High Art (1998) | filmmakers Q&A

Good evening. Welcome to the Billy Wilder Theater, home of the UCLA Film and Television Archives public programs. I'm May Home Hazong. You can call me May. I am the archives director, and it is a pleasure to welcome you to the Restoration World premiere of Lisa Choladeno's High [Applause] Art. Preservation can take a village, involving detective work, advocacy, and collaboration that transcends any single individual or archive. The process requires meticulous inspection, exacting technical work, urgent calls to labs and filmmakers, partnerships with distributors and families to locate sometimes near lost elements. Our journey tonight began with a phone call from Marcus who of Strand Releasing who emphatically declared to me, "We need to restore high art." Having Where is Marcus? He's way back. What? You're way back there. Okay. Having known Marcus for near for over two decades now, I think we uh figured out I understood when he said we, he meant we we. And he also meant we because strap in, we're going for a ride, right? Um we were I think we had this phone call on a rainy day maybe nine months or 10 months ago. Restoration sometimes take years. This was uh at a different kind of pace. Uh for a film made over 25 years ago, high art, a gorgeous and groundbreaking career film was challenging to access. Marcus' call led to a flurry of emails and meetings mirroring the collaborative spirit of independent filmm. This team effort secured funding from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Antidote Films, Frameline Strain Releasing, Sundance Institute, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Restoration work began earlier this year. Roundabout Entertainment scanned the original picture negative in 4K, used digital restoration software to remove dirt and wear, and then with final approval with the filmmaker Lisa Choladeno and producer Jeffrey Kusama Hinte, the picture was color corrected to match the originally intended look of the film. The sound was restored from the original ele edited elements by Red Hook Post. restoration sessions were, you know, where the UCLA film and television archives, uh, Jillian Borders and Academy Film Archives, uh, Cassie Blake were there as part of the process, and Marcus and Jeffrey were leading the charge. I want to thank all of those already mentioned as well as the archives motion picture curator Todd Winer, the academyy's executive vice president of collection preservation Matt Severson, the Academy Film Archives director Mike Pogellski, Framelines executive director Algra Madson, Sundanc's John Nine, and Roundabout Entertainment's Vincent Perzi and Greg Garvin. I said it took a village, so here we are. This free screening was made possible by an anonymous donor with the Hammer Museum as our ongoing partner along with support from the Robert Gore Riiffken Foundation Queer Screening Endowment and Andrew J. King Jr. Foundation. Thank you to Max Riiffken Baron and Frederick Green who are here um tonight who joined us. Thanks for their support. [Applause] Um, I got an email uh I think a few months ago when we were doing a queer rapsity series and I was telling somebody this earlier and they wrote and they said, "Why are you obsessed with homosexuality?" Um, um, I think Max and Frederick are as well as many of us and uh, they make all of that happen as well as you here tonight. We're grateful to also our queer community partners, Magic Hour, Queer Film Los Angeles, Sappic LA, and the UCLA LGBTQ Campus Resource Center. Queer Film started here 40 years ago at at UCLA. Uh over 40 years ago, um Outfest was founded here. There were a lot of folks involved in that. Um including Bob Rosen who just passed away. um the work of preserving and championing and talking about independent cinema and career cinema. Um I stand on those uh shoulders of Bob and really just excited that you all made it here. So I want to thank the community partners, the staff here, theater manager Lauren Brown, digital lab staff projectionist Alex Blevens, the Hammer AV team, and the student theater staff. Finally, I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. I know that being here means that you perhaps gave up an evening of baseball, football, or basketball, or all three, plus some sort of light show. I have no idea. Um, it's the World Series of Queer Film here tonight. So, whatever. Um, and uh, you may be sat through some traffic, but you're here to see an incredibly meaningful and beautiful film and its restoration. So, let's give all of those individuals and yourself a round of applause. So, before this screening, you may have enjoyed a remixed score um of High Art by composer Craig Wedrin. If you missed it, you can visit our event page at our website for a link to the score which goes to Soundcloud. It's also bit.ly/highartre. lyhighartre the remix to high art. Um um so please uh check that out. Um and thank you Craig so much for putting that together. Craig will join other guests from the film uh in a Q&A moderated by Kim Utani, director of programming at Sundance. Um and so you should stay after the film for that. Now to introduce the film's director, Lisa Choladenko, we are joined by John Nine, senior programmer and director of strategic initiatives at the Sundance Institute, our partners in tonight's program. Since 1997, the UCLA Film and Television Archive and Sundance have collaborated to conserve independent films and ensuring the safety of countless, countless elements, and we restored 16 films together, including tonight's film. Please join me in welcoming John Nine to the stage. Hi everybody. Thank you for coming. Um I'm going to try to be brief because I'm way more excited to see the restored version of High Art than I am to hear me talking about it. Um but I and actually um it's hard to be brief about this film because it's a film that I have loved ever since seeing it make its world premiere at Sundance in 1998. Um, it is a film I remember walking out of the screening and thinking it's only January and I have already seen the best film that I'll see this year. It is a film that has stayed with me. Um, and had a very lasting effect on me all these years. Before I say something about the film though, I do want to say something about the restored version or the notion of restoration. Um, as May said, we've had a film preservation initiative for many years with UCLA, more than 25. Um, and I've been there for most of that. And in that time I have seen just about every possible bad thing that can happen to an independent film. Um lost negative damaged negative negative stored in closet under bed. Um legal disputes, defunct distributors, films that are stuck in rights oblivion or bankruptcy litigation. Um we're dealing with so many films that have these issues that take a time to work out. um if if we can't even find the negative and it's heartbreaking because these are the films that you know have fueled the independent film movement that has given us so much. So you cannot even take for granted