translations of Radnoti’s poetry I used in the film, wrote Radnoti’s only biography in English, In the Footsteps of Orpheus. I saw that she was teaching at U.T. Dallas. She runs the Holocaust Studies department there. I emailed her. She was the first person I interviewed. Coincidentally, she has a daughter who lives up in Albany and she came a few days to visit her daughter, so I drove up to Albany and spent a day with her. She was incredibly helpful. It was through Oszvoth that I made my first round of contacts and my first trip to Budapest. She gave me a list of people to start with. Every time I interviewed somebody, people would say, ‘you should talk to so and so.’ For instance, Radnoti’s niece I only found out about a year and a half after my first visit to Budapest. I feel like I was really lucky. I was introduced to Ferenc Gyozo who was one of the other Radnoti scholars who speaks in the film. Through him, I found out about Ferenc Andai who had been at the labor camp with Radnoti. We made a trip down to Serbia together to visit the site of the labor camp. It’s kind of like solving a mystery. You start off with one person and they lead you to five other people and so on. At the end, I think I wound up doing 60 interviews and we only wound up using six or seven people in the finished film. One of the things I was up against was the fact that a lot of the people I was interviewing were over 70, so I was wasn’t sure which were going to be the key interviews. I didn’t want to risk missing something. Instead of doing pre-interviews, every interview I taped. Of the people in the film, thankfully everybody is still alive, but of the people that I interviewed, at least six of them passed away. Outside of the film, I now have this archive of interviews, which I hope to donate to a Hungarian institution at some point.

TFPN: The film took part in the 2006 IFP Market (Now Independent Film Week). What was the process like and how did it help you get the film to where it is today?

Perez: I recommend the IFP Market to anybody who’s got a work-in-progress documentary. I didn’t get any funding from presenting the film there, but I did start some relationships with people that have helped get the film seen. It definitely put the film on the radar. It was a really positive experience. There are certain places where the independent documentary community comes together throughout the year, and the IFP Market is definitely one of the watering holes where you can go for four days and wind up seeing a lot of people.

TFPN: Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello, the director and producer/cinematographer respectively of the ACADEMY AWARD® Nominated short Salim Baba, also participated in the making of your film. How did that collaboration come about?

Perez: Francisco and I have known each other for about five years now. He’s cut two of my narrative shorts and both of my documentaries including Summer Sun, Winter Moon, an ITVS-funded film. Some of the initial cutting that they did on Salim Baba they did in my edit room. He’d be cutting for me during the day, and at night he’d be working on Salim Baba. Tim Sternberg I got to meet through Francisco and he’s also been a wonderful collaborator.

TFPN: When did Patricia Clarkson come on board as narrator? What drew her to the film? Had you always anticipated having narration?

Perez: I have never been a big fan of narration and I resisted it for a long time, but then at a certain point, we did a rough-cut screening in Boston. After that screening, Francisco and I looked at each other and said, ‘we’re going to have to go with narration.’ Once I made that decision, then it was ‘how can I tastefully and eloquently work narration into the film?’ There is so much of his life where I could spend five minutes of screen time piecing together interviews to explain something that could be expressed with 10 seconds of narration. A friend of mine from college saw the film and she said, ‘Patricia Clarkson is a friend of mine, I can get the film to her, would you be interested in having her narrate the film?’ I thought, ‘Wow! She’s wonderful.’ She’s got a very beautiful voice that adds a really nice quality to the film. I should note that before sending the film to her for her consideration I knew that she had a love of poetry and that she might be interested in participating in the film because of that interest.

TFPN: Do you plan to do any educational outreach with the film?

Perez: I would like to do an educational outreach campaign that targets more creative writing and poetry than the Holocaust, although certainly the Holocaust is an important topic. The thing that makes the film unique is the way in which it examines the craft of poetry in relation to social issues and social injustice, and the ability of writing to describe something like the Holocaust, which is otherwise hard to talk about and encompass. I definitely want to do an educational outreach, but all of that is contingent upon finding the right partners who are willing to fund the initiative.

TFPN: What are you working on now?

Perez: While I’ve been working on my documentaries, on a parallel track, I’ve been working on my narrative fiction work, which is very different than the documentaries. They’re dark comedies in the vein of Pedro Almodóvar. What I’m working on right now is developing my first feature narrative called Immaculate Conception. It’s a modern-day re-imaging of the Virgin Mary story in Miami. I was supported by the Tribeca Film Institute Emerging Artist Award last year for that project. I’m also writing a science fiction short, which I hope to shoot this summer. And, I’m executive producing a documentary by David Felix Sutcliffe, Why AdM>ama, which was at the IFP Market this last year.

Below: Two Deleted Scenes from Neither Memory Nor Magic.

