Mar 22, 2026
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Welcome to the Struggle: Daniel Kremer Interview
by Aaron Rappaport
Daniel Kremer, a 32 year-old graduate of Temple University film school has already directed six features and edited many more. photo: courtesy D. KremerSPORTING AN UNKEMPT BEARD, OWLISH
glasses and a black wool cap, Daniel Kremer looks less the movie director with six features under his belt and more the nice Jewish boy on a weekend furlough from the local yeshiva. In point of fact, there is some truth to his jokes about being a “rabbinical school dropout.”
We meet for our interview on Haight Street, Kremer arriving by bicycle and humorously lamenting his failed attempts to blend in with the Haight’s new hipsters or old, bedraggled hippies, despite what he calls his “studied schlumpiness.”
There is a scene in his latest film, “Ezer Kenegdo”, which stages precisely such an occurrence. A weed dealer on a Haight Street corner calls out, as Kremer’s character Izzy passes, “Shalom”, to which he responds, “How do you know I’m a Jew? I could just be a hipster.”
Kremer doesn’t usually make explicitly Jewish films. In fact, his 2015 drama “Raise Your Kids on Seltzer”, concerns an unhappily married pair of ex-cult de-programmers and would probably rate an 'R' if submitted to the MPAA board.
“My films are definitely ‘treif’ [non-kosher] by Orthodox establishment standards,” Kremer noted in our interview. “But I have my own brand of ‘kosher filmmaking’ that simply entails telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about people, how they speak to each other, and the very real conflicts they face in daily life.”
“A good friend of mine once said, ‘You can’t help but make Jewish films,’ Kremer adds. "I was a bit flabbergasted as I’ve made nothing explicitly Jewish until ‘Ezer Kenegdo’. He told me, ‘It comes out anyway. It’s in your creative genes.’ Now, I can see some of these subconscious touches.”
Kremer’s obsession with film started young. “I saw both ‘400 Blows’ and Antonioni’s ‘Blow-Up’ at age 11, and ‘Andrei Rublev’ at age 12. I was a huge Woody Allen fan throughout my youth, and I credit Woody’s flicks for my openly pedantic use of words like ‘polymorphous’ in seventh grade essays.”
But, “It was after I saw ‘The Ipcress File’ [Sidney Furie, 1965] that I started to make my own amateur movies with my cousins as actors.”
Because of a severe stutter, which made social situations difficult throughout middle school and high school, Kremer retreated into solitude, diving headlong into watching as many films as possible.
“My first education in film involved picking up rare VHS tapes at Pittsburgh’s biggest flea markets, and catching broadcasts of old, often obscure films. Film programming on television was glorious when I was growing up. I could catch a movie like ‘Stevie’ [1978], with Glenda Jackson, on Bravo or Encore. Then, that would be followed by something like ‘The Bofors Gun’ [1968]. Now, all you get on Encore is popular Hollywood cinema, and all you get on Bravo is Reality TV.”
Daniel Kremer directs and acts, along with co-directer and lead, Deniz Demirer, in 'Ezer Kenegdo' (2017). photo: courtesy D. KremerThis homespun education was also formative for his other vocation: writing about cinema.
Indeed, in late-2015, Kremer published his first book, a 430-page biography of the director Sidney J. Furie ("The Ipcress File", "Lady Sings the Blues", "The Entity") through University Press of Kentucky’s Screen Classics Series and edited by Patrick McGilligan, a leading entertainment biographer .
Though he has previously published pieces on his ConFluence-Film Blog, in Filmmaker Magazine, and Keyframe, Kremer feels he hit his stride with writing in depth about the lives of artists he has admired.
“My filmmaking and film writing go hand in hand. Each informs the other,” he notes.
“When I’m shooting, I have an enhanced appreciation of what goes into the act of making of a film because I must dig so deeply into the lives, careers and styles of other artists. I find film journalists can never know what a filmmaker goes through, until they go through it themselves.”
Almost all the characters in Kremer’s films are devoted to a search for equilibrium in a new, lonely world they do not recognize. We, as an audience, see ourselves in the refracted image of their collective angst and struggle.
“Ezer Kenegdo”, for example, tells of a Polish-Catholic immigrant and an American Hassidic Jew who forge what in any other film would be an unlikely friendship, tormented by the prejudices and tragedies of their ancestors. Despite the off-limits signs automatically in their way, and although alienated in their respective manners, they strive to look into each other's souls, fashioning a powerful film for this absurd age.
I caught up with Kremer at a pivotal time, while he was shooting his seventh feature film, his first literary adaptation. He is also releasing and promoting other three feature films concurrently, two of which spent a number of years in post-production.
In addition to all this, he has also recently joined forces with six other filmmakers, to form a new Bay Area filmmaking collective called Bricolage. We met at a Haight Street café and spoke at length about all the above.
Kremer and Demirer with their mentor Rob Nilsson, who plays the role of the reclusive painter in 'Ezer Kenegdo' (2017). photo: courtesy D. KremercineSOURCE: So, you’re a busy man, to say the least.
Yes. I'm excited that two films that have taken years to complete are finally getting finished. ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ took almost ten years, and ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ a bit more than four. My turnaround for projects is usually a lot quicker.
Why did they both take so long?
Well, ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is the product of a rich collaboration between myself and Deniz Demirer [another local filmmaker, both he and Kremer are acolytes of Berkeley indie/improv filmmaker Rob Nilsson].
We met in January, 2012, had a six-hour conversation on one fateful evening—at a number of bars—about the themes ultimately explored in the film, and emerged from this barroom odyssey realizing that we needed to make a movie together.
We started shooting in January 2013. We had ups and downs with time and investment into the film, coupled with the fact that, as the editor of the film, I hate looking at myself as an actor onscreen—it was my first leading role.
I also tweaked ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ more than any other film I’ve made [including shooting additional scenes while editing]. The process was a complex one because the themes are complex, and the balance the film tries to strike was never easy to achieve. It was also my first real collaboration with another filmmaker, so we exercised our due diligence a little extra.
With ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’, I think I should tell the whole story, as it’s one of real creative perseverance.