that a film that is only 25 years old is around to screen. Um thankfully this is and in fact we did screen high art at Sundance a few years ago just before the pandemic. It was an HD transfer and I remember saying Marcus must have been there. we need to restore the high art. And um and so I think it's amazing that we're here today to see a restored version. Um you're the first audience to see that. And one of the reasons that that is so cool is because one of the things that is so amazing about this film is its aesthetic. Um it is such it has a spare layered textured intimate aesthetic. Um it has incredible production design. Tammy Riker's beautiful cinematography. Jojo Wilden's still photography, a phenomenal score. Um, there are so many things here that I think, you know, that I'm excited to see brought out in this. For me, um, high art represents everything that was energizing and inspiring and culture shifting about independent film in the 1990s. It was a time where the boldness of new voices was exploding onto the scene. um telling new stories, telling stories authentically um and reflecting onto the screen the people and experiences that were very underrepresented in mainstream cinema. This was a groundbreaking beloved part of the evolving uh story of new queer cinema. And for me, this was just one of the most beautiful intimate love aching love stories that I had seen and was driven by that sense of authenticity by this kind of beautiful sublimated intensity that is that you'll feel throughout the entire film. It is a it's a story about these New York subcultures, about love, about drug addiction, about ambition, about that eternal tug between art and commerce. Um, and this is a filmmaker who deeply understood these characters and their behavior and their complex contradictory emotions and psychologies. And I think that's all part of what makes this, you know, such a rich film. Um, it was also a time when indie film was breaking talent. And here's where you see Roda Mitchell, who had been in, you know, I think one or two small roles. Patty Clarkson, who to this day says that um, she owes her career to high art. Ali Shidi who certainly had a career but saw it redefined by this role. Um it was not easy to make an independent film at that time. It still isn't now. But I do love that we're looking back um at at this time from a time when it still is. There are huge challenges to making independent film. But it's I take heart in the fact that reparatory cinema is thriving all across the country. And so I want to um encourage you all to talk about this. I know that uh Strand is is going to be releasing this um next year in the spring. So, please talk about it and and um hopefully we'll uh celebrate the history of independent film. One of the best things that High Art did is launch a career. Uh Lisa Chaladenko grew up here. Well, not here in this building, but here in the San Fernando Valley. Uh her career started as an assistant editor on John Singleton's Boys in the Hood. She then uh headed to a place where indie film was thriving. in New York uh where she earned her MFA in writing and directing at Columbia University. Very shortly after that went into production on her first feature. Um it was it did it not only premiered at Sundance but it won the Waldo Sar screenwriting award. It was acquired by October Films. It racked up six indie award Indie Spirit Award nominations. Uh and it won several awards for Ali Shidy including best actress from both the LA and New York critics societies. Um, her second feature, Laurel Canyon, premiered in Director's Fortnite at Can at the Can Film Festival. Uh, notably starring PreBatman Christian Bale and Francis McDormund in Leather. That was Lisa's joke. I'm going to give her credit. Uh, her third feature, Kids Are All Right, was released in 2010. It earned four Academy Award nominations, including best picture and original screenplay, and it also won the Golden Globe for best picture. She's worked uh extensively in television as well, directing HBO's limited series uh Olive Kitridge, which won the DJ award and the Emmy award for directing. It is an honor to introduce the director, writer and director of hire, Lisa Chaladeno. [Applause] Oh my god, who's that person? I'm so moved. Thank you, John. Um thank you so much for coming out. I I was gonna say what May said, which is I know it's the first night of the World Series. So I I thank you so much, especially Phil Haye for making the schle because go Dodgers. Um so thank you. I'm I'm moved. Um I want to thank UCLA for hosting a beautiful evening for us and having us here at the Hammer. um as well UCLA and others um the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Sundance and Frameline and others. But um major players in putting this restoration together and making this happen for a re-release. Um, I also want to thank Marcus Hugh for um, everything you've given to this and Jeff Kusama Hinti for coming together with Marcus and really spearheading this restoration re-release project um, and getting this film here tonight. There's a lot of pieces like John said and um, in gratitude for that. Hi Art. Um, it was a labor of love at the time. Now I'd learned tonight that it's over 25 years ago and um you know looking back I'm just kind of astonished uh that we were able to make it. It was just a labor of love and very fortuitous for me. I was still in film school. I wrote a script that I loved and I happened to meet um Jeff Le Kusama Hinty who was Jeff Levy Hinty at the time and we um you know he leaned in and we got to make a movie and uh I'm just grateful for everyone who gave their passion and their energy to it and some of whom are here and you'll meet them after but um lots of talent. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy it uh on the second time. You'll enjoy it again and um we'll come up there and talk about it after. So, thank you for being here tonight. So, thank you for sticking around. Um I want to introduce you uh reintroduce to you uh the writer director of High Art. Please welcome back Lisa Choladeno. We also have um some other of the team here with us. Um I want to bring up editor Amy Dston. [Applause] Also producer Jeffrey Kusama Hinti. Producer Stu Susan Stove, composer Craig [Applause] Wedron, and last but not least, photographer Jojo Wen. [Applause] It's a It's a lot of people on stage. Um uh we'll talk for a little bit and then we'll open it up to the audience in a bit. But um I just want to say congratulations. I mean it is incredible to see this film now and it holds up completely. It is just incredible to see this in this pristine state. Um just as I saw it 25 years ago. Um, if if I mean I think John did such a wonderful introduction of the film and there's just so much of the film that resonates now. I think um I I'm wondering if I may be so bold as to ask all of you sort of what how you're how you feel seeing this film after after so many years. We can start from Jojo. How about Yes. Does this need Can you hear me? Um, I still love this film and I just think there's not one wasted word and not one wasted scene. It's just to me it's pitch perfect. I still love it and it's nice to be able to hear it better with the new sound mix. Yeah. Um, so close and yet so far. so far from that time in our lives and still aesthetically still there in so many ways. I've been I was thinking I right now I'm deep in the middle of um doing music for season 3 of Yellow Jackets and I'm like, "Oh, it's wine glasses and freaky beats and female voice. Nothing has changed." Um well, I guess I'm kind of echoing what everyone said. I'm It's kind of I don't want to sound immodonest, but it is a beautiful film and it's very resonating and um it's definitely held up over time. The humor is hilarious. Um Patty Clarkson always blows me away. It's just it's kind of insane. Um and uh yeah, no, it was great. And and the sound remix was incredible. I mean, Tom, you and Tom did an amazing job on that. