FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Trisha Ziff, Director of WITKIN & WITKIN

Two aging identical twins artists who share a passion for art, but don’t have much else in common is the focus of director Trisha Ziff’s feature documentary WITKIN & WITKIN. Salem Film Fest program director Jeff Schmidt caught up with Ziff ahead of her film’s New England Premiere at CinemaSalem on Saturday, March 30 at 4:30 p.m.

Jeff Schmidt: SFF audiences were first introduced to you when we screened THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH at SFF 2017.  Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your approach to filmmaking?

Trisha Ziff: I come from a background in photography as a community activist and photo curator. THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH was the third film in a series of 4 films I have made tangentially related to photography. WITKIN & WITKIN is the most recent and the final film in the series for now.

JS: How did you first become acquainted with the Witkin brothers and when did you decide to make a film about them?

TZ: I knew Joel-Peter Witkin's work for a very long time, was fascinated by his work, and met him while crossing America in Albuquerque over 20 years ago, but had no idea he had a brother who was a painter. Totally independently I went to an exhibition of Jerome Witkin's work in Los Angeles, and fell in love with a painting which I saved up and bought and both a photograph and painting hung on my walls for years without my knowing they were identical twins. When I discovered this, I thought it would be so interesting to make a film with them both. I visited Jerome in Syracuse while screening THE MEXICAN SUITCASE, and asked if he would be interested and then I flew to Albuquerque and asked Joel and he agreed too. First came the exhibition in Mexico City, an amazing show of both their work; then a book; and then both the book and the exhibition became an integral part of the film.

JS: While the film showcases Jerome's paintings and Joel-Peter's photography and gives viewers a sense of each brother's aesthetic and artistic process, it's also a peek at family dynamics and sibling rivalry. How early on in the filmmaking process did you recognize the film would me more than just an exploration of their art?

TZ: For me it was always more than art. I am not so interested in making art movies. I think art is an expression of life and so, for me, I was far more fascinated by their lives. That is not to diminish their art. I have huge respect for them as artists, of course. That is why I made the film, but their histories, their sister, the women in their lives, seeing them in the autumn of their lives, that for me was what I found the most interesting! And of course how they work and how they related to each other.

JS: What do Jerome and Joel-Peter think about the film?

TZ: I think they both used the word “fair.” They have been amazingly supportive despite the fact the film has some hard truths they say about each other. For me it was important to give them the space to be open and honest but also not get involved, just witness. Watching them see the film for the first time at the Los Cabos Film Festival was for me a bit scary, but they were great!

JS: What motivates you as a filmmaker?

TZ: Good stories, life, discovering stories within stories. WITKIN & WITKIN is about relationships, not art. It’s a film about growing older and reflections on life. It’s not an art film! I think for me to make any film, I fall in love with my characters and they become a part of who I am. Or there is a tension which is another kind of love, but that generosity of my characters, their trust, is I think an extraordinary experience.

JS: What do you hope people will take away from WITKIN & WITKIN?

TZ: A sense of kindness, perhaps, of being understanding of those we are close to? It’s not only identical twins who have tension between them… I think most siblings do… perhaps a moment to reflect on those relationships.

FOCUS ON: DAWNLAND

By Shelley Sackett

DAWNLAND tells the story of the state of Maine's effort to come to terms with a shockingly shameful part of its history, when state welfare workers removed Indian children from their families and placed them in foster care. The film follows the work of the state's Truth And Reconciliation Commission, set up in 2012, which gathered stories from the state's indigenous people.  It premiered at The Cleveland International Film Festival and recently won the 2018 Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Woods Hole Film Festival.

Salem Film Fest Selection Committee member Shelley Sackett had a chance to talk with co-director and cinematographer Ben Pender-Cudlip, ahead of DAWNLAND’S North Shore premiere, which will take place at The Peabody Essex Museum on Friday, September 21 at 7:00pm.

SS: How did you first get involved in filmmaking?

BP-C: In 2009 I was working in computer consulting. My company was a sponsor of a local film festival (IFFBoston), so I used our complimentary passes and saw a ton of nonfiction films. After going to a bunch of Q&As and talking to directors, I decided: I could do this! So I went to work on Monday, gave my two weeks’ notice, and started figuring out how to make films. DAWNLAND is my first documentary feature, and I’m thrilled that it has the chance to have a really robust social impact.

