Face2Face with David Peck

Bill and Mark and I talk about their new film The Head-hunters Calling, pure ego, being present and why we’re all addicts of one kind or another.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Synopsis

A ruthless corporate headhunter (Gerard Butler) battles his rival for control of their job placement company, until a family tragedy brings his personal and professional lives into conflict.

Grounded in a generous, soul-searching lead performance from Gerard Butler, this drama follows a corporate headhunter torn between the dictates of his ambition and the needs of his family.

For Dane Jensen (Butler), success demands a little ruthlessness; you don't get anywhere without stepping on toes. After years of climbing the corporate ladder, he has the biggest goal of his career in sight. The head of Dane's recruitment company (Willem Dafoe) has announced his retirement — and the time has come for Dane to pounce. Dane's ascension requires all his attention, particularly given that his biggest rival (Alison Brie) is younger and equally determined. Then the unimaginable happens. Dane's 10-year-old son falls seriously ill. After years of racking up wins in the business world, can Dane find a solution for this terrifying development in his personal life?

The Headhunter's Calling marks the directorial debut of veteran producer Mark Williams. The elegant script was written by Bill Dubuque — writer of The Judge, the Opening Night Gala at the 2014 Festival — and it draws upon his own years of experience as a headhunter.

The film pulses with the thrill of big money and cutthroat career maneuvering, but its heart is in a very different realm. The film is ultimately concerned with domestic stability in crisis, and with the complex question of what really matters in life. The Headhunter's Calling beautifully illustrates how nearly losing everything can redefine what it means to have it all.

Biography

Mark Williams was born in Denver and earned an MFA in film studies from the University of Miami.

His many credits as producer include Flawless, Shuttle, Arena, and The Accountant. 

The Headhunter's Calling is his feature directorial debut.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Lutz and I talk about his new film Mali Blues, the question of culture, colonialism, the power of music to evoke emotion and change and artful disruption.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

More info about the film here.

Synopsis

With her radiant voice and magnetic presence, Fatoumata Diawara, known as Fatou, is a rising star in world music. In her home country of Mali, music traditions are deep and varied, but their longevity was threatened when Islamic fundamentalists banned music in northern desert towns for several months beginning in 2012. (Diawara had a memorable cameo in Abderrahmane Sissako's Academy Award-nominated film Timbuktu as a singer being punished.) Having fled Mali as a young woman to escape an arranged marriage, Diawara's personal relationship to the country is complicated. In Mali Blues, we follow her as she returns in 2015 to give her first home concert at the Festival of the Niger in the southern Mali city of Ségou.

Director Lutz Gregor treats our eyes to dazzling colours and clothing; and our ears to a rich array of African melodies. For a small country, Mali contains a multiplicity of ethnicities and musical strains. The centuries-old ngoni string instrument is said to be a precursor of the banjo. We hear from one of its modern masters, the griot Bassekou Kouyaté, who firmly believes that voices are stronger than weapons. Diawara meets with Tuareg musician Ahmed Ag Kaedi, whose guitar playing evokes Afro pop legend Ali Farke Touré and who was forced to flee his desert home under threats that fundamentalists would cut off his fingers. Another featured musician is the skilled rapper Master Soumy.

For audiences discovering these talents for the first time, Mali Blues is a powerful testament to Mali's music and a tribute to the resilience of its people.

Biography

Lutz Gregor was born in Berlin.

His films include Kontakt Triptychon, Königskinder, Frankfurt Dance Cuts, Zanzibar’s First Women’s Orchestra, and Mali Blues.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Kathy and I talk about social change, catalyzing action, creative activism and choosing love and why fearlessness matters more than we know.

For more information about Kathy head here and her new book head here.

For more information on Creative Visions.

The Journey is The Destination: IMDB

Biography

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a graduate of Wellesley College, Kathy has worked as a teacher, journalist, author, and film and television producer in England, Africa and the United States.  In 1997, Kathy launched Creative Visions Foundation, a global organization that supports “creative activists” who use their creative talents to change the world around them.  CVF was inspired by the life of Kathy’s son, Dan Eldon – artist, adventurer and activist – killed in 1993 while on assignment for Reuters New Agency in Somalia.

Since 2004, CVF has acted as an incubator, academy and agency for more than 200 projects and productions by artists, filmmakers, playwrights, and leaders of social movements on five continents who use media and the arts as vehicles of social change, impacting over 100 million people.

