I had planned to see Circles (Serbia, directed by Srdan Golubovic) because my visits over the past 2 years to Romania, Poland, Lithuania and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo) have increased my interest in Central and Eastern Europe where the people are looking up (vs. in Western Europe where they are looking down). Now it has been submitted for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and so I reprint my interview here which I did during Sundance earlier this year.
Sarajevo itself is especially remarkable as the only place in Europe where there has been a war since I was born. From 1991 to 1999 Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars - the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia and the war in Kosovo. During this period, Slobodan Milošević was the authoritarian leader of Serbia, which was in turn part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This was was a war between people who spoke a common language but were split along religious lines, the Serbs being Eastern Orthodox and the Bosnians, Kosovians and Croations being Muslim.
The country known as Yugoslavia had been unified from 1918 to 1991-- first under a king as The Kingdom of Yugoslavia until 1941 and then as the Social Republic of Yugoslavia. Even as the Social Republic of Yugoslavia, it was a country more liberal then the other communist countries. It was a socialist republic open to west; its people could travel, the people had good jobs, it was more an example of socialism than of communism. Its geographical location was also at a true crossroad between east and west, formerly Ottomon and Muslim and at the same time very Eastern Orthodox and Catholic.
When the Ussr collapsed, Sarajevo, situated in the break-off nation Bosnia and Herzogovina was surrounded by Christian Serbs who bombarded the cities of the nation which they saw more as Muslim than as Christian in order to annex the land.
My dear Berlin friend, Geno Lechner from Berlin asked me to see it because she is in it. She plays the German wife of the protagonist. And my good friend Mickey Cottrell, of Inclusive PR is the publicist for Circles from the time it was in Sundance 2013's World Dramatic Competition and has also asked me to revise and repost what I wrote in Sundance.
So here it is:
Circles ripples out as a stone dropped in a placid lake, concentrically creating moral complexities for a group of people as their story strands emerge from one fateful moment.
Marco, a Serbian soldier on leave from the Serbo-Croatian War in 1993, returns to his Bosnian hometown. When three fellow soldiers accost Haris, a Muslim kiosk vendor, Marco intervenes, and it costs him his life.
Twelve years later, the war is over but the wounds remain open. Marco's father is rebuilding a church when the son of one of Marco's killers appears looking for work. Meanwhile, in Belgrade, Marco's friend Nabobs, a renowned surgeon, debates whether or not to operate on another of Marco's killers. And in Germany, Haris, now married with a family (Geno Lechner and her two daughters) strives to repay his debt to Marco's widow who arrives at his door seeking refuge.
John Nein, Sundance Senior Programmer says, "Srdan Golubovic's third feature employs a multifaceted, yet simple, structure that contemplates revenge, redemption, and reconciliation. Aware of how easily hatred and violence can create life-shattering ripples, he looks at the consequences of moral courage and asks whether a heroic act can generate ripples of another kind."
Circles was financed with funds from Serbia, Germany, France, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its international sales agent is Memento. Circles also screened in the Berlin Film Festival's Forum.
It is very important for the film’s director, Srdan Golubovic, that Circles receive wide distribution. It is based upon the true story of Srdjan Aleksic, a Serbian soldier who saved the life of his neighbor. When Golubovic read the story some years ago, he was against the war but on the sidelines watching, occasionally demonstrating against it, but not a part of it. He chose not to remake the story of the man then but to make it contemporary in order to close the book of his own private feelings about the war.
The man is universal in that he is saving a man, not "an enemy". The escaped man moved into a German world, which at the time looked very much like his own world, sparse, unattractively Soviet in style. However, he found his fortune there and created a life. The actor, Aleksandar Bercek, says that when he met the real Srdjan Aleksic, he said to him, "Now I am walking; it could have been different. I could have been lying down." You will see in a Google search that the memory of Srdjan is very much alive today. The real man's grave is visited yearly by the survivor he saved and by all the former Yugoslavians in the area of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzogovina, Croatia and Slovenia. He has received a posthumous medal of honor and has streets named after him in several cities.
This is one of the rare films which unites everybody; it is about forgiveness and reconciliation. And as such it deserves very wide distribution. And as a work of heroic art, it deserves to be seen by many people. We hope you will visit Memento during Berlin and place your orders. For those of you who are not distributors going to market to acquire films, we hope you will have a chance to see this film in your local theaters or homes.
Srdan Golubovic’s earlier film from 2007, The Trap, garnered great acclaim and was Serbia’s submission for an Academy Award nomination.
