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New York International Latino Film Festival - Nickel N’ Diming Financing - July 24, 2008

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Under discussion:

Y Tu Mamá También (2002)

Quinceañera (2006)

Vanaja (2007)

New York International Latino Film Festival
Nickel N’ Diming Financing – Find the Right Deal
July 24, 2008

On Thursday, I attended for the very first time the New York International Latino Film Festival, which presented over 100 films throughout the week. Earlier in the day after picking up my press badge from the Roger Smith Hotel, I hopped over to the Directors Guild Theater to see the film Mancora from Peru (the filmmakers were not present for that, so unfortunately, I have no Q&A notes, other than to say that I thought it was a fairly good film, which sort of reminded me of Y Tu Mama Tambien, which is the much better of the two.) Then I went over to Showbiz Software for a panel discussion on film financing, coordinated by Edwin Pagan, who made a brief introduction. The panelists touched on a number of topics ranging from ways to go about finding funding for your first films to finding a universal appeal for a broader audience, and a brief case study on how the indie film Quinceañera was funded by a community. Here are highlights from the discussion:

Moderator:
Bienvenida Matías – Executive Director, Association of Hispanic Arts

Panelists:
Pooja Kohli Taneja – Founder, FilmKaravan – Curator, Filmmaker, Producer
Fernando Ramírez, Esq. – Entertainment Attorney
Phil Bertelsen – Filmmaker, Producer
Nicholas Levis – Ovie Entertainment, Producer
Slava Rubin – IndieGoGo, Co-Founder
Mike Sergeant – Filmmaker, Producer

Matías: How do you get your first money to make your film?

Bertelsen: The first money is the hardest. I’m sure that’s not a newsflash. Typically it comes from well-established relationships including friends and family. Ultimately, the first money comes when you can demonstrate the reliability of your project. The trick is to get around the whole catch 22 when they say, what have you done before? If there was kind of a magic formula to that, I would have bottled it by now and sold it and paying for the rest of my career.

Kohli: I think before you get into the game, you need very little money to actually build alliances…people who get on board early, which can be organizations or grants…that align with your project.

Rubin: IndieGoGo is an online marketplace to connect filmmakers to fans. We’re giving the tools to filmmakers for fundraising. The filmmakers have already raised tens of thousands of dollars on IndieGoGo. Some of them have already had established films in their prior careers and their building their audiences online to turn that into money for their next films. Many of the filmmakers for the first time are raising between $500 to $10,000.

Bertelsen: Your first money can be a very strategic proposition. It doesn’t require everything up front. It’s about building partnerships, whether it be with established filmmakers, production companies, websites, etc. A lot of times, the early work of getting the first money is just a matter of forming relationships who can give you credibility as a filmmaker and give your story the legitimacy you know that it has.

Matías: Many filmmakers here are everything…we produce, direct, hand out the coffee, edit. How do you feel about that?

Levis: Start with a package that ultimately you want to get to an investor. These partnerships are intended to tell a sophisticated investor what you’re looking for and that the return for them is there. My belief is that you strengthen yourself by delegating to individuals that will strengthen your project. You may be an amazing director, but you find a producer who is better at producing. Just because you’re a great producer, doesn’t mean you’re a great distributor. Finding your alliances and building a team…the bigger the team is that you trust, the further you’ll go.

Matías: When should filmmakers think of getting an attorney as part of the team?

Ramírez: Let me first say that I tend to think of funding as falling into two broad categories:

Obtain secure funding from grants and foundations (ie. The Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation). That tends to be for the most part for social-themed documentaries. It takes a long time however. They usually want to see a body of work and someone with experience. It’s also an investment that’s going to pay off on their part.
Private equity…trying to get money from sophisticated investors. That tends to be a significantly more complicated process because you’re dealing with securities. You have to go through processes like registering with the SEC or blue sky agencies or coming up with documents that will have enough information for sophisticated investors to make an informed decision regarding their investment, because it is a really risky business.

Levis: The earlier you bring in council (and accounting), the better. Building that team is such an imperative aspect. At times, it may seem a little overwhelming, but there’s a lot of individuals out there that realize that risk. A great filmmaker or producer does not make a good lawyer or account, so asking as many questions as you can and getting free advice, so that way when you are approaching grants or private equity, you’ve got your numbers down. You have all those answers that are so important to them.