Kathy is also the Founder of Creative Visions Productions, which has produced award-winning films including “Dying to Tell the Story,” a TBS special about front line correspondents hosted by Amy; “Soldiers of Peace, a Children’s Crusade,” a CNN film profiling the Children’s Peace Movement in Colombia, and “Global Tribe,” a cutting edge PBS series hosted by Amy featuring grass-roots creative activists.  Once “Global Tribe,” an interactive website, inspired the development of Rock Your World, a common core curriculum that engaged middle and high school students in local and global issues.  Together with Julia Roberts, she exec-produced “Extraordinary Moms,” a special for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) about the power of mothers to transform the world that featured then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell and Christiane Amanpour.  

Currently she is developing “Best Care Possible,” a PBS special in association with WETA, about Palliative Care in America.  After many years of development, “Journey,” a feature film about Dan, directed by Bronwen Hughes (“Harriet the Spy,” “Forces of Nature,” “Stander”) will go into production in 2015.

Kathy is the co-founder of Sanctri, a Facebook application that enables individuals to not only remember those who have passed on, but also to celebrate their lives through creating enduring memorials and tributes.

Kathy is the author of 18 books, including “Angel Catcher,” “Soul Catcher,” and “Love Catcher” (Chronicle), a series of popular self-guided journals written with her daughter Amy Eldon Turteltaub that help people negotiate loss and grief, find their purpose and introduce more love into their lives.  Kathy edited the acclaimed collection of Dan’s journals, “Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon” (Chronicle), and has also written a variety of popular cookbooks, eating out guides and children’s social history books.  In 2013, Harper One published her memoir, “In the Heart of Life.”

Kathy has been profiled in a number of books, including Arianna Huffington’s “On Becoming Fearless,” “Those Who Dare: Real People, Real Courage” and “Fearless Women.”  Kathy was named one of MSN’s “10 Amazing Women You Have Never Heard Of,” together with Nobel Peace Prize winners Wangari Mathai and Jodi Williams.  Kathy was given a Euro-American Women’s Council Artemis Goddess Award for her work with young creative activists, and named a Civic Ventures Purpose Prize Fellow.  

On Nelson Mandela’s Birthday in 2013, Kweku and Ndaba Mandela nominated Kathy for the George H.W. Bush “Points of Light” award and in February, 2014, Kathy was awarded a grant of $25,000 after being named the winner of the Unite4Humanity’s Inspiration Award in the Arts at a ceremony in the presence of President Bill Clinton.  Thanks to the PVBLIC Foundation, Kathy was awarded the 2015 Media for Social Impact Award at the United Nations.  Los Angeles Confidential Magazine named Kathy one of Los Angeles’ Most Influential Female Power Duos with actress and activist Maria Bello.

Kathy has been featured on countless television and radio programs globally, including several appearances on Oprah and a segment on Oprah’s “Producer’s Favorites.”  A popular speaker, she hosts “Caught in the Act,” a Huffington Post video blog that features dynamic creative activists.

Kathy lives in Malibu with her husband Michael Bedner, next to the Dan Eldon Center for Creative Activism, a vibrant hub for individuals who want to help change their bit of the world.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Oliver and I talk about Sufism, the “geometry of the heart”, religion, contra-tradition, the mystical edge to everything and why there is really nothing at all to understand.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

For more information about the film go here.

Synopsis

Winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes' Semaine de la Critique, this mesmerizing, minimalist "Eastern western" confirms Oliver Laxe (You All Are Captains) as a remarkable and distinctive talent.

Inspired in part by the director's itinerant travels and his immersion in Sufism,Mimosas — which was first glimpsed as the film-within-the-film in Ben Rivers' The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers — is by turns heady and epiphanic as it explores cinema's possibilities of representing the ineffable.

Shot against the backdrop of Morocco's staggering Atlas Mountains, Mimosasseems to take place at some strange intersection of the ancient and modern worlds. A young, wild-eyed preacher (Shakib Ben Omar) is summoned from the city to join a caravan escorting a dying sheik to a medieval city, where he is to be buried. When the sheik dies en route and members of the convoy refuse to traverse the treacherous terrain, the young man assumes command of the reduced expedition and leads them on towards their distant goal. As they navigate the simultaneously sublime and perilous landscape and face tests of will, faith, and endurance, the men discover the wages of fear.

With its supernal vistas and soft rhythms enhanced by Mauro Herce's stunning 16mm cinematography, Mimosas is spellbinding in its beauty, imbuing both the physical and metaphysical quest at its centre with a sense of awe and wonder, but also duty and dignity. Uncannily echoing Biblical sagas and westerns classic and revisionist (along with hints of Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala and even Van Sant'sGerry), Laxe deftly maintains his film's many enigmas, the work's near-parabolic form suggesting life's diverse and mystical paths, the measures of belief, and the potential for encounters with the divine.

