The 2010 Sedona International Film Festival Preview This is one of our favorite times of the year. Filmmakers and actors will soon sweep into town for the 16th Annual Sedona International Film Festival taking place Feb. 21-28. Here’s a peek at some of the most buzz-worthy films plus interviews with some legendary faces. Film fest organizers said they screened many movies about World War II and loss, but in our opinion this year’s festival has two themes – politics and rock ’n’ roll. By Erika Ayn Finch We don’t envy the screeners of the 2010 Sedona International Film Festival. After receiving nearly 700 entries, they were tasked with narrowing it down to 140 films, which includes shorts, documentaries, features and animation. The festival’s program director, Sagan Lewis, says themes of World War II and loss emerged from the submissions, which leads to the question: Why are so many independent films so serious? “For a person to go to the expense and trouble to make a film, the message is usually birthed out of pain,” says Sagan, who played Dr. Jacqueline Wade on the hit series St. Elsewhere from 1982 until 1988. “You’re not going to try to raise $1 million for a movie about pink shoe laces that make you happy, but you will do it for a film about a mother dying of cancer.” Sedona Monthly was fortunate to have the opportunity to see some of these films in advance and talk to the filmmakers and actors. Once you see what’s in store for this year, you won’t want to miss a single day. The festival runs from Feb. 21 through 28 with screenings at Harkins Theatres Sedona 6 (2081 SR 89A in West Sedona), Sedona Rouge Resort & Spa (2250 W. SR 89A in West Sedona) and Sedona Studio Live (15 Coffee Pot Dr. in West Sedona). For movie listings and information on passes, individual tickets, workshops and parties, visit www.sedonafilmfestival.com MICHAEL MOORE - From Roger & Me To Capitalism: A Love Story Sedona Monthly: Looking back on your career, from Roger & Me all the way through Capitalism: A Love Story, what moment makes you most proud? Is there anything in your films you would change if you could do it over? Michael Moore: Wow. Probably seeing my mom in the audience of my very first film during the American premier at the New York Film Festival in Lincoln Center [for the Performing Arts]. My mom, being from Flint, had taken us to New York when we were younger. She loved the place – we were an autoworker’s family so it was a big treat. To have her in the audience for my very first film was a proud moment I will always remember. No, there’s nothing in any of the films that I would change. I guess I wish sometimes they weren’t so far ahead of the curve where the public isn’t there yet. Twenty years ago when I was trying to say General Motors was a company that was going to fail and that there would be more towns that looked like Flint, Michigan, that was a time when everyone thought General Motors was golden. Then with Fahrenheit 9/11, I said we weren’t going to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we weren’t being told the truth. Some people didn’t want to hear that at the time. Two years ago I made a movie about how we should have universal health care [SiCKO] – wouldn’t it be great if that film was out right now? I need to work out my timing of this better. SM: We recently sat down with Robert Osborne, who says the problem with most movies today is they take so long to make that they are irrelevant by the time they hit theaters, but it sounds like you have the opposite problem. Is this because they are documentaries or is there some other secret to making timely films? MM: I’m just a good guesser. I started making [Capitalism] five months before the crash. But [Robert Osborne is] very right about that. All these Iraq War films have not done well. They haven’t found an audience, but it’s because they came out four or five years after the war began. Fahrenheit 9/11was made during the first year of the war. It was timely and relevant. The way movies are made now, once you’ve had the peak behind the curtain, you understand why so many aren’t very good or formulaic. It’s rare to walk out of the theater nowadays and say to your wife or your date, ‘Wow, that was something; that was a great way to spend two hours.’ Most of the time you’re going, ‘We just wasted two hours.’ SM: You’ve made a career out of documentaries, and some say you’ve revolutionized the face of the documentary. Aside from the provocative subject matter, what makes your films different from other documentaries? Why do they draw such box office crowds? MM: I make them as movies. I don’t think of it as a documentary. I don’t ghetto-ize in that sense. I set out to make an entertaining movie. I’m asking people to come to the movie theater on a Friday night, spend money and take time. I want to make as good of a movie as possible. When I started out, I was somebody who didn’t like documentaries that much. Looking back on it, I realize I was making the anti-documentary with Roger & Me. I’m a filmmaker. To me, you can tell a story a number of ways and nonfiction is one of those ways. SM: When you made Roger & Me, did you ever see yourself becoming such a controversial figure? MM: No, not at all [laughs]. I thought I’d just be taking that movie around in my van to churches and union halls. All of this has been a big surprise to me. I don’t think I was considered controversial back then or when I had my TV shows on NBC and Bravo. I think that image of me was created the first week of the war when I won the Oscar and I stood on the stage and said what I said. That was the first time a lot of Americans saw who I was. I’m not an aggressive person like that, but I was very upset about the war and I knew that our soldiers were going to lose their lives for what was essentially a lie. SM: Certainly there are many left-leaning celebrities that speak out. Why are you such a target for hatred from the right? MM: I think because they see that my work is not just viewed by the Church of the Left. My movies play in shopping malls and multiplexes. I’m one of the very few people on the left that has crossed over to have the mainstream mass audience. I think that’s scary to them. They see that I’m affective and that makes them angry. SM: Does it bother you? MM: Well, yes, of course it does. I don’t understand it. What are the crimes I’ve committed? I made a movie because I felt bad that my hometown was dying. I felt bad that students at Columbine High School were massacred so I made a movie about guns. [Is it a crime] that I wanted to protect soldiers from losing their lives in an illegal and misbegotten war or that I feel there’s something wrong living in a country where 47 million people don’t have health insurance? That’s my work, and for that, I’m vilified by a certain segment of the population. It kind of boggles my mind. SM: You just referenced Bowling for Columbine. Are you still a member of the National Riffle Association? MM: I’m a lifetime member, but last I heard there was a vote to have me excommunicated. SM: You once said you joined the NRA to run for president and dismantle the organization. MM: That was my original idea – to run against Charlton Heston. SM: So have you ever considered running for government office? MM: Well, I already did. I’m the youngest elected official in the history of this country. When 18 year olds were given the vote in 1972, I ran for the Board of Education. I was still a senior in high school the day I won. I was suddenly the principal’s boss. I get asked [about running for office], but my work is what I do. I’m informing people and telling them the stories they aren’t told by the mainstream news media. SM: There is a theory that says the old model of changing the world by becoming president of the United States no longer holds true and that you can effect more change outside of politics, be it through film, activism or even how you chose to spend your money. Do you agree with that? MM: Yes, but it still doesn’t hurt to be president [laughs]. SM: What do you think of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize? MM: Elated. Not surprised. I think the point that some people miss is that he won it on the day he was elected because the day he was elected the world became a safer place. The day he was elected the rest of the world knew that none of their countries would be invaded by the U.S. in the next four years. He won it on the first day because he made history in a country that was built on the backs of slaves and who only gave African Americans voting rights just 40 years ago. That this same country would elect an African American as president shows all the possibility of what can be done here in this great country. SM: What about the people who say we’re still in the middle of two wars? MM: These are wars he has inherited. Both of them are now catastrophes, and he has to clean up the mess he’s been handed. SM: Looking back on SiCKO, do you think Obama is going in the right direction with his health care plan? MM: That’s the problem. He hasn’t really proposed his health care plan. He’s left it up to Congress to come up with some patchwork plan that just upsets everybody on the right and the left. SM: After watching Capitalism, we left the theater frustrated that there was nothing we could do to change the broken system. What did you want people to take away from that film? What can we do? MM: What I hope people take away from the film is first of all, the information about how this [stock market] crash occurred, and then be inspired by the people I show in the film who are standing up to the powers that be. I want everyone who calls themselves a Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist to ask themselves if they are really following the tenets of their beliefs. I don’t know how you could be for a system that’s set up to protect the wealthiest one percent who have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined. It’s just not morally right. I want people to become active. Here’s an example: My wife and I moved to northern Michigan. We moved here full time about five or six years ago. It was the 2004 election and we wanted to hook up with the local Democrats. We discovered that the total number of members of the Democratic Party in this county was four. When you hear a number like that [laughs], you can either become dejected or you can say, ‘Man, do I have a challenge [laughs].’ So we became active and within three years there were over 300 members of the Democratic Party in the county. It went from four to 300. My wife is the vice chair of the party. Anybody can do that. Anybody can go to their county party meeting, and if you bring enough friends, you can take it over. SM: Stepping away from politics, you made your first feature film, Canadian Bacon, in 1995. Have you ever considered making another one? MM: Oh yes. I’ve actually been working on a screenplay. I don’t want to jinx it so I’m not talking about it. SM: You founded the Traverse City Film Festival, so you obviously feel festivals are an important part of the art of cinema. Can you elaborate? MM: Without festivals, I wouldn’t have a career as a filmmaker because I was nobody. I made a film, and the only way I was going to have a chance to have Hollywood see the film was to get it into the festival and hope someone from a studio would be there in the audience. Because of the egalitarian nature of film festivals, it’s not about who you know. It’s not about paying money to somebody. It’s about making a good movie. If you made a good movie, no matter what your station in life, you can get your film into a film festival. So that’s what I did. I took [Roger & Me] to the Telluride Film Festival. The people watching it loved it. They put it up on their first night. Roger Ebert was in the audience. The next day he wrote in the paper it was one of the best films he’s seen in the last 10 years, and that was it. Warner Bros. eventually bought it. Their executives were in the audience at the New York festival screening. There was a standing ovation for the film at the end. The director of the film festival told the audience that it set the record for standing ovations at the end of any film in the history of the New York Film Festival. The executives from Warner Bros. immediately went about trying to get the film. SM: What was your reaction? Were you completely shocked that this was happening? MM: I loved the movie, and I’ve always gone to two or three movies a week. I think I know when a movie has been well made. I knew in my heart of hearts that, considering I had no prior experience, I’d done good. I was personally proud of it. The fact that others would like it wasn’t surprising. What was shocking was that I wasn’t going to be able to take it around the country in my Ford van. SM: As a former editor and columnist for Mother Jones and someone who’s been interviewed countless times, what question have you always wanted to answer but never been asked? MM: [Pauses] Tell us about being an Eagle Scout. SM: Okay. Michael, tell us about being an Eagle Scout. MM: Well, I’m glad you asked! I became an Eagle Scout when I was 15 years old. I acquired all the appropriate merit badges. I was not a very good swimmer, and you have to get both your swimming and your life saving merit badge. You also have to do a community service project. I decided to make a slideshow filmstrip on pollution in my town and who was causing it. This was probably six months before the first Earth Day. It upset some of the businesses in town because I took pictures of them polluting the creek and the air. Anyway, it was really my first experience doing something with the visual arts and combining it with a political issue. Another question I never get asked is, ‘So you were elected to the Board of Education and you were elected class comic in the same week of your senior year. Please explain [laughs].’ I was mixing politics with humor at a very early age. SM: We have a filmmaking school here in Sedona. What advice do you offer budding filmmakers? MM: Make films from your heart. Don’t make films that you think are going to get you a Hollywood deal or gross a lot of money. Be true to yourself. Make a film you would enjoy and trust there [are] a million other people in this country just like you that would enjoy that kind of film. The great thing about this country of over 300 million people, you can have 299 million people not like what you do but one million who do. If they all pay $10 opening weekend, you’re going to have $10 million on your opening weekend [laughs]. If you decide to do it to make money, you’ll make no money. If you decide to do it because you love cinema, you’ll either wind up happy, which is more important than anything, or successful or both. SM: What’s in your Netflix que right now? MM: [Laughs] The truth? Last night somebody stopped me in the restaurant and said they’d tried three different times to get SiCKO, through Netflix, and each of the three discs didn’t work. From what I understand, people on the right rent the film through Netflix, and then scratch it up or do something to it and send it back. I wanted to really see if it’s true, so I ordered three copies under three different names to see if this was true. I want to see if it’s happening to the other films because I think it may just be SiCKO, and it may not be somebody on the right. It may be somebody in the health insurance industry. The vice president of Cigna Health Insurance went on Bill Moyers this summer and revealed that the health insurance companies put together a group of people to try to scare Michael Moore. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he brought the documents on the show. He decided to resign as vice president of Cigna, and he told Bill Moyers everything in SiCKO, was true. But I would say three of my favorite films I’ve seen in the last year are Troubled Water, which is a Norwegian film; Up in the Air with George Clooney; and a documentary called Outraged. The filmmaker tries to out gay politicians who always vote against gay issues and AIDS health. SM: One last question: Have you been to Sedona? MM: Yes, I have. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of the country and the people are very nice. I love the whole attitude of the place – it’s refreshing. TIM DALY - Poliwood
Tim Daly: I had been looking for years to try to do some sort of public service. I was very indecisive about it because I felt I wasn’t an expert on any of the things that concerned me, and so many things concerned me: health, environment, politics. Finally, I was at the Sundance Film Festival and I met Robin Bronk, the executive director of the Creative Coalition, which is an organization that was a proponent of the arts. That was something I knew about since I’ve been making my living as an artist for a long time. Robin and I were talking about our involvement in the conventions, and we had this idea that it would be great to document it in some way. We were lucky enough to have Barry Levinson agree to come with our delegation. It took on it’s own life because Barry is such an astute observer of our culture. That’s why this film has become known as a film essay, which I think is an apt description. SM: Who should see PoliWood? SM: You make a point of discussing your middle-class background in the film. Why do people assume celebrities are elitists when many come from humble beginnings? Do celebrities perpetuate the idea to an extent? TD: I don’t want to blatantly point my finger at the media, but somehow there’s been a disconnect between what people think of celebrities and what the vast majority of actors and artists actually do. When you talk about a movie star, people go to some sort of tabloid version of some little girl showing her crotch or being on drugs. The entire community gets tarred with this impression of being irresponsible, mindless children who are wasting their lives being decadent. That really isn’t the truth. A good example is all of the more right-wing celebrities who’ve reached political office: Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Sonny Bono. Fred Thompson ran in the last presidential election, but there’s this idea that the left is peopled by celebrities. I think what you might learn from this movie is that it’s important not to paint everyone with the same brush. Bono’s a rock star, but tens of millions of people would be really sad if he wasn’t involved in his political causes. I don’t think celebrities perpetuate the idea [of elitism]. Certainly they are given unique and special access to a lot of events and people, but the interesting thing about them is that they have nothing to gain personally from supporting a candidate or idea, for the most part. They are doing it because they believe in something. For some reason, people find that very suspicious. SM: It’s always incredible the way the public expects celebrities to check their opinions at the door and keep their mouths shut. What is your reaction to that point of view? SM: Poliwood debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and began running on Showtime last November. How important are film festivals to movies like PoliWood? Maynard James Keenan and Eric Glomski - Blood Into Wine
