George Clooney Is Having A Very Good Year

Despite the inordinate gossip-media attention George Timothy Clooney gets for his love life, this dapper male star deserves the spotlight for his other assets -- acting talents, social concerns, creative work, self-effacing humor and general good-guy demeanor.

Earlier in 2011, The Ides of March was released, a film Clooney directed and performed that's earning his co-star, Ryan Gosling, award noms including a Golden Globe. And now that the suave 50-something has starred in award-winning director Alexander Payne's latest, The Descendants, Clooney's revelatory performance is garnering numerous nominations, some of which will surely result in wins.

Clooney plays Matt King, scion of an old Hawaiian land-owning family, who re-connects with his two daughters -- 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and 10-year-old Scotti (newcomer Amara Miller) -- after his wife Elizabeth winds up in a coma through a boating accident. While coping with this tragedy, he grapples with new and old responsibilities.

They travel from Oahu to Kauai to confront the young real estate broker, Brian Speer (played by Matthew Lillard), who was having an affair with Elizabeth before her misfortune. But there's much more to Payne's adeptly woven story than this simple plot line.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, George is the son of local newscaster Nick Clooney, who hosted a talk show on a Cincinnati station for many years. Since he was five, he often frequented the studios at Clooney senior's invitation. Declining to compete with his father, he quit broadcast journalism to pursue an acting career and made his TV debut in 1978.

As Clooney gained fame portraying Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER (from '94 to '99), TV provided him with his first accolades. During the series, he attracted a range of leads in films such as 1997's Batman & Robin and Out of Sight (1998), where he first teamed with frequent collaborator, director Steven Soderbergh.

In 2001, Clooney's celeb status expanded with his biggest commercial success, Soderberg's re-invention of Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable trilogy based on the 1960 movie of the same name starring Rat Pack members including Frank Sinatra, who played Danny Ocean, Clooney's character.

Clooney made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 bio-pic thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008) and now The Ides of March. He won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Middle East thriller Syriana and has received two Golden Globe Awards as well.

Also a social activist, this Renaissance man has served as a United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008. Clooney's humanitarian work also includes seeking a resolution for the Darfur conflict, raising funds for the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2004's tsunami and 9/11 victims and in creating documentaries such as Sand and Sorrow to raise awareness about international crises.

The following Q&A is culled from a New York Film Festival press conference preceding its 2011 NYC premiere and following its debut at last year’s Telluride Film Festival.

Q: How did you come to do this film?
 


GC: Well, Alexander failed to find me fascinating when I met with him for Sideways, which I've not yet let go.

Then it was about two years ago -- this time, almost [of the New York Film Festival premiere of the film] -- that we met in Toronto and [Alex] came and said, "I have a script coming I'd like you to look at." 

And I said, "I'm doing it whether I read the script or not" -- which didn't work with Batman & Robin, by the way. 
 


Q: And how did you work out your scenes with Judy Greer, who plays adulterer Speer's wife -- which are very intense, pivotal moments in this film?

GC: Do you remember what our first scene was ever? Not in this movie. We did a scene in Three Kings and our first scene together is us having sex up against the desk.

Q: Surely George Clooney in real life will never be cheated on by a woman, so what would you do if it ever happens to you?



GC: No idea, because I know how any answer will read.

Q: So much depends on your relationship with the daughters in this film. What was the process of your coming together as a family? Did you do any sort of bonding exercises?

GC: Yes, we did bonding exercises. I would say, "You guys stay over there and don’t talk to me."

No, it’s a process that I very much embrace in the rehearsal process. We’d go over the scenes a little bit, but mostly it’s about spending time with one another.

Because the truth of the matter is, once you get to a set, everything is so different. We could sit here and work out the hospital scene, but the blocking alone is different.

Everything changes so drastically when you finally get to do that.

The rehearsal process in general is about trusting one another, and so a big part of it was just getting to know the gang and all of us getting the ability to feel comfortable enough to give each other shit. But there’s some truth in that, and once you can get to that place, it’s easy.

The lucky thing is that they’re all such talented actors. But we got a really good script and a really good director, and that sort of protects everything else. 
 


Q: They really managed to put you into the ugliest pants. 
 


GC: Those were my pants.
 


Q: How did you work with the costume designer and why wear those pants?
 


GC: I’m not completely against khakis, it’s just the level you have to wear them at. The higher you pull them, the more excruciating it is.

This whole process was just about schlubbing up a little bit, and this seemed kind of easy to me. I grew up in Kentucky; this is standard, just different colored shirts.

Q: Speaking about colored shirts, how was it filming in Hawaii?

GC: Well, most of the time I’m working in places I’m not familiar with. Sometimes that’s Slovakia, and then sometimes it’s Hawaii -- and not to bash on Slovakia, but I really did enjoy Hawaii, as you can imagine.

I think everybody will agree, it’s a great script, great director, and you’re shooting in Hawaii; there’s no downside to this. It was fun for me. I haven’t spent much time there, and certainly not in Oahu, Honolulu, so it was fun to see.

It’s such an island, it really is an island. On the freeway the speed limit is like 45 miles an hour, and it takes you awhile to get into that rhythm. So I’m driving behind people and I’m like, "Move it!" and they’re like "Hey, hey, hey."

I was an alien because I wanted to go 50 miles an hour. But that’s just my problem. Eventually you got into their rhythm, so that was fun. I really enjoyed it there.

Q: So how different then was it to shoot in Hawaii versus being in your places of origin like Cincinnati, where you shot some of shooting Ides of March?

GC: Well, I didn’t have relatives on the set every day. When you’re shooting in your hometown, you’ve never met so many cousins. I mean really, they were like, "This is your cousin;" I’m like, "I have no idea who that is, but okay, you’re my cousin." I didn’t have a whole lot of that in Hawaii.

Q: The crux of The Descendants is notions of forgiveness, maybe redemption. What are your thoughts on forgiveness, both in the context of the film and in real life?

GC: "I forgive you. Now I don’t forgive you. I take it back." You’re absolutely right, there’s a big part of it [that's] forgiving yourself... because so much of what happened was also his responsibility.

I think a big part of that release at the end, when he’s with his wife and he looks at her and he kisses her goodbye, is understanding his part in this as well. Yes, she cheated on him, but he was not there and he was not a good father as much as he thought he was. He was busy working. And that happens.

So part of it was coming to understand that, and I think that forgiving yourself is a very big part of that. I think we all go through those experiences of understanding that the older you get, the more forgiving you are of other people’s mistakes.

When you’re young, you find that anything that stands against something you believe in is just plain wrong. I remember there would be relatives of mine who would say something and I would say, "Well, he’s a bigot," and then come to find out later that I was way too judgmental. I was making the issue much bigger than it was.

Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" Goes Beyond Words & Wins Awards

Wily provocateur and indie screen mogul Harvey Weinstein sees beyond the obvious and recognizes value in some rather offbeat films. Thankfully, that support has so far paid off. Four of Weinstein’s pictures won awards at this year’s Golden Globes, with a bloc going to one of 2011's most unusual films -- The Artist.

In making The Artist a black & white, silent movie, French director Michel Hazanavicius defied expectations. For anyone else, this would be not only a strange concept, but a retrogressive idea, simply a throwback to another era. Yet this veteran French filmmaker employed a sufficient sense of irony to take the idea beyond preciousness and imbue it with a wit and charm that makes it feel both classic and contemporary.

The director works from an eternal scenario. In 1927 Hollywood, the arrival of talking pictures creates turmoil for silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) who fades into oblivion as he resists the change.

Meanwhile, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a young dancer gets a big break by meeting Valentin, shifts into stardom by embracing the talkies while George sees a reversal of fortunes. As he slips into near-poverty, George and his dog Jack (Uggie) stay true to each other as everyone else moves on -- except Peppy, who, in the end, offers him a chance to redeem himself and share the spotlight with her.

And now that the film has been nominated for 10 Oscars, the film racks even more attention as a cautionary tale: adapt to new technology or get left behind.

The following Q&A with director Hazanavicius is excerpted from an exclusive roundtable held before The Artist’s American debut at the 2011 New York Film Festival.

Q: Even before the pitch, why did you think you could do this and that we would want to see it?

MH: You never know, actually. You can't be sure. I said to the producer, "First, I have to write the script, and I'll know after that if the movie's doable or not." In writing the script, I had to find all the solutions of how to direct a silent movie, and what you're going to ask of the actors and what you're going to ask of the director.

In this case, [the director is] myself, but, in a way, it's pre-directing the movie. I had this exit in a way, and if the script was not convincing, we would never do the movie.

Everybody tells you that nobody wants to see a silent movie, that nobody wants to see a black & white movie. People think that black & white, silent movies are old, and they're right. But they're old because they were been done in the 1920s, not because of the format.

The format is really good. I had the hunch that the format would allow me to do a very specific movie. You just have the hunch that there's a good movie to do. 

If you do a script with the normal paper and letters like this, when people read a script, they just read the dialogue. They never read the action, except maybe for action movies.

It was really just action here, and over three pages you have just one card. So we tried to do a nice object, and that's what we did. We did an object that respected the ratios.

It was a square paper, old paper, like a little bit yellow, typewriter letters, a little bit bigger. That makes people think that it was easy to read because they turn pages often, more often than like this. We put a lot of pictures, photos in the script. It was the producer's idea and I think it was a really good idea.

Q: The script will be a collector's item...

MH: Yes.

