11-9-07
Obama Doc Premieres on DVD
Senator Obama Goes to Africa, the feature documentary by Bob Hercules and Keith Walker of Media Process Group, comes out on DVD this month. Preorders begin Nov. 10 with a ship date of Nov. 20. First Run Features officially releases the DVD Dec. 11.
The documentary began when Walker traveled with Obama and Oprah Winfrey to Africa to shoot a special episode of “Oprah.” Senator Obama follows the presidential hopeful to the Robinson Island prison in South Africa where Nelson Mandela was held for 21 years, to a Darfur refugee camp in Chad, and finally to his father’s ancestral home of Kisumu, Kenya. Obama narrates the film, offering his personal perspective as well as his views on the significance of Africa in U.S. foreign policy.
First Run Features released Hercules’ previous, Slamdance-award-winning feature documentary Forgiving Dr. Mengele, which he produced with Cheri Pugh, in a limited theatrical run and on DVD last year.
See www.firstrunfeatures.com/barackobamavd.html.
Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home, the new documentary produced by Yvonne Welbon, is being released through a continent-wide series of screening parties at homes, schools, and other locales the week of Nov. 19.
Anyone interested in hosting a screening party can sign up at www.garbagerevolution.com/host.html.
Garbage follows a Toronto family and the environmental impact of their trash output for three months. Welbon produced with director Andrew Nisker, executive producer and environmental lawyer Navin Khanna, Alison Duke, and Len Pearl.
Welbon is director of the documentary film, TV series and forthcoming book Sisters In Cinema, a comprehensive history of African American women feature filmmakers. She’s developing her narrative debut, about the military’s Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy on gay and lesbian service members. See sistersincinema.com.
Reeling: Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival features a screening of Columbia College alum Catherine Crouch’s The Gendercator, and a panel discussion about the controversy that has greeted the film’s exploration of the “dystopian possibilities of the religious right co-opting gender play and forcing us into hetero-normative gender binaries.” It’s free, Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St.
Reeling continues through Nov. 18. Mike Ruiz’ camp fest Starbooty, starring RuPaul, Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. is at Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway (with a Karaoke after-party at Goose Island, 3535 N. Clark St.) The Itty Bitty Titty Committee, a romantic farce about the lesbian anarchist collective Clits In Action, by But I’m A Cheerleader director Jamie Babbitt, runs Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. at Film Row Cinema, Columbia College, 1104 S. Wabash Ave. Itty Bitty premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won best film at the South by Southwest Film Festival last year. Robin Gaston’s buddy noir 2 Minutes Later brings together one of cinema's most unlikely duos—gay men and…gay women!” Nov. 17 at 9 p.m. at Film Row Cinema. Closing night film is Russell P. Marleau’s new wave ’80s-set high school drama The Curiosity of Chance, 7:30 p.m. at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St. See www.reelingfilmfestival.org.
Allan Starski is the Wings Award for Life Achievement recipient at the 19th Annual Polish Film Festival in America, which continues through Nov. 18. Starski was production designer for many of Andrzej Wajda’s films, recently working with Roman Polanski on The Pianist and Oliver Twist. Starski received an Academy Award for his collaboration with Ewa Braun on Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.
The Polish Film Festival in America opened with Hania by Columbia College alum Janusz Kaminsky, who shot numerous Spielberg films including Schindler’s List. PFFA is the largest festival of Polish cinema in the world, attracting 35,000 attendees each year. See pffamerica.com.
Hugh Schulz is the winner of the 2008 IFP/Chicago Production Fund, a grant of $100,000 in in-kind goods and services from mostly local vendors toward the production of a 35mm short. Production Fund chair Ericka Frederick of Kodak said Schulz’ script was “the highest voted by every single rater.”
Schulz’ award was announced at the IFP/Chicago Flyover Zone Film Festival, where Frey Hoffman’s 2007 Production Fund Winner Hollywood Jerome premiered, after being completed just hours earlier. Hoffman adapted Hollywood Jerome with co-star Malik Yusef from Yusef’s spoken word poem, about a South Side teenager with delusions of cinematic gangsterism caught in a police standoff on the North Side.
“The movie is based on a real person, who believed that the only way to be a gangster in Hollywood was to be a gangster in real life,” Yusef said. “That’s the perception of a lot of kids, especially in impoverished areas, that in order to perform the role, you have to live the role.”
Hoffman said that he and Yusef are creating an educational program to bring Hollywood Jerome into schools. They’re also developing a feature-length version through their Salaam Shalom Productions shingle. See Hollywoodjerome.com.
Split Pillow has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. According to executive director Jason Stephens, the grant will be used primarily for post-production expenses on playwright Steven Cone’s feature debut The Christians, and production on the currently shooting Eye of the Sandman, an adaptation of the E.T.A. Hoffman short story, directed by Dennis Belogorsky. MT Cozzola and Jeff McHale. Arian Moayed, Rob Belushi, Krissy Shields and Laurel Schroeder star in The Christians as two Christian hole up in an apartment after the release of a biological agent, expecting a Rapture that fails to arrive. Cone shot last August.
The Driehaus grant comes at a fortuitous time for Split Pillow, as the group just lost funding from its longest-standing funder, the Illinois Arts Council, in the latest round of state budget cuts. See splitpillow.com.
Ed M. Koziarski is in post-production on the feature film. The First Breath of Tengan Rei. E-mail edk@homesickblues.com.