FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Nubar Alexanian, Director of RECIPE FOR DISASTER

An explosive invasion of green crabs is an ecological catastrophe in the making in four neighboring towns on the Massachusetts coast in RECIPE FOR DISASTER directed by Nubar Alexanian.  SFF program director Jeff Schmidt caught up with Alexanian ahead of the short film’s World Premiere as part of Shorts Block D at the National Park Service’s Salem Visitor Center on Sunday, March 31 at 10am.

Jeff Schmidt: You have been working as a documentary filmmaker for over 40 years, what are some of the past films you have worked on that have inspired you to carry on all of these years?

Nubar Alexanian: I’m very fond of the expression:  “It’s not what calls you. It’s what keeps you.” There is no shortage of compelling stories out there waiting & wanting to be told and some of them just grab hold of you and won’t let go. This is what happened with RECIPE FOR DISASTER.  It quickly became a film I had to make because it’s about a catastrophe in the making that is happening in my neighborhood. Also, my daughter and I have been working on a feature length documentary film since 2011 currently called SCARS OF SILENCE: Three Generations From Genocide, about the affects of the Armenian Genocide on our family. This certainly keeps me going…and often keeps me awake at night.CALLING ALL CHEFS is one of my favorite short docs because it's about the importance of the food we eat and the main character, chef Paolo Laboa, was a spectacular subject.  So, for me, inspiration has always come from connection to the subject.

JS: How did you come to learn of the Green Crab?

NA: I’ve lived in the marshes of Cape Ann for a long time as a photographer and avid striped bass fisherman.  So I know these marshes very well. However, in June of 2017 I heard about the explosion of the green crab population and was stunned that I had not heard about it before.  How could this be? How bad was it? Like many documentary filmmakers, producing a film is a way of educating myself about a subject and finishing the film is a way of sharing what I’ve learned.

JS: It seems improbable that a small creature could wreak so much havoc on our habitat, but this really has become a serious problem hasn't it?

NA: In some areas of Maine, green crabs have destroyed 80% of the soft shell clams and decimated more than 1,000 acres of eel grass, which is an important nursery for fin fish.  This hasn’t happened in the marshes around Cape Ann… not yet, although they have destroyed the mussel beds in the Essex River. As the water temperature in the Gulf Of Maine increases (and it’s increasing faster than any other body of water) the green crab population continues to grow.  Adam Smith, the fisherman and crab trapper you see in the film with his son, hauled in 200,000 pounds of crabs in 2017. In 2018 they trapped almost 500,000 pounds in exactly the same place! And there’s another species of green crabs making their way down the East Coast from Nova Scotia that’s far more aggressive than those who live in the Great Marsh right now.

JS: Did you encounter any challenges or surprises during filming?

NA:  The science in this story was quite a challenge at times. This was, in part, because the population of crabs has been increasing so fast, that the sciene was slow to keep up and scientists often disagreed about what was actually happening.  Are the crabs destroying the structure of the marsh, or not? If not, who is making all those tunnels in the Great Marsh that are causing the banks to cave in? Six months ago we did a screening of an earlier version of the film in Gloucester to a packed audience. During the Q&A I thought a huge fight was going to break out in the audience about what is actually happening with the crabs and why. It was very interesting.

JS: What do you hope people will take away from RECIPE FOR DISASTER?  And... do you have any favorite Green Crab recipes you would like to share?

NA: RECIPE FOR DISASTER is a wake up call-- to people and policy makers alike---about the fact that there are billions of crabs in the the Great Marsh. No one knows about this problem! When Senator Bruce Tarr saw the trailer for our film he said:  “OMG, there’s a horror film taking place in my district and I had no idea it was going on!” If people don’t know about the problem, the folks trying to solve it have little access to the resources they need. Everyone agrees on one thing: the crabs aren’t going away.  The only solution is to find ways to keep pressure on them to slow the growth of their population.

I don’t have any green crab recipes (although the She-Crab soup is delicious).  However, if you visit www.greencrab.org/act you can find recipes provided by the Green Crab R&D Project along with their terrific green crab cookbook.