SS: How did you get involved with this project?

BP-C: Co-director Adam Mazo and I had collaborated on other issue-oriented documentary projects. Our friend and colleague Dr. Mishy Lesser—the exceptional learning director for the Upstander Project—heard about the TRC in its formative stages via WBUR. Adam reached out to the TRC and REACH and after 8 months of conversation we were invited to make a film about the process. I joined as co-director and cinematographer, and we ended up spending two years traveling back and forth from our homes in Boston to Maine filming the TRCs work, and gathering the material to tell the story of Indigenous child removal in the United States.

SS: What compelled you to tell this story? What about it ignited a fire in your belly?

BP-C: I didn’t know that Native children were being stolen from their homes by state agents, and I wasn’t aware of this country’s long history of separating Native families. I was shocked and wanted to learn more. I’m a non-Native person, and I feel an obligation to try to end institutional racism in the United States. DAWNLAND allows us to tell a story about a present-day investigation that sheds new light on past wrongs, exposes current injustice and contributes to healing and change.

SS: What do you hope audiences take away from this film?

BP-C: I hope audiences understand that this isn’t just a story about the past. The child welfare crisis in Indian Country is ongoing, especially in places like Minnesota where Native children are 20 times more likely than white children to be in foster care. Genocidal policies have a ripple effect from generation to generation, and whole communities are being damaged. And the same basic impulse is playing out at the southern border under the moniker of “family separation,” predicated on the same belief that families of color are worth less than white families.

SS: What have been some of the audience responses at screenings? Given its special place in the narrative, was the Maine screening different?

BP-C: Before releasing DAWNLAND widely, we held a series of screenings in Wabanaki communities. It was a very emotional experience to watch the film with the same people who had stared down the pain and come forward to share their stories of survival and resilience with the commission. In one community, people sang along to songs in the soundtrack. In another, we had a circle discussion afterwards and somebody chose that moment to share their story for first time. It’s our highest dream that this film will help Wabanaki people heal.

SS: Anything else you'd like to share?

BP-C: We hope DAWNLAND viewers will come to understand that Wabanaki and Native people are still here. We hope teachers will use the film and companion teacher’s guide with students nationwide, and especially in New England where this story is especially relevant. In particular, for teachers on the north shore and greater Boston, we’d love to invite them to participate in the Upstander Academy in Boston in summer 2019 to learn about genocide and human rights with the DAWNLAND team and film participants.

DAWNLAND will screen at the Peabody Essex Museum on Friday, September 21, 2018 at 7pm

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Olga Delane, Director of SIBERIAN LOVE

What does a woman need to be happy and fulfilled? After 20 years of living in Berlin, director Olga Delane journeys back to her roots in a small Siberian village, where she is confronted with traditional views of relationships, life and love.SFF Selection Committee member Shelley Sackett caught up with Delane ahead of SIBERIAN LOVE's New England premiere at Salem Film Fest.

SS: How did you get into filmmaking?

OD: I'm a fashion designer by profession. I worked as a costume assistant after the education in the theater and that was my last job in the team. I was too self-contained, too free and self-determining. These qualities do not bring anything good (unless you want to work alone!). One day, a friend gave me an inspiration — "you come from such interesting country that we do not even know here, look back where you come from, maybe you can work with it?" And so, half a year later I was back in Russia.By then,

I had already lived in Germany for 16 years and really had no relation to my homeland. In Russia, on my first trip, I made a movie with a friend about Krasnokamensk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXewb1bfmIg&lc=UgwGVQZ92eUwNW0GXR94AaABAg

Afterwards, when I learned that the shaft-mining workers got better conditions in the shaft after our visit in this city, I was sure - I continue to make films!

SS: How did you get involved with this project?

OD: After the first trip back to the Motherland, I fell in love with the people, scenery and life there. I really wanted to tell the world what I see and experience. I traveled a lot through the area, met many people and had many conversations. And every time I was asked the same questions: "Why are you still not married? Why do not you still have children?" I found it interesting to develop the theme into a film.

SS: Why did you feel compelled to make this film? What about the story ignited a fire in your belly?

OD: I saw how different we are, my protagonists and me. Two planets, in many views. And both planets open to each other and interested. That was the fire that brought this film to life.

SS: What have been the reactions to the film by audiences?

