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Oakland’s Tough Times but Tougher Indies by Doniphan Blair
Oakland suffered serious cinematic blows in 2011 like the halving of its Film Office from two to one and the loss of its adored director, Ami Zins. With word traveling gossipy fast in the film business and San Francisco hustling its film office to the hilt, this meant large losses, revenue and aesthetic, both to the city and to its filmmakers, both commercial and indie to whom Zins was also preternaturally disposed to serving.
Add the punishing recession, the divisive Oakland Occupy, and the elevated murder rate (110 murders in 2011, up 15 from 2010), and you might wonder why the New York Times just extolled Oakland as a great place to visit [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/travel/45-places-to-go-in-2012.xml].
Wellllll... Oakland's First Friday Gallery Crawl or Art Murmur is off the hook, a circus in the streets, a half a dozen great chefs have opened restaurants and West Oakland is becoming THE green, foodie, fire arts and film business incubator. Once Oakland's enormous contingent of filmmakers finally gets around to coalescing, a "Film Murmur" or "Oakland Mumble" or "Oaktown Cinevolution" or whatever will ensue.
Of course, Oakland's Pixar People and rock star shooters and sounders have been hecka busy, the former having gone live action, two pictures a year and billions more in revenue while the latter has been adventuring and image capturing across the globe non-stop through the recession. But Oakland is their bedroom community. They don't shoot here. Not even the Oakland Occupy was adequately or appropriately documented.
Despite the downgrade of the Oakland Film Office, some Hollywood and Hollywood North shoots did proceed, notably the great and iconoclastic Phil Kaufman doing scenes from "Hemingway & Geldhorn" at the ruined train station in deepest West Oakland—across the street from the Ur-noiresque Ben's Hotel. But that was a fully fenced in and defended closed set. Oaklandish shoots on the streets did not have it so easy.
Carmen Madden, whose first file was the classical "Everyday Black Man" (2009) and just moved her offices to down the street from the old train station, had her sophomore outing "The Fighter" put on hold.
Lisbon Oakfor finished his "Oaktown," addressing the quintessential Oakland complexities of interracial love, but after showing it to the Director's Guild in LA and getting some good feedback went back to the editing room.
Antero Alli, who has made ten features in Berkeley since 1994, is back with his always interesting jaundiced view. "Flamingos" (2012) starts with the colorful theme of a junkie hypnotist bank robber but soon segues to the 2012 Apocalypse discussions. Alli's conclusion, according to one of his acting workshoppers: If you want to predict the future, create it yourself.
Meanwhile the East Bay Professional Filmmakers Meet-Up got going with some lively discussion, meetings and projects mostly art or industrials pieces. After 11th or 12th shorts (she can't keep count) in 2.5 years produced within the time-limited "film race" context, Allison Ayer is tackling her first 30-40 minute piece [ ]http://vimeo.com/user4542951/videos], "A Certain Thirst", concerning a 30-something who, after the death of her father, takes over the family distillery and has to recreate his secret recipe.
The East Bay Media Makers Screening Club has started and will be showing "Domino: Caught in a Crisis" January 26th at the Arlington Cafe in Kensington. "Domino", by the prolific Spain/Berkeley resident Eve A. Ma looks interesting.
Film Acting Bay Area has been working to expand its classes and the local acting pool at Ex'Pressions in Emeryville which itself opened a digital film school, promising more projects and even a little work for local actors.
But, in the end, what we really need in 2012 is a remake of 2009, which brought us the birth of three powerful local feature makers defining three distinct Oakland genres: High Passion, Post-Modern Angst and Classical Color.
Cary Fukunaga, now a Brooklynite (the Oakland of the East) but born and raised here, blew up and blew even cynical souls with his vicious, colorful and desperately romantic "Sin Nombre". So shocked were the Hollywood bigwigs, it seems they ushered him into a room, and said, "Uh Cary, I mean Mr. Fukunage, what film would you like to direct next?"
Fukunaga's choice was "Jane Eyre", seemingly counterintuitive, but perfect because the classics need to be reinterpreted periodically, both to make understandable to the new generation and to sharpen the great artists who are constantly recreating culture in their image.
Meanwhile Frazer Bradshaw made the quintessential new Oakland film "Everything Strange and New." Its every man, played by a local carpenter/actor Jerry McGuire (who's still wandering around rightfully looking for his sequel) descends from two-kid-family-wife-giving-blowjobs to dope, queer studies and murder but with an eruditely implied mystical analysis.
Although "Everything" took the international critics or FIPRESCI award at the 2009 San Francisco International, an existential backslap across the water from Europe to Oakland, Bradshaw failed to find distro due to the common critique of innovators: "Neither fish nor fowl."
Carmen Madden did sell "Everyday Black Man" its deep black issues almost entirely unaddressed in the larger media. A reformed ex-con with a secret, makes a good entrepreneurial start as a rare black corner store owner but is stymied by a charismatic Black Muslim dope dealer. Well performed—the messianic crack-dealer is great—and beautifully shot and with a story that investigated precisely what hit the news that year, the murder within the mafia-like Black Muslim bakery, "Everyday" was prescient as well as excellent.
Madden ran into a wall last summer with her second outing, "The Fighter", about the travails of a young black man in the ring. The producer withheld payment at the last moment and didn't release her to raise funds elsewhere, a common bait and switch among producers.
This sort of mistreatment—halving of the film office, stiffing of filmmakers—will undoubtedly continue until an enthusiasm similar to the Oakland Art murmur is generated. Then we will be able to step up and take on the stories that are galloping ahead all around us in the polyamory-percolating art studios of West Oakland or gang-run realms of East Oakland, not to mention the liberal catastrophe of downtown.
Oakland is the future, where things are mixed, mixed up, rundown and still hopeful, romantic and beautiful. Indeed, there are a hecka brilliant and talented filmmakers, actors, models-into-becoming-actresses and alt-idea people out to represent. It might take a few months, or a few years, or a few decades but I predict it will. Posted on Jan 09, 2012 - 10:32 PM