Category: SLIFF 2017

SLIFF 2017 Interview – Blake Eckard: Writer and Director of COYOTES KILL FOR FUN


Blake Eckard’s COYOTES KILL FOR FUN screens Saturday, November 4th at 7:00pm at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE.

Blake Eckard’s  BACKROAD BLUES screens Sunday, November 5th at 1:30pm at the .ZACK (3224 Locust St.). The BACKROAD BLUES screening is a free event.


In COYOTES KILL FOR FUN, the latest from Northwest Missouri indie filmmaker and SLIFF favorite Blake Eckard, a backwoods babysitter agrees to help an abused mother of two escape her lunatic boyfriend, but his psychotic brother is headed back to the area, and he has a fraught history with everyone involved. Filmed over three years in Missouri, Montana, and LA, “Coyotes” had a long gestation: Two-thirds was first shot back in March 2014, and a trio of cinematographers — Eckard, St. Louisan Cody Stokes, and American-indie legend Jon Jost — passed the baton behind the camera. Despite the prolonged production, “Coyotes” maintains a totally consistent — and utterly original — vision. The film features such Eckard regulars as Tyler Messner, Frank Mosley, Roxanne Rogers, and Arianne Martin. Gary Topp, co-founder of the distribution company Films We Like and a devoted supporter of Eckard’s work, writes of “Coyotes”: “I think it is his most accomplished to date; skilled, intriguing and provoking, with authentic performances and some phenomenal staging. It also has a palpable atmosphere of danger that hangs on; I recalled the original ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’ But ‘Coyotes’ stands alone. (Blake’s) films can’t be confused with anyone else’s, and I can’t believe he’s still an untapped talent.” SLIFF also screens Eckard’s second film, 2006’s BACKROAD BLUES which makes its belated Missouri debut. When broke, constantly spieling drifter Chip (Tyler Messner) has a chance encounter with Kent (Alec Jennings), a Bootheel resident who’s up north earning money to send home to his wife and daughter, he mercilessly exploits their uneasy friendship. After Chip’s intrusive behavior causes the pair to be given the boot from the farm where they’re working, the odd couple embarks on a road trip that ultimately leads to disaster. Shot over a mere seven days on 13 rolls of re-canned 16mm film stock — which allowed for just over two hours in raw running time, leaving virtually no opportunity for retakes — “Backroad Blues” was a true DIY production, with the writer/director rolling both camera and sound, and the two actors essentially serving as the entire crew. Calling BACKROAD BLUES “a minor masterpiece,” Dennis Grunes, author of “A Short Chronology of World Cinema,” writes that “‘Backroad Blues’ is hilariously absurd and tragic — like America itself.”


Blake Eckard took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks 

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 24th 2017

Tom Stockman: Did you grow up a movie buff?

Blake Eckard: Oh yes I love the movies. I loved all the movies the budding filmmakers loved. I love Ray Harryhausen, just fascinated by films like THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD  and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. STAR WARS certainly, and I remember seeing POLTERGEIST when I was very young, and MAD MAX. I like edgier, tougher movies when I was young, probably younger than I should’ve been watching those. I made my first film when I was seven years old. It was a seven-year-old version of ALIEN. Now I feel like time has gone by in a blink and I’m still in Stanberry making movies. It has nothing to do with wanting to go to a city. You go to LA when you get invited or you go there and you want to commit suicide.  Everyone out there is trying to break in.

TS: These characters in your film are so vivid. Do you based these characters on people that you know there in rural Missouri?

BE: No, they come from my imagination. They come from stories that are made up. I’m not doing documentaries even in a disguised manner. I’ve heard it suggested that I have based these on local stories and I don’t know where that comes from. I think people assume that they make what’s around me but that’s not accurate. BUBBA MOON FACE was the result of having a child, But I didn’t know any of those people. That would be a rough crowd to hang around with.


TS: I think part of it is your actors. They’re so natural and naturalistic. Where do you find these actors?

BE: Everybody in COYOTES KILL FOR FUN, I brought here. I cast all my film. COYOTES is my sixth feature film. I’ve probably made over 200 shorts if you count all the crap I made when I was young. Everyone from COYOTES was brought in. The one exception would be Tyler Messner, who now lives in LA, but he grew up here with me and I’ve known him my whole life. He moved to LA a long time ago to pursue acting. I’ve cast everybody from my third film on. The first two features I made were cast with locals from Stanberry Missouri. I got to the point where if I really wanted to bring these pictures up a notch, the acting needed to be brought up a notch as well. Synapse Films has decided to release a box set of all of my films. Synapse Films is like the Criterion of cult so I couldn’t be in better hands. Physical media seems to be going away, but Synapse wants to put all my films in a box set.

TS: Oh sure, Synapse is a great lebel. I ordered their Blu-ray of SUSPIRIA recently.

BE: Oh yeah, I drove to Kansas City to see that on the big screen just last month.

