The word came to us a little while ago but now we can make it official. They Turned Our Desert Into Fire won the award for Best Feature Human Rights at the Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Our screening is next Friday Oct. 3rd at 8pm at the Egyptian. The awards ceremony is Sunday evening. This will be a good introduction for the film to LA. And a great way for us to say thanks to all of those who helped contribute to the film who live down there.
Hopefully this will also help with our cause to get it on TV. Time will tell.
When filmmakers attending the Global Peace Film Festival in Orlando, Florida find themselves being brutally attacked by the police. Somehow Mark Brecke always finds himself in the middle … unscathed, but smack dab in the middle.
The tale is only beginning here on Orlando Sentinel staffer Roger Moore’s blog.
The bulk of the Lucifer’s Crewcut webiste has been uploaded and ready to tantalize the masses. Right now there is just the one clip with Jello Biafra talking about his run ins with the ‘cut. Soon we’ll get the stickers and shirts turned on. And let’s not forget some great materials from Arj Barker, Robert Hawkins and Doug Benson.
Our first day of shooting is set for Oct. 8th at our new studio. We’re grabbing Maria Bamford while she’s in town at one of the local clubs. We can shoot out the day with the other shots of the four guys together as they will all be here in SF.
Mark called to say that he’s been having an amazing time at the Global Peace Film Festival in Orlando, Florida. He was on a panel today (not sure about what) and took in a few films (again, title unknown). But he spent a good amount of time in the presence of Kelly DeVine, one of the programers of the festival and a buyer for Re:Frame. I’m hoping a beautiful friendship emerges and we see some movement of the film into the hands of everyone who’s ever wanted one.
Our screenings are 7:30 pm Friday at Rollins College and 8:30 pm Saturday at the Avalon Island Theater. So far there has been decent buzz … hopefully that will equal a lot of butts in seats.
Mark Brecke (director of THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE) and I were interviewed last night on KPFK along with Chris Riedesel from Artivists to promote the upcoming film festival. It was a great interview that touched on the intricacies of the conflict, and the need for a venue like Artivists to be able to get our message out. We were on for about a half and hour and crammed in a lot of information. Mark and I have had the benefit of working this type of situation before … especially at the Sarasota Film Festival.
Our film will be playing at the Egyptian on Friday, October 3rd at 8pm. Mark and I are driving down the day before to settle in and play LA for a little while. We plan to catch a couple of the other films playing and mingle with our fellow filmmakers. When we bounce back to SF I’ll be going straight to another shooting day for Lucifer’s Crewcut.
I snagged the interview off the KPFK website. I’ll post it up after I clean out the front of the show.
Two years ago I went to BendFilm with our short film FILTER where it (and I) was very well received. During the festival when people ask “what are you working on?” I had told them of this documentary film we were developing into a feature. The journey was a bit longer than I had hoped, but that film THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE has been accepted into this year’s BendFilm. I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to make it up there again, but I’m insisting Mark goes and has a great time. They had a lot of nice parties and fun packed into a short three days. And the hospitality of the festival staff and attendees was just lovely.
(Side note … I did have a local who was cocked out of his mind try and start some shit one night by slinging racial slurs at me. Nonchalantly, I told him I came from a mixed neighborhood and he’d have to try a little harder than calling me ‘cracker.’ He wasn’t quite sure what to do with someone who didn’t fluster so easily and had to process it … meanwhile I moseyed on down the street.)
FILTER had two scheduled screenings and I actually got three additional screenings by a number of different factors. The last happened while I was getting on the plane and someone said they played it right before the closing film (to much applause). One of the judges confided in me that I drew quite the split at the table. But a title that gets ‘Hell Yes!’ and ‘Hell No!’ is quickly tossed in favor of another title that everyone is mostly cool with.
I hope that THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE gets a good showing. The Executive Director Sandy Henderson finished watching the DVD and invited us immediately. That’s the same experience with Leon Cakoff from São Paulo, titles roll and email shoots out … hopefully we’ll leave an impression that lasts. Either way, I’m sure they’ll love Mark.
I hooked up with the Dandy Dwarves the other day for a spec shoot for an energy drink. Great bunch of cats and a well organized team. We were shooting on the Red with a simple concept in mind. You’ll get a good idea from the snaps below, but it’s going to take a little work in post to complete their transformation machine. We shot deep into the corner of Vic Ferrer’s Producer’s Loft studio to get the total fall off they were after. I can’t wait to see the final and see some of the nice details that we captured.