Rubin: One of the things that’s important to ask yourself is what are your goals for your movie? It can be just an artistic expression. It can be because you want to change your career and do this for a living…whether it’s a success or not. Be realistic. Christopher Nolan (director of The Dark Knight) is obviously now a rich man. His first movie cost $11,000.

Matías: When thinking about how to raise money, how do you divvy up the budget so you can understand who you’re going to approach?

Bertelsen: I think it starts much like Slava was saying by asking what your goals are. Ask yourself, who is the audience for this film? When you start to examine your project, you make decisions on who would be appropriate person to bring this to. For example, you’re not going to bring a low-budget indie horror film to a structurally themed documentary production company. It goes without saying, but you’d be surprised at how many first-time filmmakers don’t read the guidelines and don’t pay attention to what’s being asked of them when it comes to how to prerequisite their projects. You want to be very targeted. You’ve got to do your homework and know what it is they’re looking for. Tailor your projects to those interests the best that you can.

Kohli: I think it’s very important to do that homework he mentioned. Who are the players in the market and what they do? Exactly the way you have goals for your films, they have goals for their money. You need to be ready to understand who is most interested in your project. Be realistic. Who was the last you? Who did exactly what you’re trying to do? Learn from their mistakes.

Sergeant: Be creative and you have to be willing to really go that extra mile. I was going to do a narrative film depending on what it would cost. When you’re doing a narrative film, anybody who’s an investor or wherever you raise money, they want to know, ‘how can I get this back?’ A movie is one of the quickest ways to lose millions of dollars really fast.

Ramírez: All that information on how prepared you are should be a in a business plan. There’s a series of books out there, one that I’ve talked about on panels before is by Louise Levinson, Business Plans for Filmmakers. You’re going to have to do the research on what the market is and projections. What type of films like yours have made money? You also have to be honest for instance, these films like mine, have not made money, but most have. I was watching Quinceañera…I was so shocked in the interviews…I think they had an idea for a movie. They went to somebody. They had the money before they even had scripts. I had to rewind that. I don’t think that really happens

Levis: With the packaging and everything’s in place, there are so many key elements where things can go awry. It must be frustrating even after you’ve made a few films to locate the money. The global market is such a changing one. Last tear investors on Wall Street were really aggressive, but with the economy changing so much since last year, the opportunities are not there. Europe is looking to us now, because their money is so much stronger. Right now the pound is two-to-one. That means if you can start to talk to individuals there now that for instance say they’d like to shoot in New York City…what would cost 500,000 pounds here, I can easily get $1 million American. Things kind of equal the same. The day rate here, the day rate there. That’s true with a lot of European money. They’re really looking to the U.S. because everyone wants that U.S. affiliation. The opportunity to present yourself with a co-production company out of Spain or France or London…what you’re doing ultimately is giving them the opportunity to send their money and it goes further. Your business plan should also think about what happens outside the U.S.

Rubin: The Hollywood system has a term called pre-selling of foreign territories.

Matías: Historically, it has been difficult for us as Latinos and Latinas to be able to break into making these films and finding this money. Have things changed? Is it easier? Do we have topics that people want? Are our own communities willing to support what might not be mainstream, even by indie definitions?

Bertelsen: It is an increasingly global marketplace. I think that only adds value to our stories as Latinos, as people of color, and women in a world where we have to make up the majority. I think the goal is to find a way to reach that audience.

Ramírez: I often hear that a film has to have a universal appeal. How as a filmmaker of color and you want to make a film that portrays the experience of your community in a way that’s appealing? How can we make films that can get picked up by distributors?

Kohli: From a South Asian angle, filmmakers like Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta tell South Asian stories, but these are not stories for the South Asian market. These are stories that people all over the world want to hear. I think a good film from any angle, the simplest way for you to have a barometer is if people can somehow relate to it. A story we can feel, we can be a part of. That in the simplest form is a success. If you can take what is in your film to an audience that is not you…you don’t want people like you sitting in the audience watching this film, but you want people who are not like you to be able to see like you. Vanaja that went to over 100 festivals and won about 30 awards was released by Emerging Pictures, it did numbers that were less than 10% in South Asian markets. Be able to convince someone who’s not you about the story. I think people want not to educated the audience with every film. Try not to beat them on the head with it. You can get the story across in a way that delivers the message, but if you’re going for an audience that’s not your core audience, you need to make it slightly easy for them.

