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“Dedicated to all the forgotten flaming florists and hairdressers who built the gay community and blazed the trail for the rights many of us cling to today,” SWAN SONG opens at the Playhouse, Royal & Town Center August 6.

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Legendary actor Udo Kier stars as retired hairdresser Pat Pitsenbarger, who escapes the confines of his small-town nursing home after learning of his former client’s dying wish for him to style her final hairdo. Pat embarks on an odyssey to confront the ghosts of his past — and collect the beauty supplies necessary for the job. Swan Song is a funny, bittersweet journey about rediscovering one’s sparkle, and looking gorgeous while doing so.

Writer-director Todd Stephens wrote the following about his new film:

“Back in 1984, I walked into my small-town gay bar for the first time — The Universal Fruit and Nut Company. There he was, glittering on the dancefloor. Wearing a teal feather boa, fedora and matching pantsuit, “Mister Pat” Pitsenbarger was busting old school moves straight out of Bob Fosse. I was seventeen, and Pat was a revelation.

“Years later, when I set out to write my autobiographical Edge of Seventeen, I immediately thought of Mister Pat. I went back home to hunt him down, only to discover Pat had just suffered an aneurism and was temporarily unable to speak. But his lover David told me stories…about how Pat was once the most fabulous hairdresser in Sandusky, Ohio…about his legendary drag performances…about how he used to shop at Kroger’s dressed as Carol Burnett – in 1967! This was a man who always had the courage to be himself, long before that was safe.

“The truth is, Mister Pat inspired me to write Edge of Seventeen. I wrote a significant “Pat” character as my protagonist’s mentor, but midway through the shoot, the part got cut. I always knew my muse would return someday in my writing, and when he finally did many years later, I looked for Pat again only to learn he just passed away. Sadly, Pat’s legendary hand-beaded rhinestone gowns are all lost to time. Only a shoebox remains – filled with some tarnished jewelry and a half-smoked pack of Mores.

“Swan Song is a love letter to the rapidly disappearing “gay culture” of America. As it has become more acceptable to be queer, what used to be a thriving community is rapidly melting back into society. Thanks to assimilation and technology, small-town gay bars like The Universal Fruit and Nut Company are becoming extinct. Swan Song is dedicated to all the forgotten flaming florists and hairdressers who built the gay community and blazed the trail for the rights many of us cling to today. But, above all, for me this film is about learning that it’s never too late to live again.”

Laemmle Theatres will open Swan Song on August 6 at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heN0JtJu4pE

“’The only important thing is that somehow we all escape our history.'” François Ozon on his sexy, nostalgic reverie of first love and its consequences, SUMMER OF 85.

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In Francois Ozon’s new film about first love and its consequences, SUMMER OF 85, a seaside summer fling between Alexis and David lasts just six weeks, but casts a shadow over a lifetime. We open it Friday, June 18 at the Royal, Playhouse, and Town Center. Here’s the filmmaker statement about the source material, English writer Aidan Chambers’ 1982 novel Dance on My Grave, and making the film, followed by a recent interview:

I read the novel in 1985, when I was seventeen years old, and I loved it. It spoke to me personally. The book is playful and inventive. It has drawings, press clippings, changing points of view … I so much enjoyed reading it that, when I started directing short films, I thought: “If one day I make a feature film, my first will be an adaptation of this novel” (…) Films are made when they’re supposed to be made.

This story needed time for me to mature so that I would know how to tell it. In the end, I remained faithful to the novel’s narrative structure. I adapted the story’s background to make it French and I transposed it to the time period when I first read the book. The movie encompasses both the book’s reality and my memories of what I felt when first reading it.

François Ozon (center) on set with Félix Lefebvre (left) and Benjamin Voisin (right) in Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

[Warning: there are spoilers in the following interview.]

Q: SUMMER OF 85 was originally a novel by Aidan Chambers: “Dance On My Grave.”

A: I read the novel in 1985, when I was seventeen years old, and I loved it. It spoke to me personally. The book is playful and inventive. It has drawings, press clippings, changing points of view… I so much enjoyed reading it that when I started to direct short films, I thought: “If one day I make a feature film, my first will be an adaptation of this novel.”

Q: And thirty-five years later…

A: It didn’t occur to me until now to make this film because the truth is, more than anything, I wanted to see it as a moviegoer! And I was convinced that someone else was going to make it – an American filmmaker. But to my surprise, it never happened. After wrapping up “By the Grace of God,” I reread the book out of curiosity and I was shocked, because I realized that I had already filmed many of the book’s themes: cross-dressing in “A Summer Dress” or “The New Girlfriend;” the scene at the morgue in “Under the Sand;” a relationship with a professor in “In the House;” the cemetery in “Frantz.”

This book had been fueling my imagination, yet I’d never made the connection. I had forgotten about the novel’s scrapbook-style, which also seemed very cinematographic to me. And I remembered that when at the age of eighteen I had written a first draft of the script with a friend, I had only focused on the love story and had removed everything that seemed secondary at the time, such as the social worker, the professor, the parents, Judaism, and the flashbacks.