It is a mini-DV feature, which I started when I was a junior in film school at Temple University, in 2006. For a first film, I might have gotten a little too ambitious. I was influenced both by Peter Watkins—specifically his ‘Edvard Munch’ [1973]—and Ken Russell's early stylized biopics for the BBC in the '60s.
I wanted to blend experimental, narrative, and documentary form in a way I hadn't seen before. ‘SophAcquai’ is really the classic ‘impetuous first film’—the type where some snotty, obnoxious kid picks up a camera and says, ‘I'm going to change the form and make a movie like no one's ever seen before, and it's going to be great!’
And it turns out to be the most pretentious thing in the world—as ‘SophAcquai’ was in its first version. [laughs]
I had a 55-minute version that was virtually unwatchable. But there were many things that I liked, scenes and little flourishes that showed promise. I guess you could say it haunted me. I hate not finishing things – I compulsively feel the need for closure on projects.
In 2012, I shot some more material and began rearranging and reconstructing it, getting it down to around 50 minutes. Still, I wasn't happy with it and stowed it away, yet again.
The poster for Kremer's new film, 'Ezer Kenegdo', 2017. illo: courtesy D. KremerBut early in 2016, I edited ‘Next Week in Bologna’, a film Rob Nilsson shot with students at a summer workshop at a film school in Bologna, Italy. Rob had some mishaps getting a full-length feature out of the raw material shot in this two-week workshop.
At one point, he decided to throw all it all to the wind, and said, ‘The hell with it! Bring on anarchy! This will be my ‘Tristram Shandy’.’ He had me insert outtakes and bits that were never intended to be in the finished product.
We emerged with what I think is one of his more interesting, offbeat movies, one that pays tribute to the Italian neo-realists, sometimes from a comical perspective, but with a sense of thematic, emotional, and philosophical purpose.
I thought, "I could do what Rob did on 'Next Week in Bologna' with this old movie of mine—it might be intriguing, and at the very least, it'll be fun.’
I worked intensively over a period of months, shot a couple new bits to tie the new version together, incorporated some appropriately wily outtakes, and came out the other end with a 75-minute film that has become one of my favorite films I've yet made—flaws and all.
I like flaws. Flaws make films human and interesting. Ironically, 'SophAcquai' is Rob's favorite film of my own; he narrates the film too. It was reprieved from a lifetime spot on the proverbial shelf. I owe a lot to Rob in this case.
It seems you appreciate unusual titles.
‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is a term from the Hebrew Bible, Genesis. It is the first name given to women. 'Ezer' means help' or 'helpmate,' and 'kenegdo' is 'against' or 'resister.' Joining the two words into one central concept, it is the basis of, classically, a marriage, but really it is the foundation of any healthy human relationship. The characters help and support each other—and they challenge and resist each other.
‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ comes from Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’. In the first volume, Swann is the ‘sophisticated acquaintance’ who robs the narrator of his mother’s goodnight kiss, which he needs to sleep peacefully.
It’s partly the story of two creative, artistic members of the same family, a father and a son, who compete with each other on some level. Because the son, Klaus, winds up committing ‘revolutionary suicide,’ it felt like a rich analogy.
I like 'Raise Your Kids on Seltzer' as a title. too.
That one is often greeted by folks with a strange smirk. A lot of them ask if the movie is about seltzer [laughs]. One particular critic, I think the one at Rogue Cinema, outright disliked [the title]. I love it.
Titles are important to me. There are too many graceless and perfunctory titles for films and books out there. A title should be as original as the material it represents.
I personally think ‘Raise Your Kids on Seltzer’ is intriguing. It makes you want to see the film. I saw two other upcoming titles on your IMDb: ‘I Forgive Swissvale’ and ‘Sidney J. Furie: Fire Up the Carousel’.
Yes, those are both longterm documentary projects. Many hours of material have been shot for both, but documentaries like these need time to percolate. You shoot over a period of years, which gets reflected in the films themselves.
I’m going to Israel with Sidney Furie in April to help produce his next film, which is the most personal picture he’s ever made. During production, I will certainly be shooting a lot of material for that documentary.
‘I Forgive Swissvale’ is an essay film about the neighborhood in Pittsburgh where I grew up, and my family set its American roots a few generations ago. That neighborhood is now not such a nice or safe place. I shoot more footage for that project whenever I visit family in Pittsburgh—another very personal picture.
The members of the improv cine group Bricolage, of which Kremer is a member, act a scene. photo: courtesy D. Kremer'Ezer Kenegdo' seems pretty personal.
Both ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ and ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ are intensely personal.
‘Ezer Kenegdo’ reflects a certain reality, as I am an observing Jew who straddles two worlds and two lifestyles—the Jewish one and the cinematic/artistic one—with what people perceive as a levity and nonchalance. Throw in a third component—that I’m openly gay and politically more liberal [than most orthodox Jews]—and the stew gets spicier.
But, if I’m being honest with myself, deep down, something needles me and I’m always asking myself difficult questions about the conflicts between my creative life and spiritual life. And I think Deniz, as a Polish-born Catholic who grew up in Warsaw, was asking himself very similar questions. To me, the film wound up being more about history and cultural divide; that revealed itself to me during the editing.
How do you think ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ fits in with the rest of your films?
Like most working artists looking at their output, I suck at judging my own style and the thematic threads that pulse through my films, if any. The only thing I can see consciously is a recurring theme of how nostalgia and remembrance can be alternately destructive and liberating.
As far as I can see, ‘A Trip to Swadades’ [2008] and ‘The Idiotmaker’s Gravity Tour’ [2011] , which is a road movie I shot in India, are both about that. ‘Raise Your Kids on Seltzer’ has a strand of that too.
‘I Forgive Swissvale’, my essay film-in-progress, is currently about memory, as it relates to lost places. ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is about how shared history binds and obstructs the relationship between two young men, who are inextricably drawn to each other.
Deniz, as a co-director, is drawn to the idea of exile, and I think that emerges in his previous films.
My character Izzy fascinates Deniz’s character, Marek, because, as a Polish immigrant, Marek needs some kind of proximity with a culture and religion that shared space with his own in Poland. How much camaraderie do they find? How much friction?
The two characters are going to meet an irascible painter who seeks to destroy a lifetime’s worth of his own art—a character essentially destroying history, his own history. It might seem too overt a metaphor, but I think we make it sing.