One-on-One Q&A: Tambay Obenson - Director, "Beautiful Things"

The Film Panel Notetaker’s

One-on-One Q&A with…
Tambay A. Obenson

Director, Beautiful Things and Blogger, The Obenson Report

As previously reported, I met filmmaker and blogger Tambay A. Obenson a few weekends back when Sujewa Ekanayake was in town shooting interviews for his upcoming documentary, The Indie Film Bloggers: A Portrait of a Community. Here is my One-on-One Q&A with Obenson.

TFPN: How did the idea of Beautiful Things come about?

Obenson: I’ve always been interested in exploring relationship dynamics. We seem to spend a significant part of our lives in some stage of coupling – we’re either looking for a partner, or we are with a partner and are working to make the relationship long-lasting. The need for companionship is after all very human. I wanted to deconstruct that notion on film.

TFPN: Is the story at all autobiographical?

Obenson: Not really, even though I play the lead male role. It’s not based specifically on any previous relationships; but as the filmmaker, I certainly drew from my own personal experiences as I created material for the project.

TFPN: Were you actually dating Hallie Brown (who plays Schola) while you were shooting the film, or was she merely someone you just cast in the part? Your chemistry seemed very realistic.

Obenson: Hallie was an actress I cast for the part. We were not dating, and never have. While there was a script for the film, about a third into production, I threw out much of it, and decided that I’d rather use improvisational methods to give the film as realistic a look and feel as possible. I felt it was crucial to do so, given the subject matter and my intent.

TFPN: I noticed your hair grew out from the "interview" segments compared to the "flashback" scenes or main action of the film. Was there a time gap between shooting those segments? How long did it take to complete the entire film?

Obenson: Yes there was a time gap of about 2 years between the flashback scenes and the interview segments (which happened in the present). During that time, I let my hair grow a little, although the film had no influence. So, the results, the effects it had on the film, were unintentional - happy accidents, I suppose. I completed the film – production and post – in about 2 years; however, not continuously; there was a lot of down time. Actual shooting happened over 9 total days between 2003 and 2005. Post production (editing, sound design, etc) lasted maybe 4 months.

TFPN: Can you talk a little bit about each of the short films that are also on the DVD? Were those made when you were living in San Francisco?

Obenson: Yes, both I made while taking a film workshop in San Francisco in 2000/2001. Both were first and second attempts at filmmaking for me. "She Is," the longer piece, was a rather spontaneous production. I had no idea what I was doing; I just wanted to get as many "interesting" shots as I could of the young lady I was dating at the time, at various locations, and then eventually edit it all together into something coherent. The second "Eye See" was planned. With Hitchcock as an influence then, I storyboarded the entire film, from the first frame to the last, in detail, prior to production. I haven't worked in that fashion since then because it was quite labor-intensive, but I'll admit that it made for a much more fluid shooting effort, even though I slipped a few times. I haven't made a short film since, instead choosing to focus on feature narratives.

TFPN: How long have you been doing The Obenson Report? Why did you create it? Has it been helpful to you as a filmmaker?

Obenson: The Obenson Report started as a Podcast before becoming a blog - a podcast I created in the summer of 2007, and which I hosted through February of this year. My focus was on black cinema and still is mostly, even with the transition from audio to the written word. I created the podcast as an extension of the work I was already doing - beating the drums for change within the realm of black cinema. But the weekly schedule proved to be quite consuming, and earlier this year, as I went through my usual New Year self-analysis, I realized that I missed the filmmaking process, and wanted to return to it. So, I gave up the podcast in mid-February to focus on writing. The blog picked up where the podcast left off, although my focus has broadened a bit. I found blogging to be less involved - not as much prep time, and much more organic to me. I figured that I already spent a lot of time gathering news and opinion pieces on and offline, for my own use, so simply moving those interesting bits and pieces of information onto a blog made sense to me. The transition hasn't been difficult, though it still takes time to put together. Has it been helpful to me as a filmmaker? Yes, certainly. I've been able connect with people like yourself, and many, many others - bloggers and readers alike - and it's boosted public awareness of me and my efforts, generating interest in people like yourself, as implied by this profile questionnaire.

TFPN: What is your next film project?

Obenson: I've been writing a screenplay off and on for the last 4 months - it's something I'm hoping to produce later this year, or early next year, provided I can raise the necessary funds. I can't give much info about it just yet, as I'm still discovering it myself. But I'll definitely announce its arrival when I'm much more certain of it.

TFPN: Are you looking forward to seeing yourself in Sujewa Ekanayake’s documentary about film bloggers?

Obenson: I most certainly am! I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing others share their individual stories, and how Sujewa puts it all together. I think it's a timely piece of filmmaking, given the "cold war" that's been brewing between the old and new school. It's certainly topical, and I think it could generate a lot of interest and dialogue.