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly echo everything you're saying. You know, it's odd for me because I've been working on the post of it. So, I didn't get the chance actually to see it finished because I've seen it so many times over and over again. So, I actually envy people who can see it so for the first time again. Um, but I think for me it's um like the entire film sort of comes into brighter focus and to more present like it's exactly the same film frame by frame by frame but yet the whole thing just feels so much more present and tense and still to this screen I'm still seeing things I've never seen before and I've seen it 50 50 times. I mean, no doubt, maybe I'm just more than 50. Maybe I'm slow. I just catching up, but it just every the subtlety, the expression, of course, in the writing, but just all these elements come together, the rhythms that were created. So, yeah, I just it's a real privilege to have made it and real privilege to have been able to have worked on it again and to bring it back to an audience. Yeah. Yes. Um, I just look at this movie and I'm like, I did that. It's like, we did that. It's like, you know, just we were children at the time. Like children like I was I mean, and I just this is like one of the my favorite things I've ever worked on. And so just to see it like this is incredible. and um and to see it with people 25 years later in a theater like this, it's it's like astounding to me. So, thank you all for coming. It's just you know, it's Yeah. Um I I really echo everything everybody's said. Um our wonderful um decorator is sitting in the audience, so I'm giving a shout out to Karen. Marcus and um [Applause] and Elaine. Is Elaine here? Um I think she left Laney. She was in the movie Lane. See um I Yeah, it was um it's kind of overwhelming to see it again after all this time. And um you know there's a lot I could say about it, but what I will say tonight is I looked at it through the lens of everybody that's here that worked on it and I'm in such gratitude for what everybody brought to it. It felt so handmade to me and crafted and like everybody's sort of singular talent was um put in it and it really was a labor of love and we were young and we were just you know it was hard. It was hard work, but there was a kind of like a passion and a can do. And it's very moving to me to see it all these years later. You know, having been in the in the film business now for a long time, and it's never been that free and that um that much love put into the project. I've never had that experience again. So, I'm so glad we did this. I'm really grateful and I'm so glad other people can enjoy it, you know, see it again. Thank you. Um, I wanted to ask you about the script. You I did not realize that you wrote this while you were still at at Colombia. Um, it is like there's just so much in this in this script and the characters are so distinctive. like these are these are characters that I have remembered you know so vividly all these years. Um I mean can you think back to when you were writing this what like what was like what was the spark? Yeah. What was happening? Um yeah I mean it's a very specific you know thing when you're I am from here and I moved to New York to go to film school and um you know it's like bright lights big city kind of thing and I met a lot of people that lived downtown and it was a certain era of you know sort of heroin chic and those things and we knew people that were living like that and um they were friends and some weren't friends but I kind of felt like Sid you know, it was sort of like, wow, I was just sort of tripping into something that I hadn't been exposed to before. And um so I could really put myself into her shoes in a way. Um and then you know the other story, the more economic story is I kind of rolled the die on myself and said I'll put myself through film school and it was really expensive. So, I worked, you know, really hard to be able to make a film that I could um, you know, write a film that I could get made and start um, start a career. So, I worked really hard on it and for many years and I was kind of just workshopping it for years up at Colombia and and then I met Jeff, I met Susan and I met other people along the way and it was kind of follow the yellow brick road. So, but I do I do I'm a firm believer in like um when you feel like you have something that is worth chiseling away at, like just to keep going and going and going until it it reveals itself. And that was that was this one for me. Um anything that you guys want to add, Susan and Jeff? I would say one thing that this film reflects is we were completely uncorrupted by money because we had none. Yes. And I think that goes to the freedom element. There was literally nobody to tell us what to do and there was no there was no constraint except for Lisa's artistic vision and then the constraint to the money. But then oddly really it's Susan's genius who was really the only person that had any experience in production in the productorial side. I mean, we'll put that to the side. Um, and able to bring together a crew and with a focus and a dedication. And when you look at us, the it really is like looking at a high school photograph. Like, it's unbelievable that we even were threaded the camera and exposed the film correctly and yet then the and yet then made this beautiful piece, you know. Right. Right. I mean, I was struck with what Lisa, the handmadeness, not handmade, but the craftsman, the artisan, that's really strong in there. And it is. It's in every It's not just in every frame, it's in every corner of the frame, the things, how carefully everything was put together. One thing that I've um I mean, just if you talk about production for a minute, how how much more difficult it was to shoot on film. Um, not only in just the cost and making sure that you had enough film to get through the day, but I started thinking about how we had to schedule this film because we had to get Jojo's photographs that would play throughout. So, it kind of forced us to have the sex scene first. And I remember Lisa, you