And 'Sophisticated Acquaintance'?
‘SophAcquai’ is really, underneath it all, about the often fraught relationship I’ve shared with my brother, who is also an artist. The relationship was at fever-pitch antipathy when I first shot that film in 2006, and that’s what comes out when I watch it today.
We’re on better terms today, but there can be complications to having more than one artist in the same family, because artists are naturally temperamental. That issue expressed itself to me in the story of Klaus Mann’s relationship to his father Thomas.
Kremer's recent book on Sidney Furie, director of ‘The Ipcress File’ and ‘Lady Sings the Blues’. photo: courtesy D. KremerTo me, the film is about the power of individuality, and in spite of that, the fragility of one’s own personal ideology—the potential folly of conviction.
As R. Crumb’s brother Charles says in Terry Zwigoff’s documentary [‘Crumb’, 1994], ‘How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure.” I like to take out the comma before ‘to be sure,” which reinterprets the quotation.
If there’s absolute certainty to someone’s conviction, the only way you can really respond is, ‘Well, good for you!’ I’m guilty of this too. We all are. Klaus was, with his essay on revolutionary suicide.
By the way, I should mention that my favorite film of yours is 'A Simple Game of Catch' (2012).
You’re not the only one. That little movie really seems to speak to people in a way I never could have predicted. They see themselves in Alanna Blair’s character. She did a really outstanding job playing that character. It couldn’t have been easy for her.
So you’re now shooting your seventh feature?
Yes, I have my cinematographer Aaron Hollander to thank for that.
My other big movie project, ‘Precious Wheels Above’, stalled for both creative and financial reasons. That is a big project that will require more than my average picture.
Aaron and I were sort of feeling at bay, and he just said one day, 'Why don’t we just shoot something? Let’s do a quickie feature!' And it was one of the magical moments when you realize, ‘Oh yeah, we can do that, can’t we? We can just do anything.’
So, on a Wednesday, we alerted a bunch of actors that we knew from the Rob Nilsson circle that we were going to start shooting on Sunday. The troops showed up just like that and we were off to the races. We have a great cast too: Alexander Hero, Catherine Lerza, Raul Delarosa, Ravi Valleti, many others.
The act of filmmaking for a filmmaker is like a muscle; if you don’t use it, you lose it. A project like this one is like a boxer sparring to stay in shape. I feel freer to experiment and try things I wouldn’t try on a larger project.
Can you share anything specific about the project?
Between that Wednesday and Sunday, I checked back into my old ‘idea file’ to see if we could do any of those catalogued concepts in a quick, no-frills way. I wound up electing to do an adaptation of a novel that my brother—the same brother I referenced earlier— told me would make a great movie.
As a scholar of Antebellum American literature, he knew a great deal about this novel written in 1799, and his account of it intrigued me. I read it, found it rather beguiling, and then jotted it down as a possible future film project. In this film, we update everything to present-day and change a great deal.
Which novel?
Sorry, I don’t want to divulge the book title until the footage is completely in the can. I’m really never this secretive about such things, but I’m superstitious in this particular case.
I can say that it’s not your everyday story. On some days, it feels like we’re doing a straight-up thriller. Other days, it feels like we’re doing Antonioni or something. At other times, it’s a manic Cassavetes drama. The novel is early American Gothic, but also kind of a cocktail of philosophy, sociology, and skullduggery. It’s the first time since my 2008 film ‘A Trip to Swadades’ that I’m shooting black-and-white—footage always looks better in monochrome.
It is a 'loose adaptation.' I want to work off a distant memory of having read it awhile ago, because that allows me to build and riff rather than feel bound in sticking to some ecclesiastical interpretation, which I think hobbles a lot of novel-to-film adaptations.
As director Richard Brooks once said, 'If you’re going to make a book just as a book, then there’s no need to make it a film at all.' I’m also taking narrative cues from films like Frank Perry’s mysterious neo-noir Man on a Swing (1974) and Jerry Schatzberg’s marvelously inventive psychodrama 'Puzzle of a Downfall Child' [1970], which has always been a major go-to 'idea movie' for me.
It’s liberating to go from page to screen using this method. I believe heartily in a filmmaker or screenwriter’s right to interpret freely. Many of my favorite adaptations wildly depart from their source text. Philip Kaufman’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ [1988], Jacques Rivette’s ‘Wuthering Heights’[1985], Sidney J. Furie’s ‘The Leather Boys’ [1964] and Joan Micklin Silver’s ‘Hester Street’ [1975).
Poster for early Kremer film, 'Sophisticated Acquaintance'. photo: courtesy D. Kremer'Raise Your Kids on Seltzer' has picked up some good reviews.
Yeah, it did fairly well. For good or for ill, that film came as close to my original vision as any I’ve made or can imagine. It’s an odd one. Genuinely odd. I didn’t think that when I first completed it. I thought it would really do well with audiences, and to a considerable degree, [it did although] the rhythm of it tends to either lure people in, or really rub them the wrong way. The film has seen enthusiastic Q&As with perfect strangers who just get it. They like its originality and intensity. We had a rave review at Unsung Films.
But to me, the best films are the divisive ones. Any film or work of art that can get people debating or even arguing beats the shit out of any manufactured, programmed hit that no one feels compelled to truly discuss.
‘La La Land’ was that for me: enjoyable but with no gravity, no potential for a discussion of real depth. Yes, it can be sweet, charming and fun, and its affection for old movie musicals is literate and clear, but it’s overwhelmingly empty.
You might say, ‘But it’s a light musical! It doesn’t have to be deep!’ To that I say, ‘I’ve seen some pretty fun-loving, wonderful musicals that incite real conversation.’ Have a look at Chazelle’s influences and antecedents: Minnelli, Demy, Donen. Great, catchy music, though.
I don’t look to incite such polarizing responses, but when it happens, I feel incredible fulfillment. And maybe all I’ve said means that I’ll never make it as a commercial filmmaker. Financial viability would be nice, but I don’t want to go out of my way for it.
It’s more important I get ideas with which I’ve grappled throughout my lifetime onto the screen and page, before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Give me a small coterie of admirers who respect what I do and want to follow me down a path, even in relatively smaller numbers, and I’m satisfied.
