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De Rezendes: His Films Choose Him by Don Schwartz
Filmmaker Christian de Rezendes on set. photo: courtesy C. de Rezendes
EVERY TIME I INTERVIEW A DOCUMENT-
ary filmmaker I am viscerally reminded of the noble qualities of humanity, of people who care passionately about our world.
Christian de Rezendes is no exception. His films, the stories he tells make a strong emotional impact. One measure of a film’s power is how quiet and still I am at story’s end. Each of the four films I viewed for this interview left me in that quiet, contemplative—if not stunned—state.
As of this writing, the film is on the festival circuit and just won Best Documentary Feature at the 6th Annual SENE Film, Music, and Arts Festival.
A career documentary and narrative filmmaker, de Rezendes was born and raised in Rhode Island, and has lived the vast majority of his life there. His production studio is in his Slatersville home which was built by his grandparents in 1952.
De Rezendes attended Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts, where he studied theatre. He also studied theater in London under Roger Williams University, out of Bristol, Rhode Island. He attended New York University for a summer, and graduated from Rhode Island College with a B.A. in Film Studies.
For this interview I viewed “41”, one of the most unusual documentary features I’ve seen. It tells the story of a devastating night club fire that killed one hundred people, and focuses on the youngest of its victims, Nicky O'Neill. I also saw “Revealed”, a documentary short, about photographer Scott Indermaur and his portrait-based project, and “Memories for Sale” is a narrative short from a play by Jerry Bisantz.
“Raising Matty Christian” is de Rezendes’ latest release. It’s a documentary feature about Matthew G. Christian who was born without full limbs and without a tongue. “Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village”is de Rezendes’ current project, his most ambitious yet.
Biographer Charlie (David Sullivan) levels with his subject in 'Memories for Sale'. photo: courtesy C. de Rezendes
In addition to being a talented filmmaker, de Rezendes has some kind of luck, or grace, or magic, or professional synchronicity—whatever term you please. As you are about to learn, his projects find him, and when you see his films you will learn what great care he takes of them.
With his one-year old child at his side, commenting from time to time, I spoke with de Rezendes for an hour and a-half. He has a substantial filmography, and, as is usual with my interviews, I could’ve spoken with him for hours learning about each of his films, and his experience as a career filmmaker.
CineSource: Christian, you’ve made quite a few films, how have you financed them?
Christian de Rezende:So many of them have been radically different as far as financing goes. I don’t even know what to tell you. In the case of ‘Raising Matty Christian’, his parents hired us to do it. In the case of ‘Slattersville’ which I’m making right now, we have gone this far on grants and donations. With the documentaries it’s always been a series of local grants—Rhode Island-based grants.
Are you the grant writer?
For the films I’m directing, yes, either that or my wife. As far as features go—for example I sent you a DVD of a short film called ‘Memories for Sale’—I directed. That movie was produced by its writer. I met the writer, he sent me the script. I loved it. It was a play originally. I said, ‘God, I’d love to do this.’ And so he took the initiative, and he went and he financed it. And he got grants, and he got donations.
One of the other projects we want to do right now is a film also based on a play called ‘Subject 62’ which is written by a guy named Lenny Schwartz. It’s won some awards, and we’re trying to get that financed. And so I’m leaving that up to him at the moment ‘cause my focus is heavily on ‘Slatersville’.
So, I want to push my work into more narrative areas. Films like ‘Cat Scratch’ and ‘Memories for Sale’ and ‘Getting Out of Rhode Island’—which was an experimental feature I did about 13 years ago—definitely point in that direction. But, for whatever reason, I’m pulled back into documentaries time and time again. It’s like the Al Pacino quote from the third ‘Godfather’ movie, ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.’
That’s kinda like how it feels with documentary sometimes. And that’s okay ‘cause I really love directors like Jonathan Demme, for example, who will go back and forth. I’m always going to be for going back and forth, I would never just call myself a documentary filmmaker because it pigeon-holes, and it’s not all of what I can do.
Sid Freedman (Bob Colonna) and granddaughter Rachel (Melissa Penick) are suprised by his literary agent's overenthusiastic welcome (played by Jerry Bisantz, left) at a meeting with his biographer Charlie (David Sullivan). photo: courtesy C. de Rezendes
I recently saw ‘Raising Matty Christian’. When I sat down to write my review of it, I realized I need to interview you. It’s such an emotional story. And it made me reflect back to your film, ‘41’, which has a paranormal theme to it, but, also, was a very emotional story about the tragic passing of a young man. What drew you to Matty’s story?