were like, "Do we have to do it this way? Do we have to do it this way?" This is before, you know, you could put your little green corners up on the frames and, you know, throw it in and impose. I was like, "Yeah, we actually have to, but you know what? It's good. It'll it'll be awkward and it and it will be awkward and you know, they would play more naturally." I remember just trying to give you some sort of cell on that. But it was it was a real challenge. I mean, I remember, you know, you're shooting in New York City. It was in August and July. It's not it's not the most comfortable time of the year, but um it was I guess what I'm trying to say there was a lot of passion behind you. Your passion and our passion for your vision got us through it. So I thank you for the opportunity, Lisa. Here here. We live to tell the tale. Yeah, we live to tell. Yes, we're still alive to tell the tale. I speaking of of Jojo's work in in the film, it is such such a plays such a significant role. Um, I'm curious about the the creative collaboration that you and Lisa had as before or and as this film was, you know, being shot. What do we have, Lisa? Um, Lisa and I have known each other a long time. We went to San Francisco State together and I read early drafts of this film and had ideas of the photography and the context and uh we talked about it a lot and um and then um I was also a graduate student at NYU at the same time. So I would come to set when actual production started. I absolutely knew nothing about film production and thought I was like a big photographer diva and would be like what the hell's going on? I want to when do I get to take my picture? Um, but uh I I learned and um so I but I would come into the set and you know have to get these pictures and I don't know what happened with the sex scene what you guys were just talking about but it was awkward. It was awkward to be in the early Yeah, I think everyone knew that but me. But it's fine. Um, but I had to then go take the film to the lab, get it developed, and then I would go use the dark rooms at uh NYU and print all the photos and rush them back to set. It was great. It was so fun. And I was a perfectionist, so I would make like 50 prints per image and show them all like, which one do you like? Yeah. So, um yeah, was just uh everyone was very on board with the photography because it was such a big important part of the characterization and um so and I and I was also had a part-time job working as a photo editor at the time and knew a lot of photographers. So, I brought in other photographers to populate the frame office and uh the frame covers. So, it was all in from the beginning. And Lisa, did you have an idea in your head how you wanted these photo the photos to look? And yeah, I mean there was certain, you know, kind of a style of photography that was going on at the time and, you know, people referenced Nan Golden a lot, but there was a sort of like um, you know, like the Boston school, I guess you could call it, and and there was other people that came up around her that had a similar aesthetic, which was kind of, you know, that very stark let's photograph our friends and let's it's not beautiful, it's like real kind of thing. But it is beautiful because it's, you know, there's something artful and whatever about the way it was done. So Jojo and I talked a lot about that and I was kidding with her earlier and I said, "Remember those conversations?" And you said to me, "Well, I'm not I'm not imitating Nan Golden, so let's figure out something else." So we had a lot of really good conversations and I was grateful that she was um like she was bold enough just to be like, "I got it. I got like the aesthetic. I got the time. I got the world, but we're going to go our own way here. And of course, this is, you know, in the spirit of that, but this isn't that. Um, you know, I'm just I just felt incredibly fortunate that I had a really old dear friend that could pull that weight and we could we could do that together. It felt very do it together like um Craig Shudder to Think was pretty much uh my friends and my favorite band of the '9s. Yay. Thank you. Um so uh it was it was such a thrill to you know see your hear your work in this in this film and it also plays such a like it's it's car a character of its own you know the the moment the the movie begins it's like the the the glass um and uh yeah I I was curious how you how you made that kind of leap to from you know doing the Discord kind of years to this work throughout the 90s for people who don't know I was in a band called Shudder to Think and we started in the DC hardcore scene and then became film composers. So this was I think our second movie. Um is Tracy Mcnite here? Tracy, she thought that she was gonna come, but she's she's the music supervisor on this. And I guess she brought us in. We were film nerds. Um, we were super sick of The Road and of each other and we knew that we wanted to start composing music for film. Um, we did Jesse Parrots's first movie, First Love of Last Rights, the same year. And I think we were probably hanging around Post 391. Were right, which which was Jeff's editing facility. And um, it was really like a little clubhouse for New York indie weirdos. And I don't know if that's how we got involved. I I really don't remember. But we met Lisa um or or no first we got a VHS of a cut of the movie with no music zero which never would happen today. You'll always get a cut with temp m pre-existing temp music throughout. And so we just watch. I mean, it's already such a spare um crystal kind of a si hypnotic silence in this movie. And and while we were watching it, I was just like wine glasses. And um and I went back home and we were literally composing it like on our little keyboards on our lap. We had no idea how to make music for a movie. And and I remember we we were just like it was sort of like Hud sucker proxy where he's like you know for kids and it turns out to be a hula hoop. We're like wine glasses right and then we played it for you and and you were like yeah that's really [ __ ] cool. and and trip hop was obviously happening at the time and it seemed very appropriate those kind of drunken woozy beats for um you know those sort of opiatic beats and and and so it was really like this movie um and this opportunity was um you know was like a little vehicle into our future. It was really great. And you wrote she might be waking up for the for the movie. Nath Nathan Larson, the guitar player in Shudder to Think, wrote it for this. Yeah. Where he just wrote it. I don't even know like what the prompt was, but I remember going over to his apartment. He was like, "I've got this song." And it was like, "Oh my god, dude. It needs to be in this movie." Yeah, it's a great song. I mean, I'll just make one comment about it. Amy and I cut it and then we tried to put music on it and I sort of panicked and I thought, "Oh [ __ ] there's no music that like nothing works. This is like kind of a disaster." We tried so many things and it Yeah. And