Face2Face with David Peck

Amr Salama and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film Sheikh Jackson, pop music, cinematic language, identity, Islam, father figures, inclusion, imagination, and. Michael Jackson.

Biography

Amr Salama is a prominent young Egyptian writer and director whose credits include the prize-winning AIDS drama Asmaa and the coming-of-age comedy Excuse My French, which swept the board at Egypt’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Says Amr, I never felt as vulnerable making a film, it was half writing a memoir and half fictionalizing a universal story that can transcend above stereotyping and prejudice, a story about fear of death and loving life, identity, temptation and self love.

Synopsis

The sudden death of Michael Jackson sends a former King of Pop devotee — now a young imam — into a tailspin. But, what does an imam have in common with the King of Pop?

More importantly, can he now go back to his normal life, or will his memories and relationships with his loved ones raise the most prominent question in his mind: is he the Sheikh, Jackson, or both?

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Amr Salama and the Film Clinic. Used with permission.

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Jenna Bass and Face2Face host David Peck talk about her new film High Fantasy, the body swap genre, political satire, apartheid, land rights in South Africa, responsibility and racism.

Biography

Jenna Bass is a South African writer, filmmaker and former magician. Her multi-award winning films - Zimbabwe-set short, The Tunnel, and entirely-improvised debut feature, Love The One You Love, have screened around the world, including Sundance, Berlinale, Göteborg , Busan and Durban International Film Festivals, where she has been heralded as ushering in a ‘New Wave’ of South African cinema.

Her second feature film, body-swap satire, High Fantasy, shot entirely on the iPhone 7, will premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Her third feature, Flatland, a feminist Western set in South Africa’s Karoo region, is scheduled for production in mid-2018. Jenna is the editor and co-creator Jungle Jim, the illustrated pulpliterary magazine for African fiction, established in 2011. In 2012, under her pseudonym, Constance Myburgh, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize, Africa’s leading literary award. Jenna is also a lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in both Production Design and Screenwriting.

She is currently engaged in a VR collaboration with artist, Olivie Keck and indie game developers, Free Lives, as well as co-writing a fantasy animation feature screenplay for Sanusi Chronicles.

Synopsis

Four young, South African friends on a camping trip on an isolated farm wake up to discover they’ve all swapped bodies.

As they navigate a labyrinth of so-called Rainbow Nation politics, they capture their bizarre predicament in selfie videos - with hilarious and tragic results.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Jenna Bass and Foxfire Films. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brian O’Malley and Face2Face host David Peck talk about ghosts, fear, love, freedom, choice and responsibility, Gothic overtones in life, art, sculpture and psychological horror.

Biography

Before moving into Directing, Brian studied Sculpture in the DIT School of Fine Art. Whilst there his fascination with the exploration of three-dimensional space inevitably led to him picking up a video camera and creating his first experimental short films. Through these experiments, he discovered visual directors like Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese, and his desire to be a highly visual commercial film director was born.

His video work in college got the attention of his fellow students and before long he was making no-budget music videos for college bands. He considered abandoning art school in favour of film school, however, he felt compelled to complete his studies. After leaving college Brian worked internationally as a snow, ice and sand sculptor, taking part in many international competitions and creating sculptures on a corporate level. By this stage, cinema had bitten Brian hard, and he returned to making music videos in order to develop his skills further as a director.

After winning national awards for his work, he began to direct music videos with bigger budgets for EMI records. From here Brian turned his attention to world of TV commercials, where he has enjoyed a successful career since 2001, directing several Golden Lion, Shark and ICAD award-winning TV campaigns. Despite this commercial success, Brian’s love of music, design, art, sculpture, and storytelling - and how all of these art forms could be explored in parallel through cinema - meant that Brian’s focus remained on directing feature films.

In 2004 Brian’s short film Screwback won a BAFTA certificate at the Aspen Film Festival, and in 2005 he was awarded the Hartley Merrill screenwriting Award at Cannes for his unproduced feature film screenplay Sisk. After a number of false starts, Brian’s persistence meant he got the opportunity to direct his debut feature film with Let Us Prey winning the Méliès d’Argent award for its world premiere at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in 2014.