I find that crowds and mob mentality can ruin things for me. I have this sort of rebel notion that, if so many people love something, or if something inspires blind, rapturous adulation, there must be something terribly wrong with it.
It’s like Cassavetes re-cutting ‘Husbands’ when he found that a test-screening cut was much too well-liked. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t enrage, provoke, inspire discussion or emotion, even troubling emotion, to hell with it. I
No cheap thrills, no free rides. Lingerability is where it’s at. A film should leave a residue. So, if ‘RYKOS’ [‘Raise Your Kids on Selzer’] or any film I make managed to do any of that, I have tremendous pride in it. Even when people hate ‘RYKOS’, I’ve notice it gets them amusingly hot and bothered. I think that’s wonderful.
Will that film be made widely available soon?
Fandor is licensing both ‘RYKOS’ and ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’. I’ve had a relationship with them for years, so yes, pretty soon and it turns out that my distributor already has an agreement with them. ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is awaiting its festival circuit tour. Just last week, Deniz shot new material in Warsaw, which I’m incorporating.
And on the literary front?
I’m trying to finish my book on Joan Micklin Silver [‘Hester Street’, 1975, ‘Chilly Scenes of Winter’, 1979, ‘Crossing Delancey, 1988] in time for summer. Publication would hopefully be some time in 2018. It’s been fabulous working one-on-one with Joan, and speaking with her collaborators.
How has that process been for you?
Oh, I love writing about artists who haven’t gotten the press and attention that the biggies get. An article on the Twilight Time website recently called me a film historian, and I relished being given that descriptor.
Someone recently told me that I’m the Bernie Sanders of film literature, meaning that I fight for those creative artists who get ignored by those scholars who’d rather do the 400th book on Hitchcock or Kubrick or whatever.
I’m not a contrarian, but there are too many directors of merit to give carte blanche to rigid canons and canonists in cinema studies. That’s what my Sidney J. Furie book was about. His work was one of my great influences and passions, and to me he is the greatest underrated director in the English language.
I felt that book had to be written and I was so driven to accomplish that. Same with Joan. The shameful neglect that Sid and Joan still see is nearly unforgivable. I’m doing my part to get them their due.
Who are your favorite directors, beyond the ones that you feel need more playtime?
So many…too many. Jacques Rivette, Peter Watkins, Sidney J. Furie, Claude Jutra, John Cassavetes, Joseph Losey, Robert Altman, Nicolas Roeg, Luchino Visconti, Powell & Pressburger, Ritwik Ghatak, Jean Vigo, Max Ophuls, Shohei Imamura, Fassbinder, Orson Welles, so many others.
I really appreciate exquisite staging of a scene, even if it’s manic like in Cassavetes. And I love poetic efficiency, as I like to call it; Jutra and Vigo are masters at that.
Who or what might you cover next in book form?
Again, reticent to say at this point, as it’s unofficial, but there is another book subject in the works—a director still alive and still very much working. We’re in the talking stages right now, and it seems promising.
I’m also working with Tom Luddy and David Thomson on the first published collection of Susan Sontag’s writings on cinema.
And you’ve joined forces with the Bricolage folks?
Yes, I’m mighty proud of the fact that we’re a diverse group, with diverse artistic visions, that has merged to create interesting, quality, “homemade” cinema together as a collective.
We help each other, crew for each other, watch each other’s rough cuts, provide feedback, and occasionally even perform for each other. It’s something I’ve long dreamt about. There are many great collectives and movements in film history, including Bay Area ones like Cine Manifest.
It was my longtime fantasy to be part of a grass roots endeavor that allowed comrades-in-arms to join forces to make personal cinema in an age where virtually everything is possible cinematically. I think the films the collective has produced thus far are quite special.
There are my films ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ and ‘RYKOS’, Jeff Kao’s marvelous ‘Knowing Nothing Cold’, Deniz Demirer’s ‘Chinaroom’ and ‘American Mongrel’, Jeff and Penny Werner’s ‘Odds’, and Josh Peterson’s ‘Forest Born’. And we’re all working on new films right now.
The $6 million question: Why the San Francisco Bay Area, and not New York or L.A.?
There’s community here unlike any other city I’ve known, let alone lived in. I moved here from New York and have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles. When I came to San Francisco to shoot ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ with Deniz, I was amazed that, as soon as folks that Deniz knew heard that we were making a movie, they went out of their way to ask, ‘May I be part of it? What can I do?’ and just showed up to lend a hand. And to top it off, they were genuinely talented – it wasn’t amateur hour.
And then I learned of an extended Bay Area satellite network of artists and creative people, so I moved thousands of miles to become part of that. It’s not just a tech mecca. it’s a creative mecca as well, and people here feel that the creative act is a vital contribution to daily living. Everyone wants to be part of that energy, and I count them as friends, comrades, co-conspirators.
New York is filled with artists, but – sorry, New Yorkers – it has absolutely no sense of a community of artists. I think a majority of committed New Yorkers who love living and working there thrive on a kind of isolation. And hey, that’s cool. But it sometimes felt impossible getting friends out for shoots and rough-cut screenings in New York.
In the Bay Area, you simply tell people a time and a place and they just enthusiastically show up without the vexing schedule-bargaining or kvetching.
As for L.A., it’s such an ugly industry town for movies, so much so that they don’t let any indie filmmaker of my stripe get away with anything. It’s a stifling, gross-oriented, by-the-book town. The beauty about San Francisco is that you can jaunt down to L.A. for occasional work, but you never have to become apart of that L.A. grind.
How do you manage to stay so prolific? Don’t you have bills to pay?
What can I say, it’s kind of a secret sauce. Sometimes it’s hand-to-mouth, but as long as I somehow manage to continue doing what I’m doing, happiness is mine for the taking. It takes very little to keep me happy: I need to work on the projects I care about the most.
I’m always writing, always conspiring, always thinking about future projects, every waking minute of the day, sometimes even in my dreams. That’s enough. I’ve got five film projects turning around in my head. On any given day, I’ll add ideas to one, or to a few, and make inroads to one day fully realizing each of them.
The key to any artist who wants to make things happen, especially in film, is this: live simply, keep your overhead low, remember that time is the ultimate gift, not money, and most of all, welcome the struggle. As Orson Welles said, ‘The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.’ And in the age of Trump, I take solace knowing that the art will only get better.