you know, we didn't So I never thought like, oh, this might be one of those movies where it's kind of just score. I always thought there was going to be, you know, needle drops or whatever they called. And um it just didn't work. So finally this woman Tracy Mcnite who was our music supervisor introduced us to Shudder to Think and um in they came with this sonic scape, this soundsscape and I was like oh my god it was sort of a thank god moment and um yeah that was great. That really just um but but tied it up. I remember when we first met and Lisa had pretty serious doubts. We were still very much in rock mode and it was and we were kind of glammy and had a whole thing and she was like, "Excuse me, what is this?" And then, you know, been pals ever since. Yeah. I thought it was just like this band of really good-looking, you know, hipster guys trying to like hustle me because they wanted to get into the field business. I said, "You know what? We wanted to go. Where's the pudding?" So, we went to Lisa Sheleno. And I was all that, but like we'll just get in here. Um, speaking of Amy and and your your collaboration with Lisa, you you guys, I think, go way back to film school, right? Or to assistant editorhood. Yeah. Wow. Before we worked across the hall from each other on the Fox lot. Wow. Okay. I was like on a movie called Unlawful Entry and you were like, was it Used People or People? Yeah. So we were both um assistant editors. She was a first assistant editor and I was a second or third assistant editor and um we became friends and then shortly thereafter I moved to New York and started film school and um Amy was my editor on these films I made. Yeah. The shorts in film school. And then we went on and um this happened and yeah that she came to New York and we cut it and it was you know it was a flow. So at this point you must have had kind of a shorthand in how you worked or Well this was like you know this was like the feature this was the thing we talked about this was the dream and so it was kind of like yeah I knew how to work with Lisa and it was just like I knew her but like we didn't like we didn't know kind of what we were doing sometimes and it was just like I had worked on enough features as an assistant editor and I had actually cut a couple features maybe before this So, I did have an idea of like what to do, but like when you're working with like like I had read these scripts that Lisa had been writing of this movie for a long time and so like wow here you are and you're actually making it and and it was just I don't know it it all came together but it was I have to say you know when I watch this movie now and I think things have changed a lot in 25 years I don't know who we talked about this with um you know the pace of it, it's languid. I mean, I don't know that like I think in modern cinema there's more of a like, you know, people's attention spans are just different. Um, and so it's also 100 minutes long, so it's not like Yeah. But I think it's it's interesting because of the, you know, the budgetary things like we didn't have a ton of coverage. There wasn't a million ways to cut it and I think it was like considered that way. That's how I shot it because that's what it seemed like on the page and what it felt like when we watched it performed. But, you know, that required a certain pacing. Yeah. And um it's just interesting to see it now 25 years later and think like, oh yeah, that's kind of languid. Would that be a now movie? You know, but the performances just absolutely rivet it. It just you can't stop being want to cut away. Yeah. And that was the thing. And I mean, some of it too, it's like I've been told like, "It's such a beautiful, patiently edited movie." And I was like, "Well, we didn't have a lot of things to cut to all the time." So it's it's like yeah like the actors were amazing and we were thankful for their performances because you know there were a lot of times where we didn't have a lot of coverage and and and that's just indie film making you know um I still draw on those little things once in a while you know it's like well I don't have it but I can figure this out. It's like I have that in my bones. It's it's Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your the the casting of this of this film? I mean, the actors are all, as we have all acknowledged, are incredible. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's it's one of those things again when it's an independent film, you know, it's kind of a little bit rag tag how it comes together. We had another producer on on the movie Dolly Hall and she had a relationship with Carrie Barton who's a who's was a pretty prominent casting director in New York. Lovely guy and he kind of did a freebie for us. He he generously don donated his time and his whatever his castingness and he um he found Roda Mitchell and he showed me Roda Mitchell on a tape and I was really taken with her um face. I just thought she was really compelling and I watched a tape and I was like, "Yeah, I'd buy her and I'd want to watch her. She's great eyes and she's just compelling." And then the then the um Lucy Berliner and um Greta were funny casting because we had seen many people who became very noted you know actors and I was ringing my hands over many of them like it doesn't feel like that and we brought them back and I was still wondering and then I got um uh what was it like a call sheety read the script she's going to fly herself out here she really wants to meet you she really like loves this and she feels like she's that character and I got I kind of buckled and I was like ah god oh you know isn't that like you know Brat Pack Breakfast Club like oh should I be doing that and then she came out and she read with Rada and I was just like there's there's just no question like she's just that she should be playing this. So then she was cast and that was very unexpected for me. I think she does an amazing performance. I'm always stunned by it and um so you know look at me like whatever pie on my face and then um we were trying to cast um Greta and again I had other people that I was considering but nobody felt there was something nagging at me like there was something that wasn't landing. So, we had this emergency casting session because we were going into production like a week later. So, it was one of those like better get somebody in there because, you know, the trains leaving and um Carrie brought um Patty Clarkson in. I didn't know her. I think she was on a series or something at the time or had been. And she did the um audition and I think I don't know if she did it with Al. I think she did it with Ally. And I was cracking up and I had not written this character to be so ironic and funny and I was like, "Oh, thank God." Like, that's what this movie needs. And I didn't know that it needed it so much. And not only that, but she just her facility and her thing was kind of just perfect. So, it was one of those situations that you, you know, you pray for when you're making a film that somebody's