FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Justin Monroe, Director of HOLY FRIT

HOLY FRIT is making its East Coast Premiere at Salem Film Fest, after premiering and winning the Audience Award at Slamdance last month. SFF Program Director Jeff Schmidt caught up with Director Justin Monroe to discuss his career as a narrative filmmaker and making his documentary debut.

Jeff Schmidt: This is your first documentary film, but you have been working in narrative film for quite some time. Can you tell us the differences and similarities of working in these different genres?

Justin Monroe: I’m sure there is a much bigger list I could come up with, but what jumps out immediately as the differences and similarities are these:

DIFFERENCES:

1. The magic moments are really real

2. The approach to making a documentary is completely flipped on its head from a narrative.

When I’m working on a narrative project, I’m always trying to capture magic moments that are visceral, emotional, fun, alive… but at their core, I want them to feel authentic. I’m always trying to help the crew and actors get past the "make-believe," and work with me to help the scenes and moments come alive in a very real way… to create a bridge for the audience to truly "buy-in" to the story as a real experience (even if it’s a fantasy).

What I absolutely loved about filming the documentary was, when you captured a magic moment, it really was REAL. You get to watch this dynamic reality unfold before your eyes… it really just happened.

In the other difference I mentioned about the approach being flipped on its head, what I mean by that is the order of getting a documentary made versus a narrative is almost the exact opposite.

Getting started on a narrative film takes a ton of effort up front… You have to work on your script until it’s ready, which can take a long time, or you have to find the perfect script you want to make. Then you have to raise the money to make the film, go through the long casting process, hire a crew, work out a schedule, book the locations… the list goes on and on.

To get started on a doc, all you need is a camera, a microphone, a sturdy will and a true passion for the subject.

However, the post production process on a narrative versus a doc is flipped as well. On a narrative, the edit already has a blueprint. In most cases, you have a good script ready to guide the process, so you know exactly what story you’re telling. You don’t always know the exact story you're telling in a documentary - at least I didn’t. I knew the broad strokes, but I had to really find the movie in the edit. This greatly increased the amount of time I spent on the post production process.

For me, it was much easier to get started on a doc, and much harder to finish. However, one good thing about it being harder in the end was… Since I had spent so much time filming the movie, there was no way I wasn’t going to finish it. All of the blood, sweat, tears and time I had lost on the production process gave me all the motivation I needed to complete the post production process.

SIMILARITIES

The main similarity that comes to mind is this… It doesn't matter if you’re making a doc or a narrative, it all comes down to great characters and great conflict. It’s wonderful that you believe strongly in the story you’re documenting, but if there aren’t interesting characters for a person to connect to, or real conflict for the characters to overcome, the film probably won’t be that enjoyable to watch.

JS: After your experience with HOLY FRIT, do you hope to work on both types of films moving forward?

JM: Yes… I am dying to make another narrative, where I have a little more control over crafting a story at its roots. But I cannot deny that documentary filmmaking got its hooks into me deep… I would absolutely love to make another documentary.

JS: What advice would you give to first time documentary filmmakers?

JM: I know this going to sound cliche, but my advice is… JUST START. Get a camera, get a microphone, and get going. It’s that simple.

Of course, as I said above, you need a good story, with good characters and good conflict. You have to find a story and subject you love enough to stay with for years. But once you have that (and you’re armed with enough crazy), the best thing to do is… JUST START.

Don’t get caught up on all the complicated reasons for why you can’t get started… JUST GO FOR IT.

HOLY FRIT streams as part of Salem Film Fest from Friday, March 19 - Sunday, March 28. Tickets to view the film can be purchased here.

BLOG BITE: Gwanjo Jeong, Director of NOCTURNE

Seong-ho is autistic and a gifted musician. His mother raised Seong-ho and his younger brother Geon-gi on her own, pushing both to study music but she seemingly devotes most of her time into furthering Seong-ho’s career, leaving Geon-gi feeling neglected. She hopes that the riches and fame that come with an international career will provide for Seong-ho after her death and that Geon-gi will take care of him.

SFF Blog Contributor Connor Ryan caught up with NOCTURNE Director Gwanjo Jeong ahead of the film's US Premiere at Salem Film Fest.

Connor Ryan: NOCTURNE is such an intimate portrayal. How do you get your subjects comfortable with the idea that the camera will be so close so often? To ask it another way: do you tell your subjects how they'll be filmed?