Perhaps I couldn’t handle all the different elements back then. Films are made when they’re supposed to be made. This story needed time for me to mature so that I would know how to tell it. In the end, I remained faithful to the novel’s narrative structure. I adapted the story’s background to make it French and I transposed it to the time period when I first read the book. The movie encompasses both the book’s reality and my memories of what I felt when first reading it.

Félix Lefebvre (left) and Benjamin Voisin (right) in François Ozon’s Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Q: The book’s tone is rather offhand. You approach it from a more dramatic and romantic register.

A: Some scenes were slightly more humorous when we were shooting, but during the editing stage I tended to tone down the comical side to be wholly with the boys, to experience their love story straightforwardly. And in the second half of the movie, with the mourning and what their pact entailed, there was even less room for comedy. It was important to establish a genuine rapport with the characters and to convey the emotion I had felt as a teenager. It sometimes seemed like I was remaking a first film, but with the maturity I had acquired from making all my other films. This lent clarity coupled with a tender nostalgia for the time period to the process. If I had been closer to my characters’ ages, my approach would undoubtedly have been more distant.

(L to R) Benjamin Voisin, Philippine Velge and Félix Lefebvre in François Ozon’s Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Q: SUMMER OF 85 is firstly a love story before being a story about gay love.

A: I was faithful to the book which never problematizes gayness, never makes it an issue, which is very beautiful and modern for the time period. Alex and David love one another and the fact that they are two boys is beside the point. That’s the reason why I dreamed of being able to go see this film when I was a teenager. Depictions of gay people in the movies in the 1980s were very dark and painful, even before AIDS.

Following the codes of the teen movie genre was important to me while making the film. I shot the romance between the boys in a very classic way, without irony, in order to make this a universal love story.

Félix Lefebvre (left) and Benjamin Voisin (right) in François Ozon’s Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Q: SUMMER OF 85 could have become a teenage saga, but you have transformed the material, playing on the suspense of what really happened…

A: That’s the big difference the film has with the novel, in which we know from the onset what Alex did and why. The movie lets the mystery dwell and creates false leads, which allow the audience to imagine several different possibilities. I adopted the same approach when adapting Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby for “Frantz.”

Q: The scene with the Walkman is an homage to “La Boum (The Party),” the 1980s French teen cult movie, but also foreshadows how David and Alex are out of synch with each other.

A: This dance scene is clearly the heart of the film: Alex and David aren’t dancing to the same music. One is fidgeting about and laughing while the other is daydreaming, staring at the ball hanging from the ceiling. At this point in the story, we experience this disconnect as if it were a game between them, not suffering. It’s only in retrospect that we can re- interpret the scene as the early warning signs of their separation. To be truthful, I wasn’t even conscious myself of this while shooting the scene, which was shot very quickly and improvised in order to integrate the Rod Stewart song.

Melvil Poupaud (left) and Félix Lefebvre (right) in François Ozon’s Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Q: The re-creation of the time period is very realistic, at times giving the impression that we are watching a film made in the 80s.

A: The scenery is realistic, but the 80s are a little idealized as far as the costumes are concerned. Pascaline Chavanne and I were very much inspired by American films of the time period whose eighties folklore I wanted to replicate. I made the film thinking about the moviegoer I was, and of the film I would have liked to see at the time.

Q: And the choice to shoot on film?

A: Today we’re used to digital cinematography, but when making a period movie, film is a must! I had already made this decision for “Frantz.” I was thrilled to return to Super 16, which was the format I used for my first short films. I like its grain which is so specific to this kind of film stock. The result is very beautiful and sensual on the skin in closeups. There is a subtlety in the color that can’t be achieved with digital, which tends to dull things down.

Félix Lefebvre (left) and Benjamin Voisin (right) in François Ozon’s Summer of 85. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Q: The film takes place in Le Tréport…

A: Le Tréport would be the equivalent of the novel’s Southend-on-Sea in the south of England. It’s nothing like the French Riviera. I felt it was important to anchor the story in the social realities of this working-class seaside town in Upper Normandy. Le Tréport is a city that has largely retained its character – it hasn’t been overly renovated. It’s a very photogenic place with wide and long pebble beaches, cliffs, and 1960s low-income
housing complexes running alongside the jetty.

Q: Is young Kate’s English nationality an allusion to the book?

A: Kate’s character is Norwegian in the book. I made her English especially because my 1980s experience was heavily influenced by British pop culture, like most teenagers at the time. The soundtrack to our lives was all New Wave: The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure, whose music opens the movie.

Q: Why did you decide to make David’s family Jewish?