When director Srdan Golubovic and producer Jelena Mitrovic and I spoke during Sundance, they spoke of what a great surprise Sundance was to them. They found the people very warm. The audiences were totally open, very curious and emotionally connected. It is very rare for Srdan to find an audience that is not afraid to ask questions and eager to talk about the film. And, unlike at most film festivals, at Sundance, they saw the programmers every day and were always able to speak to them. As there were not too many films in competition — 12 in World Cinema section as opposed to 16 last year — the attention they received from the Sundance personnel and volunteers was very special.
Read the praise received by The Hollywood Reporter
Further information:
Serbian with English subtitles, 2012, 112 minutes, color, Serbia/Germany/France/Croatia/Slovenia, World Dramatic Competiton at Sundance, Forum at the Berlinale
Cast and Credits
Director: Srdan Golubovic
Screenwriters: Srdjan Koljevic, Melina Pota Koljevic
Producers: Jelena Mitrovic, Alexander Ris, Emilie Georges, Boris T. Matic, Danijel Hocevar
Cinematographer: Alexsander Ilic
Production Designer: Goran Joksimovic
Composer: Mario Schneider
Sound Designer: Julij Zornik
Costume Designer: Ljiljana Petrovic
Principal Cast: Aleksandar Bercek, Leon Lucev, Nebojsa Glogovac, Hristina Popovic, Geno Lechner, Nikola Rakocevic, Vuk Kostic...
Sarajevo itself is especially remarkable as the only place in Europe where there has been a war since I was born. From 1991 to 1999 Serbia was involved in the Yugoslav Wars - the war in Slovenia, the war in Croatia, the war in Bosnia and the war in Kosovo. During this period, Slobodan Milošević was the authoritarian leader of Serbia, which was in turn part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This was was a war between people who spoke a common language but were split along religious lines, the Serbs being Eastern Orthodox and the Bosnians, Kosovians and Croations being Muslim.
The country known as Yugoslavia had been unified from 1918 to 1991-- first under a king as The Kingdom of Yugoslavia until 1941 and then as the Social Republic of Yugoslavia. Even as the Social Republic of Yugoslavia, it was a country more liberal then the other communist countries. It was a socialist republic open to west; its people could travel, the people had good jobs, it was more an example of socialism than of communism. Its geographical location was also at a true crossroad between east and west, formerly Ottomon and Muslim and at the same time very Eastern Orthodox and Catholic.
When the Ussr collapsed, Sarajevo, situated in the break-off nation Bosnia and Herzogovina was surrounded by Christian Serbs who bombarded the cities of the nation which they saw more as Muslim than as Christian in order to annex the land.
My dear Berlin friend, Geno Lechner from Berlin asked me to see it because she is in it. She plays the German wife of the protagonist. And my good friend Mickey Cottrell, of Inclusive PR is the publicist for Circles from the time it was in Sundance 2013's World Dramatic Competition and has also asked me to revise and repost what I wrote in Sundance.
So here it is:
Circles ripples out as a stone dropped in a placid lake, concentrically creating moral complexities for a group of people as their story strands emerge from one fateful moment.
Marco, a Serbian soldier on leave from the Serbo-Croatian War in 1993, returns to his Bosnian hometown. When three fellow soldiers accost Haris, a Muslim kiosk vendor, Marco intervenes, and it costs him his life.
Twelve years later, the war is over but the wounds remain open. Marco's father is rebuilding a church when the son of one of Marco's killers appears looking for work. Meanwhile, in Belgrade, Marco's friend Nabobs, a renowned surgeon, debates whether or not to operate on another of Marco's killers. And in Germany, Haris, now married with a family (Geno Lechner and her two daughters) strives to repay his debt to Marco's widow who arrives at his door seeking refuge.
John Nein, Sundance Senior Programmer says, "Srdan Golubovic's third feature employs a multifaceted, yet simple, structure that contemplates revenge, redemption, and reconciliation. Aware of how easily hatred and violence can create life-shattering ripples, he looks at the consequences of moral courage and asks whether a heroic act can generate ripples of another kind."
Circles was financed with funds from Serbia, Germany, France, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its international sales agent is Memento. Circles also screened in the Berlin Film Festival's Forum.
It is very important for the film’s director, Srdan Golubovic, that Circles receive wide distribution. It is based upon the true story of Srdjan Aleksic, a Serbian soldier who saved the life of his neighbor. When Golubovic read the story some years ago, he was against the war but on the sidelines watching, occasionally demonstrating against it, but not a part of it. He chose not to remake the story of the man then but to make it contemporary in order to close the book of his own private feelings about the war.
The man is universal in that he is saving a man, not "an enemy". The escaped man moved into a German world, which at the time looked very much like his own world, sparse, unattractively Soviet in style. However, he found his fortune there and created a life. The actor, Aleksandar Bercek, says that when he met the real Srdjan Aleksic, he said to him, "Now I am walking; it could have been different. I could have been lying down." You will see in a Google search that the memory of Srdjan is very much alive today. The real man's grave is visited yearly by the survivor he saved and by all the former Yugoslavians in the area of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzogovina, Croatia and Slovenia. He has received a posthumous medal of honor and has streets named after him in several cities.