Gwanjo Jeong: My goal as a documentary filmmaker is to reveal the truth in this world. It is tough work to show the life of other people... Every protagonist in the film wants to show themselves as a "good" person rather than how things are in reality. But, for documentary filmmakers, that's the worst situation. To avoid that situation, the only thing I can do is to make the characters feel at ease. My shooting strategy is 'to live with them'. While this movie is a record of them, it is also a record of the director's life. There was no need to tell them how they would be filmed. They could imagine the final cut to see the way the director treats them, it's enough.

CR: How much of the vision for your film do you share with them ahead of time?

GJ: I always told them this story would be a hopeful one, as to say, a happy ending. They didn't believe it, but I really wanted it to be. It took ten years for it to come true.

NOCTURNE streams as part of Salem Film Fest from Friday, March 19 - Sunday, March 28. Tickets to view the film can be purchased here.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Lisa Molomot, Co-Director of MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY

Salem Film Fest Selection Committee Member Kereth Cowe-Spigai caught up with Co-Director of MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY Lisa Molomot prior to the film's Massachusetts Premiere at Salem Film Fest. The film explores Brooks County, Texas an inhospitable place stuck between the jurisdiction of border agents, law enforcement, and cartels where thousands of immigrants have gone missing or died over the past decade. When two families arrive looking for loved ones, they find a mystery that deepens at every turn. The film is a potent reminder that the deaths of undocumented immigrants are more than a statistic—each represents a living human being, loved by their family, now lost.

Kereth Cowe-Spigai: Filmmaking generally involves periods of travel and being away from home. When you're on the road shooting, what do you miss most about home? Conversely, when you are at home, what do you miss most about being on the road shooting?

Lisa Molomot: When Jeff Bemiss (Co-Director) and I were in Texas filming MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY, we were able to fully focus on the film without the distractions of our families and other work. We both teach filmmaking. I particularly credit our long drives in Texas from place to place with helping us generate ideas for the film. Texas is a big state! I miss this kind of focus when I am not filming. And when I’m filming, I miss the comforts of home and especially food. South Texas is a food desert with a few exceptions.

KC-S: Think back to when you embarked on your first film project. If you could give your past self one piece of advice about filmmaking, what would it be?

LM: The editing process can be rough, but hang in there! And finish the film. I of course did finish my first film, but only after a mentor encouraged me to after shelving it for a few years. I am really proud of that film (THE HILL) and learned so much making it.

KC-S: Related to MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY, one of the things I admired so much about your film is that your film maintained objectivity and never told the audience what to think. I imagine it can be difficult to walk that line when you're filming a situation that generates a lot of emotion and outrage. Was this something you struggled with at all, or did you find it easy to let the facts speak for themselves?

LM: I think this balance came into play more in the editing. During the editing, we were living in such a divisive world, and I was so tired of this; in some ways, this made it easier to stay more objective and focus on the humanity of the situation and not place blame. What is happening in Brooks County is complicated, and we learned this from the 15 filming trips we took there. And that complexity also stayed with me in the editing process.

KC-S: Optional and totally fluff question: A fun way to get to know a person is to eat their favorite food. What's yours? Share a recipe if you feel so inclined!

LM: I’m not sure what my favorite food is. I love it all. But I do have to share that one time when I was in South Texas filming, I tried the quail which is a local specialty. I do not recommend this to anyone!

MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY streams as part of Salem Film Fest from Friday, March 19 - Sunday, March 28. Tickets to view the film can be purchased here.

FILMMAKERS SPOTLIGHT: Morgan Schmidt-Feng and Dennis Mohr of ANTON:CIRCLING HOME

Morgan Schmidt-Feng and Dennis Mohr, along with their Co-Director Katy Swailes are presenting the US Premiere at Salem Film Fest of ANTON: CIRCLING HOME, an intimate portrait of artist Anton van Dalen.

Schmidt-Feng (ON HER OWN) and Mohr (MUGSHOT) are filmmakers who both screened at SFF 2015, but their friendship extends back almost two decades. SFF Program Director Jeff Schmidt caught up with the filmmakers to talk about their friendship and filmmaking collaboration.

Jeff Schmidt: Dennis and Morgan, I was thinking we could focus first on your relationship prior to SFF 2015, how you first met back in the 2000's and then how you both ended up at SFF 2015 and became reacquainted and subsequently collaborated on THE RAVENITE and ANTON. Tell us a little bit about your filmmaking careers and how you met one another?