RECIPE FOR DISASTER screens as part of Shorts Block D at the National Park Service’s Salem Visitor Center on Sunday, March 31 at 10am - FREE ADMISSION.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Katrine Philp, Director of FALSE CONFESSIONS

FALSE CONFESSIONS
New England Premiere
CinemaSalem
Sunday, March 31 at 7:30pm

Why do people in the U.S. confess to crimes they didn’t commit? In this eye-opening piece, Defense Attorney Jane Fisher-Byrialsen fights for the rights of victims of a fractured police interrogation system.

Salem Film Fest writer Sarah Wolfe caught up with Director Katrine Philp ahead of the film’s New England Premiere at CinemaSalem on Sunday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Sarah Wolfe: You show us, with chilling clarity,that it’s not just vulnerable people who are pressured into false confessions. It could be any one of us. Did you begin this project believing you’d be immune to this situation?

Katrine Philp: I was sure it couldn't happen to me. Absolutely.

SW: And as a filmmaker from Denmark, what first led you to this story based here in the U.S.?

KP: I had read an article about a Danish-born defense lawyer, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, who was fighting to help people in the U.S. who had been wrongly convicted. The piece was more about her, however, than her specific cases. I knew immediately that she’d be a good subject for a documentary. So the original idea for the film was based on my fascination with Jane as a great human being. I ended up calling her and just two weeks later we started filming in New York City.

SW: Wow, that’s fast! At what point did you realize this project was going to shift from Jane to the broader issue she’s battling — an interrogation system that allows police to lie and manipulate in order to force false confessions?

KP: It wasn’t until I heard about Jane’s cases, and met some of her clients who had falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit. Their personal stories made a strong impression on me. This made me want to study the phenomenon of false confessions, about why it’s such a common problem in the U.S. Why would a person confess to something he or she didn’t do? Violent crimes like sexual assault and murder. I simply couldn't understand it. But now I do. I understand how easy it is to manipulate a human being. Certain techniques are so effective that they can make anyone confess — not only the vulnerable and minors, but anyone. And when the police are also allowed to lie about evidence, it becomes a very dangerous cocktail.

SW: Just as it was for Jane’s client, Malthe Thomsen. These interrogation tactics pushed the Danish student teacher to falsely confess to sexually abusing children at a Manhattan preschool. Had you heard about this case in Denmark before meeting Jane?

KP: Yes, I first learned about Malthe’s case in the Danish press. It was major news in my country and everyone was following the story. Malthe actually died two months ago from a heart attack. He was only 27 years old. It made me so incredibly sad and frustrated. He spent four years under enormous stress and the case destroyed his life. We don’t know why his heart suddenly stopped beating at such a young age. We can only guess.

SW: That’s awful. I’m so sorry to hear that.

KP: All of Jane’s cases covered in the film have made a huge impression on me. Renay Lynch is still in prison for a murder she didn’t commit. She and her family have been through so much and it’s a tragedy that they continue to face this nightmare. She is such an amazing woman and she’s been so patient. But the system keeps her trapped. The Innocence Project in New York City is now assisting Jane with the case. However, there’s a long way to go before Renay can hopefully be free.

SW: Throughout your film, we see the overwhelming amount of work involved to exonerate someone. As Jane notes, ‘you have to do the job of the cops all over again,’ to find new evidence. It appears she has a great ally in Professor Saul Kassin, an expert on false confessions.

KP: I am deeply inspired by Saul. He has so much knowledge and is a very sympathetic person. After my first meeting with him, I knew he’d become a big part of the film. He has contributed so much and has helped me, and now audiences watching this piece, to understand the mechanisms of an interrogation and why people confess to crimes they haven’t committed.

SW: What do you ultimately hope the audience comes away with after seeing FALSE CONFESSIONS?

KP: Everybody thinks, “Sure, but it won’t happen to me.” But it just might one day – to any one of us. It’s crucial to shed light on this issue. It’s simply unacceptable that these abusive interrogation tactics are perfectly legal in the U.S. With a few simple measures – such as forbidding police to lie, videotaping all interrogations, and requiring that there always be additional evidence in order to convict someone, a lot of false confessions could be stamped out. I sincerely hope this film will help ignite a debate toward future change.

Tickets are on sale now for FALSE CONFESSIONS and can be purchased online.

Katrine Philp will be present for a Q&A after the film screening.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Katrina Costello, Director of THE SILVER BRANCH

Irish philosopher, poet, and fifth-generation farmer, Patrick McCormack lives in harmony with the natural world. He becomes a reluctant fighter when the fate of this iconic wilderness is threatened by encroaching development in THE SILVER BRANCH directed by Katrina Costello.  