Biography

Oliver Laxe was born in Paris and now lives and works in Morocco.

His first feature, You All Are Captains, won the FIPRESCI Prize in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. 

Mimosas is his second feature film.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Juho and Jarrko and I talk about love stories, boxing as a metaphor, what’s important in life and how not to be cynical.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

More info about the film here.

Synopsis

Winner of a top prize at this year’s Cannes festival, the irresistibly charming debut feature from Juho Kuosmanen is a funny and forlorn comedy-drama inspired by the real-life showdown between Finnish boxer Olli Mäki and American champion Davey Moore in 1962 Helsinki.

Funny, forlorn, and irresistibly charming, Juho Kuosmanen's assured debut featureThe Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at this year's Cannes, is inspired by the true story of Finland's most successful boxer of the 1960s. Shot in black and white with scrupulous attention to period detail, the film centres on the prelude to Mäki's historic fight in Helsinki with American Davey Moore, the bantamweight champion of the world.

Almost painfully open and ingenuous, Olli (Jarkko Lahti) is a small-town boy who is just as happy baking bread as he is in the ring — and he's even happier when he's with Raija (Oona Airola), the level-headed beauty he finds himself falling for. Elis (Eero Milonoff ), Olli's manager, is the exact opposite of his fighter: a former boxer himself, Elis is a hyperbolic showman who promises the press corps a "spectacle never seen in Finland," a world-historic event worthy of the Americans. As Olli begins wilting under the pressure from the constant press scrums, his desperate attempts to lose weight, and his separation from Raija, Elis faces his own challenges from his wife (who effortlessly sees through his various hustles), his financial backers, and his American partners.

Full of trenchant commentary about the sports industry and, by extension, the entertainment industry — there's an amazing sequence at a post-bout cocktail party where it's quite clear that the two athletes are the least important people there — the film also wittily depicts a small nation's unease and excitement about its "debut" on the world stage. A rueful yet delightfully disarming ode to lost innocence, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is also one of the most indelible romances you will see this year.

Biography

Juho Kuosmanen is a Helsinki based filmmaker. His previous short films have won several prizes in prominent festivals including Cannes’ Cinéfondation and Locarno. He graduated from the ELO Helsinki Film School of Aalto University in 2014.

Along with his studies Kuosmanen has also acted and directed for the stage and worked closely with the avant-garde opera ensemble West Coast Kokkola Opera.

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is Juho Kuosmanen’s first feature length film.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Jim and George and I about Tuko Macho, The Nest Collective, an African generational voice, identity and internal voices and why extreme order is surreal.

For more information on Tuko Macho(IMDB, trailer, website) and TIFF.

Synopsis

Tuko Macho (Sheng for "we are watching") candidly explores the frequently violent intersections of class, law and justice in Nairobi. Shot mostly in Sheng -- Kenya's unique pidgin of English, Swahili and local languages -- Tuko Macho's storylines are drawn from real-life stories that the people of Nairobi have become uncomfortably familiar with.

Presented exclusively on Facebook as a web series, Tuko Macho has traversed between fiction and the real world, allowing audiences to vote for or against the execution of characters, and sparking intense conversations about the place of retributive justice in a city with few heroes.

Tuko Macho stars Kenyan stage and screen actor Tim King’oo as Biko/Jonah -- the philosophical and operational heart of the vigilante operation, Nairobi radio queen and reggae performer Njambi Koikai as Mwarabu -- Biko's moral center, and Ibrahim Muchemi as detective Nick Salat -- the hero-cop who believes the city isn't beyond redemption.

Biography

The Nest Collective are Amal Mohamed, George Gachara, Jim Chuchu, Kendi Kamwambia, Mars, Njeri Gitungo, Njoki Ngumi, Noel Kasyoka, Sunny Dolat and Wakiuru Njuguna. They live and work in Nairobi, creating work together using film, theatre, visual arts, music and fashion that explores troubling modern identities, reimagines pasts and remixes futures.

Tuko Macho was created in partnership with Forum Syd beginning in 2015, with principal photography taking place in early 2016, working with additional crew members assembled from among Nairobi's finest production talents in various sets and locations all over the city.

Director Jim Chuchu had his first TIFF presentation in 2013 with the short film,Homecoming -- part of the "African Metropolis" anthology. He returned in 2014 with The Nest Collective’s 2014 feature Stories Of Our Lives, an anthology film based on the lives of queer Kenyans.