Morgan Schmidt-Feng: My first memory of the filmmaking process was when I was about 6 years old running around Palmer’s Motion Picture Lab in San Francisco on the weekends, while my dad (Filmmaker, Rick Schmidt) would edit and review footage from his recent low-budget feature film project, SHOW BOAT THE REMAKE 1988. In 1989 I collaborated with my father Rick Schmidt on a fictional feature called MORGAN'S CAKE. My dad convinced me to star in it even though I had never acted before. MORGAN'S CAKE had its premiere at Sundance and went on to a solid festival run, and also ran on TLC. After that early introduction to filmmaking I was hooked and enrolled in film school at CCAC in Oakland, California. After I graduated I worked on a dozen or more low budget features & docs. Lucas Film hired me as their documentary cinematographer, which is where Dennis Mohr and I first met. We stayed in touch over the years but it wasn't until 2015 at Salem that we really reconnected.

Dennis Mohr: I began making Super 8 films in grade school and continued throughout high school and college. I was always interested in comedy. After graduating from film school in 1991, I became interested in documentaries, especially subject matter focused on iconoclastic characters. My first documentary, REFLECTIONS ON A THOUGHT-O-GRAPHIC MIND told the story of a down-and-out, hard-living, ex-bellhop who claimed to be able to project his mind onto photographic film. It was the perfect combination of “truth” and tragicomedy - themes I’m once again exploring in my new films, THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE BOY JONES about Queen Victoria’s stalker and SPEAK! the history of talking dogs in Germany, 1910-1945.

I first met Morgan in 2003, at Lucasfilm, when I was invited to interview George Lucas for my documentary, REMEMBERING ARTHUR about a forgotten but influential Canadian filmmaker named Arthur Lipsett. As a young film student, George Lucas was enamoured with Lipsett’s experimental films from the 1960s. Morgan helped me with the interview and we hit it off immediately. As young independent filmmakers ourselves, Morgan and I shared the same interest in experimental arts films. We stayed in touch over the years and met again at SFF in 2015.

JS: Can you talk about your experience reconnecting at Salem Film Fest?

MS-F: We were totally surprised to see each other since we didn’t realize each of us had films selected for Salem Film Fest. SFF was the first festival following the world premiere of ON HER OWN at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival. I really enjoyed the hospitality extended to us at SFF because it allowed me to relax enough to begin to consider starting something new in the midst of the festival run for ON HER OWN.

DM: In 2015, I walked into a screening at SFF and turned around to see Morgan in the audience. I had no idea he was going to be there, so it was exciting to meet up again and experience the festival together. One coffee led to another, and we agreed to collaborate on an idea I was developing about the mafia hangout, the Ravenite social club in NYC. I remember Morgan saying that the idea sounded familiar. Funny enough, after the film was completed in 2018, Morgan discovered some notes in his Lucasfilm archive about a pitch I made to him about THE RAVENITE. Both of us had forgotten that I had approached him about the idea some years before when we first met in 2003. It was in NYC in 2018, while filming our next collaboration, ANTON: CIRCLING HOME, that he showed me the notes.

JS: My understanding is that after the festival, you actually began working together again - can you talk about that?

MS-F: In 2015 at Salem Film Fest we hatched a plan to work together on THE RAVENITE, which was a social clubfor mobsters in New York and while we were shooting that we met the subject of our latest project together, ANTON: CIRCLING HOME a doc about

NYC East Village artist, Anton van Dalen. We actually shot THE RAVENITE interviews with Jim Jarmusch and Luc Sante in Anton's art studio.

DM: While working together on THE RAVENITE, we filmed an interview with Anton. We soon realized that Anton’s story would make a wonderful documentary on its own, so we decided to pursue that project as our next collaboration. We enlisted the help of our friends, producer Katy Swailes and editor Will Nold, who had both worked with us on THE RAVENITE, and together we all decided to “get the band back together”, so to speak. And, here we are at SFF 2021 with ANTON: CIRCLING HOME. You might say that as filmmakers, we circled back home to SFF 2021.

JS: While we're disappointed that we can't physically host you in Salem this year, we're glad to rekindle our relationship by showing ANTON virtually, can you talk about why the relationship between festivals and filmmakers is so important?