For more info, see Kremer Vimeo interview here or buy his book Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films here.
Aaron Rappaport is a journalist living in El Cerrito, California, see his 2012 interview with Kremer collaborator Deniz Demirer here.
Posted on Jan 25, 2017 - 10:00 AM
by Aaron Rappaport
Daniel Kremer, a 32 year-old graduate of Temple University film school has already directed six features and edited many more. photo: courtesy D. Kremerglasses and a black wool cap, Daniel Kremer looks less the movie director with six features under his belt and more the nice Jewish boy on a weekend furlough from the local yeshiva. In point of fact, there is some truth to his jokes about being a “rabbinical school dropout.”
We meet for our interview on Haight Street, Kremer arriving by bicycle and humorously lamenting his failed attempts to blend in with the Haight’s new hipsters or old, bedraggled hippies, despite what he calls his “studied schlumpiness.”
There is a scene in his latest film, “Ezer Kenegdo”, which stages precisely such an occurrence. A weed dealer on a Haight Street corner calls out, as Kremer’s character Izzy passes, “Shalom”, to which he responds, “How do you know I’m a Jew? I could just be a hipster.”
Kremer doesn’t usually make explicitly Jewish films. In fact, his 2015 drama “Raise Your Kids on Seltzer”, concerns an unhappily married pair of ex-cult de-programmers and would probably rate an 'R' if submitted to the MPAA board.
“My films are definitely ‘treif’ [non-kosher] by Orthodox establishment standards,” Kremer noted in our interview. “But I have my own brand of ‘kosher filmmaking’ that simply entails telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about people, how they speak to each other, and the very real conflicts they face in daily life.”
“A good friend of mine once said, ‘You can’t help but make Jewish films,’ Kremer adds. "I was a bit flabbergasted as I’ve made nothing explicitly Jewish until ‘Ezer Kenegdo’. He told me, ‘It comes out anyway. It’s in your creative genes.’ Now, I can see some of these subconscious touches.”
Kremer’s obsession with film started young. “I saw both ‘400 Blows’ and Antonioni’s ‘Blow-Up’ at age 11, and ‘Andrei Rublev’ at age 12. I was a huge Woody Allen fan throughout my youth, and I credit Woody’s flicks for my openly pedantic use of words like ‘polymorphous’ in seventh grade essays.”
But, “It was after I saw ‘The Ipcress File’ [Sidney Furie, 1965] that I started to make my own amateur movies with my cousins as actors.”
Because of a severe stutter, which made social situations difficult throughout middle school and high school, Kremer retreated into solitude, diving headlong into watching as many films as possible.
“My first education in film involved picking up rare VHS tapes at Pittsburgh’s biggest flea markets, and catching broadcasts of old, often obscure films. Film programming on television was glorious when I was growing up. I could catch a movie like ‘Stevie’ [1978], with Glenda Jackson, on Bravo or Encore. Then, that would be followed by something like ‘The Bofors Gun’ [1968]. Now, all you get on Encore is popular Hollywood cinema, and all you get on Bravo is Reality TV.”
Daniel Kremer directs and acts, along with co-directer and lead, Deniz Demirer, in 'Ezer Kenegdo' (2017). photo: courtesy D. KremerIndeed, in late-2015, Kremer published his first book, a 430-page biography of the director Sidney J. Furie ("The Ipcress File", "Lady Sings the Blues", "The Entity") through University Press of Kentucky’s Screen Classics Series and edited by Patrick McGilligan, a leading entertainment biographer .
Though he has previously published pieces on his ConFluence-Film Blog, in Filmmaker Magazine, and Keyframe, Kremer feels he hit his stride with writing in depth about the lives of artists he has admired.
“My filmmaking and film writing go hand in hand. Each informs the other,” he notes.
“When I’m shooting, I have an enhanced appreciation of what goes into the act of making of a film because I must dig so deeply into the lives, careers and styles of other artists. I find film journalists can never know what a filmmaker goes through, until they go through it themselves.”
Almost all the characters in Kremer’s films are devoted to a search for equilibrium in a new, lonely world they do not recognize. We, as an audience, see ourselves in the refracted image of their collective angst and struggle.
“Ezer Kenegdo”, for example, tells of a Polish-Catholic immigrant and an American Hassidic Jew who forge what in any other film would be an unlikely friendship, tormented by the prejudices and tragedies of their ancestors. Despite the off-limits signs automatically in their way, and although alienated in their respective manners, they strive to look into each other's souls, fashioning a powerful film for this absurd age.
I caught up with Kremer at a pivotal time, while he was shooting his seventh feature film, his first literary adaptation. He is also releasing and promoting other three feature films concurrently, two of which spent a number of years in post-production.
In addition to all this, he has also recently joined forces with six other filmmakers, to form a new Bay Area filmmaking collective called Bricolage. We met at a Haight Street café and spoke at length about all the above.
Kremer and Demirer with their mentor Rob Nilsson, who plays the role of the reclusive painter in 'Ezer Kenegdo' (2017). photo: courtesy D. KremerYes. I'm excited that two films that have taken years to complete are finally getting finished. ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ took almost ten years, and ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ a bit more than four. My turnaround for projects is usually a lot quicker.
Why did they both take so long?
Well, ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is the product of a rich collaboration between myself and Deniz Demirer [another local filmmaker, both he and Kremer are acolytes of Berkeley indie/improv filmmaker Rob Nilsson].
We met in January, 2012, had a six-hour conversation on one fateful evening—at a number of bars—about the themes ultimately explored in the film, and emerged from this barroom odyssey realizing that we needed to make a movie together.
We started shooting in January 2013. We had ups and downs with time and investment into the film, coupled with the fact that, as the editor of the film, I hate looking at myself as an actor onscreen—it was my first leading role.
I also tweaked ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ more than any other film I’ve made [including shooting additional scenes while editing]. The process was a complex one because the themes are complex, and the balance the film tries to strike was never easy to achieve. It was also my first real collaboration with another filmmaker, so we exercised our due diligence a little extra.
With ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’, I think I should tell the whole story, as it’s one of real creative perseverance.