One-on-One Q&A with Dawn Scibilia and Alan Cooke, "Home"

The Film Panel Notetaker’s One-on-One Q&A with…

Dawn Scibilia – Director, Producer, DP, Editor
&
Alan Cooke – Producer, Writer, Narrator

Over the weekend, I got a pleasant surprise when Alan Cooke sent me an instant chat message from Ireland on Facebook. He asked me if I had seen the documentary he produced, wrote, and narrated called Home. It was a film that I was familiar with, but had not yet had the opportunity to see, so I asked him if he could send me a screener. He put me in touch with the film’s director Dawn Scibilia. We spoke on the phone, and met the next rainy day outside of BAM where Dawn gave me the DVD. (I had just come from Sujewa’s documentary shoot where he interviewed Tambay Obenson nearby in Brooklyn.) I immediately took the DVD home with me to watch. It is a beautifully shot and well-told story of Alan’s experience coming from Ireland to live in New York City, as well as other stories told by people who call New York home, whether they came here as immigrants or were born and raised here. Some familiar faces include Liam Neeson, Susan Sarandon, Woody Allen, Mike Meyers, Frank and Malachy McCourt, and more. The film resonated with me very well. I don’t come from too far away, Western New York State, but I can certainly relate as New York has become my home. I wanted to find out more about the making of Home, so I did a One-on-One (or Two) Q&A with Dawn and Alan. They are currently seeking distribution opportunities here in the U.S.

In the mean time, here are a few ways in which you can see Home before then—Home will air on Thirteen/WNET New York this Thursday, July 3 at 10pm, and to purchase a DVD of Home, visit http://homethemovie.com/.

TFPN: Who came to who first to propose making the film? Dawn, did you already have the topic in mind, or did Alan pitch it to you? How did it all come about?

Scibilia: In 2000, I was toying with the idea of a documentary about how New York had changed in recent years. I had even shot some footage, mainly streetscapes, buildings and parts of the city I wanted to remember as they were. After 9/11, I abandoned the idea for obvious reasons. In 2004, I met actor Alan Cooke who was interested in doing a one man show about his experiences in New York as a recent Irish Immigrant. We got to talking and decided to merge our ideas and our talents.

Cooke: Dawn was documenting the city visually before I met her and I was writing fragments about my own life as a newly arrived immigrant. I was renting an apt for my landlord and Dawn was going to take it, we got chatting and had an interest in the changes and effects of New York and on my own transformation being away from home. We went out the next day with a MiniDV camera and began a journey of capturing the city in its essence of energy, in the visual and poetical sense. As we moved deeper into the piece we discovered a language that existed on the city streets and found ourselves with a work that was growing organically with no preconceived plan, just following our hearts and passions and the calling of the streets of New York.

TFPN: How did you select all the people to be interviewed in the film? How did you gain access to the celebrities?

Scibilia: We thought it would be interesting to get well known people who would open up to us and reflect on the city just as we were doing. And we believed we could pull it off. We each came up with a list of people who had an interesting relationship with the city and would want to share it with us because of their love of the city, people who were inspired by the city and understood its history. We wanted a mix of Irish immigrants like Liam Neeson and native New Yorkers like Susan Sarandon and Pete Hamill, or an interesting mix of both as in (Frank and Malachy) McCourt who were born in Brooklyn, went back to Ireland and then decided to return to New York. After unsuccessful attempts at getting past agents and managers, we found ways of meeting them and pitching them in person. Some face to face meetings were pure accidents. Only in New York!

Cooke: We came upon them in situations like bars and theatres and movie premieres. I met Liam Neeson in Central Park, by an eight million to one chance! We got them because we had passion and an original idea and they saw in our eyes a desire to capture something honest, poetic and real.

TFPN: Were you at all inspired by any other films on immigration? If so, what are some of the great films on the immigrant experience in America that you've seen?

Scibilia: We watched Wings of Desire and Baraka for its poetry and the great New York: A Documentary Film by Rick Burns which was a great way to quickly delve into the city’s history and some of its most devoted citizens.

Cooke: I personally took my influence from the street culture of New York and from other poetic films like Wings of Desire, Joyce’s Ulysses, Kerouac, dreamers and notions of myth and the human journey. I love films that involve a single characters transformation for I feel that is what happened to me. Our film Home is a reflection of all of these inspirations layered into the film.

TFPN: What message would you like your film to deliver?

Scibilia: It wasn't our intention to send a message or answer questions, but if I had to give you an answer I guess it would be, life itself is a journey. And if you should find yourself in New York, recognize and appreciate its importance to your journey and all who came before you.

Cooke: It has been seen by maybe one million people so far in festivals and on TV. We have had many wonderful reactions, I want the film to move people and show that all of our journeys have meaning and New York. Moments can change you forever. The film delivers a message of hope that New York still has a spiritual power and you can be fully realized on many different levels if you choose to call it HOME.