Sedona Monthly: In the trailer for the film Blood Into Wine, Maynard you talk about experiencing a dream about coming to Arizona. Where did you get the idea of growing grapes in Arizona? Maynard James Keenan: Just by looking at the slopes. It seemed like the right place to try it. SM: Does your family have a background in agriculture? MJK: None that I was aware of at the time. SM: How did the two of you meet? MJK: He was one of the only people in the area that I could find [who] was actually [growing grapes]. SM: What year did this come about? MJK: We met around 2001 or 2002. Eric Glomski: I was actually helping Jon Marcus start up Echo Canyon Vineyard and Winery. I’d never heard of Maynard or his music. He dropped in one day with some friends and apparently had interest in getting his own vineyard going. He was seeking out local knowledge. We got to chatting and realized we had similar drives and interests. One thing led to another and we decided to go at it together. SM: Eric, was it surreal when you found out who Maynard was and what he did for a living? EG: Honestly, I can’t say it was surreal. I think that’s why we’ve continued to work well together. To me, Maynard was just a guy who wanted to grow grapes in northern Arizona, which made it easy to have a meaningful relationship that wasn’t predicated on the trappings of stardom or celebrity. Now that I consider him a close friend, I’m certainly impressed by his artistry, his creativity, his entrepreneurial drive – he’s an exemplary person. SM: When and where did the idea of Blood Into Wine come about? MJK: There’s a film called The Heart is a Drum Machine. That’s how I met the directors and the producers. They filmed me at Page Springs Cellars. Part of that film is they put you on a black background and have you talk about music. While they were setting all of that up, they were looking around at the vineyard saying, ‘I think I see another film.’ EG: I met the directors [Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenke] through The Heart is a Drum Machine. I poured wine at one of their showings, and we just got to talking and this idea evolved to do a wine movie. It’s kind of a feature film/documentary. In one plot, Maynard transitions from the world of rock stardom to a laidback winemaker. [In another plot], we’re both pioneering a new wine region within the big picture. It happened organically. The next thing you know, we had a film crew around the winery for the last year. SM: Maynard, as someone who’s famously private, was it hard for you to be the subject of a documentary? MJK: I’ve had very little experience with films in the past. Pretty much – it was hard. What doesn’t come across too much in the trailer is the comedic element. There’s a lot of very tongue and cheek comedy. It’s very fun. EG: The majority of the humor flows more from Maynard’s world from my own. Some of it is esoteric from a certain group of people associated with Tool and Maynard’s world. There [are] some pretty solid wine elements, too, although it’s somewhat secondary. The film appeals to a younger crowd, which is fine. I’m excited about the fact that it’s not a stuffy wine movie. It’s a catch-22 for me. SM: What do you think will surprise viewers, particularly wine lovers, most after they see this film? MJK: If they are a wine lover from our area, they already know [about what we’re doing]. If they are from somewhere else, I’m assuming they’ll be very surprised at the endorsements we get as far as Arizona’s potential. SM: Do you think people in other parts of the country are surprised that we’re growing grapes in Arizona? MJK: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a shocking surprise. It’s just never come up. There’s a lot of noise out there, a lot of information to take in these days, so it’s just not on people’s radar. SM: What should audiences know about Blood Into Wine? MJK: So many people are going to expect this informative documentary that tells them all about how to make wine. That would be kind of boring. That’s not really our style. It’s definitely going to have some fun twists. It will be informative and entertaining. SM: Maynard, what can we expect from the film’s score? MJK: There [are] a few tracks here and there with Puscifer. I had nothing to do with anything else. SM: You seem completely enmeshed in life in northern Arizona, Maynard: a produce market in Cornville and a Puscifer clothing store and wine tasting room in Jerome. Do you feel like you’re a part of our community even though you prefer to keep a low profile? MJK: We’re building the market. We have the produce but not the market yet. We’ve been selling it out of my tasting room in Jerome. What Eric and I are doing in the community ingrains us in it. SM: Maynard, I know you’re on tour right now. What are you listening to on your iPod? MJK: [Laughs] Tomorrow’s set. We change up the set quite a bit, so we’re always having to relearn what we’re going to do tomorrow. SM: What are you listening to, Eric? EG: My musical interests are diverse. I listen to a bunch of people no one has heard of. Keith Greeninger and City Folk and [musicians] from the Bay Area. I’m also enjoying the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. As of late, I’ve also been digging into 80’s metal like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Just yesterday, I was listening to a bunch of Puscifer. SM: Lastly, what type of wine will you drink when you watch the final cut of the film? MJK: Hmmm…Oak Creek Pale Ale [laughs]. EG: [Laughs] It depends on where I see it. At home or with Maynard, we’ll be drinking his Judith Cab [Nagual del Judith] and my Page Springs [Cellars] Landscape. RICHARD SCHIFF - Another Harvest Moon And Poliwood
Sedona Monthly: This year, you’re in two movies being shown at the Sedona International Film Festival, Another Harvest Moon and PoliWood. Let’s talk about Another Harvest Moon first. Our film festival has been very sensitive about bringing in movies that deal with aging. Do you think mainstream Hollywood would ever make a film like Another Harvest Moon? SM: Tell us how and why you got involved with Another Harvest Moon. RS: The part was offered to me. They were told by the casting director that I turn down a lot of movies and shouldn’t get their hopes up. But I’ve instructed my managers and agents to send me any scripts that come in, regardless of what they think of them. There’s something deeply personal about this movie. I didn’t know if it was going to be great, I didn’t know the director’s work, but I loved the way they approached me. The [filmmakers] were not in Hollywood, they were out of Pennsylvania. Plus I got to work with Ernest Borgnine – I grew up watching him on television. He’s an icon. How often do you get a chance to work with someone with 70 years of experience? Cybill Shepherd is someone with great talent and a great career, as is Doris Roberts and Anne Meara. SM: The film is almost brutally realistic. Did it force you to consider your own parents’ mortality or even your own? RS: I think you do that without a conscious effort. You can’t help having that go through your blood. I don’t remember how I activated it. Ernie is such a cheery guy and so full of life that there was some great humor on the set, and that was probably to offset the subject matter. Of course it goes through your mind and heart, but it does for me all the time [laughs]. SM: You’re well known for your role as Toby Ziegler on The West Wing, so it seemed natural to see you in PoliWood. How did you get involved in the film and in the Creative Coalition? RS: I don’t remember the first time I ran into [the Creative Coalition]. I think they asked me to go to an event, and I went to a few that I would have otherwise not known about. I’ve been working with them a lot. I started going to the [political party] conventions back in 2000 when the Democrats were in LA and invading the set of The West Wing. In 2004, the Creative Coalition took me to [the Democratic National Convention in] Boston. I couldn’t go to [the Republican National Convention in] New York because I was working. I had a