It is a mini-DV feature, which I started when I was a junior in film school at Temple University, in 2006. For a first film, I might have gotten a little too ambitious. I was influenced both by Peter Watkins—specifically his ‘Edvard Munch’ [1973]—and Ken Russell's early stylized biopics for the BBC in the '60s.
I wanted to blend experimental, narrative, and documentary form in a way I hadn't seen before. ‘SophAcquai’ is really the classic ‘impetuous first film’—the type where some snotty, obnoxious kid picks up a camera and says, ‘I'm going to change the form and make a movie like no one's ever seen before, and it's going to be great!’
And it turns out to be the most pretentious thing in the world—as ‘SophAcquai’ was in its first version. [laughs]
I had a 55-minute version that was virtually unwatchable. But there were many things that I liked, scenes and little flourishes that showed promise. I guess you could say it haunted me. I hate not finishing things – I compulsively feel the need for closure on projects.
In 2012, I shot some more material and began rearranging and reconstructing it, getting it down to around 50 minutes. Still, I wasn't happy with it and stowed it away, yet again.
The poster for Kremer's new film, 'Ezer Kenegdo', 2017. illo: courtesy D. KremerAt one point, he decided to throw all it all to the wind, and said, ‘The hell with it! Bring on anarchy! This will be my ‘Tristram Shandy’.’ He had me insert outtakes and bits that were never intended to be in the finished product.
We emerged with what I think is one of his more interesting, offbeat movies, one that pays tribute to the Italian neo-realists, sometimes from a comical perspective, but with a sense of thematic, emotional, and philosophical purpose.
I thought, "I could do what Rob did on 'Next Week in Bologna' with this old movie of mine—it might be intriguing, and at the very least, it'll be fun.’
I worked intensively over a period of months, shot a couple new bits to tie the new version together, incorporated some appropriately wily outtakes, and came out the other end with a 75-minute film that has become one of my favorite films I've yet made—flaws and all.
I like flaws. Flaws make films human and interesting. Ironically, 'SophAcquai' is Rob's favorite film of my own; he narrates the film too. It was reprieved from a lifetime spot on the proverbial shelf. I owe a lot to Rob in this case.
It seems you appreciate unusual titles.
‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is a term from the Hebrew Bible, Genesis. It is the first name given to women. 'Ezer' means help' or 'helpmate,' and 'kenegdo' is 'against' or 'resister.' Joining the two words into one central concept, it is the basis of, classically, a marriage, but really it is the foundation of any healthy human relationship. The characters help and support each other—and they challenge and resist each other.
‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ comes from Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’. In the first volume, Swann is the ‘sophisticated acquaintance’ who robs the narrator of his mother’s goodnight kiss, which he needs to sleep peacefully.
It’s partly the story of two creative, artistic members of the same family, a father and a son, who compete with each other on some level. Because the son, Klaus, winds up committing ‘revolutionary suicide,’ it felt like a rich analogy.
I like 'Raise Your Kids on Seltzer' as a title. too.
That one is often greeted by folks with a strange smirk. A lot of them ask if the movie is about seltzer [laughs]. One particular critic, I think the one at Rogue Cinema, outright disliked [the title]. I love it.
Titles are important to me. There are too many graceless and perfunctory titles for films and books out there. A title should be as original as the material it represents.
I personally think ‘Raise Your Kids on Seltzer’ is intriguing. It makes you want to see the film. I saw two other upcoming titles on your IMDb: ‘I Forgive Swissvale’ and ‘Sidney J. Furie: Fire Up the Carousel’.
Yes, those are both longterm documentary projects. Many hours of material have been shot for both, but documentaries like these need time to percolate. You shoot over a period of years, which gets reflected in the films themselves.
I’m going to Israel with Sidney Furie in April to help produce his next film, which is the most personal picture he’s ever made. During production, I will certainly be shooting a lot of material for that documentary.
‘I Forgive Swissvale’ is an essay film about the neighborhood in Pittsburgh where I grew up, and my family set its American roots a few generations ago. That neighborhood is now not such a nice or safe place. I shoot more footage for that project whenever I visit family in Pittsburgh—another very personal picture.
The members of the improv cine group Bricolage, of which Kremer is a member, act a scene. photo: courtesy D. KremerBoth ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ and ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’ are intensely personal.
‘Ezer Kenegdo’ reflects a certain reality, as I am an observing Jew who straddles two worlds and two lifestyles—the Jewish one and the cinematic/artistic one—with what people perceive as a levity and nonchalance. Throw in a third component—that I’m openly gay and politically more liberal [than most orthodox Jews]—and the stew gets spicier.
But, if I’m being honest with myself, deep down, something needles me and I’m always asking myself difficult questions about the conflicts between my creative life and spiritual life. And I think Deniz, as a Polish-born Catholic who grew up in Warsaw, was asking himself very similar questions. To me, the film wound up being more about history and cultural divide; that revealed itself to me during the editing.
How do you think ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ fits in with the rest of your films?
Like most working artists looking at their output, I suck at judging my own style and the thematic threads that pulse through my films, if any. The only thing I can see consciously is a recurring theme of how nostalgia and remembrance can be alternately destructive and liberating.
As far as I can see, ‘A Trip to Swadades’ [2008] and ‘The Idiotmaker’s Gravity Tour’ [2011] , which is a road movie I shot in India, are both about that. ‘Raise Your Kids on Seltzer’ has a strand of that too.
‘I Forgive Swissvale’, my essay film-in-progress, is currently about memory, as it relates to lost places. ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is about how shared history binds and obstructs the relationship between two young men, who are inextricably drawn to each other.
Deniz, as a co-director, is drawn to the idea of exile, and I think that emerges in his previous films.
My character Izzy fascinates Deniz’s character, Marek, because, as a Polish immigrant, Marek needs some kind of proximity with a culture and religion that shared space with his own in Poland. How much camaraderie do they find? How much friction?
The two characters are going to meet an irascible painter who seeks to destroy a lifetime’s worth of his own art—a character essentially destroying history, his own history. It might seem too overt a metaphor, but I think we make it sing.
And 'Sophisticated Acquaintance'?
‘SophAcquai’ is really, underneath it all, about the often fraught relationship I’ve shared with my brother, who is also an artist. The relationship was at fever-pitch antipathy when I first shot that film in 2006, and that’s what comes out when I watch it today.