Synopsis

A gothic ghost story about orphaned twins Edward and Rachel who share a crumbling manor in 1920s rural Ireland - but they are not alone. They share the house with unseen entities who control them with three absolute rules. As separate fates draw them apart, the twins must face the terrible truth about their family’s ghostly tormentors.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Brian O’Malley and Tailored Films. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emmanuel and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new award winning film Makala, charcoal, life experience, cosmic materialism and liberalism, capitalism and the beauty of hard work.

Biography

Emmanuel Gras is a French director whose films deal with contemporary social issues and are marked by a commitment to form.

He studied film photography at ENS Louis Lumière. His film Bovines was nominated for the César for Best Documentary in 2013.

His most recent film Makala won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in 2017.

Synopsis

The film begins at dawn in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as 28-year-old Kabwita Kasongo heads out with axes slung over his shoulder. He arrives at a majestic tree and begins the arduous process of chopping it down, one axe blow at a time. This is merely the first of several daunting tasks we witness Kasongo undertake in the process of making wood charcoal and delivering it to the marketplace.

The film patiently observes Kasongo as he works mostly alone and interacts with his wife, Lydie, and other townspeople. His minimal resources include a rickety bike that he piles precariously high with charcoal bags and pushes through dirt roads on a marathon journey.

He dreams of earning enough money to buy a better roof for his family. While that cost would be modest in an industrialized country, for Kasongo it requires an enormous exertion to attain.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt and Face2Face host David Peck talk Living Proof, about the medical community, MS, science and alternative approaches to health, activism and patient funded research.

Biography

Matt Embry is one of the most prolific producer/directors in Canada. Embry has produced and directed non-fiction programs for CBC, Global, CTV, TELUS, HBO Canada,

PBS, OMNI, Animal Planet, OLN and Telefilm.

His documentary directing credits include Jann Arden: Free, Ian Tyson: Songs From the Gravel Road, Curveball: WP Kinsella and Hell or High Water: The Rebuilding of the Calgary Stampede. Matt co-directed the Hot Docs selection Theo Fleury: Playing With Fire (HBO Canada) and coproduced the Gemini-nominated feature In a World Created By a Drunken God.

As president and founder of Spotlight Productions, Matt proudly oversees the production of lifestyle and cultural content for TELUS and various other clients. Matt holds a BA in Communications from the University of Calgary and an MFA in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal.

Synopsis

Living Proof is an emotional, dynamic and fast-paced documentary that reveals

the crippling politics of multiple sclerosis (MS) through a father and son’s journey to find and share hope.

After filmmaker Matt Embry is diagnosed with MS, he and his father, Dr. Ashton Embry, embark on a journey to find hope for treating the incurable disease.

Instead, they discover controversy, confusion and even allegations of a conflict of interest between Big Pharma and MS charities.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film premiering at TIFF race relations in America, courage and why Sammy Davis Junior was the greatest entertainer of the 20th century.

Biography

Sam Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans almost 30 years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton's Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads. For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as co-executive producer/producer of Hampton’s last documentary series, I'll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. For the series, Pollard received a Peabody Award.

Between 1990 and 2010, Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers and Bamboozled. Pollard and Lee also co-produced a number of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Pollard received an Emmy; Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings that was nominated for an Academy Award; and When The Levees Broke, a four-part documentary that won numerous awards, including a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. Five years later, he co-produced and supervised the edit on the follow up to Levees, If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise.

Since 2012, Pollard has produced and directed Slavery By Another Name (2012), a 90-minute documentary for PBS that was in competition at the Sundance Film Festival; August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand (2015), a 90-minute documentary for American Masters; Two Trains Runnin, (2016), a feature-length documentary that premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival; and The Talk: Race in America (2017) for PBS.

Synopsis

Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine Davis’ vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America. Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory.

Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly out-dated show business traditions trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.

Featuring new interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis’ vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.

Trailer

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Sam Pollard and Thirteen Productions. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wayne and Face2Face host David Peck talk about “glib patriotism”, community as the way to healing, how talent and bravery are connected, love and the importance of “powerful fiction”.

Biography

Wayne Wapeemukwa is a filmmaker of Métis and settler heritage from Vancouver, BC (Unceded Coast-Salish Territories). Luk’Luk’I is his debut feature film.

His previous short works include Foreclosure (TIFF’13), Luk’Luk’I : Mother (TIFF’14), Balmoral Hotel (TIFF Top 10’15) and Srorrim (VIFF’16, Best Film – Dawson City Film Festival).

He reads philosophy and psychoanalysis.

Synopsis

Nationalism gets a searing reality check in Wayne Wapeemukwa’s uncompromising debut feature Luk’Luk’I.

Following the lives of five Vancouverites living on society’s fringes during the 2010 Olympics, this film takes us into uncharted territory, falling somewhere between a fiction we need to see and a documentary we wish didn’t have to exist.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Wayne Wapeemukwa and LLI films. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Violeta and Face2Face host David Peck talk about Cocaine Prison, freedom, power and politics, the “War on Drugs” and indigenous history and truth.

Biography

Violeta Ayala is an award-winning indigenous filmmaker and writer born in Bolivia. Her credits include Cocaine Prison (2017) premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Fight (2017) distributed by The Guardian Shorts, winner of the Doc Dispatch Award at the Sheffield Doc Fest, The Bolivian Case (2015), premiered as a Special Presentation at Hot Docs, was nominated for Premios Platino and Fenix (the two most prestigious awards in Ibero-America) and was distributed by Ibermedia across Latin America to an audience of 625 million.

Stolen (2009) which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, screened in 80 festivals worldwide has won 15 awards and aired on PBS. Violeta is currently working the feature version of The Fight and WAR, a documentary about black rights in Australia. She is also writing the screenplay El Comunista about her grandfather – a Serbian Jew, leader of the Bolivian Communist party and friend to Che Guevara. Violeta writes a popular blog at the Huffington Post.

Her films have been supported by PBS, Latino Public Broadcasting, Open Society Foundations, Sundance, MacArthur Foundation, Tribeca, Chicken & Egg, Bertha and Puma Britdoc, IDFA, CNC, Strasbourg Film Fund, Screen NSW, Screen Australia, Norwegian Film Institute, Señal Colombia and The Guardian. She is a founding member of United Notions Film. 

Synopsis

In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the children “swim” excitedly in huge piles of coca leaves, like the Ball Room in a McDonald’s play area. Mediums tell fortunes by reading the leaves. When they grow older, the children help harvest the coca plants. The relationship between the coca plant and cocaine is akin to grapes and wine. While growing a certain amount of coca leaves is legal, making, taking or transporting cocaine isn’t.

Amid this conundrum, teenagers may be paid $100 to transport cocaine, risking arrest and years in the notorious San Sebastian Prison.

This is the life on display in Cocaine Prison, where the boundaries of legality are blurred, in a country where the coca crop by-product all but props up a “grey market” economy. Needing to pay lip service to the U.S. War on Drugs, the Bolivian government enforces drug laws, which allows it to charge powerless drug workers while often turning a blind eye to powerful “big fish.”

Cocaine Prison is a rare case of a prison documentary partially shot by the inmates themselves. The twists of the tale are almost movie-like, with Daisy mulling a devil-or-angel choice of freeing her brother by becoming a “mule” herself, or cooperating with authorities seeking her testimony against her boss. “The universal truth of the War on Drugs is that it targets the most vulnerable everywhere: the drug workers at one end and the drug addicts on the other,” Ayala says. “They are the ones who are called criminals. But the world economy runs on drug money. And the key players, the big fish, live outside justice. The justice system is based on money, class and race.