Bertelsen: The onus on us as filmmakers of color is to prove those economics. In addition to all the things to get in the room, be prepared to make the argument with the market research.

Matías: To get back to the issue of Quinceañera, the film did not have a script when they got the money. They had an idea. They had lived in the neighborhood. They had been involved with the whole ceremony of the quinceañeras. They were connected to a whole group of people who had money. It was the group of people who gave them the money, and they said, now I have to go out and make a script. They made the script in a very short amount of time. The reason that film works is they worked with the community. They found the Madrina, the woman in the community who really knew how to teach everyone how to participate in a quinceañera ceremony. That’s really what gave the film its authenticity of a right of passage for a young woman.

Originally posted on:The Film Panel Notetaker - Miss a panel discussion? Don't worry! We took notes for you.

Posted Sunday, July 27, 2008 8:01 PM by thefilmpanelnotetaker | with 0 comments

Silverdocs - Guggenheim Symposium - Spike Lee - June 19, 2008

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Under discussion:

4 Little Girls (1997)

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)

Prolific filmmaker Spike Lee was honored at the Charles Guggenheim Symposium on June 19th. Clips from Lee's documentary work were played including 4 Little Girls, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, We Was Robbed and Jim Brown: All American. And a preview of Lee's upcoming narrative feature, Miracle at St. Anna (In Theater Sept. 26), was also screened. Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy moderated a discussion with Lee. I've read a lot on other blogs that Lee came across as arrogant, but I thought he was just responding honestly to Kennedy, who for the most part, seemed to know her Lee film history well, but often times became redundant in her questioning and struggled to come up with questions. Below are highlights of the opening remarks and some of the questions asked during the discussion.

Guggenheim Symposium - Spike Lee

Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Silver Spring, MD

June 19, 2008

AFI President Bob Gazzale introduced the discussion referring to Charles Guggenheim, for whom the symposium is named. Gazzale said: "Without question (Guggenheim) is one of the central figures in American film history. A documentary filmmaker who chartered a record of this nation's history, of its people and its stories across five decades... Charles made over 100 documentaries. From films that documented political campaigns: Stevenson, Kennedy, McGovern to name just a few...films about architecture, the civil rights movement. We all remember the film about the Jonestown flood...a levee that broke in 1889. His work defines you and me. The heroic struggles of every man and every woman, and the dignity in that struggle. At the very heart of all of his films, even if it's about the St. Louis arch, they are films about inspiration probably best defined a moment in the very end of the film about Bobby Kennedy when Kennedy says, 'You can do something about tomorrow.' That's Charles Guggenheim. That's the spirit that carries us into this room today...and to our honoree tonight. He arrived in our collective cultural consciousness in the 1980s a fierce and a fearless voice in American film. His narrative work is of such a singular place in our world that...I think if not he, who? Who would be telling these stories? Who would be challenging us to see America as a diverse and vibrant and complicated place that it is filled with art and music and hope and color and anger and inspiration. Who would create those characters that are smart people on screen who smash stereotypes. Each well written, well spoken, well acted work. They are people we all aspire to be. They are heroes and yet they're humble. When his name is on a film, you better be up for a challenge. Think of the end of Do the Right Thing. A quote from Malcolm X. A quote from Martin Luther King. He's a filmmaker who does not ask us to think his way, he asks us to think. This is never more true than when you look at his nonfiction work. He's made several documentaries including Four Little Girls, which is reason enough for us to gather here tonight. But then a storm began to brew out over the Atlantic Ocean and it became Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster and a national disaster. It tore the roof off of America we had become a little too comfortable with. And if it weren't for our honoree tonight, the truth would be gone like the storm itself. The tragedy and its causes would be lost in a sea of sitcoms. But instead, we have a documentary that reminds us who we are as a nation and how far we have to go. And it reminds us of what Bobby Kennedy said that you can do something about tomorrow. So we gather tonight to honor a great man of American film and a great man of America. His name is Spike Lee.

