Or – 'here we go again' Abba (sorry Shakespeare)
We are in the last few weeks of editing Yolanda’s Last Portrait as we get it ready for the Berlin selector (see below). It’s a bit of cliché, but we really did start with one idea and ended up making a completely different film.
We began with assumptions about Yolanda and her life. Especially running inside the directors head. Yolanda is Tom Burstyn's aunt. As he was growing up she was shrouded in mystique. She was a whirlwind of fabulous: sexy, profane, uninhibited. He says he can remember her sexual vibe as young as four (so he says). The film was to be a celebration of all that. And it is – but aging is something none of us is really prepared for. Perhaps the more extraordinary your life the harder it is to grow old. In the editing room it is excruciating. How to honor the fabulous in the midst of the reality is only part of the challenge.
BERLIN BERLIN
In 2010 This Way of Life was selected for the Berlinale. It was a huge honor and the first stage of our release strategy. We went on to win a Jury Prize at Berlin and a bunch of other great awards - including being shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards (short-listed means we made it into the top 15 but not the final five nominees).
So the editing push is on for Yolanda's Last Portrait - to get it finished and in front of the Berlin selector Maryanne Redpath when she comes to New Zealand early October. Fingers crossed.
GENTLEMAN RACER’ A STEP CLOSER
Search for the Gentleman Racer has been a long time coming. This film has been playing inside my head for more than 10 years. During that time it’s changed and changed again. Last week we made a funding teaser. We’ll be sending it off to the New Zealand Film Commission along with a fully-fledged production proposal in September. Stay tuned here for discussions on the subject matter – identity and belonging – as we pull it all together. Wish us luck.
COMPOST TO SAVE THE WORLD
In our spare time we recently honored a promise to Peter Proctor, the hero at the centre of the documentary One Man, One Cow, One Planet. The short instructional DVD Perfect Compost on how to make compost the biodynamic way is just 25 minutes but packed with how-to from the master himself. It goes perfectly with Peter’s new book Biodynamics for the Home Garden. The DVD and the 82-page manual (published as an ebook only) are here: http://perfectcompost.com/
If you’re into home gardening and starting out on the biodynamic pathway then this DVD is useful. (note to One Man, One Cow fans – Perfect Compost is an instructional so does not have the filmic qualities of a big screen production)
THIS WAY OF LIFE UPDATES
Last week This Way of Life won the peoples choice awards at the Iowa Independent Film Festival. It’s always good to win – but for our money the audience awards are the best. After all that’s who we are making films for.
And just to add to the excitement This Way of Life will soon be coming to you via VOD. Watch this space.
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As filmmakers we are rather peripatetic (as in a bit all over the place) so I suspect this newsletter will be the same. But follow us if you're into warts-and-all, low-budget, married-couple filmmaking angst. We grapple with technology, each other, weighty issues of objective and subjective truth and how to deal with such things as the low-life-sack-of-shite guy who posed as an iTunes producer and took our money and our Master - but more on that next week. Join here. Sumner Burstyn
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