SFF program director Jeff Schmidt caught up with Costello ahead of the film’s New England Premiere at the Peabody Essex Museum on Sunday, March 31 at 3 p.m.

Jeff Schmidt: What is your background as a filmmaker and what is the origin story for THE SILVER BRANCH? How did you come to meet Patrick McCormack?

Katrina Costello: It is my debut documentary, which I shot, edited and directed. I am self-thought in all disciplines, guided by some wonderful friends.

I grew up farming in the 60s and 70s, a time in Ireland when the pace of life was slow and easy BUT as John Moriarity, Irish philosopher, said, “We were the generation who were educated out of the land” What a shame that was – but even though I qualified in Electronic engineering, my love of nature and culture was always very strong.

I left Ireland in the 1980s to work in trading room computer software...That allowed me the opportunity to do what I love; to go alone… photographing and living in far off reaches, from the mountains of Asia to the basin of the Amazon. I was especially drawn to rural communities, to the people who live close to the soil or the water. I am always compelled by the elders, for their stories, their honesty, acceptance and knowledge of themselves.

My husband and I returned to Ireland to raise our family in 2000. I realised that The Burren was as magnificent a landscape I had ever seen and, walking there with my children, I started filming there in 2011. That was my first time to use a video camera – and it went from there.

The desire to make this film has grown out of my feelings for the wilderness, the moments of magic on the hills and my memories of farming with my father… but equally to evoke our connection back to the earth, to allow ourselves freedom and time to ponder those questions of the soul; our nature and our acceptance of light and darkness in our search… and finally to give our unique Irish landscape and the stories of our lost agrarian culture a place in our modern society.  

I did not know Patrick growing up – but many people had told me he was an extraordinary man, poet, visionary and grounded in the landscape. The first time we met, he opened his door, with a lamb under one arm, a child under another, and two bottles of milk – one for each. I knew he would be the single voice of the creative film I wanted to make.

JS: Can you talk about the process of making such an intimate film?

KC: The funding process took 3 years – they were hard times, with many rejections from broadcasters and distributors - and Weetabix for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Looking back on that now, it was a blessing in disguise. I got to learn my craft, but more than that, I got to know sides of Patrick’s character, which are only revealed through spending time talking and even from experiencing those lows of rejection. As Patricks says, “Often, it is out of those deep wells of darkness and despair that the greatest creativity grows.

JS: Your visuals are quite stunning. What is your approach as a cinematographer working in documentary film?  Do you also work on other types of projects?

KC: Wildlife, rural landscape, and people, in natural light are all I know. My approach is spending time in awe of nature – be there when the first embers break forth and when the stars start to twinkle.

JS: Did you encounter any challenges or surprises during filming?

KC:Money, money, money. Hard to get it, and easy to spend it. I did most of the editing–with the help of Andrew Netley, who finessed it. The biggest problem was the edit suite crashed a lot, due to the different formats that I had within the project, a problem caused by the project growing over 5 years, with different versions and upgrades and incompatibilities.

JS: What do you hope people will take away from THE SILVER BRANCH?

KC: As in Patrick’s poem “To walk the fields a dreamer”–in wonder and awe that there is magic in each moment if you really look at it. And as the myth of The Silver Branch goes – “to Find your place in the world is to let Nature work on you.”

In this age of convenience and rapid development, more and more people live in the city. But, whether we live in a city block or a mountain, the natural world is part of all of us and people do feel that, deeply and instinctively. Sadly, in our modern lives, I often feel we get disconnected from our soul, who we really are, and what we really want, because we have lost our stillness. Anybody who wants to connect with nature and culture and ponders the relationship between man and landscape, between tradition and spirit, between body and soul; and how nature and culture can help us inhabit what is asked of us in our everyday lives.

On the face of it, this documentary is about a farmer, Patrick McCormack, a man who has an extraordinary connection to the land, history and nature around him, and has the courage, humility and words to describe it, in such a way as to move those who have neither knowledge nor appreciation for these things.