great deal of inside access through The West Wing. I believe in the dialectic. I believe in opposing sides coming together with a thesis and antithesis. That’s what the Creative Coalition does. SM: PoliWood addresses an interesting topic: the role of celebrities in politics. Why don’t people believe celebrities have the right to voice their political opinons? RS: I’m embarrassed to be an actor. I’ve never come to grips with it, and I’m still trying to decide if I want to be one or not. I’m embarrassed by public attention, so it’s awkward for me to being with. I was asked at the 2004 convention by Chris Matthews about celebrities having the right to be spokespeople for anyone. I asked him what Hollywood he was talking about? The Hollywood of Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Schwarzenegger, Reagan? That’s also Hollywood, so to accuse Hollywood of being liberally bent is kind of silly. It’s a PR attack – a way to discredit people. The second part of it is, I don’t think I’m a spokesperson for anyone, but we live in a culture whereby for some unknown reason I’m celebrated because I’m on television and have a public face. The least I can do is to have a responsibility to that and bring light to an issue that otherwise wouldn’t get attention. So while I think the public school teacher who’s taught music for 30 years deserves the spotlight well before I do if we’re talking about arts and education, the fact of the matter is that she has remained unknown. The least I can do is broach the subject and introduce the subject so that she can have a platform. There are people in the arts who, whether they were celebrities or not, would be doing what they are doing. I think Sean Penn would have gotten in a boat in New Orleans whether he was a movie star or not. He’d be trying to interview [Hugo] Chávez whether he a movie star or not, but he wouldn’t have access. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have the curiosity or be a lifelong activist. I know Martin Sheen very well, and I know his life purpose is activism. SM: After playing the White House communications director for nearly 10 years, does it make people more used to seeing you in a political role than other actors? RS: I don’t quite know how to analyze that – it feels funny at times. I’m on MSNBC, and I fit right in, though they throw me softball questions. I was confused as to who I was early one – [was someone] asking me questions because I’m Toby or Richard? I’ve been asked, What would Toby think? I don’t know – ask [the writer of The West Wing] Aaron Sorkin. I know what I think. I got an honorary doctorate from my college, CCNY [City College of New York], mostly because I wore their sweatshirt on TV while playing basketball in front of the White House on The West Wing. But I was honored on the same day as Bill Clinton. He sees me and says, My hero. I thought, What world am I living in [laughs]? We wound up hanging out, and it was before the 2004 convention. We were walking in a procession to the dais, which was outside. Ten thousand people lined the pathway, and I’m walking with President Clinton and I’m thinking, We’ve shot this scene about six times. Do I make my speech as Toby? He even joked that at least one of us still had a job in the White House. The line between reality and fiction blurred quite a bit. I became much more active when The West Wing was over. Sometimes I borrowed Toby’s wardrobe to go to these events, which made it more confusing. LYNETTE HOWELL - The Greatest Producers Lynette Howell and Doug Dey founded Silverwood Films in 2005. Lynette has produced films include Half Nelson, Stephanie Daley, The Passage and Phoebe in Wonderland. She spoke to Sedona Monthly about producing of The Greatest, a film about the loss of a child, starring Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan and Carey Mulligan. SM: On the set, you had veteran actors working with a first-time director. What was the mood like? LH: It was wonderful. It was a truly collaborative experience, and that always comes from the top. We brought the movie to Pierce Brosnan as an actor and executive producer. From the get-go, it was about working as a team. Susan [Sarandon] has worked on so many movies and every type of film – a lot of independent movies. She thinks carefully before she gets involved in a movie. She had a couple of meetings with Shana before she committed to the movie to make sure she could work with her. There was an understanding that the director is the leader. Both [Pierce and Susan] were very respectful and collaborative. That’s why the movie works so well. SM: Explain to us the role of the producer. LH: In today’s world, a producer has to do everything. There are different types of producers, and it’s evolved over the years. The type of producer I am is someone who raises money, works closely creatively with the director, helps with the cast, helps put the talent together, manages the team, oversees the distribution plan and the festival plan, oversees the marketing – from my standpoint, it covers everything. I’m on set every single day, sitting at the monitor next to Shana. You’re there to do everything. SM: The Greatest has an amazing cast. What was your role in casting? LH: It varies from movie to movie, and on this movie I was very involved from day one primarily because this was Shana’s first feature. In terms of attaching Pierce and Susan, we went through an agency and got them both to read to get them excited and passionate. Part of my job is to help sell the fact that I believed in Shana because I have produced movies in the past that have had first-time directors. The role of the producer is to be an enabler. You’re not trying to overshadow someone’s vision – you’re trying to help them achieve their vision because you have more experience, and you know how to give them all the pieces they need. SM: You seem to gravitate toward indie films. What is your opinion, from a producer’s point of view, of independent films vs. Hollywood blockbusters? What role do film festivals play in the art of cinema? LH: I think that the worlds are merging. Just because something is independent doesn’t mean it’s not commercial. Sometimes it means the movie has a smaller audience and therefore you have to be more creative in the way you reach the audience. Independent films are really about the filmmaker and the filmmaker creatively driving the vision of the film, which is different from a Hollywood movie that could be put together by a studio that then hires a director. [With indies], the director doesn’t necessarily have to have written the screenplay, but they take ownership over it and the story and the movie. SHANA FESTE - The Greatest
SM: You are also the film’s writer. Tell us how the story came about? SF: I wrote the story while I was working as a nanny for a baby named Ruby. When she took a nap, I’d take out my notebook and write the story. She definitely inspired me. I don’t have kids of my own, but holding a baby and writing about the loss of a child takes you to deeper places. I wanted to write something with strong roles. As a filmmaker, I used to work at an agency, and I knew the only way to get movies financed – dramas especially – is by attracting a good cast. My goal was to write a strong, character driven drama. SM: This is the first movie you have directed, correct? How did you manage to land such accomplished actors? SF: Yes, it was my first. The first step was getting the script to [the actors] and having them respond positively to the script. Pierce and Susan have both said these were roles they responded to immediately. I had to meet with them, and as a first-time director, you really have to pitch your vision in a very passionate way. I printed out homemade storyboards. I had color palates for the film. I tried to present them with an articulate package. But not a lot of actors at Pierce and Susan’s level will consider working with a first-time director. But they like taking risks, and they love to be part of something they believe it. They took a huge risk. Anytime you do a movie with a director, you are putting part of your career in their hands. SM: What was it like directing veterans such as Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan as well as up-and-coming stars like Carey Mulligan? SF: I was so lucky. They were open and collaborative. They left their ego at home. I was very lucky to have my first experience be such a good one. I’ve heard the horror stories about what first-time directors go through. Pierce and Susan were so generous. I was totally intimidated. The night before I went on set, I was scared out of my mind. I think the only thing that actually got me on set was that time was passing, and it was inevitable. Carey Mulligan had just wrapped An Education. We saw a lot of girls for this role, and no one really knew who she was. She auditioned like everyone else, and we immediately knew there was something really, really special about her. It’s been a cool process to see her star rise. SM: The Greatest is very emotional and demonstrates so many manifestations of grief. Was filming the