going to come in and nail it in just a radically unexpected and delightful way. And she um she was that so it came together, but it's not like, you know, one day in the office and we were all sewn up. I mean, it was No, I think three leads were cast in the last few weeks. I mean it was I remember when the tape the VHS tape of Rada came in. We already had our production office open so it was late but that that is to say we had no cast until we were in pre-production. It's insanity. I mean maybe we had some of the secondary characters. I think I had even like arrived in New York and like Greta hadn't been cast and I think it was like literally like the day I showed up like you know we're supposed to like the editors here like I remember that. I'm gonna bring you walk in the office. Yeah. Yeah, I do. The true joys of indie film making. Yeah. Go anyway. You know, you could just go, "Okay, time's up. We're going to cast that person." But then when somebody comes in and it's just like the whole thing shifts in the right direction with something you didn't really realize that you were looking for, that's the magic moment. But I think that really goes to the freedom because look in any other production model you would literally be probably be casting for years because you're assembling the cast that's going to accommodate the needs of the financeers and who usually have incredibly poor taste and it's an endless negotiating no cynicism hopping in and out. Yeah. So it's a really it goes to the character of the film and the way it was actually cast. It was harrowing and terrifying and I think if we knew more we would never have been able to survive but it actually says something about the film making you know that it had to be cast in that way as opposed to the typical way which is so corrosive perspective and not creative. Not creative at all. Um I think we can open it up to the audience. Oh yeah. Um, if you have a question, here's your hand right here in the middle. Please wait for the microphone. Somebody will bring you a microphone. Hello. Um, this is the first time I heard about this film or saw this film because it was 12 when I came out. And I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in a Christian family, so we definitely were not watching anything like this. But, um, I love the movie. I was blown away by it. I'm in recovery and, um, I'm like, why don't they make movies like this anymore? So my question is when is your next wonderful film coming out that is of this caliber? It just blew me away and we I'm like desperate and dying and we need good films like this that like feed the soul and like really speak to the human experience. So when's the next one coming out? Yeah, le we all feel that way. Love that question. Yeah, good question. Soon soon. Yeah, right. Thank you for that. You should also watch Lisa's pre other films, too. So, catch up. I mean, the real the reality is money. Like, finding the money is calling it obscenely difficult is is a tremendous understatement, particularly when you pair. I mean, even when we made The Kids Are All Right, it was roundly rejected. It was almost impossible to finance. Everybody thought this is a ridiculous film. Who wants to watch these older women in this kind of sexualized situation with kids? Like, who would want to watch that movie? But this really goes to it's just we live in a very broken world. So, I so appreciate that question. like how do you it's it's the goal of all of us on the stage to make films that are deeply humane and say something about the human condition but the I have to say the industry militates against that it's almost as if it's designed to prevent that from happening I mean not to be overly cynical but I that's the what I've concluded after 30 years so hopefully soon but we're going to be going through the seats looking for change just trying to see if we Another question. Yes. Hi. Um I I was in the um that scene during that time period. And it this feels like documentary film making to me and very autobiographical feel similar to what you're talking about in the film of how you um the lead character talked about the the photographs themselves. I really appreciated uh kind of having a big flashback to that time. Not a question, just a comment. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, it's very hard to see if there's any questions. There's one up here. Oh, should I? Oh, me. Okay, thanks. Okay, I'm back here. Okay. Yeah. Um I'm just imagining your reunion right now and what it was like 25 years ago when you're making this and in film school and having such a great time and um as hard as it was and I'm wondering if you could speak to I mean Colombia is no joke so your own ambition at the time given the statement on ambition in the film is so strong and if there's a way you could speak to that. Um well I kind of did before. I mean, I, you know, I'm from humble beginnings, so I really wanted to go to film school because I felt like I was in California and I wanted to make films, but I didn't know how to write them. And I knew like it was just not going to happen to become a filmmaker in LA. And there was a big sort of independent scene, you know, it was big but small but brief. And um you know it was happening in New York so I kind of had my radar on where it was happening and how it was happening. Um I guess this is around the time of like new queer cinema and there was a lot of focus on Sundance and it was just a good time to be making an independent film and um you know so I applied to film school. I got rejected by you know two of them and one of them accepted me and it was Colombia. So that's where I ended up. And um like I said, you know, it was expensive to go to film school and I knew that if I was going to sort of invest in it in myself, I I really had to take it seriously. So it kind of made me ambitious more out of fear than anything else. Like I was really scared about coming home with my tail between my legs, I think. So I just got kind of obsessive and sort of hyperfocused like I got to do this. I'm not going to phone it in. I'm not going to make something phony. If I if anything's going to happen, it has to be like pure and true and like brave. Um otherwise, it's just probably not going to happen. So, that was kind of my mantra. And a lot of us were in that place of just like, you know, I was an assistant editor. I wanted to be an editor. It's like you, you know, you had to have ambition to like talk to people who wanted to be filmmakers. It's like that's how I met Lisa. It's like, you know, a lot of us that's it was just the passion and the drive to want to do it was in the 90s. It was like a big, you know, it was a thing. And I mean, it still is a thing, but it was at that time. It was a It was a time. It was a time. Yeah. Transitory. I mean, there was also a real community there in New York. I mean, probably numbered in the hundreds when it was so small. You literally knew everyone or you you there was no IMDb. You had to pick up the phone. You had to actually call