TFPN: (To Cooke) Was your narration in the film based on any previous writings you've done, or was it written solely for the film?

Cooke: The narration was based on my experiences and some writing I was working on. I just expanded it as I went along. As Dawn created pieces of film, I would write around them and vice verse. It was a very organic response in how the film was created. Being an actor helped because it meant I was able to create some truth in my voice and it was also part of how I shaped the words, looking for the realness in what I was trying to say. I learned a huge amount from the process and the audiences so far have reacted very strongly to my narration. They have said it’s like I’m bringing them on a journey…a personal journey on the streets.

TFPN: What has been the reaction from people who have seen the film, particularly from immigrants?

Scibilia: There’s a strong identification with the film. They've all made a point of telling me that they felt as though they had just seen themselves on the screen. So I'm happy to know I've done my job as a director. For me personally, the biggest compliment of all is when a New Yorker tells me that it completely captured the city for them, because that means we satisfied the most jaded audience members perhaps in the world! And since this is my home town, it meant a lot.

Cooke: Some have been moved to tears. I believe we have caught the essence of the immigrant’s journey in New York, the strife, the self-belief, the challenges and the moments of real transformation. People from London, New York, San Francisco, Australia…have all responded in saying how poetic and how beautiful the piece is…it’s very endearing.

TFPN: The film is being distributed in Ireland right now. How's that going? What has been the reaction from people there?

Cooke: We have our first theatrical release in Ireland. I’m very excited. We have shown it on TV here and in some small one-off screenings. People have been very moved by my story. I am brining so much back home to them.

TFPN: What are you both working on next?

Scibilia: I'm polishing a screenplay I've just completed and hope to direct – a film noir set in NYC. I'm hoping to take it to the IFP Market this September.

Cooke: I’m half way through a book about New York, an extension of the film and a more personal and expressionistic look at a series of moments I have had in the city. I hope maybe to make a film about my journey in Ireland sometime soon, and I am trying to audition again for the stage. That is my first love as a professional stage actor, but life can throw some funny roads at you!

One-one-One Q&A: Lucia Gajá- Director, "My Life Inside"

In May, I met Lucia Gajá at the Tribeca Film Festival during a press meet and greet at the filmmaker lounge. She told me about her documentary My Life Inside, about a woman from Mexico named Rosa who was sentenced to what basically equates to life in prison on the counts of homicide and injury to a child she was looking after. I was unable to see the film at Tribeca, but soon learned that it would also be playing at Silverdocs, so I got in contact with the Silverdocs press team and they sent me a DVD screener of the film, which I watched and found very compelling. While the film focuses on Rosa's personal story, it also makes a bolder statement on how illegal immigrants are treated in the American judicial system. I met up with Lucia at Silverdocs for a One-on-One Q&A.

One-on-One Q&A

Lucia Gajá- Director, My Life Inside/Mi Vida Dentro

TFPN: How was it getting access and permission to shoot inside both the courtroom and the correctional complex? Did you face any difficulties?

Gajá: The whole process was made by Carmen Cortes. She's the one from the consulate in the film who explained all the things that happen to women when they go to jail. She had really good relationships with the jail and in the courtroom. We asked for permission from the judge because he was the only one that allowed cameras inside the court. We said we were making this documentary and he said, 'OK, we'll see how it goes,' and slowly we were able to shoot the whole 12 days of the trial. We also went several times to the jail to interview Rosa. Each time, they treated us really well. They gave us permission to be with her as long as we needed.

TFPN: How come they were more fair to you than they were to Rosa?

Gajá: I don't know. That's one really interesting thing. It depends on different people. Hank, the policeman who's in the movie, talks about how he helped Mexicans to live better by asking the home owners to improve their houses. I think there is a very important movement in Austin that's supports migrants. This is different than what happened in the film. We never had any problems to make this movie. The film commission helped us when he had to get shots on the street. That's the thing that's contrary to what happened to Rosa in court.

TFPN: Did you originally start out doing a documentary just about Rosa or was it more about illegal immigration?

Gajá: Originally I wanted to do a documentary about Mexican men on death row in the U.S., but it changed when I started reading a lot of books about Mexican women in American jails. So it became about conditions in jails in another country with another language and another culture without their families and how that changed their lives more drastically than being in jail in their own country. I spent four years looking for someone in the Mexican government who wanted me to make this documentary. It was really hard for me to find the cases. It was really hard for me to get access to the women. And then I met Carmen and she was very interested in me doing this film and got me these interviews with women who accepted to meet with me, and Rosa was one of them. I never heard or read anything about Rosa's case until I got to her. Carmen told me Rosa and other women like her in maximum security, could only make calls once every six months for five minutes. There is no physical contact or conjugal visits allowed. All those things, I couldn't imagine for a Mexican woman. Most of their families back in Mexico are never going to have a visa, so they're never going to see their mothers and fathers again.