movie emotional? SF: I think the low-budget aspect of this film helped us. We shot the movie in 25 days. Everything was at hyper-speed. There were scenes where we would have closed sets, and they were emotional. There were days where you look over at the boom guy, and he has tears running down his face. For the most part, we tried to keep it light and fun. I think everyone was really happy with the finished product, but it’s hard to watch. The actors had to go to a dark place while making the movie. SM: Have many film festivals will have screened this film before it comes to Sedona? What’s next for The Greatest? SF: We’ve been really selective about the film festivals we’ve been part of. We opened it at Sundance, and the movie opened the Hamptons [International] Film Festival. Sedona will be our fifth festival. The film will be released in March in LA and New York. Hopefully it will go wider. We’re lucky that Carey is getting so much attention – we’re hoping she’s nominated for an Oscar. We’re going to try to get as many people as we can to see it. ROBERT OSBORNE - Turner Classic Movies Presents… ROBERT OSBORNE: The whole concept of what we do at the film festival is to show classic films people maybe have seen but also introduce them to one or two maybe they haven’t seen. The Adventures of Robin Hood is just one of the most interesting and lively and colorful movies. It’s vivid color, like in a comic book, and the characters are so heroic. It’s not only entertaining but it’s what movies are all about: lively and full of action. We want people to have fun at the movies. A lot of times when people go to films today they forget how fun and lively they can be. [The movie] is either juvenile comedy or really serious like No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood. We want to show movies that are great fun – movies the whole family can go see. A Place in the Sun is one of the great movies of all time. It’s a really interesting story based on a true incident about a boy who committed a murder accidentally. It has to do with social inequality and someone who wants to belong to the upper classes. It’s a movie that haunts you. Of all the movies I’ve seen in my lifetime, it’s probably my favorite. It’s a great example for filmmakers, and I know at the festival you have a lot of would-be filmmakers. It’s a great example of what a director does for the material. Leave Her to Heaven is a great movie. It’s referred to as the first and only Technicolor film noir. It’s not really film noir because it’s not about the underbelly of life, but it’s about obsessive love, a woman who loves her husband so much she can’t bear to share him with anybody. I also picked it because not only is it a film not a lot of people know, but a lot of it was filmed around Sedona. It won an Academy Award for cinematography in 1945. It’s the last one we’re going to show. I want to encourage people to see it. It was a bestselling book and one of the most popular movies made in the ‘40s, but it’s not a movie a lot of people know today. We’ve never shown it on TCM before, but we’re about to next year. SM: Talk to us about the benefit of seeing these movies on the big screen as opposed to watching them on TV. RO: It’s a totally different experience. You see different things. When we watched Some Like it Hot in Sedona, there were people who came up to me afterwards and said it was like seeing a brand new movie because you see things you don’t see when it’s on a small screen. When we saw Marilyn Monroe on the big screen we just gasped – she was really something. As many times as I’ve seen that movie on TV, I never got the impact that I got seeing her on the big screen. That’s the whole purpose of showing these movies at a festival. It’s also important to see them with other people so that you’re sharing a funny comedy or a drama with 800 or 900 other people. It’s very communal, particularly with comedies or adventure films. There’s something about sharing that with other people. It’s like a ballgame –it’s much more fun to watch with other people who are cheering and yelling than it is watching it at home by yourself. SM: The Adventures of Robin Hood certainly seems applicable to this economy. Do people tend to gravitate toward comfortable classics during hard economic times? RO: I think a lot of times they are appealing because most end up happy – they want you to leave feeling good. You’ll find almost every movie, even serious movies, end up on a positive note. That’s not true nowadays. In the Depression days, the movies were popular. To get out of the real world, people went to see Fred and Ginger dancing on an Art Deco set. The problem today is the fact that it takes about three years to make a movie from the time you get the idea. We’re not getting today what people really need. What people needed three years ago, they don’t need today. Three years from now, we’ll probably be getting a lot of comedies and upbeat films. SM: Is there a difference between your favorite movie to sit down and watch and your favorite movie to present to an audience? RO: I’ve presented so many movies to audiences through TCM, so I think my job on TCM is to interest people in a movie by telling them something about it to make them stop and watch it or make the movie more interesting. Today I watched a movie on TCM that wasn’t very good – Elephant Walk with Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Finch. It’s OK, but what’s so interesting is that Vivien Leigh started making the film, but she had a nervous breakdown and she had to drop out. In the long shots, it’s Vivien Leigh. If you know her and know what she was like, you can tell it’s not Elizabeth Taylor. If you know that, it makes the movie fascinating to watch. That’s my job. In the film festival, I really am introducing my favorite movies to people. Lauren Bacall said one time, a lot of people say they don’t like old movies, but if you’ve never seen Brief Encounter made in 1945, it’s not an old movie, it’s a new movie. If you haven’t seen Adventures of Robin Hood, it’s not an old movie, it’s a new movie. It’s like saying you wouldn’t read [The Adventures of] Tom Sawyer or the Bible because they are old books. If you don’t see things because you perceive them as being old, you’re denying yourself great pleasure. SM: You’ve been to Sedona a few times now. What do you like to do when you come here? RO: It’s so nice to come to Sedona and see this great scenery. I like to do nothing. Maybe walk around and look at the scenery. It’s so awesome to me. It’s unlike any other place in the world. I’ve been to the Alps and they are extraordinary but I don’t think there’s anyplace else with these vistas. I think it’s a miracle and really wonderful the city has been designed as it has. With all the building going on, none of that really gets in the way of the views. It’s been put together brilliantly. It’s not a place where I want to be indoors. SM: You still write for The Hollywood Reporter and you interview actors on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, so you see all of the current movies, too. Who should we be watching in terms of actors and directors? RO: John Krasinski from The Office is really wonderful. He’s directed a new movie called Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and he was wonderful in Away We Go. I think he’s clever and talented and someone to watch. Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis are going to be great stars for a long time. There are a lot of great people but it’s so hard to know who’s going to get the opportunity because so many movies open now. It depends on who has the lucky break. It’s difficult to have a long career now. SM: You’ve interviewed some of the greatest actors of all time. Does anyone in particular stand out? RO: There are very few that haven’t [stood out] in one way or another. What stands out is even if you haven’t had a great respect for an actor beforehand, when you talk to them you realize right away why they are so successful and good. Most of them are very positive, very professional and enjoy the profession they are in. We don’t do interviews with people unless they’ve had a long career, and most succeed in this business because they are nice people. CONNIE STEVENS - Saving Grace B. Jones