There is another and even bigger picture to this —the UN says that realistically, the earth has 60 more good harvests left in it if modern day farming methods continue. Intensive farming is killing the land, which is a large and universal problem that effects everyone. There are many reasons for this but one of them is that many of us think all food comes from Tesco rather than a vegetable patch and that farmers are commercially squeezed using pesticides and over fertilizing which is leading to Biodiversity Oblivion, not to mention climate change. As renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking said, “right now, we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity”.

We need to reverse this if the human race is going to survive.

It’s hard for people to appreciate a thing you have no connection to and no sense that we need to protect it, or that it is a finite resource, which is why THE SILVER BRANCH is an important documentary for these times.

Tickets are on sale now for THE SILVER BRANCH and can be purchased online.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Margo Guernsey, Director of COUNCILWOMAN

COUNCILWOMAN
Massachusetts Premiere
CinemaSalem
Friday, March 29 - 7:00 p.m.

Carmen Castillo, a Dominican immigrant who has cleaned hotel rooms in Providence for 24 years, turns local politics on its head when she wins a third term as City Councilwoman by fighting for low-income workers. She navigates her working-class life and the political world with courage and stamina as she faces two tough contenders, skeptics who question her qualifications and anti-union corporate interests.

April Alario spoke with Director Margo Guernsey ahead of the film's Massachusetts Premiere at CinemaSalem on Friday, March 29, at 7 p.m.

April Alario: You met Carmen and became friends more than a decade ago during your work as an organizer for her union.

Margo Guernsey: Yup.

AA: Carmen’s story, one of a hotel cleaning worker and immigrant who became a City Councilwoman, is compelling in so many ways. But what was it about her story in particular that pushed you to make the choice to follow her and spend so much of your life, for years, recording her journey? How did that collaboration come to be?

MG: Really, it was pretty simple. When I found out that she was running, really when I knew she had won, because we didn’t start filming until after she won - and that was on purpose - but when I knew she had won, I knew that she would keep her job at the hotel, because local political office pays very little. Most people don’t know that, because it feels like politics is elite in our country, but the truth is that local political office pays very little. So, in Providence, that’s $18,000 a year. I knew that from having done a lot of social justice work in Providence. So I knew she’d keep her job at the hotel. I also knew her as a person and knew that she was sort of an inspiring person. I just thought we could learn so much, because we had so few politicians who are working people and then let alone a working woman of color.

AA: So much of this film centers around the question of what democracy reflective of the people is meant to look like. And just as the film explores what a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” might be, even the making of the film leveraged crowdfunding through Kickstarter to help fund the project. On your Kickstarter website, I was struck by the parallel between the project itself and the way the project was made possible in the description of this film as “a grassroots story that needs grassroots support.”

Can you speak about this idea of the shift in our society towards these types of grassroots movements artistically and politically, and how this approach informed both your filmmaking style choices and also the work of Carmen Castillo herself as she served her community?

MG: That’s a good question. The film to me definitely is about democracy and what would democracy look like if the people making the decisions were really of the community. That looks different in different communities across America, but it definitely looks like regular people at the table making public policy decisions. That’s what the film is meant to explore, which is actually why we didn’t start filming until she had won that first election, because it’s meant to sort of be a “politics after the victory.” What is governing? What’s it like? And what does it look like from the perspective of somebody who’s from a community who is generally marginalized in that process?

I think– it kind of goes with that–we’re in an age where the internet has given a lot more grassroots possibilities. I think as a society we’re still figuring out how to use them, and what does that mean, and what are the tools that govern it that would make things fair. But it is definitely what allows for sort of a grassroots approach to fundraising for films.

And I think, in Carmen’s case, it’s honestly not what made her campaign possible. What made her campaign possible was a very traditional–you know, all three of her campaigns had two or three months of knocking on doors every single day in her neighborhood, including her most recent victory which isn’t in the film, but she won again in 2018. And that’s literally she gets off work, and then 3 or 4 or 5 hours of knocking on doors in her neighborhood. That’s a very grassroots campaign in a very traditional way.

But from the film perspective, I think that the internet made it more possible to figure out fundraising for films on a grassroots level.

AA: You chose to make Carmen the narrator of her own story. She shared her perspective in intimate settings in chats with the cameras, and she simply lived her work day from cleaning hotels to organizing and campaigning, spending time with her family and voting at City Council meetings, all strung together in the realistic narrative style of Cinéma vérité.

What informed these narrative style choices for you in terms of how they related to the themes of the film itself?