TS: Yeah they showed it in St. Louis last month too. It did look amazing.

BE: What a great restoration with that.


TS: I can see some horror influence in COYOTES. Who are some of the horror movie directors that have influenced you as a filmmaker?

BE: Probably the biggest are the two that just died this year, George Romero and Toby Hooper. What I recognized in those guys a long time ago was the fact that they had each made a movie, and in their cases the movie that made their careers as directors, totally outside the system and in the middle of nowhere. Rural Pennsylvania and we rural Texas.  Back before anything was shot in Texas, before Austin was a big film town. I recognize the outside nature of that. I was probably 11 years old when I saw both of those films. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE felt like it could’ve been filmed right here, right in the back room of a gas station that was already familiar to me. Both of those films scared me and both of those films were made by natural born filmmakers. You could feel how they were kind of handmade.

TS: Where did you come up with the origins of this story that you were telling in COYOTES KILL FOR FUN?

BE: I think it’s the result of having kids. The two small children in the movie are mine. with BUBBA MOON FACE and GHOST OF THE EMPIRE PRAIRIE and now COYOTES, I honestly think I was creating a bigger picture than I was aware of at the time. Now I look at those as an unofficial trilogy of films, ones that are thematically linked. And someways they’re about my kids. I think BUBBA MOON FACE is the genesis, the beginning, The story of an innocent child being born into the wrong family. GHOST OF THE EMPIRE PRAIRIE is about the abused child who grows up to become the adult abuser. COYOTES is revelation. It’s fire and brimstone, the end of the line. You’re not going to get away from these crimes committed.  What goes around comes around. There’s no escape. I think that’s what this is. Everyone may take something different from it but it is the end of the line time with coyote. It’s a very dark and bleak film even though I’m not a cynical person.  To be honest, I think I’m ready to move on. The last three films have been pretty heavy. It’s not me saying that the world sucks, It’s just troubling material. Being a father changes your whole world.

TS: Do you ever break away from your script and let the cast improvise?

BE: Yes, I let them improvise, but I like to work with a script. I’ve never started the camera without having a clue as to what’s coming. I definitely approach filmmaking as a craft. You need to know where you’re going. I feel like I’ve done my job with casting and if an actor doesn’t like a line, I’m open to changing it.


TS: What were some of the biggest challenges of making this particular film?

BE: Trying to complete it has been very arduous. More than half of the film was shot about 3 1/2 years ago and it’s been a piecemeal pick it up ever since. I changed this movie a lot, mainly through editing but I’ve been shooting little pieces of it all the way through and I think I’ve deepend the meaning of it for me. There’s a deeper story, one underneath the cracks and beneath the surface. It’s my psychology and I know what that is if nobody else does. I think I’ve added, subtextually, a lot to this film and that’s been mainly the last three years of work. I went out to LA recently to get the voiceover and there’s a scene in the middle of the movie that was shot a year and a half later than everything else.  There were points I wanted to get across and I wanted to add layers of history to the movie. For example, you’ll see pictures of people on the wall and you wonder who these people in the pictures are, And then there are the black-and-white passages in the film.

TS: If you had more time and more money, what would you have done differently with COYOTES?

BE: If I had had more time and money I would’ve never made this movie. More time and money would not have equaled COYOTES in any way shape or form. I’m a film buff. I love movies and I can look at a movie like this and see that it’s a tough sell. It’s a dark, bleak film and it’s also weird and unusual. This film is as close to really getting personal and letting the cobwebs out and wanting to just really try to come up with something different then another low-budget independent movie that everyone has seen. I don’t think my films fit into any box well. At the same time I don’t want to make another film that looks like the five other films that I have made. I didn’t want this to just be another one of my “small-town movies”, I wanted to make something I hadn’t seen before. In hindsight, now that it’s done, it was the best thing to do and it was artistically liberating to a certain extent. The groundwork was all laid out, there was a script. I kept adding to it, and taking away from it as well. This movie was 12 minutes longer two years ago that it is now, so I was shooting more footage and adding to it, but I was refining it, making it shorter. I wanted it to be engaging.  It’s dark and weird as it is, I want to do it to unfold in a way that was structurally sound. You have to be careful when you get into the edit of a movie that you wrote so far in advance. You can’t just pick out the middle and put it at the beginning. It just doesn’t work.


TS: It’s very compelling. I also like the use of music in your film. You end with this symphonic piece. That was something that might not have worked, but in this case I think it was very effective.

BE: Thank you. You have no idea how I questioned my decision to do that. You’re right. It’s a true symphony piece that was recorded and that I was able to clear from the composer and the conductor who also score the rest of the film. But that music during the closing credits is from a live orchestrated peace with the San Francisco Philharmonic. It’s clearly not for the movie made on this kind of level budget-wise. This music could’ve been seen as the red thumb that gets jammed in your face like people are going to think “what the heck is that”? I put that in there and send a private link of the scene to the composer Irving Wolf who is in California. He said that that music meant something to him that has nothing to do with the context of this movie, but he also said that what I did with it worked.