This is one of the rare films which unites everybody; it is about forgiveness and reconciliation. And as such it deserves very wide distribution. And as a work of heroic art, it deserves to be seen by many people. We hope you will visit Memento during Berlin and place your orders. For those of you who are not distributors going to market to acquire films, we hope you will have a chance to see this film in your local theaters or homes.
Srdan Golubovic’s earlier film from 2007, The Trap, garnered great acclaim and was Serbia’s submission for an Academy Award nomination.
When director Srdan Golubovic and producer Jelena Mitrovic and I spoke during Sundance, they spoke of what a great surprise Sundance was to them. They found the people very warm. The audiences were totally open, very curious and emotionally connected. It is very rare for Srdan to find an audience that is not afraid to ask questions and eager to talk about the film. And, unlike at most film festivals, at Sundance, they saw the programmers every day and were always able to speak to them. As there were not too many films in competition — 12 in World Cinema section as opposed to 16 last year — the attention they received from the Sundance personnel and volunteers was very special.
Read the praise received by The Hollywood Reporter
Further information:
Serbian with English subtitles, 2012, 112 minutes, color, Serbia/Germany/France/Croatia/Slovenia, World Dramatic Competiton at Sundance, Forum at the Berlinale
Cast and Credits
Director: Srdan Golubovic
Screenwriters: Srdjan Koljevic, Melina Pota Koljevic
Producers: Jelena Mitrovic, Alexander Ris, Emilie Georges, Boris T. Matic, Danijel Hocevar
Cinematographer: Alexsander Ilic
Production Designer: Goran Joksimovic
Composer: Mario Schneider
Sound Designer: Julij Zornik
Costume Designer: Ljiljana Petrovic
Principal Cast: Aleksandar Bercek, Leon Lucev, Nebojsa Glogovac, Hristina Popovic, Geno Lechner, Nikola Rakocevic, Vuk Kostic...
- 11/21/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Today I finally felt like I was hitting my stride. I found a parking place on the street this early Sunday morning and made my 8:30am screening of What They Don't Talk About When They Talk About Love which takes place in a special school for the mute, deaf and blind in Indonesia. A series of love stories told with a gentleness most easily summarized by one of its characters, Boys love what they see and girls love what they hear. The film is a sweet look — not always innocent — at love inside this special school, told with a narrative style and rhythm dictated by its actors being mostly blind, deaf or mute. Kiril Razlogov, Artistic Director of the Moscow Film Festival, and I had a great long talk about Russia, the new Ministry of Culture and how film fits into its political system and what is happening today with Russian films as we walked to the Glbt annual brunch at the Grub Steak (I can no longer recall who sponsors this I have been going to it for such a long time) I had thought it started at 10am but at 10:30am the line to get in was down the block and no one was going in until 11am, so we made our own party greeting those in line whom we knew. It was great to see Marie from Wolfe Releasing along with her colleague and to hear about the great response they have been getting internationally to their online movies. Kiril and she discussed Russian films and digital delivery. She is still deciding whether to go to Berlin as she is so busy at the home office. I looked for Jenny Olsen whom I always see there if no where else but she was not there yet. We visited with a few other friends and acquaintances and then Kiril and I parted ways as he went to see a film (he's concentrating on seeing the U.S. Films and I'm concentrating on international and particularly Latino and Eastern European films). I went to interview director Sebastian Silva whose Old Cats was in Sundance 2009 and The Maid which won the Dramatic Jury Award here in 2011 and whose film Crystal Fairy so impressed me this year. I will write about this wonderful interview after I have seen the second film he has here, Magic Magic, produced by Frida Torresblanco and Christine Vachon. My discussion after the interview with producer rep and publicist, Stephen Raphael of Required Viewing, who also happens to have been born in Chile, about the film's producers, Fabula, the company of Pablo and Claude Lorrain (No, Tony Manero) and the line producer who also line produced Il Futuro, the Chile-Italian coproduction film I also saw today verged on the weird for the number of coincidences and inter-relationships. The oddest coincidence was that while Stephen was awaiting his two Chilean clients to arrive at Sundance from Santiago, his luggage was lost and they discovered it had been sent mistakenly to Santiago! Between films I went to parties: UCLA / The Wrap party where I did not see Teri Schwartz, Dean of the UCLA film school or Sharon Waxman of The Wrap, Texas Party, but I was unable to squeeze in the Ida cocktail to which Laurie Ann Schag of Netflix and the the Ida Treasurer invited me as I had to run back to the Holiday Village to see The World According to Dick Cheney, a 110 minute life saga of this man who ran our government into the ground as told by himself, a man unable to think of a single fault in his own character when asked the question along with other questions about himself, all of which he could answer with a flawless alacrity – except for that one. He could only conclude that his only fault was not being able to name one. I went to see the Serbian film Circles at the urging of my friend Geno Lechner who played the wife of the protagonist. The fault of this film was in identifying characters 12 years after a horrible incident that took place among the characters which determined the story. I still do not know who was who and yet I understood the relevance of the story very much, especially because I was just in Sarajevo for the Festival and Talent Campus this summer and loved it so very