Q: How long did it take you to storyboard it?

MH: The script was, strangely, very fast to write -- four months, which for me is very fast, and especially because I spent a lot of time watching movies. Usually it takes me six or eight months, and it's not the dialogue that takes me four months, it's very easy to make the dialogue.

The storyboard, I don't know. I drew [them] myself, so I would say three weeks or maybe a month. But it's during the preparation, so I don't do just that. I work on the storyboard the morning and the evening and then do other things.

Q: How did you cast Dujardin and Bejo?

MH: I wrote the script with them in mind. I wanted to see them as actors in that kind of story, in that kind of element.

They have ageless faces, and are really credible in period movies. They don't have modern faces. And when you put a costume on an actor, that helps a lot. [Actors] don't move the same way [in a costume].

The other actors, the American cast, I found with casting director Heidi Levitt, who was really great; we tried to work with some expressive actors because there are a lot of great ones.

When an actor like John Goodman (who plays the studio mogul, Al Zimmer) says something, all of his body and face express what he's saying, so I had to work with that kind of actor. I've been very lucky that a lot of great actors joined us on that movie.

Q: Was Uggie the dog -- playing one of the film's best actors -- always part of it?

MH: He was in the story from the very, very beginning, in the movie before Hollywood. Hollywood came after the dog.

I didn't realize exactly how important he was at the very beginning, but now when you do the promotion of the movie, you talk and talk, and in talking, you realize things that you've done and you have another understanding of your work.

I realized that that dog is very important for two reasons. The first one is the character -- it changed the main character.

When you create a character, you don't just create one character, you are helped with the other ones, they put another light on the character.

The character of George Valentin is not very sympathetic; he's very egocentric, selfish, and he's very proud. He started the movie with a woman and he finished with another woman.
But the fact that he has a dog who loves him and follows him all over the movie, in a way, it saves him because you trust the dog. You think that the dog knows, that he has instincts, so if the dog loves him, somewhere he's a good person.

The other thing is, this dog is the only friend of George. George has a problem with sound, with the talkies, and his only friend is a character that doesn't speak either because he's a dog. So yeah, he's very important.

You think he's a good actor but he's not. He's a dog. He doesn't act, he doesn't read the script, he doesn't care about the situation, he doesn't care about his partners. He just cares about sausages. That's what he wants for real.

Q: The Artist was shot in only 35 days. What did it take to make a film in such a short time?

MH: It’s as if you tried to paint the Mona Lisa on a roller coaster -- it's crazy. You have to go very fast. The preparation of the movie is really, really important. We always speak of the shooting, sometimes the editing, sometimes the writing. But the preparation -- you [make] all your mistakes in shooting through the preparation, so the more you prepare, the [easier] the shooting is.

That's why I storyboarded everything. We worked very quickly. It was not so difficult to edit because the movie was really well prepared and I didn't do a lot of takes because I had to go fast.

For more stories by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

Juno Temple & Jeremy Dozier Bring Alive "Dirty Girl"

Despite a substantial effort to integrate gays into mainstream America, anti-homosexual violence continues for those who don't conform to this country's far too conservative attitudes. Though it's hard to believe that it continues, bullying still spurs teen suicides in a country charged by tea party extremism.

So first-time director Abe Sylvia used his juvenile experiences as a gay kid growing up in 1980s Norman, Oklahoma, as a starting point for his debut feature, Dirty Girl to inform us about his efforts to escape such abuse. His comedic search for identity and the redemptive power of friendship provides a context to illustrate the effect of such repression and the will to escape it.

The "dirty girl" of Norman High School, Danielle (Juno Temple) sluts her way through high school but her misbehavior gets her banished to special ed. There she teams up with innocent but abused closet-case Clarke (Jeremy Dozier). Together they head out on an illicit road trip to escape the repression and discover themselves through their unexpected and funn friendship.

Coming from an English showbiz family -- mom is producer Amanda Temple and dad is director Julien Temple -- the younger Temple has been a schooled actress since elementary school. Relative newcomer Dozier has only done a few shorts but shares in Sylvia's experience growing up in conservative small town Texas.

Though Sylvia began his career in NYC as a Broadway hoofer working with such talents as directors Susan Stroman, Mel Brooks, and Tommy Tune, the grind took its toll and he turned to film, television and commercial work in 2001.

After graduating from UCLA's film school, Sylvia's four short films have screened in over 100 international festivals; he's also won several awards including the Jack Nicholson Distinguished Director Award, the James Bridges Prize in directing and was a finalist in the 2006 Chrysler Film Project. Through Paris Films and Christine Vachon's Killer Films, Dirty Girl did the festival circuit including Toronto FF 2010 and is now being released this October. The following Q&A is culled from a recent roundtable with Temple and Dozier.

Q: Much has changed in society since 1987 so what did you learn about the time period and what were your impressions?

JT: We had to do a lot of research on the music and stuff.

JD: I really hadn't listened to Melissa Manchester or anybody like that, and she's this icon for Clarke. So I did a lot of research and watched her YouTube videos. I found it fascinating how powerful she was on stage.

I also did lots of research on the time period, on the clothes and everything, which was a lot of fun. It was a time when being gay wasn't really talked about so I think that's changed a lot since then, thank God.

We'd walk onto set and everything would be decked out in '80s gear. It was so much fun walking into this different world.

JT: it was like walking into a new world in a puff of smoke.

Q: Did you ask your older cast members such as William H. Macy or Milla Jovovich to give you some tips or references for the '80s?

JT: Kind of. But we're a different generation to them in the movie, too. My parents were a big part of the '80s rock and roll music scene, so I know quite a lot about that part of the '80s.

So this was like a whole new part of the '80s in that we're listening to this great power ballad, music you can't help but move your body to.

JD: What was great about working with Abe [Sylvia, the director] is that he grew up in that time period and had so many references for us. Movies like The Breakfast Club and different movies for us to watch.

JT: We watched some good movies.

JD: The music plays a huge part of the movie, and he knew what songs he was going to play over which scene before we started.

JT: We were given the soundtrack before.

JD: That helped us inform the scenes and get the tone [right].

Q: You have your come-on line, which is "Are those Bugle Boy jeans?" I hadn't heard that in so long.

JD: I thought that was such a weird line. I shot the entire movie not knowing where that came from. Just last week, Abe posted the commercial on Facebook and I was like, "It all makes sense now."

Q: Any other references from the '80s that you didn't know about?

JT: There was a line that was cut out where Clarke says to Danielle, "Let's sing 'Don't Cry Out Loud,'" and I'm like, "I'm more of a White Snake girl."

That was the kind of vibe that Danielle is more into, like hair metal. The thing I loved about Danielle was that she was kind of '70s in this '80s world.

She got all her mum's hand-me-downs, so she's in these little rompers and fur coats and '70s platform heels. She looks like even more of a misfit. She doesn't get so '80s until the end, with the polo neck and the camel toe shorts.

It was interesting because also it's so Abe's world -- it's based on his childhood story. He written the bible for you in that situation because he knows it better than anybody else.[He‛s] a man you trust so dearly that he opens your eyes to this whole new world and you just become lost in it. So [we spent] a lot of time talking with Abe.

I grew up having a really vivid imagination. So when you have a director that has this incredible vision that he's just giving to you, it's like walking through the Narnia closet or something, like walking through a whole new doorway.

Even before we got on set, we did dance and singing rehearsals. We grew up going out dancing, and it's like you just wriggle a bit, you don't really have proper dance routines. So you get there and are learning how to do all these crazy moves that you haven't seen since an '80s music video.

That was so fun, taking you to a whole new part of your brain that you haven't really ever accessed before.

Q: Did you keep any of the clothes?

JT: I wanted the Laura romper that Abe actually had bought years ago for the movie and brought it in -- it was a perfect fit. It's pale beige. It was kind of Cinderella-esqe. It's the one in the campfire scene. Unfortunately it was sent to a Universal storage lot.

But it was meant to be mine. One day I'll get it back. It's very hard to find a good velour romper that suits you and fits the right areas correctly, I guarantee you.

Q: How would you describe this film's tone?

JD: This movie is like a roller coaster. There are really emotional scenes and then there are comedy scenes, so there's something for everybody. There's singing, dancing, and it deals with a lot of issues that are pertinent today.

JT: It's timeless, I think.

JD: It's a movie set in the '80s but it is so important to today, especially in today's climate. With all the gay teen suicides and all of that, learning to love yourself and coming into your own and figuring out who you are -- It's a great message movie.

JT: Yeah. It's "don't judge a book by its cover” -- that's the best thing you can tell people, because it's the worst thing you can possibly do. You miss out on so much when you just judge someone by their cover.

Q: Is it hard for you to believe that after all this time since '87, there are still these teen suicides because people are hassling others for being gay?

JD: It's crazy.

JT: It's ridiculous, to be quite honest with you. We still haven't been able to find out a way to be okay with letting people be what they want to be. I think it's part of the reason why you get angry.

But whatever happens, I think in high school there's going to be something that someone's going to get bullied about -- like the size of someone's nostrils, or whether they have a weird toenail on their big toe.

People find the weirdest stuff to destroy children's lives about. That's why I think this is such a great message, because it's really like, "look beyond that."

When you first meet Clarke and Danielle in the movie, you wouldn't picture them being best friends at all. It's this weird chemistry that just explodes. Because actually, for the first time, they meet someone [who] wants to listen to them. They meet someone who wants to be around them, someone who thinks they're so great for who they are, and to help entice that out of them.