A: The family in Aidan Chambers’ book is Jewish, and I kept it. When I asked him about it, he explained that the town of Southend-on-Sea (where the novel is set) has a large Jewish community. It therefore seemed natural for David to be Jewish, and at the same time set him apart from
Alex with respect to their social and cultural backgrounds. I like the fact that it is never an issue. Just like being gay, it belongs to the narrative just like its other parts. There is also a narrative reason, which has to do with Jewish post-mortem and funeral rituals. In Judaism, the body should be buried as soon as possible, the funeral usually taking place within one or two days after the death. Alex could not mourn with the body, nor could he be among the mourners. These restrictions increased his emotional trauma and fueled his psychological need to dance on David’s grave. It was the only way for Alex to express his profound sorrow and let everything out. If David had been Christian, Alex would not have had to endure the same torments following David’s death. Everything would have been simpler, more straightforward, and thus less interesting to me.

Q: How did you go about casting the couple of Alex and David, whose physiques are extremely different?

A: I started casting quite early on, before I’d even finished the script. I told myself that if I couldn’t find the actors, I wouldn’t make the film. I very quickly met Félix Lefebvre. I immediately knew he was Alex when he auditioned, with his roundish face, childish smile, and his liveliness. He has a melancholy look in his eyes which gives him an air of River Phoenix that corresponds perfectly to the era and the character. Félix is a quick, clever actor, which was vital for the role. We have to believe in Alex’s intelligence, and in his ability to become a writer.

Then I had to find David. The contrast between him and Alex was important. I wanted David to physically dominate Alex, to have an effortless poise and naturally be at ease with himself. David is a bit like a wild animal while Alex is a lamb whose demeanor is awkward, whether he’s walking or sailing a boat. Benjamin Voisin had auditioned for the role of Alex, but when I saw him act, I had a hunch that he could be David. Although I had been looking for someone who was more physically imposing and sturdily built, at the same time, when we see David from Alex’s point of view, he is indeed like that. There was true chemistry between Benjamin and Félix from the first screen tests, which was vital. They were on the same page – two kindred spirits. Then we did several readthroughs and rehearsed scenes together. And one month before the shoot, they left to spend a week sailing with each other in Le Tréport.

Q: What about choosing the other actors?

A: For Kate, I was at first looking for a girl who exuded more sexuality than Philippine Velge, but her tomboy, Jean Seberg side immediately appealed to me. Philippine is Belgian-English, and she has both the grace and maturity that I was looking for in this character, who helps Alex through the mourning process. Like most people, I discovered Isabelle Nanty in “Auntie Danielle” and I’m tremendously fond of her. She radiates a great sense of humanity. We’ve rarely seen her in a dramatic register, and I wanted to place her in a different context to show another facet of her personality and work.

As for Melvil Poupaud and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, with whom I have already worked, they were the obvious choices for these roles. After “By the Grace of God,” it was fun to make Melvil a flirty professor – the professor all of us have had at one point or another in our lives – really nice but a little bit creepy. Valeria was the ideal person to bring some humor and a pinch of craziness to this extroverted mother; she’s able to make us accept her more dramatic transformation. For this character, I thought about the monstrous and conniving mother in Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer” played by Katharine Hepburn in Mankiewicz’ film – a mother who lures boys and reels them in for her son, and whose possessive, devouring, incestuous nature is later revealed.

Q: “Swimming Pool,” “Angel,” “In the House”… This isn’t the first time you’re tackling the figure of an author.

A: I’m interested in depicting the artistic vocation. How a character is driven to go through self-transcendence as part of the creative process, and what he draws upon for inner nourishment. What I find beautiful about Alex’s situation is that he discovers writing almost accidentally: he is incapable of talking about what happened and so is told to write it down in order for the judge to understand what he did and why.

“Sometimes, things we have a hard time voicing are easier to write down,” his professor tells him. Especially at that age. As he has a gift for writing, this works in his favor. By becoming a writer, Alex is doubly saved: before the judge and because he has found his vocation. Alex has a very resilient side thanks to his writing, which allows him to transform the ordeal he has gone through and move forward.

Q: How did you put together the dance on the grave?

A: First, we had to find the music. In the book, it’s the Laurel and Hardy theme song, music that evokes a cuckoo clock – hence the French title of the book “La Danse du Coucou [The Cuckoo Dance].” For the movie, it was Félix who suggested using the Rod Stewart song “Sailing,” which is in fact from 1975. As soon as I listened to it, I knew it was the right song, at once for its rhythm and lyrics. I immediately thought of Angelin Preljocaj for the choreography, but as he is in the south of France, logistics were a little complicated. He then referred me to a dancer with whom he works, Virginie Caussin.

I wanted the dance to feel genuine and be inspired by Félix’s own body language. At first, he gets on his knees and caresses himself as the rhythm gradually takes over his body. We asked Félix to dance naturally to the music in order to incorporate his own body movements, as well as gestures that are reminiscent of the way people danced in the 80s. This was coupled with other moments when he lets go completely, giving off pure energy, but channeled by a choreography that evokes a tribal, funerary dance.