TS: It ends your film on a chilling note.

BE: I think so too. It’s like fire and brimstone, Revelations, the Bible. That’s how I was able to justify it in my head. I didn’t want to go out with just a whisper of music. These folks are going to hell!


TS: What’s your next project?

BE: I have nothing pending in terms of shooting right away but I’m always writing things. I’m thinking about a potential short film.  There’s also something that I’ve been working on for quite a few years. It’s a film that I started shooting in Oregon years ago. The backdrop is Bigfoot hunters in the Oregon cascades.

TS: I would think that would be commercial.

BE: Yes, when I shot that there were none of these Finding Bigfoot shows on, So maybe the time is right for me to revisit that.

TS: Best of luck with COYOTES KILL FOR FUN and we’ll see you at the fest.

BE: Thanks!

SLIFF 2017 Review – GABE

GABE screens Friday, November 3rd at 7:30pm at .ZACK (3224 Locust St.) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Director Luke Terrell will be in attendance. 

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Documentaries, just like any other movie, can be based some way things that just emotionally work. You really can’t explain why, or how they work, but they do. Something just inspires you, something just feels right. That is what GABE feels like. As a documentary, one could easily call it somewhat conventional, but the material at the center and the filmmaking of the enterprise creates what might be one of the most entertaining and inspiring documentaries of the year.

Gabe follows a few years in the life of Gabriel Isaac Weil, a young man with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, who is attempting to experience the world as he can. Gabe, certainly lead an interesting life, graduating from Washington University and eventually aspiring to become the owner of a juicing business.

There’s no way around the fact that GABE works because it is a perfect combination of filmmaker and subject. Director Luke Terrell knew Gabe intimately and he captures the sacrifices but also the gains that everybody surrounding Gabe made with a masterful eye. There’s an ever present tension to the piece because we know the fragility of Gabe’s condition, but there’s always a sense of hope behind that because of the strength on display in the face of that tension. GABE, as a film, never tries to define its subject by the disease that he must face and always tries to break through to human qualities, giving a sense of dignity to Gabe, but also engaging the audience in making us contemplate our own definitions of people

Great documentary filmmaking can take you and place you in the shoes of another person, and GABE really is great documentary filmmaking. Gabriel Weil was an excellent subject and he got an excellent film, one that will live up to the courage that he inspires in all of us.

SLIFF 2017 Interview – Luke Terrell: Director of GABE


GABE screens Friday, November 3rd at 7:30pm at .ZACK (3224 Locust St.) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Director Luke Terrell will be in attendance. 
No parent should have to bury their child, but that was the reality the Weils faced when their son Gabe was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Told he would not live past 25, Gabe made it his life goal to earn a college degree. Then, during his senior year of college, he received a new diagnosis, doubling his life expectancy overnight. This unforeseen scenario, though remarkable, presented Gabe with a complicated obstacle: creating a future for which he had never planned in a world that often forgets he exists.

 Luke Terrell, director of GABE, took the time to answer questions about his film for We Are Movie Geeks.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman

Tom Stockman: What was your filmmaking experience before GABE?

Luke Terrell: I’ve been making short films since childhood, starting with a claymation of The Odyssey in middle school. In college I began to take the pursuit much more seriously, primarily making short video profiles of fellow student artists. After graduating in 2013, I worked as a freelance videographer, and connected with Executive Producer David Donnelly as he finished his documentary feature debut Maestro. That experience taught me to love the feature filmmaking process. With Donnelly’s encouragement, I started my own production company, Restless Productions, and began working on Gabe.

TS: Tell me about the first time you met Gabe Weil?

LT: I met Gabe in 2011 when I interviewed to be his in-class notetaker. He opened with a cool, “Yo not to be rude, but you’re really tall.” Classic Gabe, always telling it like it is. It was clear from the beginning that we were going to be good pals.


TS: What about Gabe’s story did you think was worthy of a feature film?

LT: Gabe was one of those people capable of immediately leaving an impression on you. He knew how to live life fully and with integrity. He brought incredible people together; to this day some of my best friends are people I met directly because of Gabe. After being friends with him for a couple years I already would have deemed his story worth telling, if simply for the profound impact he had on my own approach to life. Then he had a doctor’s appointment in which he was told he may live twice as long as he had always thought. All of a sudden, new possibilities opened up, and Gabe wanted to document them. So the filmmaking actually occurred organically. Gabe asked me to film those moments, and the more we compiled them, the more it seemed necessary to cut them together into a widely viewable narrative.

TS: What did Gabe’s family think of the idea of making a film about him?