That’s something that people should so look for in high school. If you don't get on with everybody, you don't get on with everybody -- you're not going to. But when you find the people that really get you and just love you for who you are, then everything kind of figures itself out and falls into place. I think that's such a good message to be sending.

JD: Bullying ultimately comes out of ignorance.

JT: And jealousy.

JD: I think we've made a lot of progress, but there's still a lot of progress to go.

Q: It‛s amazing how people in high school or in junior high will type each other and then suddenly a year or two later they become best friends because they have more in common.

JD: It's the message of this story too. It's so about becoming who you want to be versus what you're labeled as in high school, and that's exactly what these characters are doing over the course of the film.

JT: Life’s so much bigger than that.

For an extended version of this story and others by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

In Oka!, A Filmmaker Explores an Unseen, Unheard African Community

Boy, did director Lavina Currier take on a challenge. Not only did she elect to direct the film Oka! in Africa, but she made it about a people, the Bayaka, and in a country, The Central African Republic, that’s thoroughly unfamiliar with modern filmmaking.

Based on an unpublished book by an obscure author/musicologist with few veteran actors (Kris Marshall and Isaach de Bankolé) and a cast that includes the indigenous tribe playing most of the characters, the film defied conventional market strategies.

And that’s just the basic outline of this project’s unique nature.

After American musicologist Louis Sarno decided to live among a Bayaka Pygmy clan in the Central African Republic in the mid ‘80s, he wrote a book chronicling his experiences, Song From The Forest, and recorded their music. Those recordings became Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the BaBenzl Pygmies (Ellipsis Arts), a two-CD/book package of never-before documented material.

Though raised in New Jersey, Sarno has called the CAR his home for the past 25 years with intermittent visits the States. Oka! -- which means “listen!” in their native language -- is a dramedy that retells his tale of when he first arrived in the jungle -- based on an unpublished memoir.

Since Currier’s previous films have already taken her all over the world, she had an idea what she was getting into making Oka!. She visited Tibet in working on The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom and the Sahara for Passion in the Desert. And her philanthropic work includes environmental causes -- Oka! was filmed carbon-neutral in the Dzanga-Sangha Nature Reserve of Central Africa, a site growing in popularity with eco-tourists. In fact, for her work on behalf of Tibetan refugees, the Dalai Lama presented her with his Truth Award.

Nonetheless, as revealed in this exclusive interview, her experience didn’t entirely prepare for the singular act of shooting among the Bayaka and the dominant Bantu-speaking people who offered unique challenges to the filmmakers as well. And now that film is being released, audiences can share in the experience.

Q: Why did you make a film in an African country where there are virtually no film resources, as opposed to one say like Nigeria or South Africa?

LC: I've always loved Africa. I found this region while casting a film about Ota Benga. Do you know the story of Ota Benga?

Q: No…

LC: He was the pygmy who was brought to the World's Fair in 1905 -- a very sad story. I wrote a screenplay with a wonderful novelist [about him]. I was so proud of this screenplay; everyone who read it cried and said, "This has to be made." It was during that period of racial ignorance and horror.

[There were] many reasons I didn't make the film -- 9/11, and funding for example. There was another film made by Regis Wargnier, who did Indochine, called Man to Men, about a pygmy couple who was brought to Scotland. It took place 40 years earlier. It was kind of the missing link.

And I watched it. I had to chase it [down] in this little cinema in Paris, and found it so depressing.

I was talking to the Bayaka about the story, and they said, "That's a terrible story." I said, “Yeah, it is, but we learn from our mistakes and don't repeat history and all the things in our culture." And they said, "We would forget a story like that. There are so many nice stories."

Q: At what point did you know you had a story to tell?

LC: When we were there for Ota Benga and decided not to do Ota Benga, I went back and said to Louis [who helped with our research], “What about doing a slice of life in the village? Do you have any manuscript that you haven't used, you haven't published that we could use for that?"

And he said [he had a manuscript at his Mother’s.] We had to find this [floppy] disk. Nobody could read it, so I took it to a decrypted or whatever you call it.

Q: Backwards technology...

LC: After reading it, I laughed and said, "This is wonderful," because he gets out of the way, his character is very self-deprecating, and you really feel the life of the village and the forest.

So that's how we came to it. I wanted to do something, as a white woman telling a story about African people can…

Q: That's a whole other issue -- what a white woman has to deal with in those areas.

LC: They have so many problems with the Bantus that they like white people. They didn't go through colonialism; it's not a post-colonial culture.

Q: Even though the French were there?

LC: The Bayaka didn't. Central Africa was affected by slavery, but not by colonialism -- not in the sense that there were big plantations. It wasn't an easy place.

But when we were back there -- aside from showing the film and doing some politicking -- we also did more music recording. The composer Chris Perry, an amazing African, was married and lived in Zimbabwe for seven years -- he had been was [Zimbabwe's dictator Robert] Mugabe's boy.

His wife's father was attorney general, I think, for Mugabe, and then fell out of favor and was killed by Mugabe.

So Chris, who has an amazing facility for understanding African music, did the recording the first time. He went back with us in the forest in August, because we're doing an album for the film.

He did what he calls radio cues, but more modern kind of dance music out of the Bayaka rhythms. He had these women from the forest laying down multi-tracks. They'd never had earphones on… These women would come from the forest. They say they dreamed their songs and would say, "I dreamt this song some time ago in the forest."

One of them said, “When I woke up my husband was dreaming the same song and we were singing together."

One woman from the Congo -- she had leprosy, no toes, no fingers -- and she’s sitting there, trying to get into it, and she's hearing her voice for the first time through the headphones. The first couple of times, everyone's laughing and laughing because they're not kind and polite in that way. Then suddenly, she starts singing.

Chris said they just took to it. They would be standing in line for Chris in the morning, they got into it so much. So we've got a good album, I think.

Q: Did you videotape this?

LC: Yes we did. We did a little sort of "Return of," because we didn't do a “Making of.” It was too stressful.

We barely got through our days and the producer was constantly doing the 16-hour trek up to jungle to make sure our set wasn't going to be closed down by goons.

Q: Too bad you didn’t videotape as you shot the film.

LC: I know. I wish so, too. That was the intention of the producer, but he was so stretched he couldn't do it.

Q: You're going to have to go back -- you have that additional footage.

LC: We do, actually, which is great. It was really interesting.

Q: Did this film follow your budget or did you have cost overruns, because of all the issues paying off people?

LC: We never paid anyone off, which is why we kept getting stopped.

Q: Were you worried that if you paid one, then you'd have 50,000 hands out?

LC: Right. We made a deal with the Minister of Culture in the beginning and paid a location fee, which is normal.

The Minister of Finance came and said, “And mine?" And we said, "Well, we were told that film went through the Minister of Culture." He said "I don't know who told you that."

Q: How'd you get around that?

LC: In that case it was pretty hairy, because he was a pretty tough cookie. He's not there anymore. And he said to the producer "By the way, our bank account was messed up, so I want you to write the check to Mr. XYZ."

He had been sending his goons down, the producer was intimidated, so he wrote a check. [The producer] got a copy of it, and as he left the office he put a stop payment at the bank. The Minister of Finance himself called the teller and overrode the stop payment.

Q: So you did end up paying him?

LC: That was the only one. And other than that, we didn't.

Q: When did you know you had an ending?

LC: The ending should have been a real elephant hunt, because the molimo, this mythical instrument, is associated with the elephant hunt. You kill an elephant and the molimo is happy and it comes out.

And the elephants, after three days of chasing them around and getting them to do this and that, lost patience with us. And my crew said on the third day "We're not going back. We don't care what you pay us; we're not going back because we're going to be killed." And it was getting dangerous.

Q: Killed by the elephants?

LC: Yeah, by the elephants. And we'd been going on the good will of the elephants who had been accustomed to this researcher, this lovely woman, Andrea, who herself has been there 20 years.

Q: Elephants are incredibly intelligent.

LC: Very intelligent. And they'll stop you. They'll warn you with a couple of charges and then they'll charge.

I am fearless with animals. I never feared snakes or elephants or anything.

Q: Did you have any big cats?

LC: I never saw them. There are leopards, but I never saw them.

Q: There are jungle leopards.

LC: That was my last film, Passion in the Desert, which was about a Napoleonic soldier and a leopard.

Q: How did you contend with distribution for that one, or this one for that matter?

LC: Well, it's not a good period for this level of budget. We don't have a big name, although [British actor] Kris Marshall is coming into his own.

Q: Why did you cast him?

LC: I had been talking to a couple of bigger names who wanted essentially the budget of the picture, and I really had some doubts about whether a star would make it through.

Kris is a very physical actor, especially for an Englishman, who are [usually] very text-based, on the whole. I knew that he had that kind of British "it's a job, I'm going to do it” attitude. I mean, that man was so sick that he was lying on a bench in the forest.

Q: He's not only sick in the movie but was also in real life?

LC: He was very sick. I would say, "Kris, you can take a day off. You don't have to be here." "No. It's my job. Call me."

I had an instinct that this guy was crazy enough. He's been run over by a bus, broken every bone in his body, and had so many accidents, that I just had a feeling he would stay the course.

Q: How did you happen to pick African actor Isaach de Bankolé for the villain?

LC: He's a wonderful actor. Louis Sarno went to school with [director] Jim Jarmusch. Jim introduced me to Isaach, and Isaach was so charming when I met him in New York.

