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Film: AT HOME IN UTOPIA (formerly LIVING IN COOPS)
Updates On Documentary Film About the Bronx Coops
March 15, 2008
"At Home in Utopia" screening at NYU's Cantor Film Center. Speakers were Perry Rosenstein of the Puffin Foundation, and Michal Goldman and Ellen Brodsky of the Filmmakers Collaborative. For information about future screenings visit the film website.
August 2007
Film Makers Collaborative has recently received a grant of $100,000 from the Independent Television Service that will allow completion of "At Home in Utopia". The ITVS is an organization that funds independently produced films and then works to get them on public television with partnering station WGBH. The fine cut of the film is currently being submitted to festivals and its first screening will be at the Boston Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, November 11, most likely as a nearly-finished work in progress.
For more information about the film, read updates below or follow this link and scroll down to "At Home in Utopia".
December 5, 2007
We had a great screening at the Boston Jewish Film Festival. The theatre at the Museum of Fine Arts was full, and the audience was with us all the way, and gave the film a standing ovation, which was a great pleasure and affirmation for us. During the discussion afterwards, people said how important it was, now, to have a film that portrayed the enormous contributions of the Jewish left so openly and without sentimentality. People adored (this is not too strong a word) the people portrayed on-screen. As I’m sure you know, Pete Rosenblum came – his daughter brought him - and he spoke briefly afterwards during the post-film discussion.
I am currently in the final phases of the technical, contractual, and legal work that has to be done at the end. We’ve “cleared” and paid for the rights for the archival footage and the still photographs, and cut the final versions into the film. The narration, recorded with Linda Lavin, is in, as is the music, much of which was composed specifically for the film.
I have submitted what is called the Submissions Version of the film to our completion funder, ITVS, and to WGBH, our partnering public television station in Boston. Over the next months they will be submitting the film to public television. I’ve been told that it might be March or April before I get any definitive word from them as to when it might be broadcast. (The Submission Version is basically the finished version minus the technical things that have to come at the very end.)
I have begun to apply to film festivals. I am also starting to think about educational distribution, and to submit to potential distributors whom I think are appropriate.
What remains to be done?
ITVS has to sign off on various aspects of the film. They move slowly, but I am hoping that they can sign off by the very beginning of January, because I have an “on-line” session scheduled for Jan 7-11, and a final mix scheduled for after that – which means that the film will then be really DONE. I’ll produce two versions right away during the on-line (which is when the technician goes back to all my original masters, lays all the image down at the highest technical quality, and corrects/adjusts the color.) One version will be for public television. This version must be exactly 56 minutes and 40 seconds long, with end credits that roll by very fast because public television allows only 39 seconds for them. The second version will be for festivals and educational distribution. This will be exactly the same content, but will have more leisurely opening and ending credits.
Our young assistant, who is skilled at Photoshop on the computer, developed a handsome credit for Puffin, which we used at the beginning of the Boston Jewish Film Festival screening.
-- Michael Goldman, Filmmakers Collaborative
June 15, 2007
According to the producers, the film is now in the home stretch of production. Editing is almost complete and the final technical work is beginning. The project has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Eastman Foundation toward finishing the film. Some fundraising will be necessary for completing the final technical work, but the final film is within sight!
April 12, 2006
At Home in Utopia (formerly "Living in the Coops")
A documentary about the Jewish housing cooperatives built in the Bronx in the 1920s.
An update on the progress of the Film.
Producer/Director Michal Goldman and co-producer Ellen Brodsky have been working on "At Home in Utopia" since the spring of the year 2000, when they received a seed grant from the Puffin Foundation. That seed money supported research to complete their first successful grant to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Since that time, Michal and Ellen have traveled to homes and archives in New York, Florida, California, and Massachusetts. Many people who grew up in the cooperatives have been generous funders and supporters of the film. Ellen and Michal have been welcomed into countless living rooms, kitchen, attics and basements - as they interviewed over 100 people and collected over a thousand photographs and hours of home movie footage. Michal then made the difficult decision of whom to interview with a professional film crew, including award winning cinematographers Boyd Estus and Peter Stein. The filming is complete, and Michal is now editing the film.
In 2004, Andy Hazleton, the originator of the idea for the film and fellow co-producer, spearhead an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York on the cooperatives entitled, "Radicals in the Bronx." Michal produced an eighteen-minute video for the exhibit featuring architect Daniel Libeskind who grew up in the Amalgamated Houses and later won the design for the rebuilding of Ground Zero in New York City. The Puffin Foundation was a major supporter of this exhibit. (www.mcny.org)
The filmmakers have been invited to two major events recently.
September, 2005 - the IFP Film Market in New York City. This three day invitation only event is designed for filmmakers with works-in-progress to have screenings and meetings with broadcasters and distributors. Two screenings of a fifteen-minute demo of "At Home in Utopia" were shown at the Angelika Film Center in NewYork.
March, 2006 - Working Films five day institute for distribution of activist oriented films. This residency held at Mass MoCa was a competitive event for ten filmmakers, who viewed each others work and helped design distribution strategies for the films. (www.workingfilms.org)
The filmmakers have also been invited to show short demos of their work-in-progress at the following organizations
Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, MA
Workmen's Circle, Brookline, MA
World Fellowship Camp, NH
Yiddish Club, Washington
DC
Boston Jewish Film Festival, Boston, MA
Funders to Date include:
The Puffin FoundationMichal has recently completed a roughcut - which she then screened with award-winning filmmakers for feedback. The response was quite enthusiastic - the people on the screen are captivating; the story has genuine importance. Michal is now incorporating their feedback as she works in the editing room.
Ellen continues to fundraise for completion and distribution funds. She has also begun work on a distribution plan - which includes a focus on broadcast, festivals, the educational market and a grassroots audience focused on non-profit organizations working on housing, labor, immigrant, and women's issues.
If fundraising continues to be successful, the film should be finished by the end of 2006.
Please contact the filmmakers for further information at:
Filmmakers Collaborative (www.filmcoll.org)
781-647-1102
modystreet@speakeasy.net