LT: This film could not have happened without the support of the Weils, and for that I will always be grateful. It is incredibly difficult to allow someone else to tell the story of a family member so dear to your heart, and certainly no one knows Gabe better than his family. To be given the opportunity to tell Gabe’s story in my own voice was an honor, and I hope I did some justice to his awesome legacy.


TS: How many hours of footage did you shoot?

LT: We ended with around 5 TB of footage totaling close to 100 hours.

TS: How long did it take you to edit your film?

LT: I spent a few weeks organizing and prepping all the footage before my editor got involved. He and I worked closely together full time for just over two months. Since then, we’ve continued making tweaks for over a year. It honestly could go on forever, which is why they say “a film is never completed, it is abandoned.”


TS: Were there some moments you would have like to have left in the final film but had to cut for length?

LT: Of course, our first assembly was close to 4 hours. I found some value in every moment. Ultimately, though, each new cut is more concise, accessible, and thus powerful. The ideal would be to get to a place where if any single scene were taken out, the narrative would no longer make sense. Perhaps we will get there when I cut out another 14 minutes for a broadcast cut!

TS: Why was the sex surrogate not shown? Did she not want to be filmed?

LT: I never even considered showing her. To do so would have detracted from the point. That scene was not about the act itself, which is what the focus would have been if we had given a face to the surrogate, but about Gabe being human. It probably is the most humanizing scene of the entire film, because it is the one that those outside of the disability community least expect.


TS: What is your favorite memory of the road trip you, Gabe, and the others took?

LT: The most special moments are always the little things. The encounters I would have with Gabe that don’t happen in the same way with anyone else. In the movie he references a time that I came into his bed in the middle of the night and fell asleep next to him. Truth be told, we were in Vegas and both a bit inebriated after a night of breaking even at the Blackjack table, scoring free drinks in the process. Waking up next to him reminded me of middle school sleepovers. There was a realness to moments like that with Gabe that aren’t that easy to come by.

TS: How much did the film cost to make and how was it financed?

LT: We financed the film through essentially every possible channel; private investors, crowdfunding, production loans, corporate sponsorships, and grants.


TS: How far into post-production were you when Gabe died?

LT: The film was already at picture lock, we essentially just needed to score it and do some sound and color work.

TS: Was Gabe able to see any of your film?

LT: We (Gabe, mostly) threw a 450 person private screening at the St. Louis Art Museum in April of 2016. It was a black tie event and Gabe pulled out all the stops, even concocting three different juice recipes to be shared with guests at the reception. The accessible seating in the auditorium was in the middle, and at the end of the film, every person in the audience stood up for a standing ovation, and turned towards Gabe. It was one of life’s perfect moments.


TS: Have you shown GABE at other fests and if so, how has it been received?

LT: We’ve shown Gabe in festivals around the country, including ones in New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, and Los Angeles. The reception has been incredible; audiences really connect with Gabe’s story. We won Best Documentary at a Los Angeles festival, and the Award of Excellence from Impact DOCS.

TS: What are your release plans for GABE?

LT: We will finish all screenings (festival and private) by the end of the year. We are just getting our distribution plans underway. The goal will obviously be to maximize viewership and get Gabe on all different types of platforms (streaming, broadcast, and otherwise). Stay tuned, we have high hopes.


TS: What’s your next project? Do you have ideas for more documentaries?

LT: I’m currently in the middle of a film artist in residency just outside of Boston at The Cotting School, the first academic institution in the US created exclusively for students with disabilities. I am hoping to produce a film festival-worthy short that can be a followup to Gabe, since I am now very connected to the disability in film community. I have many other film ideas, including four documentaries. One is even St. Louis based! As with most indie film projects, funding will be the major factor in feasibility.

SLIFF 2017 Interview: Srikant Chellappa – Director and Writer of BAD GRANDMAS

BAD GRANDMAS will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar, in ‘The Loop’) on Thursday November 2nd at 8pm. Tickets include a SLIFF opening night reception. Ticket information can be found HERE. Pam Grier, director/writer Srikant Chellappa, producer Dan Byington, and two of the film’s co-stars, Sally Eaton and Jilanne Klaus, will all be in attendance. 

SLIFF’s opening night features the world premiere of BAD GRANDMAS, a St. Louis-shot comedy by co-writer/director Srikant Chellappa and co-writer Jack Snyder, the team behind such polished productions as “Ghost Image” and “Fatal Call,” which were based locally but screened both nationally and internationally. Starring the late Florence Henderson (“The Brady Bunch”) in her final role and the legendary Pam Grier (“Jackie Brown”), “Bad Grandmas” recounts the misadventures of senior citizens Mimi (Henderson), Coralee (Grier), Bobbi (Susie Wall), and Virginia (Sally Eaton). The friends’ quiet life is upended when Bobbi’s son-in-law, Jim (David Wassilak), cons her and she loses her house. Mimi, the unofficial leader of the group, decides to take matters into her own hands, but things spin out of control, and Jim is inadvertently killed. It isn’t long before local detective Randy McLemore (Randall Batinkoff) begins to investigate. Adding further complication — and danger — is Jim’s criminal associate Harry Lovelace (Judge Reinhold of “Beverly Hills Cop”), who’s on the hunt to collect the money his partner owes him. The situation appears grim, but these bad grandmas are no ordinary women.