Q: Why did you bring in Jean-Benoît Dunckel to compose the music?

A: I wanted music that was sexy, romantic and nostalgic; something that would remind us of the 1980s and the beginnings of electronic music. All these aspects can be found in Jean-Benoît’s music. I have always enjoyed the work he did when he was in the band Air. And it turns out that in an interview where he was asked to give the title of a song he liked when he was young, he’d answered: “Stars de la pub,” [an 80s hit pop song], saying that it was a really well produced song.

I took this coincidence as a sign because it was also one of my favorite songs when I was a teenager. So I contacted him, and I explained that I wanted to use the very song he’d mentioned in my film. I gave him the script, from which he composed themes without having seen
the images. It’s quite extraordinary because during the editing process we used the melodies exactly as they were written.

Q: And the film’s title?

A: The French title of the book, “La Danse du Coucou [The Cuckoo Dance],” didn’t work because we changed the music for the grave scene. The original title of the book is very beautiful: “Dance On My Grave,” but it revealed too much about the movie’s storyline, which is unlike the book, where you learn everything from the onset. So I simply connected it to the date when I read the book and when The Cure song, which opens the film, “In Between Days,” came out. This song really marks the heart of the 80s while also remaining timeless. It’s an extremely joyful song, but fundamentally melancholic. It corresponds to Alex, to his enthusiastic discovery of life, but to its dark side as well.

1985 is also the year Rock Hudson died, and AIDS suddenly appeared in everyone’s daily life. It’s the last year of carefreeness and innocence, when it was still possible not to be aware of the disease, and not to worry about it.

Q: “The only important thing is that somehow we all escape our history,” says Alex in voice over at the very end of the film.

A: It’s the last sentence in Aidan Chambers’ book; it’s beautiful and enigmatic. I identify with it completely.

 

Paulo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo Conjure Berlusconi in LORO, Opening September 27 at the Royal and October 4 at the Playhouse, Claremont & Town Center.

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Sex, drugs, power, and vice: welcome to the mid-2000s Italy of Silvio Berlusconi, the egomaniac billionaire Prime Minister who presides over an empire of scandal and corruption. Sergio (Riccardo Scamarcio) is an ambitious young hustler managing an escort service catering to the rich and powerful. Determined to move up in the world, Sergio sets his sights on the biggest client of all: Berlusconi (Toni Servillo), the disgraced, psychotically charming businessman and ex-PM currently plotting his political comeback. As Berlusconi attempts to bribe his way back to power, Sergio devises his own equally audacious scheme to win the mogul’s attention. Exploding with eye-popping, extravagantly surreal set-pieces, the dazzling, daring new film from Academy Award-winning director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) is both a wickedly subversive satire and a furious elegy for a country crumbling while its leaders enrich themselves.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:

Loro, a film in two parts, is a fictional story, a sort of costume drama, which narrates probable or invented facts that took place in Italy, between 2006 and 2010.

Using a variety of characters, Loro seeks to sketch, through glances or intuitions, a moment of history – now definitively closed – which, in a very synthetic vision of events, might be defined as amoral and decadent, but also extraordinarily vital.

And Them [Loro] also seeks to describe certain Italians, simultaneously new and old. Souls in an imaginary, modern purgatory who decide, on the basis of heterogeneous impulses such as ambition, admiration, love, self-interest, personal advantage, to try to revolve around a sort of paradise in flesh and blood: a man by the name of Silvio Berlusconi.

Toni Servillo e Elena Sofia Ricci. Foto di Gianni Fiorito.

These Italians, to my eyes, contain a contradiction: they are predictable but indecipherable. A contradiction which is a mystery. An Italian mystery which the film tries to deal with, but without being judgmental. Inspired only by a desire to understand, and adopting a tone which today, rightly, is considered revolutionary: a tone of tenderness.

But here comes another Italian. Silvio Berlusconi. The way I imagined him.

The story of the man, above all, and only in a marginal way of the politician.

Someone might object that we know plenty not only about the politician, but also about the man.

I doubt that.

Nella foto Toni Servillo. Foto di Gianni Fiorito.

A man, as far as I am concerned, is the result of his feelings more than a biographical total of facts. Therefore, within this story, the choice of facts to be recounted does not follow a principle of relevance dictated by the news agenda of those days, but only tries to dig, groping in the dark, in the man’s conscience.

What, then, are the feelings that stimulated Silvio Berlusconi’s days in this period? What are the emotions, the fears, the delusions of this man in dealing with events that appear to loom like mountains? This, for me, is another mystery the film deals with.

Men of power in the generations before that of Berlusconi were other mysteries, because they were unapproachable. Remember there was a time when we spoke of the disembodiment of power.

Toni Servillo. Photo by Gianni-Fiorito.

