In Production

Epstein and Friedman bring "Howl" to the screen, while a South Bay director goes Russian

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman would tell you the most nerve-wracking part of the filmmaking process takes place far from the set or the preview room, well out of range of agents and cameras and audiences and critics. That would be the daunting task of lining up the financing.

"Every stage is hair-raising," Friedman says with a wry chuckle. "But this is the particular roller-coaster we’re on at the moment."

The Oscar-winning duo is moving down the road with Howl, an unflinching drama that revisits Allen Ginsberg’s seminal mid-‘50s poem and subsequent obscenity trial. "Howl," of course, is the epic take-no-prisoners verse that begins, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked." Ginsberg first performed it in San Francisco, it’s worth remembering.

topics: actors, art film, awards, bay area, documentary, film festivals, funding, independent film

Found

Global Film Initiative: Funding the bigger picture

Cinephiles and cineplexers alike, hungry for something new, could do worse than The Legend of the Holy Net Potato. The forthcoming first feature by young Kerala-based filmmaker Vipin Vijay (winner in 2007 of Rotterdam’s prestigious Tiger Award for his Malayalam documentary, Video Game) concerns a cyborg versed in black magic with a sideline as a computer hacker. Mixing an epic sensibility with a shrewd grasp of the man-machine age, the script blends local storytelling traditions, autobiography, the occult and Internet piracy into an idiosyncratic journey of self-discovery that promises to be as polymorphously postmodern as it is inherently particular. Indeed, despite the global-village tint cast by the computer screen, it is its cultural rootedness and local flavor that make Potato anything but everyday cinematic fare—and manna from heaven to an outfit like the Global Film Initiative.

Vijay’s difficult-to-categorize offering was just one of ten full-length feature film projects awarded completion funds this spring as part of Global Film Initiative’s twice-annual granting cycle, which targets filmmakers from countries in the developing world.

topics: art film, bay area, documentary film, funding, international film