The film was banned in Kenya following its TIFF 2014 World Premiere, but went on to win the Jury Prize at the Berlinale Teddy Awards and continues to screen in festivals worldwide.

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Andreas Dalsgaard and I talk about his new film The War Show, Syria, self-discovery and tools of expression, silence and journalistic analysis.

Synopsis

A Syrian radio DJ documents the experiences of herself and her friends as their dreams of hope and liberation in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring give way to the grim realities of repression, forced emigration and extremism.

Syrian radio host Obaidah Zytoon and her friends are caught up in the euphoria of the 2011 Arab Spring. Camera in hand, these artists and activists take to the streets to protest Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and record their experiences. They talk about art and relationships as much as politics. But as they film themselves over the next several years, their hopes for a better future are tested by violence, imprisonment and death.

Zytoon and friends have worked with veteran Danish director Andreas Dalsgaard to shape, narrate and edit years of footage into a deeply moving personal narrative. The War Show, subtitled "From Revolution to War in Seven Steps," stands out from other films on Syria in many ways. Rather than dwelling on scenes of bloodshed, it focuses on what the revolution meant to everyday people. Most of Zytoon's friends aren't political firebrands. They share similar aspirations to young people all over the world: to loosen the strictures of religion and repression. In an early protest, Zytoon asks an adolescent girl why she isn't wearing a headscarf. "I'm not demonstrating to be suffocated," she says, "I'm demonstrating to breathe."

But dreams of revolution turn into the reality of civil war. Zytoon takes road trips to the centre of rebellion in Homs, to her hometown Zabadani near Lebanon, and to the north of Syria where they meet struggling rebels and witness the rise of extremism.

Through first-person narration, the film enables us to feel connected to everyone Zytoon meets. After years of Syria making headlines, perhaps some audiences feel fatigue with the topic. But the poignancy of this film will awaken you.

Biography

Born 1980, grew up in northern Denmark. Andreas Dalsgaard has directed documentaries for over a decade. Educated in anthropology at Aarhus University and Paris VII and film directing at The Danish National Film School, his award-winning films have been shown at over 200 festivals worldwide and include Afghan Muscles (2007, American Film Institute Grand Prix), Copenhagen (2009, World Best Graduation Film) Bogota Change (2009), The Human Scale (2012, Al Jazeera Audience Award), Life Is Sacred (2015) and numerous shorts.

Dalsgaard is also co-founder of the production company Elk Film, writes and directs fiction for both film and theater and has given conferences and masterclasses worldwide.

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Don and I talk about the new film The David Dance, what it means to feel different, self-esteem issues, fitting in and his take on a story that has “universal appeal.”

For more information about TIFF go here.

IMDB

Trailer

More info about the film here.

Synopsis

Away from the microphone, David (Don Scimé) is soft spoken, shy and unsure of himself. However, as his on-air alias, "Danger Dave" - host of the local radio show "Gay Talk" in Buffalo, New York - he's poised, witty and every listener's best friend. His sister, Kate (Antoinette LaVecchia), is a thrice-divorced banker with a yen for classical music and cats. Though successful, the siblings suffer from a secret, yet vast sense of inadequacy.  Kate decides to adopt an orphan in Brazil and asks David to be a father figure.

Meanwhile, David grapples with his self-doubts while gawkily romancing his co-worker. Past and present intertwine in this bittersweet winter's tale of a man learning to love and accept himself.

The film is the feature directorial debut of television vet Aprill Winney, who has worked as a script supervisor for over twenty years on shows like “Arrested Development,” “Family Tree,” and “The Fosters,” for which she has also directed multiple episodes.

“The David Dance” is based on the Don Scimé play of the same name.

Biography

Don Scimé (David / Writer / Producer) performed in his play version of "The David Dance" as part of The New York International Fringe Festival and in Washington, D.C.

Other New York and regional theatre credits include original works at The Ensemble Studio Theatre; "Love's Labours Lost" for The Peterborough Players in New Hampshire; "Nighthawks" at The Studio Theatre (D.C.); "Stop Kiss" at The Shadowland Theatre; Treplev in "The Sea Gull" and The Actor in "The Lower Depths" (Theatre Row).

Television credits include "The Dave Chapelle Show". B.A.: Theatre, SUNY, Geneseo. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and The Academy Company, he received The Charles Jehlinger Award for Acting and The American Theatre Wing Scholarship.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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Robert Cenedella and I talk about his new film Art Bastard, how not to play the "art game," the narrow minded establishment, and what isn't art.