But then during the shoot -- he's a method actor -- he became this mayor [Mayor Bassoun], and everybody was terrified of him including me.

Q: And he's the nicest guy in reality.

LC: Nicest guy. But on the shoot, he was terrified until not only his last scene, but four days later. He insisted on staying on.

I said, "You can go early, Isaach, since you seem to be so unhappy," and he said, "What do you mean? I'm not leaving. I’m going to stay until my contract." And then he sort of decompressed and he became again the nicest guy.

But he became the Mayor to such an extent that he would go around in town and people would say, “Monsieur Bassoun, can you help us with this and that?" And he had everyone terrified.

The tailor said "Please, could you send somebody other than Isaach to check on his clothes?"

The real Mayor was absolutely furious and jealous. He used to come in his motorcycle, this horrible illiterate bully, and scream at me about something, and I think it was because Isaach was being considered as the mayor.

Q: I've listened to some of the pygmies' music and it was probably recorded by Louis.

LC: It's either his or [anthropologist] Colin Turnbull‛s. We put everything from traditional Bayaka music to cues from the film to these kind of radio cues, these modern dance things.

Q: Had you taken an interest in African music in general?

LC: I've always loved African music. But the Bayaka's music is considered the most ancient -- they were brought to sing for the Pharaohs. It took me awhile to understand the Bayaka music.

That's why Louis Sarno‛s Song From the Forest was so crucial. Louis was sent to Africa by Colin Turnbull whol wrote The Forest People and also wrote the book about the Ethiopian people, the Ik -- the mountain people.

And he got into incredible hot water because he dared to say the pygmies are good and the Ik are bad, and the anthropological community said, "You can't say that. You can't make those judgments.” He said, "I know. I've looked in their eyes and lived with them."

But I think that Louis has an amazing appreciation for this music. It's really complicated music.

Q: It doesn't fit normal musical structures.

LC: Not at all. They think in 28 phrases. Their cycles are huge, and most people just get lost in them -- they go, "What's happening?" It's chaotic.

They sing in the way nature sings with itself. Birds and animals wait for the empty space and jump in, and they'll do this -- though not necessarily on a regular basis.

Q: It's not like there's a harmonic layer.

LC: Right. You opportunistically jump into a silence, and the Bayaka have incorporated this into their music.

The first time I ever heard them, I was in a canoe and we were with a Bantu guy. I said, "What are those birds?" and he said "Those aren't birds. Those are the little people."

Then we saw these women walking single file, very quickly, and were singing to each other at quite a distance. Maybe for a quarter of a mile that they were actively singing. It was the most extraordinary thing, because there were these bell-like, beautiful yodeling sounds that I had never imagined.

Q: Have you learned any of the language?

LC: I did learn some rudimentary [phrases], which is not a difficult language to learn -- just to direct people, because most of our actors didn't speak French.

Q: So you went to university but when did you get involved with film?

LC: I studied a tiny bit of film at Harvard. But basically, I studied poetry with Robert Fitzgerald, and I think my major was Religion. I was in the Religion Department.

Q: At what point did you decide to go with filmmaking?

LC: I came to film through theater. I went to Paris from university and started an American theater in Paris with some friends from Harvard, which was a lot of fun. We didn’t do anything too great. French people came to learn English, basically, but we had a great time.

Q: Did you meet Africans while you were there?

LC: No, I didn't. But you know, it was a different complexion back them. On the last trip to Africa, I stopped in Leone, and Leone is a Pan-African city.

Q: One of the reasons I was fascinated by this movie, and movies about this, is that in some way it's like dealing with another world.

LC: It is another world.

Q: Like you've landed on another planet.

LC: And you feel that, and everyone feels it -- even the crew from Los Angeles -- they were in utter culture shock when they arrived there. Oh my god, and with the big Panavision camera, [it was] like moving a fire hydrant around.

Q: Did people do it because they just wanted the chance to go to Africa?

LC: People did it because Conrad Hall -- the DP that we chose, son of the famous Conrad Hall -- insisted on bringing his group. And we said, “Not a good idea, Conrad," but he said, "These guys are going to take care of the camera." And he was right, but they were in shock. They were duly warned.

Q: It's not even like going to Nigeria which has a fully realized film scene.

LC: No. This is not Abercrombie & Fitch. This is forest camping; don't think luxury. But then, after a period of time, they said, "There's something here with these people."

Everyone feels this magic. Seen from the outside, Africa is just a disaster of statistics, right? But when you go there, especially with people like the Bayaka, you feel so hopeful. You feel like you're connected to something that's ancient.

We all have this history of having come from the hunter-gatherer tradition at some level, and you feel this kind of connection. And even these guys [from] L.A. -- who would have preferred to be doing a Mercedes commercial -- they felt it too.

Q: When would they get another chance to shoot in Africa?

LC: I'm not sure they were sure they were going to get back [laughs].

Q: Were they terrified?

LC: Terrified. And we had a lot of interference from the government.

Q: Did you really?

LC: We did. A lot. These guys would come down with machine guns and stop the film.

Q: Really? It's the former French Congo, right?

LC: It was called Ubangi. It was always that little central landlocked country where the two rivers, the Ubangi and the Congo, came down. So the neighbors are Rwanda, Chad, Congo and Cameroon.

We just took the film back in August because I had promised to bring it back to show it to the Bayaka. And the first screening was in the forest.

Q: The very, very first?

LC: Yeah. The first in Africa.

Q: You screened it at the Telluride Film Festival by then. You couldn't get more contrasting.

LC: I know. It had cables, and the producer Jamie Bruce, was practically manning the sound system in the forest. It kept tipping.

All the Bayaka were there, it was only Bayaka for the first screening in the forest.

Q: But where was Sarno?

LC: He was there. It was behind his house in the forest. Of course they said it was the best film they'd ever seen; they'd never seen a film before.

Q: At least they knew to compliment you.

LC: Yes. Then we moved up the country and the last screening was with the president of CAR, [François] Bozizé, in the presidential palace. And I had brought the actors, because it's very important for them.

It was a really tremendous experience. When we screened in the capital, we did questions and answers afterwards.

And the comment we got universally was, "We're so happy to see a film where the white guy is kind of hopeless, and our little people" – they call them the little people – "our little people have to save them, they can't do anything. We're tired of having these films where all our problems are solved by some white guy coming in."

Q: Next the Chinese will make their movies and they will be saving them.

LC: Our Chinese character has been not appreciated [who also is villainous]. Not by the UN. We were supposed to have a screening there.

The French, the Lebanese, they've all been in there. So it's just a new wave. I felt the Chinese character, he could have been American, Lebanese or French, but he was Chinese. The reaction has been very strong.

Q: The scene with the bush meat that he's eating: is it implied that that was elephant meat?

LC: It was elephant. The bush meat is crucial, because for the Bayaka to survive they have to have small game to go after.

When I first went in 1999, they said they had to travel about 20-30 minutes to get food. I mean, they could hunt within 20 minutes of the village. Now they have to go a half day, sometimes a full day. Sometimes they come back empty-handed.

So the less they can depend on the forest, the more they have to depend on the Bantu, and they get paid three cigarettes and a few stalks for a day's work.

Q: Are there still diamonds there?

LC: There are a lot of diamonds.

Q: So there are potential resources.

LC: But the diamonds are so prone to corruption.

Q: You'd think that tourism would be the way.

LC: And that's the hope.

Q: Eco-tourism is the thing that can save Africa.

LC: Right.

Q: They said you were a philanthropist.

LC: The philanthropy associated with this film -- people say, "Are you giving back to the Bayaka from the film?"

Well, if the Bayaka had to wait for this film to give back [to them], the forest could be gone at that point.

Q: It might bring them some publicity.

LC: I've been active there since I first went to cast it, and I saw there was such a tremendous need for health and education for these people, as well as to protect the forest.

Q: We keep forgetting that if we strip away the rainforest, we strip away basically our ability to regenerate the ozone layer.

LC: So it's for us. But also, if we're going to have cultural diversity, these [people] are [among] the last hunter-gatherers on Earth.

You have the Bayaka, and in the equatorial forest you have other pygmy groups. You have a group in Borneo, and that's it.

Q: What about in South America? Isn't there one group that's still surviving?

LC: I guess you could still say there are some groups that are still hunter-gatherers, but the South American rainforest is being cut all around them as well.

The really crucial thing for the Bayaka is the forest, because it's really hard to imagine this particular people transitioning successfully into village or urban life.

They shouldn't have to. They should be able to have education; they should be able to have basic health care.

But what's interesting is that you're dealing with a culture which is anarchistic, non-hierarchical, non-representational -- like some of our American Indians -- and you're asking them to speak for themselves.

We're going in and we're saying, "But you guys have to be educated so you can stand up in front of the UN and express yourselves."

Well, it's not a culture that develops that at all. It's a culture that's absolutely communal, decisions are made by consensus. Just by hearing their music, you hear this. The way they opportunistically sing in this amazing kind of participatory, polyphonic way, it expresses everything about them.

Q: Where do you live now?

LC: I now live in Virginia, and I grew up in New York. I'd been living in Hawaii. I made the film from Hawaii, which was not a smart thing, but I did.

Q: And this is your fourth movie?

LC: This is my second feature.

Q: How did you find your distributor, DADA?