Silvio Berlusconi, instead, is probably the first man of power to be an approachable mystery. He has always been a tireless narrator of himself: think, for example, of the picture story Una storia italiana that he had sent to everyone in Italy in 2001, and for this reason too he inevitably became a symbol. And symbols, unlike mere mortals, are public property. And therefore, in this sense, he also represents a part of all Italians.

But, naturally, Silvio Berlusconi is much more. And it is not easy to provide a synthesis. For this reason I have to appeal to a much better man than me: Hemingway.

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway writes: “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.” Paraphrasing things, perhaps the most concise image we can have of Silvio Berlusconi is that of a bullfighter. ~ Paolo Sorrentino

“Completely, Delightfully Unpredictable” GIVE ME LIBERTY Opens Friday.

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Things being what they are, it’s a pleasure and relief to watch a comedy and we’ve got a dandy opening this Friday, August 30 at the Monica Film Center, Playhouse and Town Center, the Milwaukee(!)-set Give Me Liberty. The brightest critics, people normally quite hesitant with their praise, absolutely sat up in their seats when they watched this movie. Look:

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: “At once breakneck and tolerant, Give Me Liberty manages to be both rousingly Russian and touchingly all-American.”

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: “Completely, delightfully unpredictable from scene to scene, Give Me Libertydraws you in with its moving performances and blasts of broad comedy.”

Andrew Lapin, NPR: “There are precious few victories to be found in Give Me Liberty, and yet the film feels victorious all the same.”Vikram Murthi, AV Club: “Give Me Liberty functions as one of the most resonant portrayals of allyship, achieved through actual deeds instead of empty gestures.”

Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com: “The debut of a fresh vision of the all-American crowd-pleaser.”

Eric Kohn, indieWire: “It’s thrilling to watch a filmmaker work overtime to explore what it means to get lost in the moment, lose track of the bigger picture, and then discover it all over again.”

Peter Debruge, Variety: “This warm, fiercely independent comedy-drama eschews anything resembling formula in favor of a boisterous and freewheeling joyride drawn from Mikhanovsky’s own experience as the driver of a wheelchair-accessible transport vehicle.”

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: “Made on a micro-budget with lots of invigorating rough edges, this distinctive movie is like an underclass daytime version of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, reaffirming the resilience of the American Dream even amidst spiraling disorder.”
Chris Galust and Lauren ‘Lolo’ Spencer

Give Me Liberty follows medical transport driver Vic, who risks his job to shuttle a group of rowdy seniors and a Russian boxer to a funeral, dragging clients like Tracy, a vibrant young woman with ALS, along for the ride. He’s late, but it’s not his fault. Roads are closed for a protest. The new route uproots his scheduled clients and as the day goes from hectic to off-the-rails, their collective ride becomes a hilarious, compassionate and intersectional portrait of American dreams and disenchantment.

Director/co-writer Kirill Mikhanovsky spoke about the making of Give Me Liberty:
Q: Which came first, the story or the characters?
A: “First was the job I had driving a medical transport van back in the ‘90s, which was one of the first jobs that I had in this country. I thought about making a movie back in 2006, but was discouraged a little bit by the fact that what I was actually interested in was gone, and I was not interested in making a period piece. Then in 2013, I believe, at that time I was working with Alice [Austen, writer/producer] on another script. The city of Milwaukee was very inspiring and so I thought of making a smaller film in Milwaukee. I proposed it to Alice. That [medical transport driver] job had a lot of hilarious, touching, wonderful, moving stories. And that was the starting point. From there, a fictitious script was born, taking place over the course of I believe seven to eight days, with a wild slew of hilarious characters, combining comedy and investigation—almost like a detective story and love story and road movie with the main character driving the van, etc.—but some revisions later it became a day-in-the-life of this character Vic.
Co-writer-director Kirill Mikhanovsky

Q: Even though you do have some professional actors in the mix, you also cast many non-professionals. Where and how did you find all of this incredible talent?

A: “What’s very important, in the very beginning of this process—I don’t remember how it came about exactly—we knew we wanted very much to work with non-actors. On my first feature film [Sonhos de Peixe], I worked with non-actors in a small Brazilian fisherman’s village, and I knew from the very beginning that I would be writing that film for the people from that place. For me, it was a very successful experience. I really enjoyed working with them.

“With the kind of story we wanted to tell [with Give Me Liberty], we knew that we would benefit from having non-actors. Because the central character was a driver in Milwaukee who would be driving around a number of people with disabilities or people from just different walks of life, we just didn’t imagine at the time how we would gather the right professional talent from all over the nation, given our resources and given our task. So that was decided from the outset. It’s probably easier to write characters than to find them sometimes, so we were very excited at the end of the writing process. But when we looked at the characters, we understood that we had quite a task before us, because we needed to find extremely gifted people to portray these characters. Where we were going to look for them? We really didn’t know where to begin! In Milwaukee, we had obviously limited resources. Really, it was quite a daunting task.”