MG: The film evolved over time, but it always felt like, from when we started filming, it always felt like the footage when we were with Carmen is what really mattered the most. I’ve always felt like this is Carmen’s story. So, it felt like what matters about my making this film, is about her experiencing government. It’s not so much about being on CNN and having three people from three different perspectives having a debate. It’s about what is it like for her as a working class woman to be actually making political decisions... and cleaning hotel rooms the next day. So it just felt like, in order to have that perspective, it needed to be a story that was very much grounded in her point of view and is her, day to day.

AA: Carmen went through so many powerful ups and downs in the course of this film. What were the most emotional moments for you behind the camera, as her friend, in relation to you observing her journey, both positive or negative, or happy or sad?

MG: For me, making a film about somebody who’s a close friend, there were definitely moments when I felt like, “Um, should we be filming?” You know? And I talked to her openly about that. The downers in the film were really the hardest parts personally, also. So, when her marriage was falling apart, that was really hard for her and felt hard for me only in the way it’s hard for you when a friend is having a hard time.

AA: The film also really feels like a piece of historical work. Specifically, the issues of representation in democracy and also corporate interests affecting policy in our political process feel core to many of our current political debates today and going forward in the elections of the next few years.

Where do you see this film fitting in the context of the current social and political movements of our time, and how do you hope the film will be seen in the future as a piece of history?

MG: I believe film is always a collaboration. This is something that a couple of the other folks who worked a lot on the film with me talked about: which is, really, it’s an evergreen story. It’s actually one reason we didn’t put dates in the film until the end, because really what we want people to do is think about representation in democracy when they watch Carmen’s story. If you try to ground yourself in 2011 you’d lose that, because 2011 was when she won her first election. It is very much, I think, an evergreen story in that it really does open questions rather than answer them about what representation is. And so I do hope that it’s useful for future historians.

I do think of it as sort of part of a body of work, of my work, that is often historical in terms of going back in the past as opposed to reporting the present. Um, and I think you had another piece of that question, something about the current political context?

AA: Yeah

MG: When we first started making this film, I always said to people, “You know what would really be an impact goal, like what I would want the film to do, is to get people to start talking about what it would look like to have working people in politics, you know, just sort of what is proportional representation.”

And now, as a country, we’re really far beyond that. It’s not about talking, it’s about having people who are elected. And while we hear more about women and people of color, we do hear about, in fact, their work as waitresses, and we hear about, sort of, what people’s backgrounds are in the national discourse. And so it’s the best time for the film to come out. I think it can be part of those conversations, add something to those conversations, help those conversations be more meaningful and keep them not just for the, you know, memes for social media. But yeah, I think it’s a good time for the film to be out.

AA: As you’ve been touring the country for various film festivals and premieres for COUNCILWOMAN, I can’t help but wonder what reactions you’ve been getting, especially in light of today’s political climate, which in many ways is different from the period of the film, yet in many ways is surprisingly similar. Like you said, it has this evergreen quality. Do you have some stories of interesting or striking reactions that you’ve gotten from people experiencing the film for the first time?

MG: The most surprising thing has been that one audience that really tends to gravitate towards the film is elected officials. And I always thought, what would elected officials want from this film, they’re already in office?! This is about inspiring more people to run! And actually it’s happened time and time again that elected officials really want to see it, with other elected officials. Or an organization that’s training people to run for office is really interested in the support group they have for other elected officials seeing it. So that’s been really interesting for me. And I think, I hope, and I want to believe–and we’ve sort of done enough of those screenings for me to know if this is true–but that it has to do with the fact that it’s a deeper film that raises questions that are actually challenging, that need to be assessed.

AA: As a woman who loves the world of film myself, It’s been such an awesome privilege to chat with a female director, and to see your work highlight the story of a councilwoman, emphasis on the WOMAN part! I also was excited to read about your future upcoming projects...which are also about women and the impact of their work and their voices on public life.

How would you describe your own journey as a woman with an artistic voice to share, in relation to your choice to highlight the voices of other women?

MG: You know, I didn’t set out thinking, “I’m gonna highlight the voices of other women.” I think that it really came up as a union organizer. I’m definitely drawn to stories of people who stand up for themselves being full and living their vocation and also standing up for what’s right, sort of despite what society thinks of what’s right, the odds, despite what’s going on around them - those protagonists who sort of fulfill what they feel they’re here to do despite all of that. Each of the films have come to being in a very different way, yet they all have that sort of underriding theme, and they all are women, surprise, surprise. I mean, it wasn’t by design necessarily, but maybe it makes sense!