TFPN: Did you have access to the family of the boy who killed?

Gajá: I've been reading things that I should have interviewed the family. This was really tragic and the mother was really upset. I really didn't want to go like a reporter to ask her how she felt, because I knew how she felt. I heard her testimony in court. She never said anything bad about Rosa. You can see the Uncle's testimony at the end. He is crying and asking for Rosa's forgiveness. He never expected for her to be sentenced this way. He was never really sure that she did it.

TFPN: What message do you want people to take from watching your film?

Gajá: At the beginning, I wanted to talk about migration and how there are some consequences that could end in a story like Rosa's. Maybe it's better not to go. Then I learned that's impossible. People are going to keep coming from Mexico and Central and South America because they are really trying to get a better life. The main message of my film is, they have rights and they don't know they have rights. They have a right if they get caught by the police, they can ask for someone from the consulate if they don't have a lawyer. They don't have to answer questions if they are not detained or arrested. This is just to be aware of what can happen.

TFPN: This theme also resonates in Juan Manuel Sepulveda's film The Infinite Border that also played at Silverdocs. What did you think of it?

Gajá: I really loved it. It's been in my head since I saw it. It's beautifully told. It is what he said he wanted to do. To put you a little bit in these people's time and place and state of mind. They are trying to cross Mexico to get to the United States. It's very important because that's another awful part of what happens when they try to cross Mexico.

TFPN: What's your next film project?

Gajá: I think I'm going to do something about domestic violence against women focused mainly in Mexico, though I know it's a problem all over the world.

One-on-One Q&A: Director/Screenwriter, Phillip Van

One-on-One Q&A: Director/Screenwriter, Phillip Van

A scene from Phillip Van's She Stares Longingly At What She Has Lost.

She Stares Longingly At What She Has Lost is the title of Phillip Van’s segment of Little Minx, a new web film series produced by Rhea Scott and based on the French parlor game of the same name where the last line of the previous film's script starts the first line of the next film's script. The Film Panel Notetaker conducted a One-on-One Q&A with Van who explains what it was like contributing to the Exquisite Corpse process. He also talks about his new feature-length screenplay Darkland that is in the Tribeca All-Access program at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Van also has a number of acclaimed short films to his credit including the Student Academy Award-winning High Maintenance, Dunny, Flight, and the PSA Lone State for MetLife.

TFPN: How would you characterize the entire Exquisite Corpse process and how did you conceptualize your particular segment for Little Minx?

Van: I wanted to define something that I don’t think there’s a word for in the English language, maybe the closest one is ‘nostalgia.’ But it’s more fatal and meaningful. Other cultures have descriptions of this kind of mood or feeling. In Portuguese, it’s called ‘saudade.’ There’s a type of music called ‘fado’ that they dedicate to it. There’s a cultural movement surrounding it that has been going on for generations. It’s a very visceral sort of feeling, which I know well, but it’s not a major source of art in western culture. It usually relates to a loss of home or a loss of some form or incarnation of yourself. I devised a story around it. I was really into Carl Jung growing up. A lot of his ideas influenced the ideas in the story, especially the idea of the “Animus,” an unconscious conception of a man in the mind of a woman before she knows man and a kind of ideal that she projects onto man. The gender reverse is the anima. Jung had all these accounts of patients he worked with that said things like “I’ve been married to my wife for 10 years and I realized yesterday that I actually don’t know who she is.” Those accounts influenced the Water Man, who is essentially an illustrated version of the Animus in the mind of the little girl in my story.

TFPN: It seems that Jung’s philosophies also come into play in your short film High Maintenance. Can you talk about that?

Van: I made High Maintenance to touch upon behaviors that I see in excess today among friends and in society; things like rampant consumerism, serial monogamy, lives predicated entirely on connections through technology or some sort of networking platform, and a real, new kind of loneliness. We’re more connected now than we’ve ever been before but somehow, also more disconnected. I think this relates directly to the filters that we use to reach out and connect to one another. The film was a way for me to turn those themes into a story and I did it through the characters of Jane and Paul. Jane is looking for a man by ordering designer robotic men online, tweaking them to accommodate her desires, and making sure the upgrade is better than the first version of the husband she bought. In that process, she tests the degree to which men are interchangeable. In one respect, the film comments on how programmatic love can be in human lives. We’re susceptible to a series of stimuli that induce chemical reactions. When we’re told what we want to hear, our response is mechanical on a certain level. In another respect, by attempting to demonstrate that love is replaceable, the film becomes a strong argument for the opposing truth. It pinpoints a kind of alienation, depravity and need for companionship that is all too human.