much. This played out the tragedy of a man whose good deed in saving a Muslim cigarette vendor in Croatia during the Serbian Croatia War created circles of greater import like a stone which is dropped in the water. Finally, I changed my mind from seeing Wajma to going with the flow and seeing Escape from Tomorrow which is receiving lots of press because of possible copyright infringement of Walt Disney's IP. This surreal comedy of a man going insane at Disneyland or Disney World left me feeling dizzy and surreal myself. I think it is good as a work of art but without any commercial potential. I think, like the Barbie Doll enactment of the Karen Carpenter Story so many years ago, Sundance may be the only chance for anyone to see this film. With that as my finale for the evening, I drove home feeling disoriented to meet a depressed Harlan who had been unable to procure any tickets for the evening screenings. For having done a full day's work without a flaw, the evening's films and lack thereof left the two of us out of sorts. Oh well, there's always tomorrow, but I'm already undecided about whether to attend Acme PR's inaugural breakfast or go to see The Lifeguard. I've had enough docs on political issues and so will skip 99% The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film. There is always so much to do that no matter what you choose, you wonder if you should be somewhere else; that is the dilemma of these festivals with so many choices! See you tomorrow!
- 1/21/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Back to New York, post New Years. The Rabbi at the closing of the New Year said we still have until the next holiday (Sukkot) to ask forgiveness and to be written up in the Book of Life, and so I continue the blog I was writing regarding not only our recent New York trip but the unfinished topics that I did not get to complete in the past year, mostly about Cannes. As in Part I, this is a rambling account, so get ready for a long read.
We went to NYC after Tiff 12. Being at Ifp Filmweek in NYC where my partner Peter Belsito was on a speed dating table, we appreciated its new venue at Lincoln Center. At the same time as our event, Nyff was having its press screenings. Our own L.A. Times gave its Los Angeles stars some ink today. We hugged Rose Kuo, chatted with Eugene Hernandez, Eric Kohn and Peter Kneght, all hanging around together just like in the old Indiewire days. The layout of Ifp and Nyff at the newly designed Lincoln Center and the convergence between the two events is a great development. Joana Vicente has infused Ifp with new energy.
Rose (Kuo) is also so smart! I had wanted to discuss her unique views on distribution, festivals and exhibition in a blog. We talked about it at length during our 2 hour drive home from Monte Carlo during Cannes. Another conversation I had wanted to blog about was one held over lunch at the Plage des Palmes in Cannes with French producer, Sylvain Burnsztejn and John Kochman of Unifrance about the futility of factoring in U.S. revenues when writing up budgets and projections for French films. U.S. has to be ignored as a market because the chances of foreign language films making any money are so negligible, even when they are French which have proven to be the most popular of all foreign language films in the U.S. U.S. box office and video numbers are so small that the U.S. is excluded from important participation in the film activities among European countries unless, like the French, they offer incentives even for English language films. This is something new which is proving lucrative for mid-range U.S. productions. I spoke more about it over dinner at Antonia Dauphin and Peter Newman's 5th Avenue apartment. (Another New York great spots!)
Antonia has been casting American name actors in European funded films with great success. I told her I wanted to introduce her to my friend in Berlin, Geno Lechner of Volume57, a unique collective of international performers - actors, dancers, musicians and vagabonds - dedicated to the promotion of outstanding, independent performing artists. Geno, an actress in European art films is also the owner of an extraordinary house in Berlin which she is considering using for artist retreats. If you are lucky you could rent a unit that was recently rented by one of my favorite actresses, Tilda Swinton. You can read more about Antonia and casting in Backstage.
As Antonia and I talked, I told her about Tiff 12's Casting By, a new documentary paying tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty. It shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking. Packed with interviews with a "who's who" of top stars and filmmakers (she discovered James Dean and told Warren Beatty to lose his Brando accent), this world premiere screening was followed by a live, onstage discussion with people who were deeply affected by Dougherty, including some of the participants in the film. Dougherty surely would have won an Academy Award for Casting had there been any. I had never thought about this before, but the film seemed like a call to action about this issue. I am for adding an Oscar for Best Casting. The craft of casting seems like a predominately female craft. It also reminded me that I had wanted to write a blog about casting and my friend Ronnie Yeskel and her new British casting director partner. Another issue casting directors face every day is that when they submit a script to a talent agent for a client, by law the agent is supposed to send the script to the client. However, this often does not happen. This was not brought up in the film because Marion, her director clients and the actors she chose to push (Richard Dreyfus for The Graduate, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, etc.) did not work that way. She brought new Broadway and off-Broadway talent to the directors. Anyway see the movie; it’s a great piece of New York and Hollywood history. HBO picked up No. American rights, but Submarine is still repping the film for the world.