We’re on better terms today, but there can be complications to having more than one artist in the same family, because artists are naturally temperamental. That issue expressed itself to me in the story of Klaus Mann’s relationship to his father Thomas.
Kremer's recent book on Sidney Furie, director of ‘The Ipcress File’ and ‘Lady Sings the Blues’. photo: courtesy D. KremerAs R. Crumb’s brother Charles says in Terry Zwigoff’s documentary [‘Crumb’, 1994], ‘How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure.” I like to take out the comma before ‘to be sure,” which reinterprets the quotation.
If there’s absolute certainty to someone’s conviction, the only way you can really respond is, ‘Well, good for you!’ I’m guilty of this too. We all are. Klaus was, with his essay on revolutionary suicide.
By the way, I should mention that my favorite film of yours is 'A Simple Game of Catch' (2012).
You’re not the only one. That little movie really seems to speak to people in a way I never could have predicted. They see themselves in Alanna Blair’s character. She did a really outstanding job playing that character. It couldn’t have been easy for her.
So you’re now shooting your seventh feature?
Yes, I have my cinematographer Aaron Hollander to thank for that.
My other big movie project, ‘Precious Wheels Above’, stalled for both creative and financial reasons. That is a big project that will require more than my average picture.
Aaron and I were sort of feeling at bay, and he just said one day, 'Why don’t we just shoot something? Let’s do a quickie feature!' And it was one of the magical moments when you realize, ‘Oh yeah, we can do that, can’t we? We can just do anything.’
So, on a Wednesday, we alerted a bunch of actors that we knew from the Rob Nilsson circle that we were going to start shooting on Sunday. The troops showed up just like that and we were off to the races. We have a great cast too: Alexander Hero, Catherine Lerza, Raul Delarosa, Ravi Valleti, many others.
The act of filmmaking for a filmmaker is like a muscle; if you don’t use it, you lose it. A project like this one is like a boxer sparring to stay in shape. I feel freer to experiment and try things I wouldn’t try on a larger project.
Can you share anything specific about the project?
Between that Wednesday and Sunday, I checked back into my old ‘idea file’ to see if we could do any of those catalogued concepts in a quick, no-frills way. I wound up electing to do an adaptation of a novel that my brother—the same brother I referenced earlier— told me would make a great movie.
As a scholar of Antebellum American literature, he knew a great deal about this novel written in 1799, and his account of it intrigued me. I read it, found it rather beguiling, and then jotted it down as a possible future film project. In this film, we update everything to present-day and change a great deal.
Which novel?
Sorry, I don’t want to divulge the book title until the footage is completely in the can. I’m really never this secretive about such things, but I’m superstitious in this particular case.
I can say that it’s not your everyday story. On some days, it feels like we’re doing a straight-up thriller. Other days, it feels like we’re doing Antonioni or something. At other times, it’s a manic Cassavetes drama. The novel is early American Gothic, but also kind of a cocktail of philosophy, sociology, and skullduggery. It’s the first time since my 2008 film ‘A Trip to Swadades’ that I’m shooting black-and-white—footage always looks better in monochrome.
It is a 'loose adaptation.' I want to work off a distant memory of having read it awhile ago, because that allows me to build and riff rather than feel bound in sticking to some ecclesiastical interpretation, which I think hobbles a lot of novel-to-film adaptations.
As director Richard Brooks once said, 'If you’re going to make a book just as a book, then there’s no need to make it a film at all.' I’m also taking narrative cues from films like Frank Perry’s mysterious neo-noir Man on a Swing (1974) and Jerry Schatzberg’s marvelously inventive psychodrama 'Puzzle of a Downfall Child' [1970], which has always been a major go-to 'idea movie' for me.
It’s liberating to go from page to screen using this method. I believe heartily in a filmmaker or screenwriter’s right to interpret freely. Many of my favorite adaptations wildly depart from their source text. Philip Kaufman’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ [1988], Jacques Rivette’s ‘Wuthering Heights’[1985], Sidney J. Furie’s ‘The Leather Boys’ [1964] and Joan Micklin Silver’s ‘Hester Street’ [1975).
Poster for early Kremer film, 'Sophisticated Acquaintance'. photo: courtesy D. KremerYeah, it did fairly well. For good or for ill, that film came as close to my original vision as any I’ve made or can imagine. It’s an odd one. Genuinely odd. I didn’t think that when I first completed it. I thought it would really do well with audiences, and to a considerable degree, [it did although] the rhythm of it tends to either lure people in, or really rub them the wrong way. The film has seen enthusiastic Q&As with perfect strangers who just get it. They like its originality and intensity. We had a rave review at Unsung Films.
But to me, the best films are the divisive ones. Any film or work of art that can get people debating or even arguing beats the shit out of any manufactured, programmed hit that no one feels compelled to truly discuss.
‘La La Land’ was that for me: enjoyable but with no gravity, no potential for a discussion of real depth. Yes, it can be sweet, charming and fun, and its affection for old movie musicals is literate and clear, but it’s overwhelmingly empty.
You might say, ‘But it’s a light musical! It doesn’t have to be deep!’ To that I say, ‘I’ve seen some pretty fun-loving, wonderful musicals that incite real conversation.’ Have a look at Chazelle’s influences and antecedents: Minnelli, Demy, Donen. Great, catchy music, though.
I don’t look to incite such polarizing responses, but when it happens, I feel incredible fulfillment. And maybe all I’ve said means that I’ll never make it as a commercial filmmaker. Financial viability would be nice, but I don’t want to go out of my way for it.
It’s more important I get ideas with which I’ve grappled throughout my lifetime onto the screen and page, before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Give me a small coterie of admirers who respect what I do and want to follow me down a path, even in relatively smaller numbers, and I’m satisfied.
I find that crowds and mob mentality can ruin things for me. I have this sort of rebel notion that, if so many people love something, or if something inspires blind, rapturous adulation, there must be something terribly wrong with it.