TFPN: What is your screenplay Darkland about? How does it differ from your shorts and where did the idea come from?

Van: Darkland bares similarities to my other work, but it’s also very different. All my shorts deal with themes of alienation. To some extent, they also all deal with interchangeability: the degree to which we can be made irrelevant or redundant in the modern world and the fears, anxieties and, at times, comedy surrounding that.

Darkland has political overtones but is ultimately very human. It’s the real love story of my mother and father and the things they went through together in Laos before the entire area fell with the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. It’s also very much a dark thriller. It centers on Thanh, a Vietnamese man raised in Laos, and his conflicted relationship with Lauren, an American woman who works for the USAID and gives resources to starving Lao villages whose trade routes have been cut off by the war. Thanh is in charge of a dam building operation designed to generate money and power. He believes it will fortify the country against communism and the threat of the war next door. But as he tries to put together his workforce, he discovers that all of the Lao workers have already secretly turned to the communist regime. The only way to get the job done is to hire these people and keep quiet. In doing so, he ends up inadvertently funding communist attacks on his own country. Working on the frontlines, Lauren bears witness to the murder that he’s unleashing on his own people, and upon discovering his secret, has to weigh her love for him and ability to keep it covered up against his path of destruction. It’s a story that plots grand dreams of freedom and salvation against the ugly realities of murder, corruption and egomania. As Thanh’s love for his country and Lauren’s love for Thanh become engines for complacent destruction, the story forges a central opposition between love and morality.

TFPN: This seems really relevant with current events.

Van: Absolutely. That’s great that you’ve said that. I’ve stopped saying that. I don’t want to force it down people’s throats. The speeches that Nixon gave at that time with regard to withdrawal from Vietnam, which in a cursory way addressed Laos, were very similar to Bush’s speeches now. I’m sure Bush’s speechwriters are aware of the overlap, but I don’t know why they would be paraphrasing Nixon given his track record. The way that the technocrats in Iraq were disempowered because of misguided decisions on the part of our government is pretty incredible. When you use the government to fire the intelligent working forces in a country they will turn to the anti-establishment, because it’s best game in town. And they have to feed their families. They also have all this knowledge and they have to use it somewhere. The dam Thanh is building is a way to actually show these dynamics at play in a visceral, physical manner.

TFPN: Is Darkland fictionalization or a completely true story?

Van: It’s safe to say that it’s based on a true story, but I’ve changed certain elements around and taken a few, reasonable dramatic liberties.

TFPN: What was the process of being accepted into Tribeca All Access and what does it mean to you to be selected?

Van: It was very much like applying to the festival itself. I turned in the first draft of the script, treatment, synopsis, logline – all of the written material they required. Also a personal statement on why the script and the film are relevant to me. Then it went through a pretty rigorous period. They called me and we had a lengthy interview. I think there were four or five people from Tribeca All-Access on the phone asking me questions. It reminded me of getting into NYU. My script and others in the program aren’t conventional, maybe because of the strong multi-ethnic contingent or subject matter. Prior to writing Darkland, I’d been working on a featurization of High Maintenance that I’m still working on with the writer of the short, Simon Biggs, who’s a great partner. And then this idea for Darkland came up and really took over for a spell.

TFPN: Can you talk more about some of your earlier film influences and inspirations?

Van: I grew up on films in the 1980s before I found any arthouse work. Films from Donner, Spielberg and Zemeckis, like Back to the Future, The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark – all the movies that were completely ubiquitous and still hold up today. There were a few exceptions to the popcorn cinema. I saw 2001 when I was in 3rd grade and Scanners even earlier. I watched the Twilight Zone and all the Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street films at my babysitters. It’s amazing what kids are exposed to by diffusion. When my brain formed out more I sought out Bergman, Godard, Tarkovsky, Antonioni, neo-realism, the new wave. These redefined why I wanted to be in film. I realized what a peripheral knowledge I had through my primary lens and how much I could do with the medium.

One-on-One Q&A: Sue Williams, "Young & Restless in China"

One-on-One Q&A:

Sue Williams
Director, Young & Restless in China

Young & Restless in China, a new documentary from director Sue Williams and her company Ambrica Productions, opens April 11 for a week-long stint at New York’s Cinema Village as well as at Laemmle Theatres - Grande 4 in Los Angeles. The film “follows the lives of nine young people over four years as they struggle to find their way in a country changing faster than any in history.” Below is The Film Panel Notetaker's One-on-One Q&A with Sue, who discusses her experiences shooting this and four other previous documentaries in China.

TFPN: What prompted you to make Young & Restless in China? Why did you choose this topic?