BAD GRANDMAS director and writer Srikant Chellappa took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his film before the screening at The ST. Louis International Film Festival.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman October 24th 2017

Tom Stockman: How did the script for a BAD GRANDMAS come about and how long did it take you to write it?

Srikant Chellappa: I’ve written a few scripts in the past and I’ve always gravitated towards that Coen brothers-style of comedy,that type of genre. The idea for BAD GRANDMAS actually came one night when sitting in a house in St. Charles where my ex mother-in-law would get together with her friends to play cards on a Saturday night. My mind started wandering and I thought what if these ladies, who are all in their 60s and 70s, we’re actually murderers, Nobody would ever know. That’s a pretty high concept. So that’s basically how the story started, so I begin to write a plot that would work. I’d say it took me about a year to write. I was working on some other projects at the time, I actually wrote three scripts that year. I had Jack Snyder help me clean up the dialogue. Jack has a unique, quirky sense of humor in his writing and that really helped.

TS: How did Florence Henderson get involved in this project?

SC: We made a list of actresses that we wanted for the roles, and she was near the top. We started making offers to actresses but most of them live in LA or New York and a lot of them at that age just aren’t in the condition to travel.. But Florence loved the script and agreed to do it. This was a pleasant surprise to us.  She hadn’t really done anything like this before. This was really out of character for the Brady mom.


TS: Do you think she was eager to shed her all-American mom image?

SC: Oh yes, she was ready to come out. She had been doing a lot of different things, like dancing with the stars and she had had a small role in a movie called FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK with Marlon Wayans. She wanted to do something different.

TS: How did you go about casting Pam Grier in BAD GRANDMAS?

SC: ​I have been a huge fan of Pam Grier since I can remember. In fact, I wrote her part with her in mind. It is not usual to get a role casted with the actor in mind​. I had pictured her role as a man-hating bad ass, which is in some ways a version of her younger days in the Blaxsploitation films. She fits her part very nicely as someone who doesn’t make apologies for who she is and what men who cross her or her friends deserve.


TS: What was it like working with Pam Grier?

SC: ​Pam was more than gracious and friendly in working with her. She would greet me every day with a Namaste! She is a soul of the earth with no ego which we see a lot in working with hollywood actors specially icons like her. We would chat a lot about her life and her prior films. We also spent a lot of time talking about Quentin Tarantino and what his style of directing was. We talked a lot about her relationships and loves in the past including with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and how it shaped her to be who she is. Everybody on the set loved her as she was really approachable and spent a lot of her time chatting with all the crew members.

TS: Can you share an on-set story about Ms Grier on the set of BAD GRANDMAS?

​SC: So Pam was really funny and would make sure everybody around her was cheered up. Every once in while she would say “Flo-rida.. Low Rida” ​with a sexual innuendo between takes. We would all laugh because it was funny but it took me a couple of days to figure out she was really referring to Florence Henderson who was her partner in crime! They had a great working relationship and it was just a delight to work with both of them.


TS: Was the script pretty tight? Was there some improvisation during filming?

SC: The script was pretty tight. We had gone through 11 or 12 drafts. Jack did a couple of drafts, and then I kept revising it to give some more depth to the characters. But then my style of directing is to really put things into the hands of the actors and see what they do. I encourage them to improvise, which they did. I would say that a good 15% of the dialogue was actually improvised. The ladies had such a great camaraderie and such good rapport. Sometimes I wouldn’t even call ‘Cut’ and let them keep performing. Some interesting things would come out of that. Sometimes improvised dialogue can be very interesting and funny.

TS: I know you shot a lot of the film in Columbia Illinois. I haven’t seen the film yet. Is there some St. Louis color in it? Does the story take place here?

SC: No the film is actually set in a small town in South Georgia. The characters have southern accents, but not too deep of ones. We don’t actually call out the location but the cars all have Georgia license plates and there are things like peach pie in it and sort of a Christian rural setting. Columbia was a good place for that. We also shot in a house in Fenton, Missouri.


TS: What were some of the challenges in making BAD GRANDMAS?

SC: Well the biggest challenge is always that there’s never enough money. Besides that though, I think a big challenge was finding the right locations. In my head, I had written it for South Georgia and St. Louis is more midwestern. Some of the locations I found that I liked we’re operating businesses, so we had to work around that. Another big challenge was that we wanted a house that looked like it had never changed from the 1970s. We used props like a teal-colored refrigerator. Gypsy Pate was the set decorator and she did a very good job of making it all looks retro. I guess we could’ve done things better with more money and resources but I think it all works. It was a very smooth production. We did not go over time and we stayed within our budget. When you’re working with for older ladies, you can’t push them too much. You can’t expect them to work 12 or 14 hour days, But we were actually able to film it on schedule even working less than 10 hours a day. That’s not common. I’ve done five films now and usually films require 12 our days. I think the performances and the way the film has come together has been very smooth and a big part of that was because we used such professional actors.