LC: I think our counsel knew the distributor, and we really liked what they were doing on Last Mountain -- a very powerful film about dysfunction of our government here, talking about corruption and bribery. We liked very much the way they were handling it and the style that they have of distribution.

Q: Now that you have a distributor, you're not doing the festivals anymore?

LC: No, we're not.

Q: Did you go to some other festivals?

LC: We did not go international with the film. It's a co-production with Central Africa, and they've submitted it as a contender for the Foreign Film Oscar.

Q: Would that be for this year?

LC: Yeah. First film ever that they've had, so they're very excited about that.

Q: Have you toured this film in Africa at all?

LC: Just this last trip in August. We just went to Central African Republic from the tip, where the Bayaka are, up to the capital.

Q: You've got to get it all throughout Africa.

LC: And they're very interested in that. The Minister of Culture now is a wonderful man, who's one of [the late dictator Jean-Bédel] Bokassa's sons. He's been doing some really interesting things, including reconciliations about his dad. Very enlightened fellow.

And he's taken up this film. He wants to take this film all over, because for them it shows their country in a positive light. Otherwise, with Central Africa, you hear about Bokassa and you hear about the Lords‛ Revolution Army on the northern side.

So they're excited to have something that is good news and to showcase their country. They're really motivated to take it around, so I think we will. But so far, we have only been to Central Africa.

Q: And how about yourself, traveling in Africa?

LC: I love Africa.

Q: How many other areas?

LC: I've been around. When I was a child, I was in East Africa -- Kenya and Tanzania. I've been to Central Africa quite a few times.

Q: We need movies like this. And doing it as a fiction film, that will get people more attracted than a documentary.

LC: I know. There have been so many documentaries, especially about the Bayaka.

Q: But to actually see people behaving in an acting scenario is much more interesting.

LC: And the fact that they're good actors is pretty extraordinary. That was a great surprise to me.

Q: Where do you go from here?

LC: I need to make a film locally because I have a son, I have a young 10 year old. I did take him to Africa, but being a mom and a film director is not a great combo. So I'm going to try to find something locally. I have a few scripts that I'm working on -- a trilogy that I began that I want to complete.

Q: Are you going to draw from cultures that are disenfranchised and have their problems?

LC: I would like to. There's so much happening right now that one wants to do something useful.

I would like to tell an American story for sure. There's so much happening in this country now.

Q: And these will be fiction films?

LC: Fiction, yeah. I don't feel I have a good journalistic bent.

Q: Well, the best thing for a journalistic bent is like a six year old, "Why?"

LC: Yeah. Curiosity.

For more stories by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

Step Into This Incredible Doc -- Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Having grown up enjoying Roger Corman’s filmic retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s horror tales -- many with the legendary actors Boris Karloff and Vincent Price -- his garish productions were lodged in my brain forever. This was the guy who inspired so many trendy directors -- such as Quentin Tarantino -- to go into film-making.

So when I saw Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, director Alex Stapleton’s relatively short doc on the great master of indie, genre, and cult cinema, at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, a flood of memories returned.

Thankfully this film has gathered steam, hit the festival circuit, and has landed in this year’s New York Film Festival on its closing day -- October 16th -- with a special screening at 1:30 pm. Since Roger Corman has been in town for the NY Comic Con, hopefully he will join the director after the screening.

The following short Q&A is culled from comments made after her Sundance showing.

Q: What inspired you to make this film about this legendary Hollywood rebel?

AS: I'm a secret nerd on the inside. I grew up watching most of all these movies, and growing up in Texas, I was obsessed with Pam Grier as a nerdy, black, young woman.

So I grew up totally in love with [Corman]. Probably when I was 19, I learned he did a film called The Intruder, which is a big part of this film.

And that's when I got the idea that it was so amazing that one man could be responsible for so many types of cinema and could do a movie like that before Martin Luther King was even a household name. I just wanted to celebrate his legacy, so that's basically it.

Q: What was the movie you saw 10 years ago that changed your life?

AS: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was a midnight screening, and it was awesome and the energy of the crowd was awesome. I can't believe that this film got a midnight slot. And you guys were great; you laughed.

Q: A lot of great people weren't in the film. Will you include them when the DVD comes out? Why didn't they make the cut? How long would it have been if they had?

AS: Six hours.

Q: Is there anyone you regret not including?

AS: I have no regrets. I'm really happy with this film. The great thing is that when we put out a DVD, we have our work ahead of us when we get back to LA.

This will be the biggest, badass, most bitching DVD you will ever have in your entire life. There are probably going to be five DVD extra discs -- like Jack Nicholson going on and on about more stories. It will be like a galaxy.

Q: When Jaws and Star Wars were released, that was a rebirth of Hollywood cinema. In this light, those big fun movies are now the big money makers.

AS: Everyone in this movie is a graduate of Roger Corman -- except for Eli Roth, who started with James Cameron. James Cameron also started with Roger, [but] he's not a part of the story.

[Francis Ford] Coppola was as well. He made the first blockbuster with The Godfather, and then obviously we all know what James Cameron is up to today. There's a great irony that these guys came from the biggest penny pincher in the industry.

I hear all the stories of these young filmmakers who are out there making features for a hundred thousand dollars or less and working really hard and tirelessly to just go out there. They have that DIY attitude of just getting your hands dirty, using what you have access to, and making film.

There's a renaissance happening of that culture again. Hopefully, [with] a film like this, you can look and see that these guys were doing this in the 1950s.

And everything's cyclical, so hopefully you'll be making the next best thing and you'll change the system.

Q: With the popularity of superhero movies, it was surprising that you didn’t include something about Corman’s version of Fantastic Four. Was that ever part of an initial cut?

AS: It's a 90 minute movie. We leave the chronology in the early '80s. Fantastic Four was made in '92 or '94, and Roger did it for like $2 to try to keep the rights.

That was kind of the beginning, the brink of the resurrection of comic book movies in mainstream cinema. There's not enough room, not enough time.

Q: When did you make a movie for Roger?

AS: I was the second unit director on Dinoshark, I recorded sound, was an actress in the movie, and those were all things that I had to do. That was the deal that Roger made with me in order for me to go to Mexico and make that movie. I feel like I'm now a graduate of the Roger Corman School.

Q: Halfway through the movie he says he thinks it's morally wrong to make $35 million a movie, and that that kind of money would better be used to [build a city].

AS: When Roger was here at Sundance, this question came up and I agreed with his answer. Talking about a movie like Avatar, [by] one of his protégés, he doesn't mind it when there's money used towards films at that level, when it's innovative and you're using every dollar. The money is on the screen, right?

But there are all these movies that are made that have these huge budgets and it's just two people talking to each other for an hour and a half. I think that's where he draws the line; he's like, it's a waste. That quote was said in 1981, and it's coming off of the Spielberg-Lucas bonanza, so you've got to put it in context.

Q: What was his relationship with agencies and managers? Were they willing to work with him or were some agencies just not willing to work with him at all?

AS: I think they appreciated him over the course of history because great talent came out of him. I don't know if it was "fun" to work with him, because there wasn't a lot of money. I don't even think agents and managers were really in the picture for most of these films. These are kids that didn't have agents and managers when they were working for Roger.

Q: How much money will Roger make off of licensing these clips to you?

AS: Roger really likes me, so he gave me the rights. Well, this is a fair use documentary, first of all. Second of all, with the clips that he owns, he agreed to let me use all of his films for free. So I'm very honored and blessed that we got that opportunity.

Q: Earlier in the film somebody said nobody really knew what Roger did after the shooting was over, what kept him occupied and what he liked to do. Is he still a mystery once the shooting is over, and on a personal level, what gets him excited?

AS: What gets Roger excited is being able to get a deal, like Paradise Village. He gets really animated. He's an engineer; that's what he studied. He has that kind of a brain, so figuring out really hard problems gets him really, really excited.

He still is very mysterious even to me. I've been working on this for five years and I still don't understand the boiling inferno completely. But I like that; I think it's a little interesting.

Sometimes the point of a movie like this is not to really explain it, because who knows? It's all in Roger's head. I was more fascinated with the extreme difference between his conservative nature, [and being] a Stanford grad.

Q: Does Corman have any regrets about not being more [vocal] about social issues?

AS: I don't think that Roger cares. Roger is a walking legend. He's a mascot for independent cinema, and that what's more important for him is to stay in business and be his own boss, which is like the great American tradition.

I mean, that was me -- I aspired to. So I think that comes with a price, and the film shows you that he went down that way to maintain his independence, and I think he got what he wanted.

For more by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

Actor Jason Momoa Brings Conan the Barbarian's Sword to NY Comic Con

Conan The Barbarian will be among the many personalities attending this weekend's New York Comic Con at the Javits Center. Well, not exactly, but the 6' 4" Jason Momoa, who played the sword-slashing Cimmerian in the recent reboot of the series that came out this summer will be there -- though maybe not with blade in hand.

When the massive Momoa stepped into Planet Hollywood a couple of months ago to leave his big ol‛ paw-prints and fighting sword there, he could have been any big brute with a cowboy hat on. But once it was doffed and he flung around his locks, the former Hawaiian clearly displayed why he was picked for Conan.

Add in a resume that includes playing Khal Drogo, a powerful warlord from George RR Martins' Game of Thrones or fighter Ronan Dex from Stargate Atlantis, and Momoa certainly has the right creds to handle such an iconic character as Robert E. Howard's Conan. And if you make it to Javits on this Sunday at 10 am where he will appear on a panel with co-stars Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang, you can see and hear him in all his rippling glory.

