There are many aspects of the Brooklyn
renaissance – Smith Street has become the new restaurant row,
real estate prices are going through the roof and the arts are
flourishing. Now it’s a new not-for-profit media organization
that is leading the charge for film.
Brooklyn Film Networks combines production facilities, film screenings
and youth programs, all in the name of independent cinema. Barely
a year old, BFN was founded by filmmakers Judd Ehrlich, who hails
from Flatbush, and Park Sloper Larry Daley. After attending Vassar
College (where they met as roommates), Daley, 30, was a creative
advisor for several Warner Brothers projects; Ehrlich, 29, worked
with families in the city’s shelter system while pursuing his
own documentary film work.
Two years ago they decided to start a production company in order
to devote all their time to film projects. They managed to acquire
an Avid film editing system, set up shop on Seventh Avenue in
Park Slope, and were soon renting it out as well as teaching
classes on its use.
Turns out they had one of the only Avids in the entire borough,
and filmmakers were coming from all over Brooklyn to get their
editing done. Ehrlich and Daley saw a real need for these services,
as well as a way for filmmakers to connect. According to Ehrlich,
they’d get calls from filmmakers – "Do you know a d.p. [director
of photography]?" or "Do you know an editor?"
Daley found it strange that there were so many filmmakers and
such a lack of facilities. All this inspired them to find a means
for filmmakers to come together. A series of film screenings
of work by Brooklyn artists seemed the perfect vehicle. They
started a database that grew and grew and now numbers more than
1,000. And so Brooklyn Film Networks was born.
Certainly the most well known aspect of BFN is "Brooklyn
Independents" at the BAM Rose Cinemas, a series of film
screenings featuring Brooklyn filmmakers. If you weren’t paying
attention, you missed their May 31 sold out screening of Park
Slope actor-director Steve Buscemi’s "Animal Factory,"
with Buscemi and star Willem Dafoe in attendance to engage in
lively discussion with the audience. There were so many attendees
at the Q&A that a second theater was commandeered and the
Q&A was projected on the screen via a live feed.
Next up, on July 18, will be the new documentary, "Keep
the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale." Directed
by the brother-sister team of David Shapiro of Williamsburg and
Laurie Gwen Shapiro, this award-winning film (Independent Feature
Project Truer Than Fiction award) follows the exploits of Tobias
Schneebaum, a 78-year-old gay Brooklyn painter.
Back in the ’50s, Schneebaum cast aside the urban life and spent
time with cannibal tribes in the Amazon jungle. Now, 45 years
later, he revisits his old haunts with these intrepid filmmakers
in tow. After the 6:30 pm screening, the filmmakers, as well
as their subject, will answer questions, a hallmark of this screening
series.
On Sept. 19, BFN presents "Boiler Room," Ben Younger’s
2000 drama of high finance and the stock market, with Ben Affleck,
Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel.
This series is so popular (screenings generally sell out a week
in advance) that in October, Ehrlich and Daley will start a monthly
series at the Brooklyn Museum, "Brooklyn Docs," dedicated
to documentary films. They’re also working on a screening series
in DUMBO in partnership with Arts at St. Ann’s.
Youth is served
Access to film for young people is another important component
of BFN. Last year they participated in a program called Brooklyn
Expedition, in partnership with the Brooklyn Children’s Museum,
the Brooklyn Public Library and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Daley
and Ehrlich worked with teens on the video portion of a Web site
designed by Brooklyn teenagers. The kids were a real film crew
– conceptualizing, producing, shooting and editing a documentary
for the Web.
Their next such initiative, Digital Brooklyn, has already gotten
a positive response, said Ehrlich, and plans are underway to
collaborate with the Brooklyn Public Library, enabling teens
from all over the borough to work with kids in different neighborhoods
through the Internet.
The two partners are visibly excited about these programs as
well as future plans for young people. They want to give Brooklyn
teens early access to the film industry. How to accomplish this?
By getting them experience working with independent filmmakers,
who in turn will serve as mentors. And Ehrlich and Daley want
to teach them the many aspects of film; let them know that there’s
more to filmmaking than just being a director. Cinematographers,
designers, carpenters and electricians are all needed.
BFN’s goal, said Ehrlich, is to teach beyond the glamour quotient
of cinema, and at the same time to treat teens not only as students,
but also as young professionals.
"To us it’s a learning environment, to them maybe a work
environment," said Daley. "What a neat thing – I would
have loved to have that as a kid. How much more will they get
out of it if they’re treated like professionals?" The screenings
series will give these kids the opportunity to have their work
seen by the public.
Film center
In order to maintain and expand all of these aspects of the organization
– production facilities, classes, screenings and youth projects,
plans are already underway for developing a film-video-new media
building. Currently there’s a waiting list for their BFN editing
facilities in Park Slope because their space is small. A building
dedicated to independent cinema – making films, learning to make
them, screening them and discussing them – would go a long way
towards the partners’ ultimate goal: that Brooklyn become a center
for independent film.
Their planned center would be open 24 hours a day, and with screening
and editing facilities as well as a cafe, would become a destination
for filmmakers, and kids learning to become filmmakers.
Ehrlich and Daley are already discussing possibilities with Harvey
Lichtenstein and the BAM LDC and DUMBO developers David and Jed
Walentas. They are even looking near the Navy Yard and are establishing
a relationship with Steiner Studios, commercial production facilities
scheduled to open within the year.
Ehrlich and Daley look forward to BFN acting as a liaison between
that commercial facility and the independent film community.
They hope to have their own center, in whatever neighborhood
turns out to be the most financially hospitable, become a reality
in about a year, and they’re about to launch a capital campaign
to make sure it happens. Based on their success raising funds
for their series programming, they’re hopeful they’ll be able
to raise capital funds from foundations, corporations and individuals.
"Right now we have all the figures in place, but without
the building for people to really visualize it and get excited
about it," said Daley. They’re reaching out to Brooklynites
all over.
"Something like one in seven people can trace roots back
to Brooklyn," he said. "We’re talking to people in
the film and TV industry from Brooklyn who’ve ’made it’ – we’re
establishing relationships so that they can become involved in
the borough on another level."
One could call these two young men, brimming with ideas, practical
visionaries. They are energized by all the possibilities, and
are truly excited to be doing it in Brooklyn.
"Flatbush was the center of filmmaking at the turn of the
[20th] century," says Ehrlich, referring to when it was
the home of Vitagraph studios. "Brooklyn was Hollywood before
there was Hollywood. Mary Pickford’s house was on my corner,
and Charlie Chaplin was down the street."
They talk of the well-known filmmakers that have come out of
Brooklyn like Woody Allen and Spike Lee, "and then you have
this incredible next generation of filmmakers that we’re really
all about." Ehrlich and Daley are impressed by Younger’s
work, and Jem Cohen ("Benjamin Smoke"), Karyn Kusama
("Girlfight") and Sandi Dubowski ("Trembling Before
G-D").
Daley sees a film center as a hub that can let Brooklynites know
who their neighbors are. "I want people to know that Darren
Aronofsky [’Requiem for a Dream’] grew up here, that John Turturro
and Buscemi live here. Brooklyn’s a great place to be an artist."
Marian Masone is the associate
director of programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center
and chief curator of The New York Video Festival also at Lincoln
Center.
Brooklyn Film Networks presents "Keep
the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale" on July
18 at 4:30, 6:30 and 9:30 pm at BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette
Ave.). Tickets are $9. For tickets call (718) 636-4111. For more
information about BFN call (718) 832-3052 or visit their Web
site at www.filmnetworks.org.