OD: There are no conflicts in the movie. It honestly tells about honest people. They are pure in their answers, actions. Sometimes, maybe, as pure as the kids. If brother goes to his brother with his fists, then it is also very honest in the film. Most people are grateful after the screening and come to me to say that. But they do not know why they are grateful, and I think that's the purity we see in the film. And, of course, Siberia is exotic. For many people Siberia is a Terra Incognita and many want to experience this country somehow. The film gives this possibility.

SS: What do you hope audiences take away from the film?

OD: Love.

SS: What are you looking forward to having your film screened at SFF?

I'm happy about every opportunity to show the movie. We live in a world full of problems and conflicts, looking for happiness that is already there. If we learn to take life as it comes to us, and say thank you to what we have, then we will feel the happiness in ourselves as well. It's really already there. I learned that from my protagonists. You do not need to have teeth in your mouth and no new iPhone to be able to dancing and to singing and enjoying life.  Maybe the viewer sees it after the screening as well.

SS: Have you screened the film in your village? What was the reaction?

OD: I was there last summer and showed the film at the club. And that was the best screening ever!!! So much more laughter and joy than I experienced with any other viewer of the film. Before, the villagers were the strongest critic for me. And so, I passed the exam!

SS: What is your next project?

OD: In the new project, I return to the topic of ecology, as in my first film. Instead of focusing on the mine workers, I will feature the artists of the place. 

SIBERIAN LOVE screens at CinemaSalem on Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at 6pm

FOCUS ON: THE OTHER SIDE OF EVERYTHING

Documentaries of love are the best kind. They foster critical thought without tearing down their subjects. They are capable of inducing good-humored nose-twitching even as the bickering between family members resumes. They take behemoth abstractions like national identity and show you their blood pulse.

THE OTHER SIDE OF EVERYTHING emerges in slow-motion from a fog. It is gorgeous. It spends considerable time watching the buffing of heirloom silver. It hardly leaves the apartment while setting its sights on a critical moment of globalization and state formation for the people of Serbia, once part of Yugoslavia.

Much like its fog-laden and polished-silver beginning, TOSE’s information amasses slowly over time. Director Mila Turajlic’s storytelling is like a cloud growing in density; watching it is like watching the door handle’s tarnish slowly recede to expose the fresh luster of newly collected details. We hear, through the wall, voices and dish sounds from the neighboring apartment, and thus we infer its layout. Similarly, the viewer is stealing glimpses of a most intimate setting and its people; becoming familiar, but always at a remove.

TOSE is a biopic of Srbijanka Turajlic, the director’s mother, a distinguished professor and central figure of the civic protest group Otpor! that deposed Slobodan Milošević from office in 2000. TOSE shows us that Srbijanka remains active as a public figure, but her catalyzing days, she professes, are mostly behind her. We learn that she believes this task now falls to the present generation of young people, just as it did during the uprising of the 90s.

It takes so much skill, discretion, and awareness to strike the right balance between stylistic allure and storytelling--something the much-lauded TOSE does right from the outset. Director Mila Turajlic beautifully weaves extensive archival footage from the time of the anti-NATO and anti-Milošević protests within and alongside present and past recordings of her mother’s speeches, both public and private. Because of its personal subject matter, the internal-made-external dynamic imbues this patchwork media project with a care particular to intimacy.

Among the most poignant moments is the scene in which Professor Turajlic peers directly into the camera and insists that it is the next generation’s turn to find its voice. This is the axis on which the documentary turns--the exploration of the possibility of a voice, the internal made external. We learn that the partition between the two has always been porous, and that it takes self-discipline of a kind not indexable by a census survey to accept and pursue--with an open mind--the unknowns abiding in front of, let alone behind, the wall.

THE OTHER SIDE OF EVERYTHING screens at CinemaSalem on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 5:45pm

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Mark Hayes, Director of SKID ROW MARATHON

Despite its excursions abroad, SKID ROW MARATHON is rooted to place. It names a neighborhood in its title; this neighborhood becomes a metonymy for rock bottom. There are beautiful aerial shots that follow the gridded street patterns on the runners’ routes. We may leave momentarily or, better yet, for good, but Skid Row remains with us. It’s the site of our low points, but it’s also the substrate of our life recovery.

A formal rectilinearity contrasts well with how the events of addiction play out, particularly how progress is seldom made on a straight vector from point A to point B and beyond. Instead, we are shown the loops, hitches, spasms, and outbursts that go along with addiction. The resolutions of one chapter lead to the hard lessons of the next.