Alice is a successful playwright affiliated with the Goodman Theatre and Steppenwolf. She got in touch with someone in Chicago who referred us to an agency in Los Angeles, and almost instantly we found Lauren “Lolo” Spencer, who ended up portraying Tracy. We were absolutely blessed with her. That’s how that came about. Lolo portrays a character with a disability, and she does have a disability. We wanted to work with people who were not playing people with disabilities. We wanted to work with people who actually have disabilities, because we wanted to honor that side of life in this project in a way that was authentic. We felt very strongly about that.

For Victor, the main character, we had an eight month long odyssey. A couple of years ago, we had a
number of partners that were not a good fit for the project at the time, and someone proposed we try this one actor who almost looks like a real guy, like a non-actor walking in from the street, but he couldn’t do it, and then one thing led to another and before we knew it we were interviewing every living English-speaking actor on the planet between the ages of 18 and 30. I mean, we went through the whole cast of Dunkirk, it was insane! Then we looked around and thought to ourselves, “How did we get here? Didn’t we plan to work with a non-actor?” And luckily, luckily—we went so far as to propose the role to a couple of people, actors with faces and names—but luckily, thank God, for some reason things were turned down. They didn’t happen because, I don’t know, they were changing agencies or on the verge of “breaking out” and their agents advised them against doing a small movie in Milwaukee, etc. We just got lucky, my God, it’s just like the hand of God.

6. Lauren ‘Lolo’ Spencer, Steve Wolski, and Chris Galust in GIVE ME LIBERTY.

And so, eight months into the search, that’s when we had the chance of turning to Jen Venditti for help, who did a five-week search in the streets of New York. Jen ran into a young man in this baker’s shop in Brooklyn, who turned out to be quite interesting, and we met with him. He’d never had any training, but he ended up doing this role [Chris Galust]. We planned originally to give him two months to break in and drive the van and just live with some grandpa in Milwaukee and become this person. We ended up having only ten days [of prep] with him. The experience was quite brutal for him, because not only did we throw this little kid in the water, we expected him to swim faster than anyone else.

Each role is more complex than the other. But the role of Dima? He’s basically a fighter with a one-million-dollar smile, who walks into the room and just charms everyone. He has the physique of a boxer, boxer charisma, all the qualities of a person who would charm every member of the audience within five minutes. And being from a Russian, or Soviet, background. We just didn’t know where to turn.

All of a sudden, we were receiving headshots of metrosexuals from New York who just wanted to look tough with a three-day stubble but nothing else to show for themselves other than clearly going to the gym every day and mixing it with yoga. We realized we were never going to find this person. It was just impossible!

Until one day, a friend of ours, a casting director from Moscow, showed us this guy [Max Stoianov]. We saw his photo, we saw this smile, and before we even saw his videos we knew he was the guy. Incredible. His story is absolutely unbelievable. He is perfect. He possesses this animal charisma that translates into any culture, at least known to me. He is formidable physically. He is capable of working non-stop. I mean, it was a gift. It was basically love at first sight. I don’t want to just say we were lucky, but, yes, we were, because I don’t treat luck lightly. I think luck is a very particular energy that accompanies one. And in that sense, yes, of course, we were blessed, and that was another sign that the project was on the right track. And we really treasure it. We respect it. We understand that it’s a blessing and we’re trying to honor it with hard work.

Q: It’s so refreshing to see a movie set in an American city that isn’t Atlanta or Louisiana, or whichever state is currently offering the best tax incentives. In your four-year journey to get the movie made, was there ever a point in which forces were trying to talk you out of shooting in Milwaukee?

A: We stuck to our guns. We stuck to Milwaukee to a fault. Basically, it was inspired by Milwaukee—the
original stories and the place—so we really believed in making it in Milwaukee and only there.
Sometime later, about two-and-a-half years later, after many attempts to make it happen there, we
began to feel rather foolish [KM laughs] because Milwaukee wasn’t that keen on supporting us either
—that is to say there was no funding really available, there were no philanthropists, no funds supporting
cinema, no tax incentives. It was not easy. And people outside of Milwaukee couldn’t wrap their heads round Milwaukee either. Not a lot of people were excited at the thought of Milwaukee. But it is an interesting city in many respects. It’s the backbone of America. It’s a historical American city. It’s a segregated city with a lot of ethnic history that retains its authenticity in 2018, which can’t be said for a lot of cities in America. It has its own character, its own mood. Its seasonal changes. Everything is inspiring!

I believe Alice’s ancestor was the third white man in Milwaukee. I have my grandfather buried there, and one of my family members was born there, so it became an important town in my life. There’s a quiet beauty to it, which is not as obvious as, say, New York, for instance. Also, it just so happened that my family settled there at some point in the ‘90s. My first short film was made there—the one that took me on the road all over the world to make other films.