Sedona Monthly: At the end of Saving Grace B. Jones, it states that the movie is inspired by true events. Can you elaborate? Connie Stevens: [Almost] everything is true – I’m the little girl [Carrie]. After 9/11, I drove across the country and went through this town, Boonville. As happens with a lot of people, an incident will happen, and as time goes by it’s almost like it never happened. Since it was so traumatic, I did not speak about it at all. When I went through the town, everything came back to me so vividly. I found the little girls who lived across the street – they are my age of course. We started talking about Grace and what had happened. I said I was going to go home and write the story, and I did. A friend of mine said I had to make the movie, and that’s how it happened. SM: This was not your first time directing and producing a film, however, your previous experience was with a documentary about women in the Vietnam War. What was it like working on a feature film? CS: It was very heady and exciting. I didn’t sleep much. I was totally consumed. I was nervous – there was so much to get done. I had to stay totally focused at every moment. Before I went [on location], I put the film into pictures. It really helped me. When I had to jump from scene-to-scene when the weather wasn’t right or what have you, I already had my book of pictures. If we had to jump to something else, the book triggered my mind. SM: Are you looking forward to doing it again? CS: I’m prepping a new film called Prairie Bones. It takes place from 1870 to 1890. I am a history buff. SM: Does it give you a different appreciation for acting when you’re working behind the camera? CS: Absolutely. I was so totally into the actors. I promised them they would never have a false second on the screen, and I think I achieved that. I can’t tell you how growing it’s been for me to have them as my family. Discovering those children who had never done anything before was just amazing. Two of the children I saw at the local Day’s Inn when I put an ad in the paper. They read for me, and they were just amazing. We call ourselves ‘friends forever.’ SM: The role of Carrie, played by Rylee Fansler, is based on you. What was it like watching her re-enact your story? CS: She became an actor, a character, after a while, but the thing that was most difficult was recreating the murder [at the beginning of the film]. I never told anybody about it, not even my family. To carry that around as a child was very, very difficult. I was very nervous creating the murder over again. I worried for [Rylee] so much. It was the very last shot on the very last night. If I had started with that it would have frightened the hell out of her. SM: When did the film premiere? The story is almost overwhelmingly tragic. What has been reaction from audiences? SM: The weather plays a big role in this film. The rain is one of the main characters. CS: It was 120 degrees down there so we had to create it. I carried two trucks from Los Angeles that could hold thousands of gallons, and we got it out of the river. It rained whenever we needed it. It became oppressive, didn’t it? SM: You’ve had a tremendously successful career with mainstream Hollywood movies and television shows, but what is your opinion of the importance of independent films? CS: I’m a big fan of documentaries because they tell it like it is. My film The Healing documented Vietnam from a female point of view. Indies give you a slice of life documenting the times. A lot of the [major movie studios] that used to do it, like Meet John Doe, aren’t making films like that. They are making Transformers. It stifles the writing and the creativity. That’s why I said I was going to write [this film]. I wanted to show 1951. Take a good look at it. People treated each other a lot nicer. The community cared about each other. I don’t see that in films, which is why I put it in mine. The actors became like the community they were portraying, and I hope people notice that. SM: Have you been to Sedona in the past? CS: Once, and I loved it! And I can’t wait to come back for the festival. STEPHANIE ARGY and ALEC BOEHM - The Red Machine
Sedona Monthly: Tell us about the evolution of The Red Machine. How did the story come about? When did you first start writing and when was it finished? Stephanie Argy: We’ve always really been fascinated with capers and spy movies. We came across a book that had a mention of these black-bag operations – it was all about code breaking – and so we thought it would be a cool movie. This was in 2000. We didn’t do much with it until we made a short film called Gandhi at the Bat, which is also set in the 1930s. Among the actors who showed up to the casting call was Lee Perkins, who plays F. Ellis Coburn, and Donal Thoms-Cappello, who plays Eddie Doyle. While working with them on the short, we realized they were great and decided they could be our spy and our thief. From there we started writing it, and it turned into the movie. There were certain aspects that were shaped because we knew it would be those two actors. SM: How long did it take to film? SA: Twenty-seven shooting days. We shot at the end of 2006. It took us until this year to do all of our post [production] because we did it all ourselves. We finally finished [in 2009], and we debuted at the Mill Valley Film Festival. SM: We’d like to focus on the process of directing a movie. This is the third film you’ve directed together, correct? What’s the most difficult part of the directing process? SA: We directed together quite a lot, but there’s three out in the world. Alec Boehm: It’s our first narrative feature. We wondered if doing short films was good preparation for a feature, and in a way it was, but in another way we had no idea what we were getting into. You think a 90-minute film would only be nine times as hard as a 10-minute film, but that’s not the case. It was also ten times more fun. SA: It’s a lot more complex to do a feature. Every decision has so many more repercussions. Everything that you’re doing becomes more complicated. AB: Once you get on the set, your big job is problem solving. Before you get there, you’ve worked out what you’re going to do. SA: The difference between a short and a feature, for me, is when you’re doing a short it happens so fast that everything has to be ready to go before you start. The big shift was understanding that the start of the movie might be two days away, but the finish is six weeks down the road. Not every single thing had to be done [at the beginning]. SM: What is it like to direct a movie with someone else? SA: There’s one commonality that crosses all we do: We have a slightly different perspective on the work. That saves us. I tend to take a broad view of things. I’ll see the arc of the movie or the entirety of a scene. That works whether we are writing or directing or editing. Alec has this incredible eye for details. I set the scene, and he focuses in, spotting the minuet expressions on an actor’s face. He’ll know exactly where to trim a frame. SM: Let’s talk about those subtle nuisances in the character’s expressions. Those expressions really told us a lot about what happened in the character’s pasts. How do you coax that out of an actor? AB: It needs to be in the script. There [are] a lot of lines in the script that made things more obvious [and those] didn’t wind up in the movie. Once the movie was performed, you’d see things on [the actor’s] faces that told us we could cut lines from the movie. But let’s not take away anything from the actors. They were really good. What’s the secret? Get good actors. That’s one thing that almost everyone who sees the movie says: They really like the actors. SM: The film’s running time is one hour and 24 minutes – that’s really short compared to most feature films today, but it was the perfect pace for this movie. It held our interest from beginning to end. How important is a film’s running time, and how involved is the director in that decision? AB: We like short movies. SA: We tried to write a very tight script. When we edited, there were several exchanges and three full scenes that we dropped. It wasn’t that the performances weren’t good; they just reiterated certain statements that the characters had already made. AB: Or connections that would be more fun for the audience to make rather than have it handed to them. SA: That’s one of the harder parts: killing snippets of a performance that you love. AB: No one told us it had to be under 90 minutes. SA: It was the editor hat saying we didn’t emotionally need a scene. AB: Some were heartbreaking to take out. SM: Talk to us about the importance of film festivals in today’s day and age when it seems like the only thing that interests Hollywood are special effects, sequels and remakes. SA: It’s interesting because we spent an incredible amount of time on the festival circuit with our short film. To be able to see your work in front of a real audience is an incredible privilege and learning lesson. You have a sense of on-going collaboration. When you walk into the office of an amazing film festival – and Sedona is very much that – you see all these people who are working their fingers to the bone for your movie and all the movies that are there. You realize your crew didn’t stop the day you wrapped you movie. The people of the festival are part of your crew. And when you debut in front of the audience, you realize [they are part of your crew.] DON HAHN, Director, Waking Sleeping Beauty