TS: Did you grow up in St. Louis?

SC: No I grew up in New Delhi. I moved to the states when I was 22. I went to grad school in Memphis, and I’ve lived now over half my life here. My job in the technology industry brought me to St. Louis.

TS: What do you think of the film scene here in St. Louis?

SC: It’s not bad. There’s a lot of talent here and a lot of good people to find for a film crew. I guess one issue with St. Louis is money. It’s not a big money-funding town. It doesn’t seem like there are as many bigger budget films being made here is there were five or six years ago.

TS: Yes, I believe our state has lost some of its tax credits for filmmakers. Did you grow up a movie buff?

SC: Yes, I think every Indian guy is a movie buff because of Bollywood.


TS: Do you go and see the Indian films that play here in town. There seems to be a lot of them.

SC: I do. Those do well at the box office. I don’t see them all but if one has a lot of buzz around it, I’ll definitely go and see it. I go to India every year, and I always try to see a movie at least one movie while I’m there.

TS: Who are some of your favorite film makers?

SC: There are quite a few. I think the biggest one for me would be Stanley Kubrick. I have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. As for the modern era, I would say I really like Darren Aronofsky and P.T. Anderson. And of course the Coen brothers are one of my favorites. Their films are commercial but certainly quirky enough.


Srikant Chellappa with Florence Henderson

TS: How has been BAD GRANDMAS been received so far or will next week’s premiere at the St. Louis international Film Festival be the first time anyone has seen it?

SC: Next week’s screening will be a world premiere. I’ve not yet seen it on the big screen. I’m interested in seeing how the audience reacts but so far I’ve done a few private screenings and it’s been well received but it’s not the same.

TS: What’s your next project?

SC: Right now I’m taking a hiatus from filmmaking and focus on my technology start-up.  But I’m looking at some script that I wrote a couple of years ago. There’s a horror film I’d like to make at some point and there’s also a crossover Bollywood/Hollywood film that I’ve been working on. That one is set in both Chicago and New Delhi. That one would obviously cost more money. I do plan on making more movies but I’m just going to take a breather.

TS: And of course you have to go promote BAD GRANDMAS. That’s a big job right there! Good luck with BAD GRANDMAS and I look forward to seeing it when it opens the St. Louis International Film Festival next week.

SC: Thanks. I do too!

SLIFF 2017 – The Screening of THE UPSIDE, A Film Distributed by The Weinstein Company, Has Been Cancelled.

The 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) screening of THE UPSIDE, a film distributed by The Weinstein Company (TWC), has been cancelled.

Given the serious allegations of sexual misconduct against TWC co-founder Harvey Weinstein, SLIFF has decided to replace the film with a work that specifically addresses such issues. The fest will offer a special presentation of “The Light of the Moon” (U.S., 2017, 95 min.), which also plays the fest on Nov. 6 and 8 at Plaza Frontenac. This new screening — in the same time slot that “The Upside” was scheduled — will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, at the main house of the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd.

The feature-film debut of Emmy-nominated Australian filmmaker Jessica M. Thompson, “The Light of the Moon” tells the story of Bonnie (Stephanie Beatriz), a successful Latina architect who is sexually assaulted while walking home from an evening out with friends in Brooklyn. At first, she attempts to keep the assault a secret from her long-term boyfriend, Matt (Michael Stahl-David of “Narcos”), but the truth quickly emerges. Bonnie emphatically denies the impact of what has just happened to her. She fights to regain normalcy and control, but returning to her old life is more complicated than expected. Her attempt to recapture the intimacy she previously had with Matt falters, and cracks begin to surface in their relationship. Another attack in the neighborhood only drives Bonnie further into denial, before an encounter with an at-risk woman causes her to face the truth and confront her own self-blame. Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Short Term 12”) gives a powerful performance as Bonnie, a woman who maintains her dignity and sense of humor as she deals with the aftermath of a life-altering experience.

A panel about sexual violence against women will follow the screening. The panel will be organized by Safe Connections, one of the St. Louis region’s oldest and largest organizations working to prevent and end domestic and sexual violence while helping survivors reclaim their lives. When participants are finalized, full information on the panel will be posted on the SLIFF website (cinemastlouis.org) under the film listing “Special Presentation: The Light of the Moon.”

Cinema St. Louis is donating the proceeds of the screening to Safe Connections.