Trailer

IMDB

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Violeta Ayala. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Erika and Face2Face host David Peck talk about Shari’a law, gender justice, and life for women in the Middle East, education, power, politics and storytelling.

Biography

Erika Cohn has received numerous accolades for her work, including a Director’s Guild of America award for her film, When the Voices Fade, a narrative profile of the Lebanese-Israeli war of 2006. Erika co-directed/produced, In Football We Trust, an Emmy nominated, feature documentary about the unique faith and culture that ultimately drives young Pacific Islander men into the NFL, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ 2016 Independent Lens series. Most recently, Erika completed The Judge, a film about the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts, which will premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and broadcast on PBS’ 2018 Independent Lens series. Her work has been supported by IFP, the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Institute, Hot Docs, Sheffield, ITVS, Women in Film, BAVC and the CPB Producer’s Academy among others.

Erika grew up attending the Sundance Film Festival as a native Utahn, where she first began her career. In 2008, Erika traveled to Cambodia where she shot Giant Steps, a documentary about the restitution of art after the Khmer Rouge rule, which aired on PBS. Later that year she directed La Guerrera, a narrative short about a young girl in Mexico pursuing her dreams to become a professional soccer player, which premiered at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. In 2010, Erika associate produced the six-part Frontline/American Experience historical series, God in America, which explored the intersection of religion and public life in America. Erika has been a featured panelist/speaker at various film festivals and university conferences and mentors youth filmmakers across the globe. She studied at Chapman University (California) and Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and has degrees in Film Production, Middle Eastern Studies, and Acting Performance. In 2013, Erika founded Idle Wild Films, Inc., which has released three feature documentaries and produced numerous branded content and commercial spots, including Gatorade’s Win from Within series, for which she received a 2016 Webby award nomination. Erika is also an avid photographer and served as a U.S. Ambassadorial Film Scholar to Israel/Palestine.

Synopsis

The Judge provides rare insight into Shari’a law, an often misunderstood legal framework for Muslims, told through the eyes of the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s religious courts. When she was a young lawyer, Kholoud Al-Faqih walked into the office of Palestine’s Chief Justice and announced she wanted to join the bench.

He laughed at her. But just a few years later, Kholoud became the first woman judge in the Shari’a courts. THE JUDGE offers a unique portrait of Kholoud—her brave journey as a lawyer, her tireless fight for justice for women, and her drop-in visits with clients, friends, and family. In the process, the film illuminates some of the universal conflicts in the domestic life of Palestine—custody of children, divorce, abuse—while offering an unvarnished look at life for women under Shari’a law.

Trailer

More about the film here.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Image Copyright: Erika Cohn and Three Judges LLC. Used with permission.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Gajdics talks about "The Inheritance of Shame", dealing with trauma, surviving conversion therapy and how remembering helps in his recovery.

Photo by Erich Saide Photographer

Biography

Peter Gajdics (pronounced “Guy-ditch”) was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, to immigrant parents from Europe. Gajdics knew from an early age that he was gay, but, for myriad reasons, that truth only seemed to cause him pain. In his early 20s, while struggling with an overwhelming sense of shame, Gajdics turned to a local psychiatrist for help. Within months he found himself embroiled in a bizarre sort of conversion therapy that attempted to “cure” him of his homosexuality. The Inheritance of Shame documents Gajdics’ six-year journey through, and eventually out of, this therapy; the legal battle with his former psychiatrist; his complicated family history; and his attempts to reclaim his life—and, most especially, his truth. 

Peter is an award-winning writer whose essays, short memoir and poetry have appeared in, among others, The Advocate, New York Tyrant, The Gay and Lesbian Review / Worldwide, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Opium. He is a recipient of writers grants from Canada Council for the Arts (for non-fiction and fiction), a fellowship from The Summer Literary Seminars, and an alumni of Lambda Literary Foundation’s “Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices.” The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir is his first book.

Peter Gajdics is available for speaking engagements. Reach out to him through the below contact page.

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For more information about David Peck's podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here or check out the site of his podcast on film, social change and much more. 

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.