Q: This movie could have easily been cheesy, but it doesn't come close to that. What did you do to make sure it didn't go that way?

JM: I wouldn't want to be a part of it if it did. I didn't want it to have that campiness to it.

When I was a little kid, I would read Robert E. Howard and look at a Frank Frazetta painting and they would reach out to me. I wanted to take the character and rip it right off the canvas and put it up on the big screen.

It deserved to have the grittiness and the dirtiness. [Director] Marcus Nispel [Texas Chainsaw Massacre] was fantastic about it. I thought he did a really good job at making that world.

Q: It's great that he is an actual barbarian, not the typical hero...

JM: That's the fun thing about Conan. He eats, he drinks, he's a thief, he's a pirate. The fun thing about him is he's not the saving-the-damsel-in-distress [type]. It's not very PC, and I think that's what Marcus didn't want.

He should be this barbarian towards a woman, in a sense. But what's beautiful about it is you see the vulnerable side, and he gets saved by a woman in the heat of the moment where he was supposed to kill.

So you get to slowly warm up to him. I think that's nice to have a little bit of humanity to the character, a sense of humor, that makes him relatable.

Q: Actor Stephen Lang -- who plays the evil Khylar Zim -- said that he stabbed himself in the ass at one point with a sword. Do you have any similar stories?

JM: I've got all kinds of horror stories. I almost died on a horse a couple of times. I broke my nose. I wanted to make it look like he was more barbaric, so I had a buddy punch me in the nose.

Q: They have makeup for that, too.

JM: Yeah, I didn't think about that.

Q: So you're all into it.

JM: Yeah, Conan should have a broken nose. He should always have a broken nose, I think -- a constant flow of blood coming out of his body somewhere.

Q: When you were getting ready to play Conan the Barbarian, was there a different workout regimen in getting ready for the type of fighting that you‛d be doing?

JM: Yeah, we did a lot of Bushido, basically a samurai training. I wanted to incorporate that Asian gracefulness to this barbaric character; I wanted to do the sword work.

But as far as working out, we did like six hours a day, stunt work and stunt training, and it was how to fall and lift heavy, heavy weights.

Q: A lot of the fighting looks like a dance.

JM: Yeah, absolutely, choreography. It absolutely is a dance and I think that's one of the great things about Conan: he speaks through his movement and his action. That's why I wanted to do all my stunts, because he speaks through that.

I studied a lot of lions and panthers, and I wanted to be able to move like a feral cat. When I read those stories about him, he just comes across as that nimble product of his environment, kind of king of his own jungle thing.

Q: Were there any stunts you wanted to do that they wouldn't let you?

JM: No, because by the time it was the ones I had to do, I was so broken [in] I was like "Dude, you've got this one. Take it. Take it, please."

Q: What was the most difficult, the most challenging thing to get through?

JM: Trying to keep injury at bay. Like I said, there's a flow of blood coming out of your body at all times. For five months, you're always injured. It's just to be able to stretch and keep that motor running for that.

Q: Did you have any fears of living up to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan?

JM: Not at all. I think Arnold did a really great job. It's kind of like comparing Sean Connery and Daniel Craig. They're both amazing Bonds. Arnold's Arnold, and I didn't play anything like him and he really can't play anything like me, so it's two different perspectives, really.


Q: What's your thoughts on the romantic side of Conan?

JM: It was really fun. It's nice to see that side of him. I think, as a character, he's such a brute force that it's nice to go there, to see that softer side of him.

We weren't sure how to do it, because when we did Game of Thrones, it was so raw and passionate and at the very beginning it's raping and very barbaric. I felt it probably wouldn't be in the best interest to be doing that in this new Conan.

Q: Did you get to read all the books, the comics and all that stuff?

JM: Not all of them. I had six weeks to get ready. So aside from doing six hours of training every day, I did read a lot of source material, but I couldn't get through all of it.

Of all the comic books, I went to Dark Horse the most because that's what they tried to emulate, really, for the costumes and look of the world, I think Dark Horse was the closest.

Q: Of all the characters you've played, who would you like to meet?

JM: Drogo [the warlord] and Conan are great. I'd follow them into battle anywhere.

Q: With your characters on Stargate Atlantis like Ronan Dex and Game of Thrones, do you gravitate towards these warrior types or is that just something because you're 6'4" and huge?

JM: When I did Stargate Atlantis, I wanted to work and it was a great opportunity, four years of working on that.

I think when Drogo came along, that's a once in a lifetime chance to play anything like that. I've never seen a character like him in the movies or on TV. He's such a powerful, raw character. That role was the first time I've ever wanted a character in my life.

Because of that, the same casting director came on Conan so everything just kind of lined up that way.

I don't know, we'll see. Hopefully there's a rom-com in there somewhere coming up.

Q: Will it be tough for you to adjust to the cushy lifestyle if you end up doing a romantic comedy or something?

JM: Oh no. I look forward to it. I'm doing a job right now where I'm wearing a suit and playing a villain. I get to shoot people with a gun; it's so much easier. It's like , "Bam -- dead." It's so much better.

Q: Now you're now officially cemented in Planet Hollywood history. How does that feel?

JM: Really, really cool. Really cool! It's a trip. I'm working with [Sylvester] Stallone right now, so you walk in and this is his place!

Q: And you get to see him hanging naked from the ceiling.

JM: Is that what that is? What movie was it?

Q: Demolition Man.

For more stories by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

Oscar Winning Director Kevin Macdonald Assembles Crowd-Sourced Life in a Day

A little over a year ago, I responded to the announcement of YouTube's global film experiment, to be called Life In A Day -- shepherded by producers Tony and Ridley Scott's Scott Free UK and director Kevin Macdonald -- by writing about it in a HuffingtonPost post.

I blanched at trying to record something of my life on that day, July 24th, 2010, so I didn't. Instead, I wrote about the trauma of making such a public document.

Now, a little over a year later, I find myself marveling not only at what ended up as the 90-minute crowd-sourced compilation curated by veteran director Macdonald, but at the very feat of putting it together.

So, however you react to the mix and the feel-good message of the film, it's awesome to think of how the filmmaking process has changed through cheap digital recording and editing tools, and what lowering the bar of entry has meant to the future of long-form movie-making.

That consideration formed a large part of our conversation and made the following Q & A as much a continuation of that discussion on the future of film and media.

While Macdonald has made major fiction features -- including The Eagle, State of Play, and The Last King of Scotland -- the 43-year-old Scottish director has won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his 2000 film One Day in September, about the Munich Olympics hijackers. His other feature documentary, Touching the Void (2003), enjoyed critical and commercial success on its release.

Such experience informed his curatorial approach and made him a good choice for overseer on this project.

Q: You’ve done documentaries like Touching the Void and action features like The Eagle -- very different things. How do you make a balance between that and your documentary work?

KM: I like to take a little of what I learned in fiction and apply it to documentary and vise versa. But my job is not a traditional director’s job in this film. I didn’t shoot any of the footage here.

My job was a curatorial one, primarily about giving structure to this amorphous mass of stuff and saying, "How do we make this feel like it’s a movie?" -- something that actually works as a whole, rather than just a series of clips, like a ‛best of‛ selection.

Q: A narrative?

KM: Not necessarily a narrative in this case. But actually, feeling like it’s a whole comes from fiction films rather than documentaries.

Q: When did this concept come about and when did you get involved?

KM: I came in right at the beginning. YouTube and Scott Free were talking about making a movie.

YouTube wanted to do a movie to celebrate or help celebrate their fifth birthday, which was last year -- amazingly, because it feels like YouTube has been around forever.

So then Liza Marshall, the producer, came to me because we knew each other, and said, "What can we do?" We came up with this idea together, which for me was inspired by something I’d learned about when I was studying documentaries.

There was this man, Humphrey Jennings, who made one of my favorite films, Listen to Britain, which is a 20-minute film with no dialogue, but sights and sounds of different places around Britain during the war in 1943. It’s a classic and beautiful. There’s inspiration in that.

He also was part of creating a movement -- which sounds like something from George Orwell in 1984 -- but it’s called the Mass Observation Movement. And what they did was, they asked people in Britain during [WWII] and just before the war to write diaries detailing the mundane details of their lives.

They’d also ask them questions, actually. They’d ask them, "What do you have on your mantelpiece? What are the names of five dogs you’ve seen this week?"

Things that were sort of seemingly mundane, and they’d ask them these things, get them to write these diaries.

And then they would take those diaries and form [them] into books or magazine articles or whatever, trying to discover the extraordinary, the weird, the interesting in what seemed to be the ordinary.

I thought that’s a great model; we could do that with YouTube. That’s a way of exploiting this extraordinary tool, of all this material that’s out there and all this material that’s uploaded all the time.

Q: Is that how you came up with the three questions?

KM: Yeah.

Q: And that’s the point?

KM: That’s where that came from as well. So I thank this very obscure British filmmaker, Humphrey Jennings, for [my] stealing all his ideas for this.

Q: Were you torn between doing one movie of one question, then one movie of each of the other questions, or did you always want to integrate them? And then how did you decide on how much of each you wanted to run?

KM: Obviously, the point of the questions was to allow us to get a way into talking about important, intimate things. That love question obviously is transparent, the fear question’s transparent.

The question about your pockets or handbag, that’s really a way of getting to talk about materialism, consumerism, inequality, possessions, all those sort of things.