people and talk to them and either introduce yourself or convince them to have coffee with you or something. You really had to hit the pavement. Yeah. Or drop by the office. Drop by the office. Roam the halls. An actual office. That's right. But for me, you know, just terms of ambition, that time in New York was just a really good time. And I feel it was I was sort of blessed to be there then coming up then in that environment meeting those particular people um including these particular people. So it that was like a kismmet moment for me in my life. It wasn't just you know pure ambition had to get out of the valley. you had a question here. Um, hi. First of all, uh, this is my favorite film of all time and seeing it restored like this is absolutely incredible. Um, I this is the first film I saw where I saw myself as a queer woman on screen, not contextualized by homophobia and just gratuitous sexualization. Um, uh, and I'm curious, their representation has come some way, uh, but Hollywood still doesn't really want to seem to uplift real queer female stories. So, as a filmmaker myself, I'm curious what motivation you could give in, uh, an industry now that still doesn't want to seem to elevate these stories. [Music] Um, I mean, maybe other people could speak to this. For me, I uh I felt like it was important to write a story that didn't rely on the gayness or the queerness. Um and that it had to stand alone. And of course, that's the fabric of it, but it is not the thing of it. And um I I felt that way also, like the kids are all right. So those are the kinds of films like I really appreciate, you know, those kinds of queer films where you're like, "Wow, this is a good film and it stands it doesn't even need to be per se about that, but it is kind of about that." Um, and it's so it's it's a tricky thing. I don't I don't really know how to speak to that more than my own ambition with it, but I appreciate what you're saying about it cuz I tend to not be attracted to films that are more in that in the the trope of, you know, what we know um we've seen, right? The victim or the hero or whatever and more about like identity politics and stuff. So that that hasn't really been my thing. So I saw a question up here. Thank you. Um this was also my first time seeing the film. I thought it was absolutely wonderful and I know you said language but I just feel like I was captivated every single moment of everything that was on screen. So thank you. Um, I wanted to ask just for each of you quickly about the industry. I know it can be very hard and I'm sure there might have been times too when you thought about maybe scrapping this project or giving up on it. And I just love to hear from each of you like maybe a moment in your careers that you've had where you thought maybe you were going to give up or not do this anymore for yourself and what kind of kept you going through and maybe for you. Every week, every day, every moment. Great. It's usually between the hours of 9 a.m. Okay, great. Good to know. So like seven times since I don't think you want to hear the answer. Those aren't quick answers. The only thing I would offer I mean in a way in the most kind of naive and polyianish way if it's something you love and you have to do it then you have to do it and do it with love. There's no rational reason to engage in film making. Period. Period. particularly if you actually are serious about cinema. If you think of it as product or some crap that's streaming on the TV, that's a different thing. That could be a job. But if you're serious about cinema, then the only reason to do it is precisely because you can do absolutely nothing else because it's a it's just a difficult, heartbreaking, you know, slog. But then when you get it right, it could be like the most ecstatic and beautiful experience of your life. So it's that you know you and it's still rewarding 25 years 28 years later and you can rest on your laurels. Yeah. You know it my career has been like this and it's and you ride that roller coaster you know and and it's like I love what I do and that's just what keeps me going and it's it's you know you just I got good at it. I I like what I do. Um, but there are times where you're just like, "Fuck, this sucks, you know, but I I just never stopped pursuing it." And um, you know, don't stop pursuing it. Yeah. I think what you love. Yeah. No. No. The the perseverance piece, not just in terms of the industry. I mean obviously within the industry but more like within oneself internally there are so many times a year a month a day where it's like [ __ ] this I'm done like this is it and then you know I feel like making a commitment to oneself to persevere over the voice is pretty big. And then also, if you're fortunate enough to fall in with angels, you know, it it um there's a magnetism that when that starts happening, like more angels come. I mean, I think for me, uh, and this is honest, I don't know, like I don't feel like I have that many talents that there were other things that I could really do. And there was times where I was like, this is really frightening because I don't know if I can make it in this business, and I don't know if I can stomach this business, but I don't know what I'll I could do. So, um, yeah, you know, sometimes it comes down to that. It was, um, it was very stark when I realized that was my truth. Um, but yeah, you know, I think you just keep going and hopefully you have people around you that kind of can propel you and encourage you and bolster you when it's really rough. And I think for me the the the hardest part of it is that it it you know you're your own like for me I generate my own stuff typically and that's really hard to be like your own generator because there are times many times in the last 25 years that I have felt you know or whatever it's called and it's like well now how am I going to pay the bills you know I don't have anything to say. Um, so it's a trippy thing. Yeah. You know, you hear a lot about people that um, you know, I've heard during the strike I heard a lot of people talking on these shows about like, yeah, the only way you can be in this business anymore is if you're independently wealthy, you know, and that like there's no room for people to make independent film anymore. I don't think that that's true. I just think that that it it does take a kind of perseverance and a willingness to work really hard to create something that you know is worth being made and um yeah that's my two cents. Does anybody else want to add? Um, I think we have to start wrapping things up, but I wanted to just talk uh have you talk about a bit about the the project of restoring the film and it's so amazing to see the film and that to know that future generations and future audiences will will be able to enjoy this film and I know it was a lot of work and that you know Marcus who was part of that and May and John were also So, I mean, I'll just say briefly and then I'll hand it off to Jeff. Um, when the film, it was an extraordinary thing and kind of