That was quite a day; earlier the same day, my Peter (Belsito) and I had presented our ideas on the world market at Peter Newman’s 3rd year graduate class at Nyu’s Tisch School of Film. At our dinner with Peter and Antonia, we also talked with their 14 year old daughter recently returned from a year in Paris with her mother where Brodlie had studied at Gordon Bleu. She is already an accomplished food writer, and is being presented to the King and Queen of Sweden for her talent.
Another great dinner with a couple of friends, Richard Lorber, his wife Dovie Wingarsd, was at Back 40 West at Prince and Crosby in SoHo, formerly Savoy, a restaurant our friend Larry Bognanow designed and had taken us to before. We ate and rushed to the screening of his film Radio Unnamable. Speak of being So New York. This film got great coverage that very day in the N.Y. Times, not only with A.O. Scott’s review but with a separate article about “The Cuban Boys”. It was held at Karen Cooper’s Film Forum. The audience had film people in it I had not seen since my heady New York days in the early 80s like Jill Godmilow. I knew the audience was made of other New York intelligentsia though I did not know them, and consequently I did not go to the after party, a mistake I frequently make due to my innate shyness. Oh well, try as I might, I cannot entirely rid myself of this...Maybe during the New Year I'll be better.
The story of Wbai’s Bob Fass, an icon of free speech radio, his legacy and his archives, are, to quote Variety, “as epic as the medium gets”. Indiewire itself says that it “superbly recreates a time when radio mattered”. I loved this doc about the people who never sleep in the city that never sleeps. I knew Wbai’s call letters but did not know Bob Fass. He evokes a NYC that equals that New York of Weegee. The warm testimonies and radio appearances by such friends of his such as Larry Krassner, Arlo Guthrie, Kinky Freidman, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Joni Collins, Carly Simon evoke an entire era. He created the community network in the days of be-ins and fly-ins, flash mobs via radio. I loved this movie, the venue, the audience. A totally New York experience. Thank you Richard and Dovie! See the film’s website www.radiounnameablemovie.com or on Facebook or via www.kinolorber.com.
We called on Susan Krim, Donald’s recent widow but didn’t connect. She welcomed in the New Year with her two children in a country house she and Don had bought not so long ago.
We went to Rosh Hashanah at B’nai Jeshurin, the Upper Westside Reconstructionist Synagogue whose music Shlomo Carlbach created and which is now under the leadership of Argentinean clergy and cantor. The next day, we were invited by an old friend from Peter’s childhood in Bayside, Queens to Temple Emanu-el, the High Reform Synagogue of the Upper Eastside. Their rabbi retires next year and this year’s sermon was by the woman rabbi there. This brave woman spoke of church and state, faith-based politics, the kashruth of what makes a fetus a human with a soul and what control a woman has over her own body, and when must we speak out for what we believe to be true. (And if now now, when?)
A press screening of Bianconieves (Isa: 6 Sales) which some after-tiff buzz was held in N.Y.and L.A. but I missed it! Pity! I do hope I will see it soon as Snow White ranks with my favorite Sleeping Beauty among childhood fairy tales I loved.
Hilary Davis of Bankside, here for Ifp No Borders, her husband, Peter and I had an outstanding dinner at Robert with a view from the 9th floor of 2 Columbus Circle at the Museum of Arts and Design. So New York! I later returned for lunch with my cousin and afterward visited the Museum whose elevator dropped me on the 3rd floor where there was a native arts’ exhibiton for modern and traditional art from the Americas.
Trisha Robinson who was in acquisitions with me at Lorimar in the late 80s and went on to head Academy Home Video when video was going through its changes, has moved to New York’s Upper East Side for the next year or two. Our dinner at Table d’hote, a small intimate and quiet restaurant with 6 tables on East 92ndStreet at Madison had wonderful waiters and great Italian food. The next day Trisha and I had lunch at the Vienneses café in Neue Galerie and then went to the Guggenheim to see the photograpy retrospective of contemporary Dutch woman, Rineke Dijkstra.