Would it be possible to make this film somewhere else? Yeah, absolutely. It would be another film. We really believed that by taking this particular film— inspired by my experiences in the city and written for Milwaukee by us together— anywhere else would have betrayed the spirit of the material. But what we have today is nothing short of destiny. We need to be practical, but we also cannot negate the spiritual side of this profession. We respect it a lot. We understand that things like inspiration, the metaphysical tissue of the matter, they’re important! In my opinion, based on my experience in this profession, to deny it, to not acknowledge that, would be foolish.

Acclaimed, Beautiful, Lesbian Vietnamese Film THE THIRD WIFE Opens in L.A. May 24.

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In late 19th century rural Vietnam, fourteen-year-old May is given away in an arranged marriage and becomes the third wife to her older husband. She learns that she can gain status and security if she gives birth to a male child and this becomes a real possibility when she gets pregnant. However, her path is fraught with danger when May develops an attraction for Xuan, the second wife. As May observes the unfolding tragedy of forbidden love and its devastating consequences, she must make a choice: to either carry on in silence and safety, or forge a way towards personal freedom.

Ash Mayfair’s debut feature signals the emergence of a young female writer-director whose aesthetic sensibilities, cinematic language and extraordinary ability to illuminate the past will captivate audiences.

Praise for The Third Wife:

“Aesthetically entrancing…sensitively poetic….” –The Hollywood Reporter

“Ash Mayfair’s supremely atmospheric feature debut explores repressed desires against the resplendent but emotionally suffocating landscape of late-19th century rural Vietnam. Telling the story of a young girl who enters an arranged marriage to a landowner, The Third Wife echoes the ravishing art-house triumphs of Tran Anh Hung, who serves here as an ‘artistic advisor’, while his wife and frequent collaborator Tran Nu Yen Khe plays one of the principal roles. Yet Mayfair acquits herself in such confident fashion that her sensuously elegant drama isn’t at all hindered by the inevitable comparisons.” –Screen Daily

“Debut director Ash Mayfair delivers a gorgeously intimate, evocative, and melancholy story of female subjugation in 19th-century Vietnam. By focusing with unwavering empathy on the interior life of teenage bride May (Nguyen Phuong Tra My), the remarkable The Third Wife feels newborn and ineffably modern. Winner of prizes at both the San Sebastian and Toronto festivals, this is the rare debut that derives its freshness not from inexperience but from a balance between compassion and restraint that most filmmakers take decades to achieve.” –Variety

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The Third Wife is inspired by the history of my family. It is a coming-of-age story, a tale of love and self-discovery in a time when women were rarely given a voice.

The themes of women’s sexuality, the growth from childhood to adulthood and the individual’s struggle within a conservative patriarchal society have always fascinated me. I grew up in Vietnam, a society that held traditions, history, and community to be more valuable than personal independence. The heroine of this story embarks on a journey where her identity must assume many roles, that of a child, a woman, a wife, a lover, and eventually a mother.

The men and women in my script are all drawn from real people, connected to the rural landscape of the country. The story, although fictitious, is a tapestry woven from many true events. Both my great-grandmother and my grand-mother had arranged marriages at a young age. My great-grandmother lived in a polygamous marriage from when she was a teenager until the end of her life. The history of arranged marriages is deep-rooted and I was drawn to the subject not only because of my familial heritage but also because this is unfortunately a practice that still exists in several countries in the world.

The themes of sexuality and sensuality in the film therefore had to be handled delicately. Nevertheless, I did not want to shy away from portraying what would be emotionally truthful. May’s desire for Xuan, coupled with her pregnancy and the shock of living in such a circumstance at a very young age would naturally force her to grow beyond her years. May’s wedding night and the rituals involved stemmed from ancient Vietnamese traditions brought to my attention by the actors themselves during the rehearsal period. I was fortunate to have had a very sensitive and mature actress in the leading role who understood the demanding nature of the part, whose family was also extremely supportive. May’s journey in the film became much richer because my actress was able to give the character her own emotional resonance, bringing her personal understanding and sympathy to the story. Within the socio-political background of the period, I felt that it was important to address the subject matter of love and desire with as much candor as possible. It is not my intention to portray these women as victims. Rather, May is a soul capable of so much more than the roles prescribed to her by society, not unlike the fates
of many women in our present time.

As a child, tales of incredible circumstances involving birth and death, child rearing, living as a concubine and the ensuing consequences, lost love and found comfort, were the wellsprings that nourished my imagination. When we embarked on the journey to make this film five years ago, I found that many people I talked to during my research and preparation have lived through similar experiences or have had family members with nearly identical fates to my characters. During the making of the film, it was important that the cast and crew understood the way life was in a very intimate way. I held long improvisational rehearsal periods when the cast would live and interact in costumes and in characters. The set was designed in a way that was historically exact and each of the separate spaces in the manor would provide a completely immersive experience for the actors. I lived on set for several weeks during the rewrite of the script in order to properly absorb the feeling of the landscape. During rehearsals, I worked with the cast very closely on every aspect of their characters, using historical research, literature, painting and music to inform ourselves of the thought process of people in the period. I was lucky to have grown up in a land enriched by a prominent history of folklore. The oral tradition of Vietnamese art and literature has given me a deep appreciation for the musicality of the language whose poetic sensibility I hope to bring forward in the film.