mind-blowing at 25 years, we had a copyright with then October Films who then ultimately became Universal. That was the parent company. And the contract we had when we sold it was for 25 years. And then that copyright would revert back to us. And so it was like in a blink of an eye sort of all of a sudden I said to Jeff what are we that copyright's coming back to us right and then um and then you took it over from there. Yeah it's um I mean it's interesting we had two screenings that were both wonderful and also just like um very anxietyprovoking. So we had one at SVA I don't it was for maybe about the 20th year anniversary and then we had the other one at Sundance and both of them loved the film could barely discern what people were saying the prints that were exist nobody was making new prints of course because that's very expensive and they were in poor shape the sound mix you know everything was done on such a shoestring that the sound was recorded well but by the time we got to mixing it and then we used u we made an optical track negative with ultra stereo which only connoisseurs of very lowbudget films even know what that is. It's basically like if you don't have the money for Dolby, you go to Ultra Stereo, which was like some guy like around the corner, you know? Yeah. Ultra Stereo. And it wasn't stereo logo though. It was like minimal mono and that's what we had to live with. And so I always had my idea, my eye on we have to when we get those rights back, we have to do something. And Lisa was um also very motivating in that way. And unfortunately fortunately on the picture side, it was pretty straightforward. We had our intact 35mm negative which cost us about 50% of the budget to make that just the film itself. um we had a we had pennies to pay for everything else. And then the sound was a much more arduous thing because we were in this period of transition where all the elements were on sort of faulty digital media that we had to put together and just finding someplace to transfer it was a whole task in itself. And then of course we got it there's all these succession of errors. But when we were able to line all the different elements up, we managed to be able to run the gauntlet and avoid all those errors. And then of course with the mixing technology we have now, it's a completely different ballgame. So we were able to if you like when you watch it, it's like, oh, this the same film. If you AB the sound, it's like, oh my god, this is dramatic. And because when we were in the studio doing it, just what we had to in the original film like crush so much of the dialogue to compress it in order to just take the noise out of it and the kind of I think that's where a lot of the subtleties are coming through. So it's like it's the film, but we were looking and listening to it through like with like cotton in our ears and like Vaseline on the lens and we were just like cleaned it all off, you know, and now we're able to present it. So it's um I don't know. I think really gratifying. How did you know tell me because I think you and Marcus pulled everybody together and truthfully I don't really know how that works. Was it just phone calls? Like who wants to participate? Marcus was the mastermind behind the organizational effort and then he just put me to work and treated me like his assistant which was I was happy to do it. Marcus, I'm picking up your laundry later. Just please don't be upset. I was busy tonight. I would oh I do want to swing back to sound a little bit because I thought it was amazing. It was a Red Hook was accompanied this guy Tom Effinger who used to be Dig Itot audio who did the original mix. Um but I am curious because we we recorded on that not we weren't on Nagra we had made that advance but how so there were were there dropouts in when you say you were maneuvering around yeah so basically we had two there's a whole backstory to this but we had two sets of elements we had D88s which is eight track uh digital audio recorded on high8 videotape ape and that was very all coral from 1997 and we had 40 tracks of that which were from the sound edit. Okay. So that's sort of the basic thing completely unmixed but everything's lined up in the proper places unmixed un you know unequed and all the rest. And then we had the stems from the mix that we did at sound one. But the the stems themselves were actually poorly made because the um the way I get technical, but the way the they were allocated there was only 16 tracks of them, which is really not enough to create the the full set of stems. And those had dropouts. And then we also had dropouts on the other masters. But by by combining them all together, we were able to navigate around it. And then of course we used like for so much of the dialogue, we just said we're going to start over because this dialogue we essentially in order to save it, we had to sort of throttle it in the in the original mix. And one thing we did in the mix, I don't if you remember, so we had a big mixing board, like the classic mixing board, which is a real pain in the ass to mix on. Usually you'd have three people there, and that's how you did a film mix, but we couldn't afford three people, so it was one person trying to do it. And yeah, Damian, but and it was also um um um Fernandez um yeah, who went on to be a big mixer. But for instance, we had this one fader and what's on this fader is just kind of air. It's noise. So it's like this doesn't sound right. We'll just keep cranking this up. So it's like a jet throttle just to like get all like the bumps and the pops and but that's was like the reality and it's like we have four days we have to just fly and in fact part of that is and this is where your assistant editing experience came. We had to go and with the print. Remember we went to the little edit room and sound one with the print to figure out the LFOA. So you were like at the rewinds running the film down. Really? Yeah. So it was all very fun and very homemade. Yeah. You you we we forget these uh these moments. Yeah. I mean it was great the sound. I mean there were so many places like even in the beginning with Sid like putting the prints into the envelope. I was like, I've never heard that. Do we not have Foley artists on this? Great. They did add a little bit of Foley and I couldn't help myself, but a lot of it was there first time. A lot of it was there and we just couldn't hear it, you know, just wasn't the mix was just too convoluted. And of course, it was very flat. Now it's much wider. And I don't know. I don't mean to be obsessive about it, but it's great. I I I like your obsession. Um, and so the film is going to be re-released. Yes. Tell your friends to see the film. When is this happening? Spring 2025. Spring 2025. Tell your friends. Yes. Um, I want to thank you all for being here and answering these qu questions and from the audience and um, you know, congratulations again. It's such a wonderful thing to see. for coming. Thank you for coming. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for coming.