Dinner with Ben Barenholz at an old favorite of his in Chelsea from before he had moved to the Eastside brought up film history in yet another New York light. His first midnight screening (El Topo), his box office all time winner Cousin, Cousine and his experiment with dubbing, his opinions of film today, of the people we know, his remembering having hired John Tilley as soon as he graduated college in North Carolina, and of hiring Eamonn Bowles for his first job outside of college again made me want to write a book! I plan to look up his history on the internet in the coming year. Ben had wanted to go to Gotham Pizza which has the best pizza in N.Y., but it was too crowded, so we went down 9th St. to another old, small and intimate Italian restaurant.
Some of my readers might remember Joy Pereths. She was the first U.S. rep for U.K.’s Channel Four / Film Four and licensed My Beautiful Laundrette to me when I was buying for Lorimar and Orion Classics, in the days when it was run by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Giogliotti. Lorimar paid $75,000 for U.S. rights. That went toward P&A as it opened in N.Y. and L.A. and from there the film went on to make an astonishing $7 million at the box office and sold 75,000 video cassettes at wholesale, $59.95 a unit. The first film I acquired on my return to L.A. for Lorimar (and their first acquisition as well), the first film produced by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe, the first produced film written by Hanif Kureishi, starring Daniel Day Lewis, sold to U.S. by a British company, gay and with a Pakistani protagonist – what a record of firsts! I recall that when I made the deal, N.Y. was in hurricane-warning mode and Joy and I had to hold on to each other as we crossed the street from Lincoln Center. She is now raising money for marketing a documentary film.
Finally, my friend who dates back to before those Lorimar days, to the days she worked for Fox-Lorber and I was looking for my next job in New York after heading a special social issue documentyr branch of Films Inc, started by Charles’ wife Marge Benton. Susan Margolin of New Video had lots of news and ideas to share now that the company has been acquired by Cinedigm. She’s bringing together a new staff. Jeff Reichert from Magnolia heads theatrical marketing and former New Video executive Stephanie Bruder is VP of marketing; Vincent (Vinni) Scordino – who started with Sara Rose at Picurehouse -- is VP of acquisitions, and Bob Fiorella is Executive VP and Chief Strategy Officer of Entertainment. Also, Ellen Trost is their Business Affairs Manager is a great asset. We knew each other when she was in London working for a blue chip company, BFI if I remember correctly. I bumped into her on the streets in New York quite by accident.
Finally, we had lunch with Juan Caceras and Vanessa Erazo of the New York Latino Film Festival at Spice, a Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue in Chelsea. My readers know them as the originators ad writers of Latino Buzz which appears on SydneysBuzz every Wednesday (except today!). It was the first time we met face to faces. We discussed their wish to bring light to the Latino filmmakers in the U.S. in their blog and how pleased they are to be receiving news for others requesting blog space. I love having them use SydneysBuzz as their platform. Juan’s film was picked up for North American distribution by Tla and is winding down its festival run of about 20 film festivals. We discussed the Latin Film Festivals in the U.S. Vanessa’s ideas about the feasibility of a sort of Latino Film Festival co-ordinating umbrella and our discussion of the upcoming Film Festival Academy (Ffa) which will hold its first edition with the New York Film Festival this year spurred us on to creating a workable plan.
As I write this the High Holidays have come to a close. Completed are the processes of Atonement, Reconciliation and a Turning Back to what is important with my fellow humankind. Thursday I will take off on my next trip, this time a four- day trip to trinidad + tobago film festival. You’ll hear more from me then.
Until then, Le Shana Tova! A Sweet New Year! May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Forgive me if my rambling has bored you, though if you got this far, it is a compliment for which I thank you!
We went to NYC after Tiff 12. Being at Ifp Filmweek in NYC where my partner Peter Belsito was on a speed dating table, we appreciated its new venue at Lincoln Center. At the same time as our event, Nyff was having its press screenings. Our own L.A. Times gave its Los Angeles stars some ink today. We hugged Rose Kuo, chatted with Eugene Hernandez, Eric Kohn and Peter Kneght, all hanging around together just like in the old Indiewire days. The layout of Ifp and Nyff at the newly designed Lincoln Center and the convergence between the two events is a great development. Joana Vicente has infused Ifp with new energy.
Rose (Kuo) is also so smart! I had wanted to discuss her unique views on distribution, festivals and exhibition in a blog. We talked about it at length during our 2 hour drive home from Monte Carlo during Cannes. Another conversation I had wanted to blog about was one held over lunch at the Plage des Palmes in Cannes with French producer, Sylvain Burnsztejn and John Kochman of Unifrance about the futility of factoring in U.S. revenues when writing up budgets and projections for French films. U.S. has to be ignored as a market because the chances of foreign language films making any money are so negligible, even when they are French which have proven to be the most popular of all foreign language films in the U.S. U.S. box office and video numbers are so small that the U.S. is excluded from important participation in the film activities among European countries unless, like the French, they offer incentives even for English language films. This is something new which is proving lucrative for mid-range U.S. productions. I spoke more about it over dinner at Antonia Dauphin and Peter Newman's 5th Avenue apartment. (Another New York great spots!)