I have a friend name Paul Plotkin who worked at a place in Norwood, Mass. at the time. He was hired to transfer some old VHS home movies to DVD. And he met the family, and he was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t stop watching this kid. Somebody’s got to make a movie out of him. So, he calls me very emotionally, and I’m like, ‘Okay, well if you feel that strongly about it, ask his parents and see what they say.’
And I didn’t hear anything for a year-and a-half. I got that call at the beginning of 2010, and out of the blue, in the fall of 2011, I hear from him again. And he connects me to the parents, and they want the film made.
What are you doing about distribution for your films?
With ‘41’, the good news is after all these years, Gaiam TV—they do all those yoga videos, and they have their own streaming channel, and now they’re trying to expand their programming—they want ’41’, and so the distributor just signed a deal with them to put it on their site soon.
Are you self-distributing any of your films?
I’m self-distributing ‘Getting Out of Rhode Island’, but nobody ever watches it. (laughs) Before, it was Film Threat DVD, and then they went defunct. I don’t have a deep history with distribution other than what I just told you. Now, the good thing about that is right now, in dealing with ‘Matty Christian’, we have interest from certain distributors who are considering it, and I’m tough as nails with all of them.
Do you have titles that are not distributed?
‘Memories for Sale’ is not distributed. It’s a short. We’re trying to get it into film festivals. The writer wants to create another half-hour documentary to go along side it. But, it hasn’t been funded yet, so I don’t know where that’s going to go. ‘Cat Scratch’ is online and free.
In the case of ‘Revealed’, I’ve made the most money off of that—which is bizarre because the photographer I made the film about, he went out there and he pushed it, and he had special screenings, then he created a book, and he got it out there. He’s sold the film on DVD, as a download, and we’ve done pretty well with that for a 42-minute documentary.
The best situations I’ve been in have been ones where I’m working with partners who are either creatively involved, or involved in a business-like sense where they’re equally passionate about it. And they are promoting on their end. That’s the case with ‘Revealed’, with ‘Memories for Sale’, and that’s been the case with ‘Matty Christian’.
Another moment for 'Memories for Sale'. photo: courtesy C. de Rezendes
It’s a documentary. It’s very different from the other stuff—it’s going to be far-more PBS friendly. It’s not going to be a theatrical release. It’s going to be TV or DVD/Blu-ray. It’s going to be at least two hours. It’s about the two-hundred year history of the first industrialized mill village in the country—which is right down my street. I’m in Slatersville. We’ve interviewed close to about 40 people so far, and there’s another possible 30. And we’ve got a lot of drama and details to cover, and a lot of places to go—South Carolina, U.K., a lot of details to research, collecting rarely seen images. It’s a very broad canvas.
The first time I shot any footage for it was in 2005. I shot some key things, moved away, did ‘41’, came back, we had a new town administrator in place, and she was interested in the film. At the time, it was still up for grabs, but the National Park Service wanted to create Blackstone Valley—which is a good chunk of northern Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts—as a national park with five key destinations, one of them being Slatersville. So, then, that started the thing going; but, of course, I want to take it to new heights. And because they say it’s the first mill village in the country—the key word is ‘first’—I can do something that is far more elaborate, dramatic, and heart-warming, and informative, and all these things. It’s the largest thing I’ve ever done.
In addition to everything else, documentary filmmakers are historians.
Exactly. You know, people who don’t know any better—my town is not an arts town—I walk around, I bump into so-and-so in the supermarket, and they say, ‘Oh, is that done yet?’ I’m like, ‘Trust me, if it was done, you would’ve heard about it.’ There’s an emotional aspect of this, too. I grew up in town with a lot of people that I’ve interviewed.
I mentioned that we’ve interviewed close to 40 people. We’ve lost five of those people since I started. The oldest person that we interviewed is a 105, and she’s still going. So, there’s a lot of sadness in that when this comes out. We hope to aim for the end of 2015, but when this comes out, ultimately, you’re going to be seeing a lot of people—and hear audio recordings going back twenty years ago, people who were long gone before I ever knew who they were—who are just there in spirit.
Is ‘Slatersville’ your full-time job right now, do you have other projects going on?