For more information on Art Bastard: IMDB, Trailer, website.

Synopsis

In a madcap art world obsessed with money, fame and hype, how does an artist driven by justice, defiance and his own singular style thrive? Art Bastard is the rousing tale of a rebel who never fit into today's art world, yet has become one of its most provocative, rabble-rousing characters.

At once a portrait of the artist as a young troublemaker, an alternate history of modern art and a quintessential New York story, Art Bastard is as energetic, humorous and unapologetically honest as the uncompromising man at its center: Robert Cenedella. Cenedella was a contemporary of Andy Warhol. But he has essentially served as the antiWarhol. His noisy, raucous, color-splashed paintings of city scenes approach the world with a sincerity that defies the irony, frivolity and controversy-for-the-sake-of-controversy that have become the cultural currency since the '60s.

Yet, as Art Bastard reveals, Cenedella couldn't be any more a product of these times. He was the son of a blacklisted writer, raised on crushed '50s dreams. He's been haunted by dark family secrets that had him questioning his identity. His passionate convictions started so young they got him kicked out of high school. Even when he found solace and expression in art, he was an unabashed outsider -- never a gallery darling, not pursued by museum curators, but an artist who was going to have his say regardless of who was paying attention. Even so, over time, Cenedella's vast canvases, rife with the chaotic beauty of politics, humor, history and humanity, drew admirers from all walks of society -- even from the vaunted art patrons who rejected him.

In a fast-moving series of riveting interviews with family members, art critics, museum directors, New York power brokers, art students and Cenedella himself, director Victor Kanefsky candidly presents Cenedella's personal journey -- and reveals the creation of a modern art career that ignored all the modern art rules.

Biography

Robert Cenedella is a master of pictorial satire and fantasy, justly celebrated for his paintings revealing all aspects of big-city life. As part of New York's art community for over four decades, he paints everything and everybody from cameo likenesses of celebrities to those of the common man. His pictures of subways, symphonies, sports arenas, street scenes and drinking establishments are quintessentially New York.

M. K. Flavell, in George Grosz: A Biography, said of Mr. Cenedella that, "no other artist chronicles the everyday life and the changing rituals and mythologies -- of sex, sport, art, politics, money-making in contemporary America, with his combination of imaginative vitality, precision, and humor."

Massachusetts-born, the artist has lived most of his life in New York. At an early age, he began studying with George Grosz at the Art Students League of New York, and then with Marshall Glasier.

He has had one-man shows throughout the United States and Europe. His first Berlin exhibition, "In Search of DADA," was in 1994, and coincided with the George Grosz Centennial Exhibition at the National Galerie in Berlin. He returned to Germany in October 2006 for a oneman retrospective at the Otto-Nagel Galerie, also in Berlin. His renowned mural of the original Le Cirque restaurant in New York City, "Le Cirque - The 1st Generation," is currently installed at the restaurant's new location on East 58th Street. Other notable murals include "Mi Casa, Su Casa" for Bacardi International, "Tony Randall’s World," commissioned by the late Tony Randall for former League model Heather Randall, and his "Absolut Cenedella" commissions. These, along with Cenedella's other works, can be seen on his website: www.rcenedellagallery.com.

Cenedella feels that drawing is the most demanding and most disciplined endeavor for any student to undertake, but also the most rewarding. He trains each student to acquire a basic skill in drawing the human figure, no matter what the eventual style or mode of expression may be. Cenedella believes the ultimate goal is to be able to "think" with the hand.

He continues the large format concept of drawing passed down from Grosz.

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On today’s TIFF episode I talk to Orlando and Joanna about their moving new film The White Helmets, Syria, courage and doing the right thing in the face of fear.

For more information on The White Helmets(IMDB, trailer, website) and TIFF.

Synopsis

A Netflix original short documentary, set in Aleppo, Syria and southern Turkey in early 2016, takes viewers into the war zone. As the violence intensifies, The White Helmets follows three volunteer rescue workers as they put everything on the line to save civilians affected by the war, all the while wracked with worry about the safety of their own loved ones.

Moving and inspiring, The White Helmets (by Oscar nominated team Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara) is both a snapshot of the harrowing realities of life for ordinary Syrians who remain in the country, and a humbling portrait of the power of the human spirit.

Biographies

Orlando von Einsiedel is a London-based director. His debut feature documentary Virunga was nominated for an Academy Award. The White Helmets is his latest short film.

Joanna Natasegara (producer)

For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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