MS-F: Festivals help filmmakers connect to other filmmakers and their audience which is an invaluable means to understand how our work is perceived and what resonates for them. It's very satisfying to know how our work impacts others and can inspire us to keep working on new projects.

DM: SFF is one of the best film festivals I’ve attended. The programmers, audience and filmmakers are some of the most dedicated, appreciative and creative people I’ve met. The environment is a wonderful meeting place for like-minded independent filmmakers to get together and discuss future projects. It’s an inspiring scene and I look forward to the day we can all return in person. In the meantime, the online festival is impressive and I look forward to immersing myself in all it has to offer. Thank you for including us in 2021!

ANTON: CIRCLING HOME streams as part of Salem Film Fest from Friday, March 19 - Sunday, March 28. Tickets to view the film can be purchased here.

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Nick Brandestini, Director of SAPELO

Jeff Schmidt: This is the third time you've screened with us at Salem Film Fest, can you talk about your journey as a filmmaker from DARWIN to CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC to SAPELO?

Nick Brandestini: First of all, thank you for having me back! DARWIN was my first feature-length film. I had a very good experience making it. Before that, I had only made a few short films. It was an honor for me to receive an invitation to screen the film at your festival back then. I could sense that the Salem Film Fest was a special one early one, it seemed really classy and exclusive.

Nick Brandestini at Salem Film Fest in 2012

After DARWIN was well received by the community itself and the general public, I felt encouraged to continue on the same path, doing portraits of communities with interesting people and stories. And visiting places that are lesser known. So that’s how CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC and SAPELO came about, too. I like getting to know people through my filmmaking that have a different background from mine, and I prefer to do long-term projects that take about four years each to make. Taylor Segrest (writer) and Michael Brook (music) were my collaborators on all three projects, which has been a great experience too.

Nick Brandestini filming during CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC

JS: As a Swiss filmmaker, can you talk about filming in less traveled areas of the US - how did you find these places? What is your fascination with filming in America?

NB: DARWIN takes place in the Death Valley area in California. I have always been a big fan of the desert and amazing looking landscapes in general. I was also fascinated by the people’s way of life there, living in such a remote and very hot place. With the latest film, I’ve kind of created a trilogy, featuring the desert, the Arctic, and now the South. I enjoy traveling and exploring the US. One reason must be the vastness of nature, which we don’t have so much of here in Switzerland where everything is on a way smaller scale. Still, my next project could also take place in Europe. I don’t know where or what the topic will be, though.

JS: It has been a challenging time for everyone during the pandemic, what has been your experience as a filmmaker?

NB: Luckily, I had completely finished the filming of SAPELO in Georgia before the pandemic started. If I hadn’t, there would have been a huge gap in the process and I could not have finished the film. We are still not able to travel to the US and many other places. The post-production was not affected at all. The first festival we showed SAPELO at, Visions du Réel in Switzerland, had to restructure from being held in-person to being held online just a few weeks before it started. From then on, all following festivals took place virtually as well. It was of course a disappointment not to watch the film with a live audience and not to meet other filmmakers, which is usually one of the most amazing parts of the whole process. The Zoom Q&A’s are always a little awkward for me. But I noticed that people who typically do not attend film festivals were able to easily watch the films at home, which is nice. Still, I created SAPELO with its, hopefully, cinematic images and immersive sounds and music for the big screen. But I cannot really complain as other people were much more affected by the pandemic.

CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC at the Peabody Essex Museum

JS: We've enjoyed hosting you in Salem during past festivals and are disappointed that we can't do so again this year. Can you share some Salem Film Fest memories from over the years?

NB: I remember how magnificent the screening at the Peabody Essex Museum was. The audience seemed particularly smart and sophisticated. We had a lot of long and valuable conversations after the screening. And I liked exploring Salem with your team and the other visiting filmmakers. Eating, drinking, talking, watching movies – it was all a lot of fun! It was also really nice that a prominent voice in US television, a producer at the legendary show Frontline, came to watch my film. It is cool how your festival attracts people from the industry. Being invited to give a talk and presentation at the Phoenix School was great too. And of course, I also enjoyed the whole “witch” vibe of your town. I look forward to returning in the future, even without a film.

SAPELO streams as part of Salem Film Fest from Friday, March 19 - Sunday, March 28. Tickets to view the film can be purchased here.