RASHAAD ERNESTO GREEN, “GUN HILL ROAD”

By Brandon Harris

Originally posted on Aug 4, 2011 in our Director Interviews section of the website. Gun Hill Road is nominated for Breakthrough Actor.

Rashaad Ernesto Green’s stirring Puerto Rican tranny drama Gun Hill Road concerns a Bronx teenager in the midst of transitioning from Latino to Latina whoseworld is turned upside down by the return of her long absent father. Green gives us a fully developed familial antagonist in Esai Morales’ patriarch, fresh out of Rikers, who is adjusting to civilian life. His masculine self-image (already assailed by sexual assaults while incarcerated) is quickly hindered by the realization that his son dresses in women’s clothing and behaves in an effeminate manner. Green is bravely willing to risk his audience’s affection for his characters at several points in the narrative and doesn’t offer any hope of false redemption. Although it perhaps received less attention than Dee Rees‘ Pariah, a film it strongly resembles in its exploration of an outcast LGBT teenage minority from New York City’s outer boroughs who struggles to find familial acceptance and dabbles in poetry, Green’s feature debut was still acquired at this year’s strong Sundance Film Festival. It is being released by the ambitious new distribution company, Motion Film.

A 2011 NYU Graduate Film School grad, Green had a stunning run of success on the short-film circuit before turning to features. In his HBO Short Film Award-winning Premature, a classically built narrative short about a Bronx teenager who, having found no support for her pregnancy from either her disaffected family and brutal community, resorts to drastic, near-tragic measures to free herself of responsibility, or his 2009 Sundance-approved four-minute short Choices, a one-shot formalist wonder that stays with you well after it’s over, you get a sense that Green is someone who wants to say vital things about responsibility and the nature of modern working-class families on the margins of urban life. Gun Hill Road opens this Friday in New York.

Filmmaker: You worked as an actor for a while; how does that play into your decisions as a filmmaker?

Green… Read the rest

BLACKHOUSE FOUNDATION STRESSES STRATEGY AND COMMUNITY IN THE FESTIVAL PROCESS

By Dan Schoenbrun

Last night at HSBC’s corporate headquarters in New York, The Blackhouse Foundation celebrated the launch of the 2012 film festival season with a networking event and panel discussion focused on festival strategy.  Now in its fifth year, Blackhouse is a non-profit organization set up to support communities of black filmmakers throughout the festival process. The Foundation has had a presence at many of the top North American festivals, including Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, and the LA Film Festival.

Blackhouse exists to help black filmmakers at all stages in their careers, a fact made clear by the event’s attendees. The talent in the room ranged from NYU film students in production on their theses to up-and-coming documentarians like Michael Brown (whose first feature 25 to Life is currently in post production).  Also in attendance were more established filmmakers such as Gun Hill Road director Rashaad Ernesto Green and Precious producer Lisa Cortes (who also serves on Blackhouse’s board.)

A sense of community pervaded over the proceedings. And indeed, the importance of such a community was stressed during the night’s panel discussion. Blackhouse co-founder Carol Ann Shine spoke of the sheer number of filmmakers competing for shelf space in today’s film festival environment. She stressed that filmmakers should align themselves with organizations such as Blackhouse, stating that “having a community behind you, or a village so to speak, really does help.”

Meanwhile panelists Basil Tsiokos of the Sundance Film Festival, Cara Cusumano of the Tribeca Film Festival, and Amy Dotson of IFP discussed what filmmakers can do to make sure that their submissions stand out from the masses. Dotson stressed the importance of a compelling artistic statement, one that captures the passion behind the filmmaking process. “I want to know you as a person,” she explained. “That you’re not in this for a hobby.” Cusumano recommended reaching out to programmers directly, arguing that “people think the process is impenetrable. It isn’t.” She even stated that she appreciates it when filmmakers deliver their submissions to her in person, then stick around to chat with for five minutes. Tsiokos reacted to this statement with bewilderment – … Read the rest

“GUN HILL ROAD” — A HAMMER TO NAIL REVIEW

By Mike Ryan

(Gun Hill Road world premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which is when the original version of this review was first published at Hammer To Nail. It was picked up for distribution by Motion Film Group and opens theatrically in New York City on Friday, August 5, 2011, and Los Angeles on Friday, August 12th. Visit the film’s Facebook page and official website to learn more.)

A late work by the Cuban director Tomas Gutierrez Alea called Strawberry And Chocolate is one of the few films I’ve ever seen to confront the strange relationship of macho straight Latinos and openly gay Latino men. So I was very curious to see how it would be handled in this Sundance Lab debut feature by Rashaad Ernesto Green. Despite the predictable by-the-numbers plotting, Gun Hill Road ultimately is a real joy.

The set-up gets right to the core issue: A macho father, Enrique (Esai Morales) is released from prison, where in the opening scene it is implied that he was a bigger man’s “bitch.” He returns home to the Bronx where he slowly comes to discover that his wife, Angela (Judy Reyes), has a boyfriend and his only son, Michael (Harmony Santana), has a dresser full of panties and bras and no longer likes sports. What a great collection of conflicts, and the basic plot structure handles the dual character perspectives quite well. Gun Hill Road is both a coming-of-age story for the young transgender high school boy, and for the simple man father who was raised in another era.

The script suffers from what I call ‘Lab-itis,’ namely turning points that are overwritten and character dilemmas that are so overstated that their resolution becomes way too predictable and rote. But I was able to not be bothered by the predictable script; not just because plot is generally for me the least interesting aspect of the cinema experience, but because Gun Hill Road has so many other charms.