Sedona Monthly: Why did you decide to make Waking Sleeping Beauty? Why do you think enthusiasm for animation waned in the late 70s/early 80s? Don Hahn: I think if you’re lucky, once in a lifetime you live through a special time. The people were what were so intriguing. For me, the project started out with Peter Schneider, who I hadn’t seen in years. We crossed paths again, went out for coffee and started talking. Peter particularly wanted to make a movie telling the story. I was suspicious at first, although I knew it was amazing and juicy and contentious and interesting – all the things you needed for a good story. If we did it, we would have to do it with such honesty – that was the only way I wanted to be a part of it. Through a series of events, it happened we could do it with the kind of candor we all thought we needed to do it with. I think [animation waned] simply because of the fashion business. You could not sell an animated film at that time. If you did, it was My Little Pony or Carebears – something associated with a product line. [Animated films] were very much associated with children and marginalized to things for young children. Disney films had an adult audience, but it was seen as something you took the kids to while you tolerated it. Also, the vitality of the industry waned. [Animation] was at a peak when it first began in the ‘30s. It’s a very similar period to [Waking] Sleeping Beauty. They made five movies and built a building then it all fell apart. The war started and things changed so quickly. There had been some other great periods – the ‘50s when Walt made Peter Pan and Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. It just went out of fashion and the creativity wasn’t as vital. You had a group of men and women who were at the end of their careers. SM: The way this documentary was filmed struck us as unique. Rather than seeing the interviews as they are happening, we’re seeing footage from the ‘80s and ‘90s. What made you decide to do that? And was the video camera always on in the animation department? DH: I had seen a lot of DVD bonus material where you had old guys reminiscing [laughs], and I didn’t want to do that. It would have been a puff piece if we’d done that. Peter and I had the benefit of being in the room during this period of time. There had been books, Disney War, about this period of time that we both felt got it wrong. Between the two of us, we saw the artistic and executive sides of this story. We wanted to tell it by putting you in the room. We had some rules: no talking heads; no old guys reminiscing; tell us something we don’t know; and show us something we haven’t seen. We decided to use the scratchy old home movies and the stuff that had accumulated in our garages. In a funny way, that was the compelling footage. There was a video camera always on, and it wasn’t supposed to be. It was completely against company policy to film anything inside the animation department. The irony is that this movie is made from contraband material. It shows the fun and joy of making these movies. It was joyful. SM: Who did you make Waking Sleeping Beauty for? DH: The [expected] answer might be fans of Disney animation, and that’s certainly true. We know people who love Disney animation will love [the film], and we’re really excited to make it for that audience. But the real answer is that I think there’s a modern cautionary tale in this movie that can apply to businesses and business schools – people who are in the arts – and it can be an interesting case study. Some of our audiences have had no interest in animation but have been interested in the behavior of a corporation, celebrity CEOs and executive egos. Those have been fun screenings. It’s an eye-opening film when it comes to those issues. SM: When you discuss Oliver & Company in the film, it struck us that it was the first animated movie to really use celebrity voices. Now, actors and actresses are constantly lending their voices to animated films. Did Oliver & Company start the trend? DH: I think it brought that trend back. Even in Snow White, all the dwarves were well-known radio personalities. Cliff Edwards, who did Jiminy Cricket’s voice was well-known. But again that had been lost. The idea had atrophied. I think Oliver & Company brought that back. The biggest return of that thinking was putting Robin Williams in the role of Genie in Aladdin. Everywhere you look now, that’s the way animated movies are made. SM: It seems Howard Ashman and Alan Menken put the spotlight on music in animated films beginning with The Little Mermaid. Suddenly, we were buying the soundtracks on CD. Would you agree? How has music influenced animation? DH: Howard and Alan absolutely brought an awareness of music back to us when we were making these films. It had a huge influence on us. It’s important to know, too, that Howard wasn’t just a lyricist. He had a producer credit on these movies, and he was an amazing storyteller. What [Howard and Alan] did together was use music to tell stories. Howard believed in telling story with song, not just stopping and singing. The songs serve as plot. That was a revelation to everybody. Howard was an amazingly inspiring guy in the studio. He was very passionate, very opinionated. He wasn’t tough to work with, but he taught us in many, many ways. SM: Have Michael Eisner, Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg seen Waking Sleeping Beauty? What did they think? DH: Yes, they’ve seen it. There are some uncomfortable things in the movie that had to be said to tell the story. All three were gracious. At first, Michael was reluctant. He knows us very, very well so I think there was an element of trust, but it took him a long time to warm to what we were doing. When he did, he was helpful and cooperative. Jeffrey was surprisingly cooperative. He was really the first one to step forward. He gave me three or four hours of recorded interviews and commentary. He says he’s not a reflective guy, but oddly he is. When we showed him the movie, Peter and I sat next to him at DreamWorks [Animation], and he was very moved by it, particularly the Howard Ashman areas. Roy Disney was very candid. This story takes place 20 years ago, but he was happy to tell it like he saw it, warts and all. In the end, that’s what everybody wanted to do. SM: It must have been nerve wracking to watch the film with those guys. Were you nervous? DH: I was horrified [laughs]. I was dreading it for months. I knew at some point I wanted to show it to them – I was not reluctant. I didn’t want to do it without them. I think it’s a cheap shot to make a movie like this and not include [the key players] in the process. If they were going to beat me up, I wanted them to stab me in the chest, not the back [laughs]. In the end, as I look back with some months of space, they were all gracious about it. Did they give me notes? Yes. Did we address all of them? No. SM: It was interesting to learn that Beauty and the Beast was screened at the New York Film Festival before it was finished. How involved were you in that decision? DH: I wasn’t too involved in the decision because I was knee-deep in finishing the movie. It was a chance to start posturing animation as art. We also had a show at the Whitney Museum in New York. It started to make people think of animation as an art form. The movie had actually been completed a little more than we wanted to show, so we had to retrograde it back a little bit. It was an amazing night. People stood up and came unglued. We were up in an opera box overlooking the audience. People wouldn’t stop – I felt like Eva Perón, standing in a box while people are cheering. This was a cartoon. There was a huge appreciation, and that was one of the first hints that this era was going to be different. SM: Waking Sleeping Beauty debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Have you screened it at many other festivals? What is the importance of film festivals in animation? DH: Not many festivals have screened the film. It won the audience award at the Hamptons [International] Film Festival. Film festivals are important to the world of movies, period. Aside from the commercial aspect, there are a tremendous amount of movies made that might not see the light of day, particularly when it comes to short films. There are so many animated short films that wouldn’t get seen if it weren’t for film festivals. The same goes for documentaries. If it weren’t for festivals like yours, they wouldn’t get seen. SM: What are you working on right now? How many years have you worked for Disney? DH: I started working for Disney in 1976. Right now, I’m working on two films. I’m executive producing both. One is a film called Oceans. It’s coming out on Earth Day next year. It’s a nature documentary. I executive produced Earth, which came out last year. They are both part of Disneynature. [Oceans] is spectacular. We’re finishing it up now. I’m also working with Tim Burton on a stop-motion animated film called Frankenweenie. It’s the Frankenstein story with a boy and his little dog. We’re deep in pre-production now. The movie will be out in 2011. SM: What should audiences know about Waking Sleeping Beauty before they see the movie? DH: I hope when people see the movie they understand the joy and struggle that goes into any creative endeavor, whether it’s making an animated film or building a building. Sometimes the gloss and glamour of Disney loses the fact that Disney is really just a bunch of guys in the room with a cold pizza in the middle of the table trying to figure out how to tell a story.