Lisa Kennedy then made her introduction: "Because Bob did such a lovely job of contextualizing what Spike really means to us and has meant to us for more than two decades now, I want to take a moment to probably be a little bit more personal. When I started writing, Spike was also starting to make feature films. I used to think he did something along with a couple of other filmmakers that came after him called letting us in on the black 'familiar' -- little moments, conversations, looks, gestures, ways of talking, but also things like progress. It just reminded me that he got it. He got the texture of African American life. He loved it. You know, that was a long time ago when he started doing that. And I know think of that 'familiar' as our 'familiar,' the 'American familiar.' There are perfect storms of incompetence and frightening weather and bad engineering that allowed for something like the levees breaking in New Orleans. And then there's this other thing that I also think was a perfect storm, but storms the wrong word, because it's so positive and I think what better week to be talking to Spike Lee...what better year to be talking to Spike, than a time where an African-American man is running for president. (Big applause from the audience.) At the same time, there are levees that are starting to give way and have been giving way. Spike connects us to our moment. He connects us to bodies. I think he does that in this documentary. And one of the things I think is amazing about this body of work...his legacy as a filmmaker is that you look at his narrative films, they're so vibrant. They have style, they have vigor, they have music, they have so much texture and they're bold. And the acting in them is extraordinary. He works so beautifully with performance. That's his narrative work. His documentaries are just as challenging, and it's amazing. I think this is a man who makes documentaries that allow other people to tell stories...to tell their stories...to tell our stories. And it has to be in part because he has competence that he's told his stories the way he wants to and he has the peace and the wherewithal to hear someone else's story and I think that comes across in the clip reel we're going to see where he talks to the parents of the little girls that died from that bomb in 1963. This will be the 45th anniversary of that bombing a the 16th Street Church in Birmingham. Not only does he talk to them, he builds a kind of trust. I think there's a trust he also built with audiences that as I said, can think for ourselves. I think that's extraordinary. I always want to go out of a documentary having more questions. Not more questions as in, 'why didn't they do it this way?' but more questions because I think that it's a challenge. I don't want someone to answer the truth of the world for me. I think Spike Lee's done an extraordinary job with his films. When the Levees Broke is an amazing documentary. The funny thing is, whenever we told Spike this...it took me a long time to look at it because that's my family. My great aunt left there and went to Houston and she died. She was very old, but she lost something. She was the storyteller in my family about the power of New Orleans as a place to live. So I don't think I've ever said to Spike, thank you for a movie that broke my heart and challenged me. What we're going to see in this clip real is...I do think there is hope and distillation of what he does so well.

(Clip reel presented)

Kennedy: When you decided to make Four Little Girls, did you want to make a documentary? When did you start that process?

Lee: In film school, I wrote I wanted to do a narrative film about this. That was 1981. I never forgot about that story. For me, it was better to do it as a documentary. I was in Birmingham, my family's from Alabama. I spent the night (at the family's) house. They trusted me. Ellen Kuras, a great cinematographer, she shot it. She also shot Bamboozled and Summer of Sam. The hardest thing about this was I had to really pray on including those post-mortem shots. I thought about that long and hard. They were in the cut, they were out of the cut. But finally I decided that the audience should see what those sticks of dynamite did to these four girls who were never allowed to grow up. The whole thing about the documentary, how I approached I wanted to talk with the people, who knew in their own words, tell us what they thought they might have become if they had been allowed to live.

Kennedy: I saw (Ellen Kuras) talking about the interview with Maxine McNair and how moving and difficult that was as a DP. Normally, you're behind the camera and you have a little distance, and I was sort of curious...did you find moments like that as well? Where do you position yourself? Do you protect yourself?

Lee: You know what, it's not about protection, but you have to ask questions. And you know you're asking questions and people break down. You can never say the wounds heal. You're still digging up a lot of emotions. I guess being a parent, too, that on top of that, these great people talk about their loss.

Kennedy: How does a filmmaker build trust?

Lee: They see my films. If you're a documentary filmmaker and your subjects don't trust you, you're not going to have a film. They don't know me, but they know me through my work.