In terms of aesthetics, the visual choices of The Third Wife are largely informed by the landscape and cultural traditions of northern Vietnam, the birth place of my great grandparents. Nature is a dominant symbolic force closely tied to spirituality and religion. People’s lives and habits were informed by the movement of the sun and the seasons. It was therefore important to portray this using as much natural light as possible. Our Director of Photography went through a lot of experiments using live fire for lighting during night time scenes because I did not want any artificial feeling to permeate the frame. Consequently, The Third Wife has a painterly approach to cinematography. The stillness of most of the composition comes from the desire to make every frame as close as possible to a
watercolor painting.

As an artist, I believe that The Third Wife is a story that needs to be told not just because it is deeply personal to me but also because the themes explored and the lives unfolded carry universal significance. Being separated from a loved one is devastating for men and women of any decade. The struggle between an individual’s desires and the duty owed to one’s family affects people of every class, race and gender. Girls and women everywhere still suffer from a lack of education and professional opportunities, even in modern, developed societies. I became a filmmaker because no other medium has given me as efficient a way to reach out and connect with others. The beauty of the screen for me is not only escapist
but also transformative. This film will have moments that are blunt, uncomfortable, harrowing and painful. However, I hope that it will also be forgiving, generous, humorous, loving and sensual, much like the many lives I have had the privilege to witness. ~ Ash Mayfair

Ash Mayfair was born and grew up in Vietnam. She received an MFA in filmmaking from NYU. Ash’s short films, The Silver Man, Sam, Heart of a Doll, Grasshoppers, Lupo, Walking the Dead, and No Exit have been shown by numerous international film festivals. The Third Wife is her first feature film. The screenplay won the Spike Lee Production Fund 2014 and was on the NYU Purple List 2015 for the best screenplays written by graduates. The Third Wife also won the Grand Prix at Autumn Meeting Lab 2015 in Vietnam and the Best Award for a non-Hong Kong project at the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum 2016. In 2017, the project was also among the 10 films selected to be presented at IFP (Independent Filmmakers Project) in New York.

Keanu Reeves & Winona Ryder’s DESTINATION WEDDING Opens at the Monica Film Center August 31.

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Director’s Statement, Destination Wedding:

I have always loved grumpy people — the less self-edited the better. They seem  fearless; they make you laugh and they make you think. And if you ask enough questions, you find that sometimes there are excellent reasons for their grumpiness. Life, after all, does hand out its injuries.

None of which is to say that grumpiness makes for a good long-term plan. Without  at least a little hope and optimism, life gets pointless in a hurry. And so grumpy people present a question, in real life and, sometimes, in stories: can they heal? Do they still care to try? The struggle of hope versus experience is high-risk and valiant. It can be funny and even joyful. I root for these people. Sometimes, I’m sure I’m one of them.

Take two really grumpy strangers, then — smart ones with very painful pasts, whose idealism has been beaten into a thin paste. Throw them together in such a situation that their grumpiness makes them instant pariahs, as for instance a destination wedding — a weekend-long, unrelenting proclamation of other people’s happiness. They cannot participate in this joy-fest anymore than they can participate in life itself, which is always going on over there somewhere, just out of reach. They hate each other and they hate themselves. They hate the bride, they hate the groom, and they have horrible histories with both. And with others in the wedding party. They have come only because they had to; they were invited only because they had to be. Nobody wants them there, least of all them, and as a result they are seated together at every event in what is, for them, 72-hour marathon of pain. Make them tresspassers in paradise, fish who have been taken out of water and plunged into some other awful, toxic liquid. Stretch their tolerance beyond its limits, watch them thrash about, let them air all their grievances.

And then, see them recognize a spark in each other, and feel one within themselves.What will they do with it, if anything? Embrace it or turn away? Are they just too far gone to try? Is it wiser, and safer, and calmer, and better, to stay hopeless?

Maybe we’re all battlers at our core. Maybe we know that capitulation equals a  kind of death. Maybe the struggle is worth it. Maybe not. There are no easy answers. But, as always, it’s the question that matters.

I’m deeply indebted to Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, who mastered a mountain of material, threw their big hearts and big talents into it, and shot a feature film in nine and a half summer days. And I’m so grateful to Gail Lyon, Elizabeth Dell, Giorgio Scali, Callie Andreadis, William Ross, Matt Maddox and so many other wonderful artists working behind the cameras and behind the scenes. Independent films defy the odds by virtue of their very existence, and no one gets to the theater without wonderful creative partners like them.

Thank you for coming to see Destination Wedding. I hope you enjoy it.

–Victor Levin, Writer-Director, August 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjXQzRWmb_I