AA: After completing this project, and in seeking to represent Carmen’s own voice as she represents the people of her city, what would you say is your biggest takeaway that you learned from COUNCILWOMAN Carmen Castillo after spending so much time with her and seeking to see the world through her eyes?

MG: “Dance and sing when things get hard.” That’s really what I’ve learned from her...The amount of challenges that come her way are far above and beyond your average person. All the way to most of the people who run for local office, they run maybe twice and then people stop running against them, but Carmen always has a really big fight. She’s always up against a lot of challenges. “Sing and dance and play through the challenges,” is kind of what I’ve learned from her.

Tickets are on sale now for COUNCILWOMAN and can be purchased online.

Margo Guernsey will be present for a Q&A after the film screening.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Dan McGuire, Director of BALIAN (THE HEALER)

An Indonesian healer who believes he is possessed by the spirit of a leech and is seemingly able to cure the sick is the focus of director Dan McGuire’s feature documentary BALIAN (THE HEALER).

SFF audiences were first introduced to McGuire at SFF 2016 when he directed the short DUNK TANK CLOWNS. SFF program director Jeff Schmidt caught up with McGuire, ahead of his film’s screening at CinemaSalem on Sunday, March 31 at 5pm.

Jeff Schmidt: Most of the film takes place in Indonesia, how is it that you ended up traveling there and how did you come to meet Mangku Pogog?

Dan McGuire: I first went to Indonesia in 1984. I was 21 years old and I basically dropped out of college and embezzled my tuition. I bought one of those 6-stops-round-the-world plane tickets that cost $1000 back then. So I visited a bunch of countries but there was something about Indonesia that appealed to me. A couple of years later, after graduating from college, I got a grant to study shadow puppetry in Java, so I lived there for a while and learned Indonesian and some Javanese. I got in this routine of living in the USA and making money in the film industry then flying to Indonesia and staying several months until the money ran out. I did this on and off for ten years. But in 1996 I was living in the east village and saw a picture of Mangku Pogog on the cover of "Shaman's Drum" magazine. I read Robin Lim's article and was dumbstruck. I decided that I was going to make a documentary about him.

JS: Pogog is a lively, charismatic figure, but pretty unorthodox in his treatment of the afflicted and a bit of a wild man, did you have any hesitation in entering into a film project with him?

DM: I was afraid of saying something ignorant or dumb or coming off as a boorish western tourist. At the same time, (and it may seem cynical to note this) I knew I could get away with a lot because the Balinese are traditionally very welcoming to guests and deferential to westerners. It did come as a shock later in the shoot when I actually had some fear for my physical safety. I thought at several moments that Pogog might kick me out or kick my ass.

The longer I stayed with Pogog the more intense and fraught the situation became. But at the same time I was very much caught up in Pogog's reality distortion field. He never betrayed any insecurity or fear. He felt that his intentions were pure, the people in the village all believed him, and he felt that the spirit that provided his healing power would protect him. And it did, for over 30 years. I bought into it, to some extent, but there were alway a lot of nagging concerns.

I had a couple of questions going into the project. Was he was a fraud or a miracle worker? If he was a fraud, would I want to expose him? He's such a likable character. If he was a miracle worker, did I want promote him to an international audience, knowing how tourism, like power, corrupts?

Going into it, I wanted to know how he got away with all this outrageous behavior.  Indonesia was a military dictatorship at the time, and you could get arrested for having a copy of Playboy magazine. On top of that, traditional Balinese religious law has all kinds of taboos associated with "dirty" or "subuh" parts of the body - the feet, for example, or the genitals. A Balinese man won't walk under a clothesline because it might mean walking under a pair of woman't underwear! And Balinese culture is extremely coercive. Balinese people who break the traditional religious laws risk brutal ostracism. I wanted to know why Pogog was allowed to break all the rules.

JS: This is a film you've been working on for 20 years, can you talk about the evolution of project? How much of the final film is actually the film you thought you would be making and how much of it changed over the years?