But that was just one way of structuring the film. Because there’s no real traditional narrative, you find other means of structuring the film.

So there’s the microscopic structuring of a montage about people brushing their teeth and going to the toilet, and [you say] okay, I’m going to make a two-minute thing about that.

Then there’s the structure of pieces of music -- like the end girl and woman who are singing and beating their corn, and that structure’s about food consumption and production.

So anyway, there’s a lot of very obscure stuff.

Overarching it all, you have the structure of the day starting at midnight, ending at midnight, and you have a structure of different characters appearing then reappearing.

That gives you a sort of tension, a suspense. Because you’re not sure -- is that person going to reappear? "I want to know more about them". Then maybe they do, maybe they don’t, and you learn a bit more.

So that was really my role, to try and figure out a way to make the film [all] of a piece.

Q: You had all those assistants. You’ve probably never had so many.

KM: It was great. A megalomaniac’s delight. Nobody could watch all of this material on their own. Well, it would take them two years. I’ve calculated.

Q: How many hours?

KM: 4,500 hours. That’s a lot of material. It took 24 or 25 people who spoke many different languages.

We had a Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Danish, a Swedish one, French, Italian and whatever speakers, and they watched all the stuff that came from their countries or in their languages. And then we had to send some out.

We had some very obscure languages. We had some Pygmy language from Cameroon, and that song of Angolan singers -- actually, they sing three different songs that weave into each other and they’re in three different dialects.

There’s something in a Balinese dialect of Indonesia. [It] was incredibly hard to find someone who spoke that in London.

Those people watched everything, all four and half thousand hours, 12 hours a day. It took them two and a half months.

As they were finishing that, I took a month off after the filming day and let them start, and then came back.

So what they did was rate it from one to five. One star for really terrible -- where they made less effort filming this than we were watching it -- up to five stars, "this is great, there’s something fascinating here."

The editor, Joe Walker, is the unsung hero of this. We watched the four- and five-stars, 350 hours of them. We sat down and watched the best stuff.

Q: You had more bad than good?

KM: By the very fact that there were only 350 hours of four and five stars. It was all just different.

I’m not going to say it’s bad. There was some bad stuff in there. But my attitude is, everyone who got involved in this was being incredibly generous, because they were doing something in which they had no chance of financial gain.

There was a prize in effect, I suppose, that people whose clips we thought were the best got invited to Sundance. Twenty people from the film were there -- the little Japanese boy and his father, the Peruvian boy and his father.

But other than that, people did it because they wanted to be involved in something and be generous and share something from their own lives.

So I’m not the one to say to them, "What you did was horrible.‛

Q: You show the film of the Japanese kids who recently lost their mother. Part of being Japanese is they are confined in a tiny room. Did you consciously choose this cultural element for them to represent?

KM: I chose the clips that were the best clips, and I thought that that single clip was the most beautiful short film I’ve ever seen. You learn something every second.

You learn something every moment as it’s going on, until you get this [revelation that] his mother has passed away, so he’s in mourning, he goes and lies back down. It’s incredibly moving.

But it’s also a piece of film art, whether it is intentional or accidental. It was almost a single shot; there’s one cut in there.

If only I’d had 10 other films as good from Japan showing people on a farm, on a mountain or in a palace, I would have used them. But I didn’t. So any sense that it’s portraying clichés of any country is purely accidental.

The tricky thing was finding characters like that who made a film or, through a series of very short clips, you felt like you learned something about their lives and you got involved in the story about them and that you related to.

And those few people who managed to achieve that, those were the backbone of the film. Into that we poured all the different ingredients.

Q: How has making this film changed your life -- both you as an artist and as a person?

KM: It’s changed me in both ways. It’s made me even more aware of the use of serendipity, of luck, in filmmaking. I’m really admiring a lot of the visuals in this film. People have shot really beautiful things and there are ideas to steal in there.

I realized there are things that you can only shoot with a home video camera -- that you couldn’t shoot with a professional camera. The fly being picked off the windowpane by somebody [for example].

You film by camera here, fly goes up to his hand, takes the fly, holds it in his hand, films his hand, goes through a door, the iris changes, the focus changes, he lets it go, you see the fly going off.

To do that using a conventional professional camera would be millions in special effects. Maybe not millions, but it’s a big, complicated shot to do something that’s very simple. There’s a beauty to that, there’s a whole aesthetic of the amateur, and I came to appreciate that.

I also think, from a personal point of view, I learned to be less cynical about the world, I suppose. I think about people maybe more positively. I’m a cynical person who’s normally attracted to the dark side of things.

Q: We know from some of your movies.

KM: Actually, in this I felt like: Yes, you confront the dark side of things, there’s a lot of death, pain, illness and tragedy and whatever in there.

But overarching everything in the material I saw, I got this sense of this tremendous life force, that people -- even when they’re in their last hours or days of life, confronting death -- they still have this sense of wanting to live, of life being special and wonderful. That made me more optimistic.

A lot of people who filmed in this were very -- for want of a better term, I would say -- ordinary people.

They were not people who are part of the media, not the kind of people that I would necessarily meet when I come to America or go to Japan or whatever. They’re not people in the film business, not people that are involved in media in any way.

There’s something great about that, about giving voice to people who are just people, first and foremost -- before they’re commentators, before they’re this, before they’re that. And that was kind of lovely.

For an extended version of Macdonald's Q&A and more by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com

British Director Justin Chadwick Gets the Gold Star for The First Grader

On the surface, The First Grader tells a basic heartfelt story about an older man, the 84-year-old Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge, finally fulfilling a long-unresolved dream -- to learn to read. Against much prejudice and bureaucratic nonsense, he enrolls in a primary school out in the countryside with first graders to take advantage of a new law that makes primary school free and available to everyone.

Of course there are many more wrinkles to the story than just that premise. This all takes place in Kenya, a country fraught with many tribes, conservative customs and a resistance to things that rock society -- which is why the Mau Mau rebellion that eventually drove out the British in the late '50s/early '60s, took a long time to happen. Maruge had been one of those rebels and had suffered dearly for it.

British director Justin Chadwick's film reveals both the horrors that Kenyans had experienced and the beauty of this country by documenting Maruge's very human struggle here. Too often such struggles are portrayed in simplistic and cliched terms.

During an exclusive interview, the 43-year-old veteran BBC filmmaker tells of creating a touching story that is both affecting and worth recommending to those curious about this continent and the complex societies situated there.

Q: When did you start filming? How long did it take?
 
JC: Well, very short. The prep [time] was the longest thing, to listen to stories, not just with the children, but because what happened in the '50s, the records had been destroyed.

I had to listen as much as I could in the prep to the stories that were coming in. And the way the communities then started to realize I was making the film there was a certain trust, so things would come back and I would get to talk to people about their experience in the '50s. Because the colonial period, in the '60s when independence came, their first president said, "We move on from the past, we forget it."

Kenyans as much as the British, didn't know about this past. We knew about the one sided, bloody past from the Mau Mau, but we didn't know to what extent the Kenyans had really suffered. So it took a while. We started shooting I think in late October. Four or five weeks was the shoot.
 
Q: Why was there such a lag between The Other Boleyn Girl, your previous theatrical release, and this film?

JC: I never imagined myself doing a period piece, I really didn't. The Other Boleyn Girl started as a small movie. I'd done a lot of TV and done a miniseries, Bleak House, which was very, very fast paced. I was modernizing Dickens. So I really wanted to earn my experience before I ventured into doing features.

My feeling was you only get to make one film in England and then if you don't do a good job you're out and you don't get another chance. So I never expected that.

Then I got this little, tiny script, The Other Boleyn Girl, and thought who would I really love to work with? And I've always loved those two -- Scarlett Johansen and Natalie Portman -- and Eric [Bana], and so I just put them together, and before you knew it, it [went from being] a small BBC film and then all of sudden Sony, Universal, the whole kind of kit and caboodle.

Everybody got involved and it became this bigger film. It didn't feel like it when we were making it, it felt like this small film when we were making it, with a small team of people that I'd grown up with in my work that I'd done in England in my TV work.

David Thompson from the BBC, one of the producers who started that process [for The Other Boleyn Girl], sent me this script for The First Grader. I had never been to Kenya. I thought this was quite a simple but inspiring story and something I didn't expect coming from Africa. It wasn't issue driven; it made me feel good.

And I knew it was about children -- the hope of children and education. It was the chance to do something that was uplifting.

And there was money set up in South Africa, so I got on a plane and went to Kenya, supposed to be going to look to see if it was possible to do some [establishing shots there], then go to South Africa where we'd do the movie.

I met Maruge, the real man the film's based on when he was 89 and was in a hospice. I went in with Kikuyu guys, the same tribe as him, sat with him, talked to him, and he was completely inspiring guy.

I phoned up the BBC and said, "Listen, I've really got to stay longer." Every day I'd phone up the BBC. Although he was ill, he wanted to have his lessons, so you couldn't disturb his lessons. He was on grade five at that point. He was very sick and still demanded his teacher. This guy was amazing. Sometimes I'd have to leave and go, "All right, you've got your English teacher in."

I went around and started to look at the country and it was unbelievably beautiful. It's stunning. It's just amazing. So I said, "Look, we have to shoot it here," and with that we lost all of the budget, because there's not a perceived infrastructure in Kenya in film terms.

Q: What were the challenges of that.

JC: There have been movies made in Kenya -- Out of Africa, Tomb Raider, Constant Gardener -- but most of the films that are made there they ship everything in; the crew...