Sue: I have made four other films in China. (China: A Century of Revolution – A trilogy of three features: China in Revolution, The Mao Years & Born Under the Red Flag and also China in the Red.) The latter is about how the end of communism was being lived by ordinary people and it came out in 2003. Everyone then was talking about China being the next superpower. I was interested to know what China was going to be like in 10 years time when it’s a major player on the world stage. What are the people like who are going to be running it and who will be important in business and in the arts? I thought it would be interesting to get to know young people in their 20s and 30s and see what motivates them, what interests them, what drives them and what their lives are like. That was really the reason that I started the film.

TFPN: How did you go about getting funding to film in China?

Sue: That’s a long and difficult process. Some of the money comes from grants. Some of it comes from support from PBS stations. We have a number of private individuals who have foundations or have given money as tax-deductible donations. It’s very hard to raise money for independent films.

TFPN: What was it like filming in China? Did you face any regulations or restrictions?

Sue: Usually when you’re there and you want to film anywhere official, such as a government official or at a large business, you need to have permission. You can get permission through different organizations. We happened to work with CCTV (China Central Television) which is the national television network. They have a department that works with film crews from abroad. So we had someone with us. That’s good because it’s the only way you can get into some places. Then of course sometimes it’s a drag, because they want you to show the positive side of China. We were very fortunate on this one – my other films were much more controversial – for example trying to film one of our characters who ended up in jail! This film I was really more interested in making these portraits of young people. We had pretty good access, even though there are a lot of distressing stories in the film. Those include: the daughter whose mother is trafficked and sold; the migrant worker who works 11 hours a day, 7 days a week; the environmental lawyer who is fighting for individual rights so that the government will acknowledge that individuals have rights in a society as well. Because these issues were very integral to the characters, we managed to spin them pretty positively to our minders. Some of them were quite helpful and sympathetic. I think people have assumptions about China. It’s not politically free by any means, but it is a huge and vibrant country with lots of people going on with their lives, having very little to do with the government. We were kind of moving in and exploring that area.

TFPN: Where else will Young & Restless in China be showing and what are some other projects you are currently working on?

Sue: In addition to this week’s openings in New York and LA, it will also play in Pasadena. And then it will be on Frontline before the Olympics. We’re working on a film about Johnny Cash, something completely different. We have a couple of investigative pieces that we’re also developing with Frontline.

TFPN: What else should people know about your films?

Sue: The reason I keep making these films is because China is such a difficult place to understand. It’s often treated very one dimensionally in the media. It’s all human rights or Tibet or how China makes all the goods we have in this country. All those things are true but it’s not the only story in China. I think that we face many common problems with the collapsing environment and health pandemics. I see that the bird virus has just started to mutate; it’s started to have human-to-human transmissions, which is hugely serious. If we’re going to work together on these issues that are trans-global, we have to start trying to understand each other. I hope people come away and say, “Gosh, I can relate to them. We listen to the same music. We all like sports. We care about our kids. We care about our parents. We all need healthcare, somewhere to live.” As well as having big differences, you see we share quite a few things. After going to China more than twenty times now, I know we do have a lot in common too.

One-on-One Q&A: Paul Krik, "Able Danger"

One-on-One Q&A:
Paul Krik
Writer/Director, Able Danger

Paul Krik’s Able Danger, which premiered at the 2008 International Film Festival Rotterdam, is a fast-paced, very good-looking, modern-day independent film noir about a conspiracy theorist/Brooklyn bookstore café owner who unassumingly gets in the middle of a 9/11 cover up when he helps a femme fatal keep a secret that leads to murder and espionage. Below is an One-on-One Q&A between Paul Krik and The Film Panel Notetaker.

TFPN: How did Able Danger come about? Were you interested in conspiracy theories? Do you have a message?

Paul: The message is that truth won’t be handed to you. There’s a lot going on in the world that most people don’t know about. I wasn’t really a conspiracy theorist before I started writing and researching. When Bush won the last election, I was inspired to do something to contribute to the culture, to try to affect the zeitgeist. The café Vox Pop is a real café. I came to know the owner, Sander Hicks, who’s been an activist for years. I came to be a big fan of his tireless efforts to promote the truth. Vox Pop is a cool hangout place. It’s great for the neighborhood where people come together for wireless Internet and get some coffee. It’s also a bookstore with books you don’t find in mainstream bookstores. He’s also a micro publisher. He wrote a book, which is in the movie, the Big Wedding. My initial feelings about this conspiracy theorist café owner was something ofthe everyman perspective on conspiracy theorists, these sort of kooky whack jobs who are screaming, “Dig for the truth.” But because I liked this café and what he was doing in the neighborhood, I invested the energy to read the book and I kind of fell into the abyss of conspiracy theory. It was such a well-written academic very interesting treatise on 9/11 and also a bigger picture of things that are going on we don¹t know about that will never make it to mainstream media. He was the basis for the main character. He’s not exactly modeled on him, but the idea that hopefully the character is a bit of a goof, but underlies the seriousness of the issues he’s talking about. For a year, I sort of read everything on the Internet and some of the best conspiracy books I could find. I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist before, but on that day something didn’t feel right to me. I’m not a 9/11 academic or researcher in the strictest sense, but I do think that the official story is clearly flawed and covering up quite a bit. That’s really the main point. Everybody acknowledges that, even the official Keane Hamilton report, it’s clearly not a final story. Our understanding of 9/11 completely determines the post-9/11 world and that’s why I think it became an important issue. At the same time, I don’t really want to be the person who’s drudgingup the old issue that no one really wants to think about, but it’s the issue that sort of informs our world more than anything else. I really wanted to start dealing a blow to how we understand it.