There are many scenes in this documentary dedicated to the act of conferring dignity--on oneself, on a stranger, on a loved one. We learn that different people and situations require different methods of this conductive compassion--some may be more self-inclined, but no one is capable of doing it completely solo. Collaboration becomes a survival strategy.

The New England premiere of SKID ROW MARATHON will take place on Monday, March 26 at 6pm at CinemaSalem.  Mark Hayes responded to some questions ahead of the screening via email with SFF Blog contributor Rebecca DeLucia.

RD: How would you say the experience of directing this documentary changed your notions of dignity and its importance to documentary-making?

MH: We were running with the runners for about six weeks before we started filming; we thought it would be better that they get to know us first. If you’re ever in that situation, it’s not something that you share with ease; you don’t want people invading your privacy. So we tried to be careful to build trust with the runners. First we established that bond, became part of the program.

Now, I became aware of one of the runners’ legal status--that he was on parole and may face time in prison for breaching the conditions of parole, a minor crime he had committed. We’d been running together for a month or so, finally I asked him outright: “Hey, what was your [original] crime?” Honestly, I was expecting him to say robbery, or drug possession, but then he said he was on parole for murder, and I was taken aback, to say the least.

It took me several months to get my head around the fact that this person with whom I had become buddies had committed that crime; taken someone’s life. We still ran together, but I would think of his crime every time we were together. This went on for a while, then about a year later, this guy was arrested in violation of his parole. There was a chance he’d had to serve out his life sentence. And I remember when we found out he was back in jail, I couldn’t sleep. It dawned on me that I cared because I had, over the time it took to make this documentary, started to care about him as a person--and I believed at this point that not only is he better off not going to jail, but that also society would be better off not having to fund the life sentence of this person who had reformed himself. Also that I would be better off because he’s my friend! And I saw that he was doing good things, and he was trying to make amends for what he’d done as a young person. And that’s when I realized I had changed. Over time, I realized the documentary had changed me.

RD: So you’re interested in documentary as catharsis?

MH: Oh, definitely.

RD: Did the group dynamic of this film introduce any formal imperatives or political choices?

MH: [Gabi and I] were thinking there are so many issues… there is a whole confluence of factors that contribute to homelessness in Los Angeles. Working in an area such as Skid Row, you never get used to the reality of these thousands of humans living, sleeping, doing everything in the garbage and on the streets. You never get used to it. It stays with you. And we’re done with the project, but we still go there, to the Midnight Mission, to run and celebrate birthdays. Recently, I went there, needed a shot of a sign, and I had to walk about a block or so by myself with a camera, I was literally stepping over bodies ankle-deep in trash.

The political imperative you’re asking about--it’s that this is clearly out of control, and something must be done. Here is Judge Mitchell, he sees this intractable problem: homelessness in LA. He’s not resolving the entire problem--by the time of this documentary’s release, there were 58,000 people living on the street in Los Angeles--but he sees the same thing that everyone else sees, and he’s doing something unique, constructive, and simple:  starting a running club. And he’s changing the lives of the runners. It’s better to be the small part of the solution to a huge problem, than it is to just sit on your hands. Our hope is that people will watch this documentary and take action in their own communities.

RD: The labor of documentary-making is often emotionally fraught, as you have described, and this is a particularly hard portrait of people coming and going. What are some difficulties of conveying this without being didactic or instructive during points of tension? Did you cry at any point during production?

MH: We did cry a few times, when people relapsed. You thought the person you were running with was doing so much better, and then all of a sudden you wouldn’t see them the next week. When one of the runners disappeared, he was back on the street. We went looking for him. When we found him, he looked completely different. I asked, “What happened?” we had seen him a week before, we had just celebrated his one year of sobriety, and when I asked, he looked right at me, hesitated, and said “I got lonely, and I took a drink.” And I just really felt for him. It is just so simple, why he was throwing it all away. That made me cry. What moved me was the Judge and the connections he made, real connections. And that is part of our message: the difference made can be as simple, and as challenging, as becoming a friend; giving someone a chance, and seeing what they do with it.

Next up on their docket, Mark and Gabi hope to produce a romantic comedy based on their own story: meeting in the GDR, falling in love, and leaving together for the US after the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

SKID ROW MARATHON screens at CinemaSalem on Monday, March 26 at 6pm