The Bronx is rarely a borough that we see represented well on screen and here in the hands … Read the rest

OFF PLUS CAMERA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA

Ambitious and generally without a dull moment, the fourth Off Plus Camera International Festival of Independent Cinema unfurled from the 8th through the 17th of this month with little of the inconvenience and national tragedy that marked last year’s affair. Having been interrupted by the volcanic explosion that grounded planes across Europe last April and shortened by the tragic plane crash which killed an entire generation of Polish political and civic leaders, the third edition was a ragtag affair with few guests and an anarchic spirit that few festivals are able to generate. This year the festival was running at full speed, allowing its generally strong programming, immaculate hospitality and eclectic group of attendees to watch and mingle in relative comfort, although the overall vibe was perhaps more pedestrian than the previous event. Still it’s a sprawling event for such a young festival, with two large competitions, programs of Irish, Asian and German cinema, rooftop screenings, art openings and a special section devoted to recent experimental favorites of Sundance programmers Trevor Groth and Mike Plante.

Unfolding in the stunningly gorgeous city of Krakow, the fest opened with Peter Weir‘s The Way Back, the Oscar-nominated director’s first non-studio film since the heyday of the Australian New Wave. Weir, an utterly delightful man, who for such an accomplished director has a genuine modesty about him, was one of several big name attendees to conduct a “Master Class” for surprisingly robust audiences at the festival’s modernist central venue, the Kijow Centrum. Conducted by American film critic Elvis Mitchell, who also moderated feature-length public chats with International Jury head/legendary Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski and the actor/director and “Against the Current” award recipient Tim Roth, the chat with Weir was truly special, allowing the 66-year old director to ruminate on the great breadth of his career, the difficulties of living with films that one knows could have been better and the ways in which neophyte directors slowly become master craftsmen.

Having showcased the best of the international independent scene in its competition the past couple of years, the festival added … Read the rest

IN ROTTERDAM, AMERICAN FILMS THAT COULDN’T EXIST ANYWHERE ELSE

After the rush of sales in Park City this year, it seems the entire American cine-punditry is racing to declare this the beginning of a new golden age in American Independent Film. I sure hope they’re right. One wonders if March’s SXSW Film Festival in Austin will continue the trend and finally push that festival into true market status. Nearly 40 films were acquired in Park City and many more that premiered there will surely be acquired in the weeks and months to come. Yet for some of the most daring new American films, the sales rat race at Sundance isn’t an aspiration. After returning from Rotterdam, where the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam is still unspooling through this weekend, I can say that the health of our non-commercial cinema, that from the children of our incredibly rich American Avant-Garde tradition and one that has long been supported by Rotterdam’s challenging and heady programming, is as strong as it’s been in some time, regardless of it’s non-commodified status.

Several of the leading lights of contemporary American Avant-Garde cinema were in Rotterdam with new work. Of course, it’s impossible to catch them all. This is the type of festival where you may not be aware that Ken Jacobs or Harmony Korine has short work there until you get to the airport and closely study the massive catalogue of over 280 features and 400 shorts. Ben Russell, who was in the Tiger Award feature competition last year with his stunning, 13-shot trans-ethnographic rumination on the path Surinamese captives took to escape their Dutch captors and the bondage of slavery in Let Each One Go Where He May, was back this year with the seventh of his “Trypps” films, a series of shorts which deal with the literal and associative evocations of the word “trip.” His newest entry in the series, a one-shot piece that begins in medium close-up on a brunette, standing on the edge of a cliff, staring into the lens as the camera moves ever so gently up and down, gradually revealing that the movement, which becomes a … Read the rest

“GUN HILL ROAD” | writer-director, Rashaad Ernesto Green

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 24, 5:30 pm -- Library Center Theatre]

The biggest surprise for me was how hard it was to cast the role of Michael. During the months of writing and toiling over every beat, I never imagined that the success of our film would come down to finding a miracle child who would wow audiences the world over. Gun Hill Road is the story of a Latino father who returns home after three years in prison to discover his teenage child Michael exploring sexual identity and an alternative lifestyle in ways he can’t possibly comprehend. Casting the other two leads proved effortless. Esai Morales (La Bamba, NYPD Blue) and Judy Reyes (Scrubs) loved the script and signed on right away. As for the role of Michael, we spent months scouring the streets of New York City on a search that would eventually have a favorable ending, but the process itself was absolutely grueling.

I knew from the start I wanted to cast the role nontraditionally, that is, outside of the normal means of finding talent through an agent or casting director. In order for the film to be successful, I needed to find the genuine article. I sought to bring a level of authenticity to the screen and support it with seasoned professionals on either side so the resulting drama would feel real and earned.

The obstacle came with the search itself. The assumption on my part had been that everyone wants to be in the movies, that it was just a matter of finding the most talented prospects. A harsh lesson awaited me. Not everyone wants to be in the movies: especially not teenagers whose lifestyle lies outside of the mainstream. The idea or the excitement was initially there when we would approach them and mention the project, but when it came down to following up, responding to messages, attending an audition, a callback, etc. (the normal ways of seeking talent), they didn’t show up. I didn’t understand it. And the few that did show lacked the magic necessary to pull off the role. I pulled my hair out … Read the rest

25 NEW FACES

By Filmmaker Staff

The 25 new faces of independent film.