Well, ‘Slatersville’. Actually, next week, we’re going to be releasing a new IndieGogo campaign in order to get the funding in. We’ve gotten donations from as far away as Australia, from direct descendents. Hopefully, we’ll raise enough to kinda get the wheels turning in a major way, and make that happen. I would love for it to be my full-time thing, but I also do other jobs.
Are you writing any narrative stories?
I tried to be a writer, and it’s very difficult for me in a strange way, and I finally came to the realization two or three years ago to work with other screenwriters, or nothing will never get done in the narrative sense, as far as me being director of them. I have two ideas that I’ve been kicking around in my head for twenty years that I haven’t been able to write in the way that I’d like to. And I know I can do it, but it’s hard for me. So, I just work with other writers in that regard.
Now, ‘Subject 62’, which I mentioned earlier, is about a man dying of Huntington’s disease. That’s the play. So, it literally is you’re in someone’s head the whole time as their dementia increases. And, I’m working on another script with two writers—Guy Benoit and Lenny Schwartz—called ‘Rhodyopolis’ which I’ve been working on and off now for five years. My original co-writer Krista Weller Burns, in 2010, died of cancer.
So then I had to reinvent the film several different ways. It was going to be an improvisation. We had a big meeting, and that fell through financially. It’s been turned so many different ways now, and finally we’re on the path to doing that. The screenwriters are going to connect about it next month.
There’s a lot of stuff that’s always ongoing—what-ifs, and you try to work on them in various phases. One trick that I’ve learned is to always keep a number of irons on the fire—not for the sake of overwhelming one’s self, but because I’ve always had something fall through (laughs).
So, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. If there’s something going on that can run parallel, you’re like, ‘Okay, stop, do that, then go back to the other thing.’ It’s a little bit of a juggling act, and that’s why some people think I’m really prolific, which I am to a degree, but everything that I do as a director, I do for a purpose.
When did you start making films?
One of the first films I ever did was a documentary on my senior high school class (laughs). Believe it or not I was trying to make this sort-of epic thing, it was two and a-half hours long. That was in 1993.
That actually won an award at the Chicago International Film Festival. They have this division for ‘Communications’ or something like that. I won an Honorable Mention. Looking back at the quality of the film, I think they probably looked at what I did, and given the lack of technology and the over-ambitiousness of the piece, they must’ve thought, ‘Okay, he’s nuts, give it to him,’ (laughs) because I was nuts to do what I did. But, that’s how I started.
I’d like to take a step back. When did you first pick up a camera?
When I was about 15.
The first critical turning point for me, oddly enough, was when I was about 14. I mean before that I knew that I wanted to do it, but it took a long time to brew in my head as to whether or not this is going to be serious. Thankfully, my mother was very open to that. I wasn’t getting good grades in high school, I wasn’t a very good student because I always knew what I wanted to do, and I knew that chemistry wasn’t it (laughs).
The turning point was in 1989. At the time they had restored and rereleased ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, and I got to know all about David Lean. The AFI (American Film Institute) was giving him a Life Achievement award, and they aired it on TV, and he gave this very moving speech. I attribute so much inspiration from people of that generation of filmmaking even though my films may not look like theirs.
Throughout high school my whole thing was to get the ‘TV Guide’ on Tuesday—because the one that’s released on Tuesday is programming for the following week. I’d comb through it, and see what key films there are for the next week—the ones with three or four stars—jot them down on a calendar, record all of them, as many as you can, file them away, watch them later, learn about who directed them, who was in them, and I created a whole library that way. That’s how I taught myself as much history as I could before I went into college.
Around 14 or so, there’s a certain age point where, hopefully, most filmmakers would want to look back, and study other filmmakers. People that were around before you were born, like when I was 14 I saw ‘Citizen Kane’. And you learn one director leads to another. I started taking it very seriously, so by the time I was 17 if you told me a year, I could tell you what won best picture.
And also, around 17, going back to that film I made about my high school class, I learned how to shoot the hard way when I started it. Because I didn’t know about operating cameras. And then I started to learn by my own filmmaking exactly why things worked and didn’t work. You know, you’re always still learning it. I’ve told people it takes you at least ten years to become a really smart editor, and I think I’m still learning that (laughs).
And at that time, when I was 17, my biggest influences as directors—I’m a huge Robert Altman fanatic. I’m big on Wim Wenders. Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Coppola, and many others that I’m neglecting to mention. Some of Barry Levinson’s work was very influential to me. Fellini. Bertolucci. So, that’s where it started.
You studied theater. Was that as an actor or some other aspect of theater?