SLIFF 2017 – An Evening with Tom Shipley of ‘Brewer & Shipley’ November 10th

An Evening with Tom Shipley of ‘Brewer & Shipley’  will take place Friday, November 10th at 7:30pm at The Stage at KDHX (3524 Washington Boulevard‎ St Louis, MO 63103) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE

St. Louis filmmaker Kathy Corley is nearing completion of a feature documentary on the folk-rock duo Brewer & Shipley, whose Top 10 hit “One Toke Over the Line” was a constant presence on the radio in the 1970s. Michael Brewer and Tom Shipley — who both now live in Missouri — continue to blend guitars and voices and perform for audiences 50 years after their trademark vocal harmonies and intertwined acoustic guitars carved a unique niche in America’s soundboard. In this special program, Corley will show excerpts from her work-in-progress documentary, and Shipley — who also is an accomplished documentarian — will screen some of his own films, including “Treehouse: An Ozark Story” (1989, 29 min.), which tells a tale of river life and how it has changed since the turn of the century. The film profiles Ralph “Treehouse” Brown — famous for his gunfights, his house on stilts, and living life on his own terms — and features original music by Brewer & Shipley. Tom also offers a few brief pieces that feature performances and stories by musicians he’s encountered in the Ozarks and on his travels, including Missouri fiddle player Charlie Pashia, who plays a few old French songs he learned from his father; Roy Boyer, Merl Belt, and Uncle Walt, who gather to play French tunes in Roy’s yard; and a group of Andean pan-flute players who were filmed in Bolivia when Tom was shooting his short “Tacachia.” The evening concludes with a Q&A with Corley and Shipley.

SLIFF 2017 – Rape Kit Documentary I AM EVIDENCE Screens November 8th at The St. Louis International Film Festival


I AM EVIDENCE screens Wednesday, November 8th at 6:30pm at The Plaza Frontenac Theater (1701 S Lindbergh Blvd # 210) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Co-director Trish Adlesic and subject Kym L. Worthy, prosecutor of Wayne County, Michigan will be in attendance. This screening is sponsored by “Culture Shock”: A Film Series for Helping Kids Together and by Safe Connections. Ticket information can be found HERE.


After an unthinkable crime, followed by an unimaginable and degrading test, it’s heartbreaking to think that the only evidence that could put your rapist behind bars is left to collect dust on a shelf or worse, be destroyed entirely. Yet for thousands upon thousands of victims of rape, primarily women, who have had the ability, wherewithal and courage to endure the process of reporting the assault and then submitting their battered bodies to an invasive and often traumatizing evidence collection, this is the repeat violation. The documentary I AM EVIDENCE, directed by Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir, centers around the tens of thousands of rape kits across this country that sit in a backlog, going untested, because, according to various officials in law enforcement and the judicial system, there is a lack of resources available to test them, both financial and human. Others say that victims’ reports never make their way to a prosecutor because the responding officer(s) didn’t believe the victim’s story, either due to her behavior or some other perceived lack of credibility.


A powerful indictment of the criminal-justice system’s seeming indifference to the crime of rape, I AM EVIDENCE exposes the shockingly large number of untested rape kits in the United States today. Despite the power of DNA to solve and prevent crimes, hundreds of thousands of kits containing potentially crucial DNA evidence languish untested in police evidence storage rooms across the country. Behind each of these kits lies an individual’s unresolved sexual-assault case. Produced by “Law & Order: SVU’s” Mariska Hargitay — who also appears in the documentary — I AM EVIDENCE tells the stories of survivors who have waited years for their kits to be tested and chronicles the efforts of the law-enforcement officials who are leading the charge to work through the backlog and pursue long-awaited justice in these cases. The film reveals the high cost of the lingering lassitude surrounding rape investigations in this country, and the positive effects of treating survivors with the respect they deserve.

Pam Grier, the Foxy Siren of Blaxploitation, to be Honored at This Year’s St. Louis International Film Festival!

The one and only Pam Grier will be honored by Cinema St. Louis with a ‘Women in Film Award’ when she’s in town for this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Pam’s iconic movie career began when she moved to Los Angeles in the late ‘60s from her native North Carolina at age 18. After a tiny role in Russ Meyer’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970), she landed a job as a receptionist for American International Pictures where she was discovered by Jack Hill, an AIP director who cast her in a pair of women’s prison films: THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971) and THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972). Soon she was known as the “Queen of Blaxploitation” at a time when film roles for African-American women were, as Grier puts it, “practically invisible, or painfully stereotypical”.

SLIFF, which runs  Nov. 2nd-12th will kick off with the world premiere of the dark comedy BAD GRANDMAS, directed by St. Louisan Srikant Chellappa and written by Chellappa and Jack Snyder, the team behind the St. Louis-lensed films FATAL CALL and GHOST IMAGE. Pam Grier stars in the film, which was shot across the river in Columbia, Illinois, alongside the late Florence Henderson (in her final role) as a pair of Grandmothers who accidentally kill a con man and have to act quickly when his partner shows up.


