The title of this installment of spot.com.mentary is a prevalent theme throughout this Directors Series issue as filmmakers ranging from emerging to established continue to be sparked by their passions, yielding notable work.
On the established director front, consider the POV below this column in which we cover director David Ramser of The Artists Company who in-between his paid professional spot gigs is pursuing projects of personal interest, including The Foreclosure of Cristina Ramos, a short which puts a human face on the mortgage meltdown. At press time, Ramser was in South Central Los Angeles–with camera in hand–covering an after-school program designed to prevent inner city kids from turning to drugs or crime.
Ramser explained, “I wanted to take on other kinds of projects that directly affect me, that have been brought to my attention by some relationship to the subject matter. For me, this is fun. This wasn’t a directorial decision so that I could skip out on comedy and get more work of a different sort. I love comedy–that’s what I do professionally. But I wanted some passion projects to express myself in other ways, to explore interesting things I care about or that just strike my imagination.”
Similarly, directors looking to establish themselves find that guided by their passions they can gain exposure for their talent, a prime case in point being Jimmy Diebold of Bodega Studios whose Midnight Lights–an art/architectural film centered on an ambitious, logistically complex light show he orchestrated at CenturyLink Field in Seattle–has generated some 500,000 hits on YouTube and counting. The light show plays like classic animation, made up of thousands of still images assembled to sync up to a dubstep rendition of “Midnight City” by M83, remixed by PatrickReza. The short has also sparked heightened industry interest in Diebold who is covered in this week’s Up-and-Coming Directors feature.
And a passion pursuit of an established yet at the same time still emerging director, Daniel Junge, who too is a focus of our Up-and-Coming Directors feature story, has yielded Saving Face, this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Short Subject Documentary.
Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy co-directed Saving Face, which introduces us to Dr. Mohammad Jawad who returns to his Pakistan homeland to help victims of acid burns. We see the women who are recovering and reclaiming their lives, and a female attorney who fights to see that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice.
Junge knew about incidents of acid attacks on women in South Asia, often committed by their husbands or boyfriends as part of an ongoing pattern of abuse.
The director found an avenue to pursue the subject when he heard a BBC Radio report about Dr. Jawad who’s based in the U.K.
The result is a documentary which movingly captures both the plight as well as the courage of these victimized women in Pakistan, chronicles the progress being made to prosecute the perpetrators of these attacks, and the efforts of a plastic surgeon to heal not just the physical wounds but the emotional scars as well.
Gene Hackman Died Of Heart Disease; Hantavirus Claimed His Wife’s Life About One Week Prior
Actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease a full week after his wife died from hantavirus in their New Mexico hillside home, likely unaware that she was dead because he was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, authorities revealed Friday. Both deaths were ruled to be from natural causes, chief medical examiner Dr. Heather Jarrell said alongside state fire and health officials at a news conference. "Mr. Hackman showed evidence of advanced Alzheimer's disease," Jarrell said. "He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that's what resulted in his death." Authorities didn't suspect foul play after the bodies of Hackman, 95, and Betsy Arakawa, 65, were discovered Feb 26. Immediate tests for carbon monoxide poisoning were negative. Investigators found that the last known communication and activity from Arakawa was Feb. 11 when she visited a pharmacy, pet store and grocery before returning to their gated neighborhood that afternoon, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday. Hackman's pacemaker last showed signs of activity a week later and that he had an abnormal heart rhythm Feb. 18, the day he likely died, Jarrell said. Although there was no reliable way to determine the date and time when both died, all signs point to their deaths coming a week apart, Jarrell said. "It's quite possible he was not aware she was deceased," Jarrell said. Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, said he believes Hackman was severely impaired due to Alzheimer's disease and unable to deal with his wife's death in the last week of his life. "You are talking about very severe Alzheimer's disease that normal people would be in a nursing home or have a nurse, but she was taking care... Read More