It’s like Cassavetes re-cutting ‘Husbands’ when he found that a test-screening cut was much too well-liked. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t enrage, provoke, inspire discussion or emotion, even troubling emotion, to hell with it. I
No cheap thrills, no free rides. Lingerability is where it’s at. A film should leave a residue. So, if ‘RYKOS’ [‘Raise Your Kids on Selzer’] or any film I make managed to do any of that, I have tremendous pride in it. Even when people hate ‘RYKOS’, I’ve notice it gets them amusingly hot and bothered. I think that’s wonderful.
Will that film be made widely available soon?
Fandor is licensing both ‘RYKOS’ and ‘Sophisticated Acquaintance’. I’ve had a relationship with them for years, so yes, pretty soon and it turns out that my distributor already has an agreement with them. ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ is awaiting its festival circuit tour. Just last week, Deniz shot new material in Warsaw, which I’m incorporating.
And on the literary front?
I’m trying to finish my book on Joan Micklin Silver [‘Hester Street’, 1975, ‘Chilly Scenes of Winter’, 1979, ‘Crossing Delancey, 1988] in time for summer. Publication would hopefully be some time in 2018. It’s been fabulous working one-on-one with Joan, and speaking with her collaborators.
How has that process been for you?
Oh, I love writing about artists who haven’t gotten the press and attention that the biggies get. An article on the Twilight Time website recently called me a film historian, and I relished being given that descriptor.
Someone recently told me that I’m the Bernie Sanders of film literature, meaning that I fight for those creative artists who get ignored by those scholars who’d rather do the 400th book on Hitchcock or Kubrick or whatever.
I’m not a contrarian, but there are too many directors of merit to give carte blanche to rigid canons and canonists in cinema studies. That’s what my Sidney J. Furie book was about. His work was one of my great influences and passions, and to me he is the greatest underrated director in the English language.
I felt that book had to be written and I was so driven to accomplish that. Same with Joan. The shameful neglect that Sid and Joan still see is nearly unforgivable. I’m doing my part to get them their due.
Who are your favorite directors, beyond the ones that you feel need more playtime?
So many…too many. Jacques Rivette, Peter Watkins, Sidney J. Furie, Claude Jutra, John Cassavetes, Joseph Losey, Robert Altman, Nicolas Roeg, Luchino Visconti, Powell & Pressburger, Ritwik Ghatak, Jean Vigo, Max Ophuls, Shohei Imamura, Fassbinder, Orson Welles, so many others.
I really appreciate exquisite staging of a scene, even if it’s manic like in Cassavetes. And I love poetic efficiency, as I like to call it; Jutra and Vigo are masters at that.
Who or what might you cover next in book form?
Again, reticent to say at this point, as it’s unofficial, but there is another book subject in the works—a director still alive and still very much working. We’re in the talking stages right now, and it seems promising.
I’m also working with Tom Luddy and David Thomson on the first published collection of Susan Sontag’s writings on cinema.
And you’ve joined forces with the Bricolage folks?
Yes, I’m mighty proud of the fact that we’re a diverse group, with diverse artistic visions, that has merged to create interesting, quality, “homemade” cinema together as a collective.
We help each other, crew for each other, watch each other’s rough cuts, provide feedback, and occasionally even perform for each other. It’s something I’ve long dreamt about. There are many great collectives and movements in film history, including Bay Area ones like Cine Manifest.
It was my longtime fantasy to be part of a grass roots endeavor that allowed comrades-in-arms to join forces to make personal cinema in an age where virtually everything is possible cinematically. I think the films the collective has produced thus far are quite special.
There are my films ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ and ‘RYKOS’, Jeff Kao’s marvelous ‘Knowing Nothing Cold’, Deniz Demirer’s ‘Chinaroom’ and ‘American Mongrel’, Jeff and Penny Werner’s ‘Odds’, and Josh Peterson’s ‘Forest Born’. And we’re all working on new films right now.
The $6 million question: Why the San Francisco Bay Area, and not New York or L.A.?
There’s community here unlike any other city I’ve known, let alone lived in. I moved here from New York and have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles. When I came to San Francisco to shoot ‘Ezer Kenegdo’ with Deniz, I was amazed that, as soon as folks that Deniz knew heard that we were making a movie, they went out of their way to ask, ‘May I be part of it? What can I do?’ and just showed up to lend a hand. And to top it off, they were genuinely talented – it wasn’t amateur hour.
And then I learned of an extended Bay Area satellite network of artists and creative people, so I moved thousands of miles to become part of that. It’s not just a tech mecca. it’s a creative mecca as well, and people here feel that the creative act is a vital contribution to daily living. Everyone wants to be part of that energy, and I count them as friends, comrades, co-conspirators.
New York is filled with artists, but – sorry, New Yorkers – it has absolutely no sense of a community of artists. I think a majority of committed New Yorkers who love living and working there thrive on a kind of isolation. And hey, that’s cool. But it sometimes felt impossible getting friends out for shoots and rough-cut screenings in New York.
In the Bay Area, you simply tell people a time and a place and they just enthusiastically show up without the vexing schedule-bargaining or kvetching.
As for L.A., it’s such an ugly industry town for movies, so much so that they don’t let any indie filmmaker of my stripe get away with anything. It’s a stifling, gross-oriented, by-the-book town. The beauty about San Francisco is that you can jaunt down to L.A. for occasional work, but you never have to become apart of that L.A. grind.
How do you manage to stay so prolific? Don’t you have bills to pay?
What can I say, it’s kind of a secret sauce. Sometimes it’s hand-to-mouth, but as long as I somehow manage to continue doing what I’m doing, happiness is mine for the taking. It takes very little to keep me happy: I need to work on the projects I care about the most.
I’m always writing, always conspiring, always thinking about future projects, every waking minute of the day, sometimes even in my dreams. That’s enough. I’ve got five film projects turning around in my head. On any given day, I’ll add ideas to one, or to a few, and make inroads to one day fully realizing each of them.
The key to any artist who wants to make things happen, especially in film, is this: live simply, keep your overhead low, remember that time is the ultimate gift, not money, and most of all, welcome the struggle. As Orson Welles said, ‘The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.’ And in the age of Trump, I take solace knowing that the art will only get better.
For more info, see Kremer Vimeo interview here or buy his book Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films here.
Aaron Rappaport is a journalist living in El Cerrito, California, see his 2012 interview with Kremer collaborator Deniz Demirer here.
Posted on Jan 25, 2017 - 10:00 AM