Antonia has been casting American name actors in European funded films with great success. I told her I wanted to introduce her to my friend in Berlin, Geno Lechner of Volume57, a unique collective of international performers - actors, dancers, musicians and vagabonds - dedicated to the promotion of outstanding, independent performing artists. Geno, an actress in European art films is also the owner of an extraordinary house in Berlin which she is considering using for artist retreats. If you are lucky you could rent a unit that was recently rented by one of my favorite actresses, Tilda Swinton. You can read more about Antonia and casting in Backstage.
As Antonia and I talked, I told her about Tiff 12's Casting By, a new documentary paying tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty. It shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking. Packed with interviews with a "who's who" of top stars and filmmakers (she discovered James Dean and told Warren Beatty to lose his Brando accent), this world premiere screening was followed by a live, onstage discussion with people who were deeply affected by Dougherty, including some of the participants in the film. Dougherty surely would have won an Academy Award for Casting had there been any. I had never thought about this before, but the film seemed like a call to action about this issue. I am for adding an Oscar for Best Casting. The craft of casting seems like a predominately female craft. It also reminded me that I had wanted to write a blog about casting and my friend Ronnie Yeskel and her new British casting director partner. Another issue casting directors face every day is that when they submit a script to a talent agent for a client, by law the agent is supposed to send the script to the client. However, this often does not happen. This was not brought up in the film because Marion, her director clients and the actors she chose to push (Richard Dreyfus for The Graduate, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, etc.) did not work that way. She brought new Broadway and off-Broadway talent to the directors. Anyway see the movie; it’s a great piece of New York and Hollywood history. HBO picked up No. American rights, but Submarine is still repping the film for the world.
That was quite a day; earlier the same day, my Peter (Belsito) and I had presented our ideas on the world market at Peter Newman’s 3rd year graduate class at Nyu’s Tisch School of Film. At our dinner with Peter and Antonia, we also talked with their 14 year old daughter recently returned from a year in Paris with her mother where Brodlie had studied at Gordon Bleu. She is already an accomplished food writer, and is being presented to the King and Queen of Sweden for her talent.
Another great dinner with a couple of friends, Richard Lorber, his wife Dovie Wingarsd, was at Back 40 West at Prince and Crosby in SoHo, formerly Savoy, a restaurant our friend Larry Bognanow designed and had taken us to before. We ate and rushed to the screening of his film Radio Unnamable. Speak of being So New York. This film got great coverage that very day in the N.Y. Times, not only with A.O. Scott’s review but with a separate article about “The Cuban Boys”. It was held at Karen Cooper’s Film Forum. The audience had film people in it I had not seen since my heady New York days in the early 80s like Jill Godmilow. I knew the audience was made of other New York intelligentsia though I did not know them, and consequently I did not go to the after party, a mistake I frequently make due to my innate shyness. Oh well, try as I might, I cannot entirely rid myself of this...Maybe during the New Year I'll be better.
The story of Wbai’s Bob Fass, an icon of free speech radio, his legacy and his archives, are, to quote Variety, “as epic as the medium gets”. Indiewire itself says that it “superbly recreates a time when radio mattered”. I loved this doc about the people who never sleep in the city that never sleeps. I knew Wbai’s call letters but did not know Bob Fass. He evokes a NYC that equals that New York of Weegee. The warm testimonies and radio appearances by such friends of his such as Larry Krassner, Arlo Guthrie, Kinky Freidman, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Joni Collins, Carly Simon evoke an entire era. He created the community network in the days of be-ins and fly-ins, flash mobs via radio. I loved this movie, the venue, the audience. A totally New York experience. Thank you Richard and Dovie! See the film’s website www.radiounnameablemovie.com or on Facebook or via www.kinolorber.com.
We called on Susan Krim, Donald’s recent widow but didn’t connect. She welcomed in the New Year with her two children in a country house she and Don had bought not so long ago.
We went to Rosh Hashanah at B’nai Jeshurin, the Upper Westside Reconstructionist Synagogue whose music Shlomo Carlbach created and which is now under the leadership of Argentinean clergy and cantor. The next day, we were invited by an old friend from Peter’s childhood in Bayside, Queens to Temple Emanu-el, the High Reform Synagogue of the Upper Eastside. Their rabbi retires next year and this year’s sermon was by the woman rabbi there. This brave woman spoke of church and state, faith-based politics, the kashruth of what makes a fetus a human with a soul and what control a woman has over her own body, and when must we speak out for what we believe to be true. (And if now now, when?)