Kennedy: What other film films or narrative features helped you prepare for Four Little Girls?

Lee: Narratives tell the story, whether it's a documentary or feature films. For me, it's still telling the story, so I don't they there's a distinction.

Kennedy: When I saw When the Levees Broke, one of the things I loved is when you decide to let your voice enter the picture. What triggers that? When do you decide to do that? Is there a moment when you think it works? I think it's very powerful because you don't use it very much?

Lee: You need to hear my questions again to hear my answer. People who have seen my documentaries, we don't use narrators. There's no narration in any of these. Sam Pollack I'd like to thank, who's the editor.

Kennedy: How did We Was Robbed Come about?

Lee: I got approached by these people that were putting together a bunch of films by directors from all over the world. They could be about anything, but could only be 10 minutes. There was no limit on the subject matter. I read the story about how Al Gore was 10 minutes away from making his concessional speech, so I tracked all these people down and turned my camera on.

Kennedy: You're working on the Kobe Bryant film. Can you talk about the structure of that?

Lee: There was a film in Cannes three years ago about Tze Chung, the great soccer player. In that film, they have 20 cameras on him. I liked it. I said, this would work better with basketball. This past April 13, there was a game at the Staples Center, the Lakers versus the then world champions San Antonio Spurs. We had 30 cameras on Kobe. It's going to air on ESPN and ABC when they kick off the next basketball season.

Kennedy: How did Jim Brown, All American come about?

Lee: Jim's one of the most fascinating people I ever met. He's an activist. He's the greatest football player. At one point, the biggest movie star in Hollywood. He's always been relevant. It was just natural. He said, 'Spike, I don't care what you show.' He is so secure in who he is. He gave me complete freedom.

Kennedy: Let's talk a little bit about that guy who's running for president. Do you think if Obama becomes president...?

Lee: There's no if! (Rousing applause from audience.) It changes the way the world looks at the United States. It changes everything. It's going to be Before Obama (BB) and After Obama (AO). And some folks need to get used to this. It's gonna be a new day. And it's not just going to be a new day, but a better day. I'm going to be at that inauguration, too.

Kennedy: What does that mean for artists? What does that mean for you?

Lee: As artists, you reflect what you see in the world. I think you'll see a lot of art reflect the good this country is going to embark on.

Kennedy: Are there documentaries you'd like to see you don't want to make?

Lee: There are narrative films. I'd love to see a great film on Martin Luther King. I don't think I can do it. Marcus Garvey. I can't do everything. Gotta leave room for Tyler Perry. (Great big LOL from audience.)

Kennedy: I know you have the Kobe Bryant coming up.

Lee: One on Michael Jordan, too.

Kennedy: Tell me about that.

Lee: We're going to be doing it. This one about Michael is going to be about his last year in Chicago. The bulk of the filming is done. We had a camera every single day. We hope to have a world premiere in Cannes next May.

Kennedy: What are some of the things you learned from James McBride's research on Miracle at St. Anna?

Lee: Before James wrote the book, he interviewed a lot of the black men from the 92nd Division. In fact, he compiled a lot of those people into characters. Again, Judy (Lee's researcher) sent me everything she could on the war effort, the participation on land, African Americans in World War II and then the specifics on where it takes place in Italy. It takes place in Tuscany and the whole thing was happening while the country was in a civil war. The fascists run by Mussolini were in cahoots with Hitler and the Nazis. For me as a filmmaker, I can't have enough research. Judy sends me everything.

Kennedy: Don't you think there's still opportunities for documentaries about that part of the greatest generation that we haven't really heard of?

Lee: There's plenty of stuff. It's wide open. Myself and Ken Burns do not have a monopoly on the great stories that need to be told.

Originally posted on:The Film Panel Notetaker - Miss a panel discussion? Don't worry! We took notes for you.

Posted Thursday, July 03, 2008 10:01 AM by thefilmpanelnotetaker | with 0 comments

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

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Under discussion:

Wings of Desire (1987)

Baraka (1993)

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!

Originally posted on:The Film Panel Notetaker - Miss a panel discussion? Don't worry! We took notes for you.

Posted Tuesday, July 01, 2008 12:01 PM by thefilmpanelnotetaker | with 0 comments