BAD GRANDMAS will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar, in ‘The Loop’) on Thursday November 2nd at 8pm. Tickets include a SLIFF opening night reception. Ticket information can be found HERE. Pam Grier, director/writer Srikant Chellappa, and two of the film’s co-stars, Sally Eaton and Jilanne Klaus, will all be in attendance. 


BAD GRANDMAS director Srikant Chellappa with Florence Henderson

Srikant Chellappa is a long-time fan of Pam Grier and wrote the part of Coralee with the actress in mind. “I had pictured her role as a man-hating bad ass, which is in some ways a version of her younger days in the Blaxploitation films”, said Chellappa. “She fits her part very nicely as someone who doesn’t make apologies for who she is and what men who cross her or her friends deserve”. Chellappa describes BAD GRANDMAS as “…​a roller coaster ride of southern grandmas stuck in a bad situation and using their wits to get out of​ it. It is a movie that would be a laugh out loud dark comedy that does not take itself too seriously but leaves the audience gasping for more when it ends!​”. Chellappa found Ms. Grier gracious and friendly to work with. “She would greet me every day with a Namaste!”, he said “She is a soul of the earth with no ego which we see a lot in working with Hollywood actors specially icons like her. We would chat a lot about her life and her prior films. We also spent a lot of time talking about Quentin Tarantino and what his style of directing was. We talked a lot about her relationships and loves in the past including with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and how it shaped her to be who she is. Everybody on the set loved her as she was really approachable and spent a lot of her time chatting with all the crew members.”


Then, Friday November 3rd at the Tivoli, Pam Grier will attend a screening of Quentin Tarantino’s JACKIE BROWN at 8pm. This will be preceded by an on-stage, career-spanning interview and Q&A with Pam.


When JACKIE BROWN was released in 1997, expectations were off the charts. It had been three and a half long years since Quentin Tarantino had rocked the movie world with the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) and PULP FICTION (1994). Tarantino had the clout to cast anyone he wanted for JACKIE BROWN (1997), the film he adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, and I’m sure most of Hollywood wanted to work with him, and he put together his usual imaginative ensemble of major players, 70’s comeback stars, and fresh blood. Pam Grier was the now-mature siren of Blaxploitation, the star of many wonderful 70’s urban classics such as COFFY (1973), BLACK MAMMA WHITE MAMMA (1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and BUCKTOWN (1975). With her distinctive mega-fro, Grier was a statuesque, articulate ass-kicker in these films and Tarantino was a huge fan (she’s mentioned by name in his scripts for both RESERVOIR DOGS and TRUE ROMANCE). He’d originally considered Grier for PULP FICTION in the role ultimately played by Roseanne Arquette (which would have made her the mate of Eric Stoltz, an actor I can see Pam Grier breaking in half with two fingers), and changed the lead character in Leonard’s novel from a blonde Caucasian to an African-American in order to accommodate Grier (in the novel, her name is Jackie Burke. Tarantino renamed her Brown after her character from FOXY BROWN). Pam Grier was 48 when she starred in JACKIE BROWN (though her character claims to be 44) and she gives a strong world-weary performance, tough and believable especially when standing up to Samuel L. Jackson’s Ordell Robey.


It’s been noted that JACKIE BROWN did not do for Grier’s career what PULP FICTION did for John Travolta but then, how many parts were there in Hollywood for black women pushing 50? Pam Grier did receive some choice roles after JACKIE BROWN including parts in John Carpenter’s GHOST OF MARS (2001), LARRY CROWNE (2011) as well as roles in the TV shows The L-Word and Smallville.

And look for a Top Ten Tuesday – The Best of Pam Grier article here at We Are Movie Geeks later this month.

 

Cinema St. Louis Announces the Features for this Year’s ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Cinema St. Louis  has unveiled the narrative and documentary features that comprise the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival, to be held Nov. 2-12, Among the highlights are such St. Louis-related works as “Atomic Homefront,” opening-night film “Bad Grandmas,” and “For Ahkeem” and such festival buzz films as “Call Me by Your Name,” “Dahmer,” “Darkest Hour,” “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” “Last Flag Flying,” “The Leisure Seeker,” “Thoroughbreds,” and “Walking Out.”

For a complete list of the films, go HERE
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/films-preview

The fest will honor Pam Grier (“Bad Grandmas” and “Jackie Brown”) with a Women in Film Award; Sam Pollard (“Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me” and “ACORN and the Firestorm”) with a Lifetime Achievement Award; Marco Williams (“Tell Them We Are Rising”) with a Contemporary Cinema Award; and Washington U. grad Dan Mirvish (the Jules Feiffer-written “Bernard and Huey”) with a Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award.

Full information on the fest, including special events, master classes, and shorts programs, will be announced the week of Oct. 9.

Look for more coverage in the coming weeks of the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival here at We Are Movie Geeks.