A press screening of Bianconieves (Isa: 6 Sales) which some after-tiff buzz was held in N.Y.and L.A. but I missed it! Pity! I do hope I will see it soon as Snow White ranks with my favorite Sleeping Beauty among childhood fairy tales I loved.
Hilary Davis of Bankside, here for Ifp No Borders, her husband, Peter and I had an outstanding dinner at Robert with a view from the 9th floor of 2 Columbus Circle at the Museum of Arts and Design. So New York! I later returned for lunch with my cousin and afterward visited the Museum whose elevator dropped me on the 3rd floor where there was a native arts’ exhibiton for modern and traditional art from the Americas.
Trisha Robinson who was in acquisitions with me at Lorimar in the late 80s and went on to head Academy Home Video when video was going through its changes, has moved to New York’s Upper East Side for the next year or two. Our dinner at Table d’hote, a small intimate and quiet restaurant with 6 tables on East 92ndStreet at Madison had wonderful waiters and great Italian food. The next day Trisha and I had lunch at the Vienneses café in Neue Galerie and then went to the Guggenheim to see the photograpy retrospective of contemporary Dutch woman, Rineke Dijkstra.
Dinner with Ben Barenholz at an old favorite of his in Chelsea from before he had moved to the Eastside brought up film history in yet another New York light. His first midnight screening (El Topo), his box office all time winner Cousin, Cousine and his experiment with dubbing, his opinions of film today, of the people we know, his remembering having hired John Tilley as soon as he graduated college in North Carolina, and of hiring Eamonn Bowles for his first job outside of college again made me want to write a book! I plan to look up his history on the internet in the coming year. Ben had wanted to go to Gotham Pizza which has the best pizza in N.Y., but it was too crowded, so we went down 9th St. to another old, small and intimate Italian restaurant.
Some of my readers might remember Joy Pereths. She was the first U.S. rep for U.K.’s Channel Four / Film Four and licensed My Beautiful Laundrette to me when I was buying for Lorimar and Orion Classics, in the days when it was run by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Giogliotti. Lorimar paid $75,000 for U.S. rights. That went toward P&A as it opened in N.Y. and L.A. and from there the film went on to make an astonishing $7 million at the box office and sold 75,000 video cassettes at wholesale, $59.95 a unit. The first film I acquired on my return to L.A. for Lorimar (and their first acquisition as well), the first film produced by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe, the first produced film written by Hanif Kureishi, starring Daniel Day Lewis, sold to U.S. by a British company, gay and with a Pakistani protagonist – what a record of firsts! I recall that when I made the deal, N.Y. was in hurricane-warning mode and Joy and I had to hold on to each other as we crossed the street from Lincoln Center. She is now raising money for marketing a documentary film.
Finally, my friend who dates back to before those Lorimar days, to the days she worked for Fox-Lorber and I was looking for my next job in New York after heading a special social issue documentyr branch of Films Inc, started by Charles’ wife Marge Benton. Susan Margolin of New Video had lots of news and ideas to share now that the company has been acquired by Cinedigm. She’s bringing together a new staff. Jeff Reichert from Magnolia heads theatrical marketing and former New Video executive Stephanie Bruder is VP of marketing; Vincent (Vinni) Scordino – who started with Sara Rose at Picurehouse -- is VP of acquisitions, and Bob Fiorella is Executive VP and Chief Strategy Officer of Entertainment. Also, Ellen Trost is their Business Affairs Manager is a great asset. We knew each other when she was in London working for a blue chip company, BFI if I remember correctly. I bumped into her on the streets in New York quite by accident.
Finally, we had lunch with Juan Caceras and Vanessa Erazo of the New York Latino Film Festival at Spice, a Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue in Chelsea. My readers know them as the originators ad writers of Latino Buzz which appears on SydneysBuzz every Wednesday (except today!). It was the first time we met face to faces. We discussed their wish to bring light to the Latino filmmakers in the U.S. in their blog and how pleased they are to be receiving news for others requesting blog space. I love having them use SydneysBuzz as their platform. Juan’s film was picked up for North American distribution by Tla and is winding down its festival run of about 20 film festivals. We discussed the Latin Film Festivals in the U.S. Vanessa’s ideas about the feasibility of a sort of Latino Film Festival co-ordinating umbrella and our discussion of the upcoming Film Festival Academy (Ffa) which will hold its first edition with the New York Film Festival this year spurred us on to creating a workable plan.
As I write this the High Holidays have come to a close. Completed are the processes of Atonement, Reconciliation and a Turning Back to what is important with my fellow humankind. Thursday I will take off on my next trip, this time a four- day trip to trinidad + tobago film festival. You’ll hear more from me then.
Until then, Le Shana Tova! A Sweet New Year! May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Forgive me if my rambling has bored you, though if you got this far, it is a compliment for which I thank you!
- 9/27/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
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