Yeah, I’m also an actor, but I barely do it because I can only do so much. I studied acting, then I studied history of theatre at Dean College, and then I studied it in London. Here’s the thing. When I went into Dean my freshman year I was a Communications major. And I liked the people in the department, but I didn’t care for what we were studying because it was kinda like, ‘Well, this is all technical stuff. The technical stuff I can learn on my own. I can figure that out.’
I’m more interested in ‘why’ you create something, the philosophy behind it, the characters, the writing, the direction, all of that. So, at the end of my first semester I changed my major to theatre because theatre was the closest thing to film.
You got out of college, you were already a filmmaker, what happened next?
I started out in my business (laughs) doing little event jobs like wedding videos. That wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to do—it was kinda my mother’s idea. And I still offer them occasionally, I don’t do nearly as much as I did at one time. Meanwhile, I started to fight to do the films I wanted to do, and make the see-saw teeter in that favor. So, over time, you’ve seen a small shift from where the major is paying me to do events and things, and wanting to do my little films on the side, to get hired to do the event films on the side, and I’m able to raise that money. And now the minor is the event work.
But on IMDB there are references to you on crew?
All the crew stuff you see, I might help out on sound, DP, editing. I’ve shifted away from that because after a while, when you’re doing both of those things, at some point you’re in the editing room alone, you’re like, ‘Jesus, I might as well direct this thing, too.’ Because that’s kind of like what you’re doing—if the director is allowing you to compose the shots you want to, and you’re deciding what works and what doesn’t.
But I’m still very thankful that I had those experiences. The only way in which I might do that again is if they’re the right people. I can think of two people right now, I would work with those people. For example, I worked with a guy named Gary Shore three times, and he does dance-related films. He’s a choreographer. Well, that’s his vision, and I’m not a choreographer, and the last thing I am in the world is a dancer. So, I would collaborate with him to translate what he wants into a visual form.
Christian, what is your philosophy of filmmaking, what compels you to tell stories?
Not to get all New Age-y, you must have heard of ‘The Secret’?
Yes, and you can get as New Age-y as you want. I live in that world, too.
In some degree, I actually believe in the sense that films that I make are meant to have come to me in one form or another—and I don’t attribute any religion to that. I attribute more, ‘Is there a spirituality?’ Yeah, to a degree there is, but I think it’s more that these things came to me for whatever particular reason. And if I have a sincere connection to them.
Like, in the case of ‘Slatersville’, I’m there documenting these people who are up there in years and have these stories to tell. So, I feel like I’m moved to do that, to things I make connections with.
There are a number of projects I’ve been offered or approached about that I have turned down—simply because they are too disturbing or too depressing, or the script wasn’t there, or I was doing too much, or whatever. And also, from a business perspective you want to know on the other end of it that you’re at least going to have a combination of elements in the story that will make it worth watching. So, it’s all those things combined. As far as the philosophy and feeling that pull, I don’t sit around and meditate every day and hope for good things to come in. I probably should.
I’m a filmmaker, and years ago when I was studying other filmmakers, reading about them—you know, I would always look at bodies of work, and see the evolution of each filmmaker—Scorsese, Demme, Coppola. I feel like I’m going through that evolution however I’m supposed to. A lot of the times I feel it’s not working out the way it’s supposed to, but occasionally I feel like I’m on the right path, and that moves me to continue.
Yes, ‘Matty Christian’, for instance, is a very inspirational movie. It has a lot to say. But, I want to make sure that what I’m doing, or what I’m leaving behind, I have something to say. It doesn’t have to have an important social message every single time. But, it has to have some form of purpose.
Each film has to have some sort of purpose.
Yeah. I think so. A lot of filmmakers just want to make a lot of money. But, I would rather make a more modest living turning out quality films than being a millionaire turning out a bunch of pieces of shit that I’m embarrassed about when I get older.
And also to have a career, a body of work that there’s a 180-degree turn from time to time—‘cause ‘Subject 62’, for example, I want to look like nothing I’ve done before. ‘Memories for Sale’ will look like nothing I’ve done before.
In the case of ‘Revealed’ I was connected to that photographer by somebody who was a friend of his, someone who participated in the program, and is in the film. And when I went to the website, within two seconds of seeing the first image, I knew I had to make a movie about it. So, there are things that just come to me like that, and I feel blessed to have participated in them.
Don Schwartz is an actor, writer and blogger on all things documentary, and can be seen here or reached .