TFPN: The black & white cinematography and overall production/art design is really fantastic. How did you put it all together? Was there a limited budget?

Paul: My budget was very limited. It’s a completely self-financed project. I begged, borrowed and stole to get it done. I work in post production for Jump Editorial. I’ve been editing television commercials for a number of years. I did edit it myself, but called in all my post-production favors. I was fortunate enough to enlist the immense talent of a great director of photography named Charles Libin. He was willing to work on the project forless than his normal rate because he liked the script and the subject matter. He certainly informed the look quite a bit. The reason why I chose black and white is that it is a film noir homage. When you’re in the noir environment, you’re assuming that there’s something darker than what appears on the surface. We accept in a noir environment that people have ulterior motives. No one is perfect in a noir environment. The vocabulary of evil can be played with in a way. We live in the noir environment and we can play with it and have witty banter, but it’s sort of understood that things are darker than they appear. For me, conspiracy theorists see past the mainstream media what is offered as the truth. In a way, they live in this noir environment. When I watch news now or read mainstream media, that’s not really the story. We don¹t really want to drop bombs on Iran because they want to develop nuclear weapons, we want to drop bombs on Iran because they’re going to be undermining our economy when they set up a bourse that sells gasoline in Euros, therefore undermining the dollar. But that will never make it to the mainstream media. Originally noir came about because we saw the depths of the depravity of the human condition during World War II. We saw what Godlessness means. I feel like it’s a similar time now, but we are the perpetrators of this sort of Nazi-like evil. Using the noir genre brings us into a space where this moral depravity is a really current topic.

TFPN: I like how you show all the TV broadcasts in color. It’s a bold contrast to the black and white. What was your intention with this? Were you trying to make a statement about the media?

Paul: What we see on the television, because it’s on TV, it’s more readily accepted as true. The cooler the logo and brand are, the more interested we are in watching it and the more we accept it because if they’re paying all this money for production value to sell their news, then it must be true. I think that’s how Americans take their news. The glossier and slicker it is, the more they’ll buy it.

TFPN: What was the reaction from audiences at the film¹s world premiere inRotterdam? What was it like doing a Q&A?

Paul: The reaction was amazing. We had three sold out shows with about 400 people in the seats. It was sold out weeks in advance. I’d literally been working 20 hours a day for months. I got into the festival and then actually had to finish it. I was kind of on an insane course just to get it done. And so I showed up and really sort of watched it for the first time finished with a crowd. When you’re doing a Q&A, it distorts your experience, because it’s kind of about you and less about the movie. I’m worried about what I’mgoing to say. For the first screening, it was a little weird, because you’re watching it and the crowd is reacting. At the Q&A, people were really interested. They were asking question for what seemed like at least an hour. They had to boot us out because they were going to shut down the theater. For the third screening, I was able to be a fly on the wall. I didn’t have to introduce the film. I sat in the back and just observed the crowd. It wasactually amazing how into it they were. They were laughing the moments that felt small on a small monitor, but on the big screen these moments got stretched onto a larger canvas and the audience picked up on all the humor. These small moments became real moments. People were laughing as much as I had hoped, but more than I expected and really getting into it.

TFPN: Who are some other filmmakers or films that you admire and that mighthave inspired you for your film?

Paul: It is a noir homage. It’s first and foremost a hats off to Humphrey Bogart, Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammet; that kind of fast talking detective story. I’m also a huge Kubrick and Coen Bros. fan, and of the film Pi. It’s a similar sentiment that there’s a truth that takes a lot of scraping to get at. If you find the truth, you’ll go blind maybe or crazy. My take on my conspiracy theorist character is, he sort of knows the truth and he’sconsidered a kook because of it. For me, the object was to make an entertaining good date movie where hopefully by the end of it, your head explodes, or at least you’re asking questions like, what, that’s really true? I did a fair amount of research and I think in 25 years, pretty much everything that made it in there, what’s considered now an out thereconspiracy theory will basically be common knowledge or will be accepted as true.