DM: I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I had the idea to make a documentary about Pogog, and I imagined it might find an audience on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic - which turned out to be completely wrong! I was aware of Anthropological films in the academic world as well as the genre of personal documentary, but I hadn't studied it closely. And VICE News-style gonzo video journalism wasn't a thing yet.

I just showed up in Bali, hung out, and pointed my camera at anything that seemed interesting. When I got back to the states, I didn't really have a film. I had footage, and some scenes, but when I strung them together it wasn't a story. It was less than the sum of the parts. So I basically pushed the paint around for years, struggling to find a way to put it together so an audience would have an approximation of the experience of being with Pogog in Bali in 1996.

It was like a code that I couldn't crack. But I kept going back to Bali to get additional footage and try turn this "footage" into a Story. When I went back to Indonesia in 2014 and Pogog's son gave me a video of Pogog's cremation ceremony, I knew I had an ending. I know that sounds a bit callous, but there it is. The arc of the story became tangible, and I jumped back into the project.

I was very fortunate to meet Rachel Clark, who is a great editor and collaborator. She edited a number of great documentaries like FAMILY AFFAIR (SFF 2018 alum Chico Colvard BLACK MEMORABILIA) that tackles provocative material. This film never would have been made without Rachel.

I also took the project to graduate school at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. My first advisor was Nina Davenport, who is a master of the personal documentary. She was the person who forced me to put myself in the film and narrate the story, and she helped me get over that particular set of hurdles. I learned a lot from her. There were a lot of other people on the way who were helpful and supportive, my wife Injil Abu Bakar being number 1.

So the film ended up being very different than I originally intended. But the 30 year old who started the project was a different person than the  52 year old who finished it. That, along with Pogog's rise and fall, is one of the story arcs.

JS: A lot of the film is comprised of footage you shot long ago.  In revisiting the video tapes as you began editing the film with Rachel Clark, were you surprised by any of footage you had filmed, had you forgotten any of the time you had spent filming?

DM: I have a pretty good visual memory. I remember what I shoot, though sometimes the footage it is better or worse (for the purposes of the film) than I remembered. There were a couple of instances where we ran into a block in the edit room. Sometimes I would go back to my logs and transcripts and find a shot or a line of dialogue that solved the problem. There are moments in the footage I would like to forget - like when I asked a dumb or insensitive question.

JS: As you've viewed the footage over the years, has your perception of what you filmed changed with the passage of time?

DM: I look at the footage and sometimes I'm quite pleased with myself. I think "That's a great shot". Other times I want to throttle the cameraman and yell "Why didn't you get other angles?" "Why didn't you hold that shot!". I certainly wish I could go back in time with some prime lenses and a 4k camera! I think this footage was taken at a moment in time just before iphones and instagram and gopros made digital images ubiquitous. I always thought that what Pogog was doing was important, though it took a long time to figure out why, and a longer time to figure out how to articulate my ideas, and even longer to sequence and contextualize the images and communicate these ideas to a general audience.

JS: It's not easy making a film at all, but it can be even more difficult when you must insert yourself into the narrative, as it can be hard to stay objective.  How do you walk the line between making a film for a wide audience, rather than ending up with a really expensive "home movie?"

DM: You need a good, simpatico editor. Someone who puts the audience first. I had cameraman's bias, which means I was in love with my own footage. As an editor, I could rough out scenes, but Rachel had the objectivity, taste and technical skills I lacked. Paradoxically, she sometimes seized on shots that meant nothing to me and say "This is amazing!". In some cases, I was jaded to the material and couldn't see its value. Rachel would explain that a particular shot had to go in because the audience needed it, perhaps as a release, or for pacing purposes, or whatever. It can be long process to emotionally and intellectually disengage from footage you've shot and see it objectively. A story has to unfold with a kind of momentum. If it doesn't move the story forward, cut it. What the cameraman experienced and photographed doesn't matter to an audience.

JS: If you could step back in a time machine and talk to your younger self about your film journey, what would you say?

DM: Value your own work enough to backup your footage and have a good archiving system!Some stories may take longer than you think. Find good collaborators. They are out there somewhere. Get feedback from smart people. Trust your instincts. Don't take no for an answer. Keep shooting. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Tickets are on sale now for BALIAN (THE HEALER) and can be purchased online.

Dan McGuire and Dr. Injil Abu Bakar will be present for a Q&A after the film screening.