Q: ... Were from South Africa?

JC: Everywhere, all over the world. Plane loads of equipment, food, crew, everything is brought it, so Kenyans never get a chance to get into film [production] in any way. So when we lost the money I said, "We'll just go with the money that we've got. Let's just go."

Q: You then lost the South African money at that point...

JC: We lost a lot because of the decision to shoot in Kenya. The investment, the crews and all of that. We went to Kenya with nine people in the end, and the ethos was that if the talent was there we would find it, and if the talent wasn't there we would train it and incorporate it into the film.

Then there was the question of the school. I'm sure you remember your first grade at school. All those characters you meet.
 
Q: You think I remember my first grade?
 
JC: Of course you do. I bet you remember who you were sitting next to.
 
Q: All I remember is the crossing guard, my mom.
 
JC: You must remember those friends that you had at primary school.
 
Q: I've blotted it all out. You still remember that?
 
JC: I can remember them. I thought I'm going to choose one school then I am going to incorporate every child. If they want to be in this film they can be in the film. No one will be excluded, but no one will be forced to do it, and I thought in my way, although you two may be different [countries], the kids in Manchester, England can't be that different from the kids in Kenya.
 
Q: You're right about that.
 
JC: I dropped into one school. These kids were amazing. They hadn't seen a TV, have never seen a film. They were Maasai children in the main, or Kikuyu children as well, from these tribes. [They were] very shy; to even look at an adult is disrespectful. So I knew that I would have to use that as a way of...
 
I talked to the elders and went into school on my own and just let the children come to me. I watched them, observed them, guided the characters in the film to the children. So all of those characters, all the characters that you see in the film came out of the children I saw everyday. Like Agnes, she wasn't written in the script. I became like their teacher really.

Q: I bet your biggest moment of anxiety was finding Oliver Litondo who played Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge.
 
JC: Yes, that was tough.
 
Q: If you didn't find the right guy to play Maruge, he is the movie. Naomie Harris was reacting to him. Everybody was reacting to him, so he had to carry that movie, and you really took a risk.
 
JC: You are exactly like my producer David Thompson, who was on The Other Boleyn Girl with me. He kept saying, "Four weeks to go, and we don't have Maruge. If we don't have Maruge we haven't got a film."

The first thing the Kenyans said was, "You're not going to find him here. You'll never find him." And we went on a goose chase around the world, England, here, Paris, you can imagine.
 
We went all over to try and find Maruge. We got close to a couple of guys. There was this beautiful actor in Paris that we met who basically, just couldn't pass his medical.
 
He was so old, and that was a lot of the problems. So we went back to Kenya on my second trip there I was going, "Okay guys, forget an actor. I know that there's not going to be this amazing actor, experienced actor sitting in Kenya that we don't know about." There isn't the kind of TV or film industry there that would generate that kind of actor. I do not speak Swahili, but if I could...
 
Q: And they have another language as well; Maasai is the other one.
 
JC: Swahili, Kikuyu, and Maasai. But the real Maruge would have spoken Kikuyu in the main. That's why I was with Kikuyu guys when I went to meet him in the hospital and talk to him. That's where he started opening up to me.
 
Q: You can't do it in the wrong language.
 
JC: No, and also, he would never have told me about his wife, about this bond he had to the land. He made that bond; he was 89. They never [broke him], the British, you know. He wouldn't utter a word of that oath; he still carried that at 89.

Then someone on the crew said, "I know this guy. He was a news anchor and my parents talk about him in the '70s." So we managed to track Oliver down, and word got to him. He didn't have a phone or anything so someone went in his village up to his house, and he'd fallen on real hard times. He got on a bus -- this is incredible -- he got on this bus, six hours later he met me in [Nairobi], and he looked really whacked, poor guy. But as soon as I met him he was like...
 
Q: How old is Oliver now?
 
JC: He would never tell his age. But when we met him he looked like he'd fallen on hard times, he was having a tough time. Then he got his suit and looked fantastic. He went to his doctor, got through his medical [exam], thank god; the doctor put him on a strict diet and sorted his eyes -- he had problems with his eyes.

I just knew as soon as I met him that the kids would love him. Inside and out he's a beautiful man, this guy. He's so eloquent the way he talks about education. You can see it in his face, can't you?

He was not experienced as an actor, and sometimes I'd be talking to him off camera while we were doing the scenes just to talk him through stuff, and you could just see it in him.
 
Q: Were those all lines he was saying were memorized and hw knew how to say them?
 
JC: Sometimes it was. Sometimes we improvised. Sometimes we let scenes role, like for example, the scene with the little girl. The little Agnes girl was the quietest, shyest girl. She was the one the teacher said, "Oh no."

Her mom and dad were trying to hide her from coming to school because her legs, she had small legs, she's got a prosthetic. She was at the back of the class so she was behind; the children were very, very shy, but she was particularly shy in the corner. [She] wouldn't come to me for a long, long time, and that was the child that I thought was the best to bond with Maruge.
 
Q: The boy we sitting with Oliver getting shown how to make a "5"; didn't he bond with Maruge?
 
JC: He was from another school because, amazingly, in that school the concept of bullying didn't exist for some reason. I got to know all the children, all the characters, and it just wasn't in the children that were there. It wasn't in their comprehension.

I was like, "You're joking, come on! There must be some sort of..." and they just couldn't get that. So I had to bring somebody else from another school into that environment, and he came in and it worked for the character for the film.

Q: The DVD should have some of this other material on it.
 
JC: I recorded every meeting I had with Maruge. The last thing he did was sing me a song about his life. Often when I was with him, because it was with these guys that he was speaking his first language, Kikuyu, as well as English, I was with Kikuyu men. These men would turn round, these are Kikuyu where [it is rare] to show any emotion [to someone] you don't know as a man, and these guys were like, the tears streaming. That's where the power of the pen came from. All of those quotes came directly from him, how he talked about his wife, and his children.
 
Q: Finding Maruge was such a challenge but how did Naomie fit into that process? Because you and Naomie are both of English descent. how did it affect both of you and how did she become the obvious choice?
 
JC: She was the first choice.
 
Q: Was she was always there?
 
JC: She wasn't always there. When I read the script the very first time before I'd been to Kenya, Africa or South Africa, I thought of Naomie because I love her work. She's subtle, she's got good heart the way she talks about her work. I know she's a good woman, and I love the way that she's a chameleon. She's got a great body of work behind her. It's not obvious acting with her but she really inhabits her characters. So she was the first person that I thought of for the role.
 
Q: It's good to have a seasoned actor as the anchor.
 
JC: At that time the character was written as a 53 year old who had two children.
 
Q: Was that the reality?
 
JC: Yeah, that was the reality. Then when I went to Kenya, I was very, very keen on going around the schools. I was seeing young Kenyan women struggling with professional and home life, and family, when to have kids, when not to have kids, could you do the two things, and culturally, what that meant to those young women.

So I thought to make her younger, as an inspiring role model to other people and inspiring to the children -- and Naomie stuck with me.

Q: You're British and are making a movie about what the British did to these people -- it must have had a strange resonance. There's a lot of brutality in British history.
 
JC: I am amazed and ashamed that the British do not know this side of history. I did not know. It's not history learned in school.
 
I knew about the brutality of the colonials, we all know that, but [it was] the scale of what went on in Kenya, and we didn't know that they destroyed the records afterwards. But what was really surprising was that the Kenyans didn't know. The Kenyan crew didn't know.

And just the way that we made the film. The guy who plays the Mau Mau leader, he went back and talked to his parents. He then went to his grandparents and over five or six weeks, the parents started to come out. They had been in those camps.

That music he's singing at that point in the film is music that directly goes back to those camps and his grandparents. It was a voyage for all of us really, the Kenyans as well. That's why it was the most humbling, amazing thing that I've ever done, and was the best thing I've ever done. Every day these amazing things would happen.

Q: You see a movie like this and wonder, will the audiences come out to see a movie about Africa? What made you believe it will click with audiences?
 
JC: That's the difficult, hard thing, and there has to be. We showed this film at [Telluride], we went to Toronto, we've shown it at some great festivals throughout the U.S. and the world, and audiences have just connected with it. If audiences get into the cinema and see it they will go through this emotional, moving, funny, uplifting story that is challenging but also celebrates life.

Surely, there has to be a space for films like this. The production values are really strong; it's made as a piece of cinema, to be enjoyed in the cinema. I was very careful to shoot it with the cinema in mind so that audiences could go and see it on the big screen. It's stunningly beautiful. We've placed the camera so that it catches these fantastic shots of truth from these children who have never acted before.

Alongside the blockbusters that have the machinery behind them of publicity and money, there has to be a place for audiences to go to see different stories. Stories that they wouldn't have known but also still have great production values, fantastic performances, and a different story that isn't the usual thing that we haven't seen, and there has to be a place for that.

People say to me, "What was the toughest thing in making the film?" There was nothing tough about making the film. It was the easiest thing because everything just rolled into place. If we had any kind of hurdle, as the money, we'd just go and do it in another way, never impacting on what was up on the screen.

The challenge now is for word of mouth. And fortunately, in these festivals that it's been to, and when it's screened, it wins all the audience awards.
 
Q: It's definitely an audience award winner.
 
JC: Because people love to go into the dark, I'm sure of it, and celebrate these stories.

For more by Brad Balfour go to: filmfestivaltraveler.com