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Michael Moore made his first film, Roger & Me, which documented the decline of his hometown of Flint, Mich., 20 years ago. Since then, he’s tackled topics including gun control, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the health care industry and the recent Wall St. collapse. In 2003, he won an Academy Award for Bowling for Columbine, and he was nominated for an Oscar in 2008 for SiCKO. He has also authored seven books; directed music videos for Rage Against the Machine, R.E.M. and System of a Down; hosted and directed the television shows TV Nation, The Awful Truth and Michael Moore Live; and founded the Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan. The Sedona International Film Festival is looking back on Michael’s career by screening three of his films including his most recent, Capitalism: A Love Story. Michael will attend the screenings and answer questions at the end of each film. On his way home from work in northern Michigan one evening, Michael called Sedona Monthly and spent 40 minutes discussing his films, politics, becoming an Eagle Scout and his Netflix que. It’s a conversation we’re not likely to forget any time soon.
Tim Daly played Joe Hackett from 1990 through 1997 in the popular sitcom, Wings. Since then, he’s shown up on The Sopranos, Judging Amy, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Tim produced and appears in PoliWood, directed by Academy Award-winner Barry Levinson, which explores the collision and collusion of politics and Hollywood. The documentary had already received a tremendous amount of buzz when Tim called us one evening as he was sitting in traffic on I-10 in Los Angeles, trying to make his way home from work.
Multi-platinum recording artist Maynard James Keenan, his vineyard partner Eric Glomski, and their quest to bring the wine industry to northern Arizona are the subjects of the documentary Blood Into Wine. Maynard fronts three alt rock bands: Tool, Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, which have sold a combined total of 30 million records worldwide, but he also owns Merkin Vineyards and its associated winery, Caduceus Cellars, in Page Springs. He’s called northern Arizona home since 1995. Maynard is a notoriously private person and rarely grants interviews, but he checked in with Sedona Monthly from Vancouver, B.C., while on tour with Puscifer to talk about screening the film at the Sedona International Film Festival. As for Eric, he spoke to us while recovering from ankle surgery at his home near the winery. Eric planted Page Springs Vineyards in 2004 and harvested his first grapes in 2006. Page Springs Vineyards and Merkin Vineyards are a stone’s throw away from each other.
Emmy award-winning actor Richard Schiff stars in two films at this year’s Sedona International Film Festival: the end-of-life drama Another Harvest Moon (produced by Chad Taylor, the lead singer of rock band Live, and starring Ernest Borgnine, Anne Meara, Doris Roberts and Cybill Shepherd) and the documentary PoliWood (see interview with Tim Daly for more details). Richard starred in one of our favorite 2007 films, Martian Child, but he’s best known for his role as Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director, on the television drama The West Wing. Richard called us from the Starz Denver Film Festival to talk shop.
First-time director Shana Feste has a remarkable story. She writes a screenplay while working as a nanny, manages to cast two A-list actors as well as one of Hollywood’s rising stars, and premiers the film at the Sundance Film Festival. Not too bad for a woman who got her start touring with the Young Professionals Actors program when she was 11. Shana called Sedona Monthly from Nashville and the set of her latest film to talk to us about The Greatest.
For the third year in a row, the host of Turner Classic Movies since 1994, Robert Osborne, returns to the Sedona International Film Festival to present three classic films: Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) on Feb. 25; George Stevens’s A Place in the Sun (1951) on Feb. 26; and John Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven (1945) on Feb. 27. As in previous screenings, Robert will give viewers behind-the-scenes info about each film; after the screenings, he will answer questions. Robert was in Sedona last September to present Some Like it Hot and Sweet Smell of Success along with the film’s star, Tony Curtis, at Harkins Sedona 6. Robert took time out from his busy schedule to sit by the fire at L’Auberge de Sedona and talk shop with Sedona Monthly.
Connie Stevens might be best known for her role at perky Cricket Blake in the late 1950s and early 1960s detective television series Hawaiian Eye and as the vocal chords behind “Sixteen Reasons” and “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.” In the 1980s, she had roles in popular TV series such as The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote and Baywatch; and in the 1990s she launched her own cosmetics company. But Connie told Sedona Monthly via telephone from her Los Angeles office that she was meant to be a director. She directed her first film, a documentary called The Healing, in 1997. She spoke to us about Saving Grace B. Jones, the feature film she wrote, produced and directed.
Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm began their writing and directing careers with a series of critically acclaimed short films, Gandhi at Bat and Scene. Both Stephanie and Alec grew up in Los Angeles; Stephanie earned her master’s in journalism and has written for Variety and the Hollywood Reporter while Alec got his start in the camera department working on films such a The Passion of the Christ and The Haunted Mansion. The duo wrote, produced and directed The Red Machine, a film about a thief and a spy set in World War II. Stephanie and Alec spoke to Sedona Monthly about making their first feature film.
Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It’s the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits between 1984 and 1994, a 10-year period that the documentary’s director, Don Hahn, calls “a perfect storm of people and circumstances that changed the face of animation forever.” Hahn began working at Disney studios in 1976 when he was only 20 years old. He went on to produce such hits as Beauty and the Beast (the first animated film to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination); The Nightmare Before Christmas; The Lion King; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; and the 2006 short, The Little Match Girl, which earned Hahn his second Oscar nomination. Hahn spoke to Sedona Monthly via phone and admitted that he’d never been to Sedona but couldn’t wait to see the red rocks.
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