After a successful run on the festival circuit
Kurt Cobain About a Son opened in Japan on Saturday in 3 theaters: the first commercial release of the picture. For those who can read Japanese (as if I have any readers who can read Japanese), Showgate’s official website can be found at www.kurtaboutason.com. The soundtrack is being cross-promoted with the release and is a below is a picture of one of the displays from a Tower Records:
The film opens in NY on Oct 3 and the soundtrack is available on Sept 11.
WHAT: A special screening of
Low and Behold followed by a Q & A with co-writer/director Zach Godshall and co-writer/producer/star Barlow Jacobs! Producer Brad Silberling moderates!
WHERE: UCLA, James Bridges Theater in Melnitz Hall!
WHEN:
Tonight at 7:30 PM!
WHY: Filmed on location in New Orleans nine months after hurricane Katrina,
Low and Behold was conceived by Zack Godshall (co-writer/director) a Lafayette, LA native, and New Orleans resident Barlow Jacobs (co-writer/producer/lead actor) as a celebration for the city and a requiem for the countless losses it endured. Jacobs found inspiration to write and later act in the film from his own life experience. After losing his New Orleans home to the disaster in August 2005, a broke Jacobs took a short-term job as an insurance claims adjuster. Immersed in the culture of the post-hurricane Coastal South he began work on the screenplay for
Low and Behold, the production of which he would then finance with the money he earned as a claims adjuster.
The filmmakers assembled a cast and crew almost entirely made up of Louisiana natives, even filming non-actors in their actual storm damaged homes. “We knew that having a team that had felt the full impact of Katrina would help bring the story to life in the most authentic way possible,” says Jacobs. To all involved the film became more than a passion project; it became an outlet for relief and redemption.
“Being residents of Louisiana, Barlow and I wanted to do something that would openly address the situation for those who live in New Orleans and the surrounding areas,” says Godshall. “We worked intensely in what was left of Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes, and found that the actual environment offered more than we as writers could have ever dreamed. Our film is a comedy and a celebration, but also an elegy and a lament for all the losses that cannot be counted and the suffering that will not cease but can only be soothed. Even still, there is a spirit in this place that will not die, and I hope we’ve captured that in
Low and Behold.”
I agree with Anthony Kaufman (Here and Here) that foreign cinema will get hit hard by the formation of Dream Machine. What I’m not sure about if this is anything new. Isn’t it is just one more flare on the difficult road that both foreign cinema and American art films have been on for the past couple of years? A small, vocal audience certainly exists but the crossover that would otherwise make the economics work for a distributor doesn’t seem to turn out all that much anymore. I guess the good news is that in a couple of years from now some entrepreneur will see an audience that is underserved and find an opportunity to make money by exploiting foreign cinema new and old.
Today would be the 40th birthday of Kurt Cobain. You can read
Kurt Cobain About a Son director AJ Schnack’s thoughts on this occasion on his blog here.
If this were the anniversary of his death I think the news would be blaring on Yahoo! Headlines or the like. I find that kind of sad. It’s almost equally tragic; focusing on someone’s death more than someone’s life. By looking at someone through their death we look at them by not what they provided, but what they could have provided had fate gone another way. By celebrating someone’s birth you remember what they achieved and celebrate that they were part of world, even if just briefly.
In case you didn’t see the lineup announcement (and shame on you if you didn’t) KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON will be playing at the 2007 SxSW Film Festival. You can read more about the film at www.sidetrackfilms.com. And check out the full sxsw lineup here.
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