The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Filmmaking

Local Filmmaker Creates A First Full-Length Feature Film

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Dylan O’Keefe Presents: Zo in Exile

Moving to Chappaqua from the city during middle school wasn’t the easiest transition for Dylan O’Keefe. The now almost 30-year-old recalls that he wasn’t on any teams, nor did he do after school clubs. Instead he found solace in books and movies. He loved epic movies like the Star Wars series but also lesser-known horror/sci-fi movies such as Army of Darkness and The Thing. His mom who worked in book publishing fostered O’Keefe’s love of reading, film and strong storytelling.

But in addition to her, O’Keefe remembers Mr. Gilbert, his 7th grader English teacher at Robert E. Bell Middle School encouraging him to pursue creative writing. “I was a bit of a class clown–always getting in trouble,” he said. Whenever he had a book report, he used SparkNotes. However when he received a creative writing assignment, Mr. Gilbert initially accused him of plagiarism because it was far superior to anything else he had written. “My mom had to meet the principal. She told him that in my spare time, I would write fantasy stories in my room,” he now laughs when discussing the episode. Mr. Gilbert apologized and after that provided a lot of support for O’Keefe’s creative writing endeavors. “He told me I think your future may be writing,” O’Keefe recalls.

Fast forward almost two decades and O’Keefe is still writing stories. “I have at least 30 and some [stories] I have been writing and rewriting for 15-20 years.” O’Keefe graduated Horace Greeley in 2010 and entered the film industry after finishing a business degree at SUNY Albany in 2013. His father who worked in corporate A/V taught him a lot about camera/video equipment and operating microphones and video switchers.

Initially after graduation, O’Keefe worked on big budget productions, specializing in aerial photography. In 2017, he started his own video production company DOK Productions based out of Greenpoint, Brooklyn focusing on drone photography. His projects have included HBO’s Lovecraft Country, American Horror Story, Preacher and Seal Team. He’s also directed web series for Adult Swim and NY Fashion Week.

In his spare time, O’Keefe had created short films but with extra time on his hands during the pandemic, O’Keefe created his own first full-length independent feature film titled Zo in Exile. Heavily influenced by The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, the movie centers on Zo played by O’Keefe’s college friend Shiho Matsuoka. Zo and her friends escape for a weekend getaway in the quiet town of Exile, New York. But their bucolic vacation turns grim when Zo’s friends, fueled by debauchery, force her into a fantasy world where her only escape is to come to terms with her own destructive nature, according to the press materials.

Despite being low budget, O’Keefe paid everyone he hired for the film. “The goal was to employ people during the pandemic and make something fun while staying as COVID compliant as possible,” O’Keefe said. “Overall, I’m happy I was able to produce and film a full-length feature before I turned 30,” he said. The film has also been screened at several festivals both in the US and abroad and recently won an award for Best Fantasy Feature Film at France’s Hallucinea Film Festival.

O’Keefe hopes to inspire other young filmmakers with this project just as he was motivated years ago after speaking with Chappaqua-based screenwriter Mark Bomback who he read about in an article in Inside Chappaqua ten years ago. “Mark spoke about the good and bad parts of his career and what he learned along the way. It was a great experience to talk to someone in depth in the industry.”

“Young people today with their SmartPhones have way more powerful cameras and tools than anything that I had at 13.” He advises aspiring filmmakers experiment making movies. “They don’t have to be perfect but just try.”

And just like Bomback offered him advice years ago, O’Keefe said he’s willing to talk to any local high students interested in filmmaking.

To learn about scheduled screenings, visit Zo-in-exile.com. To reach out to O’Keefe, email him at info@dokproductions.com or check out his Twitter and Instagram Instagram.

It’s A Family Affair: Local Award-Winning Father & Son Filmmakers

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(L-R): Teddy, Peter and George

The Kunhardts Produce Documentaries That Shape Our World and Focus on Moral Leadership

For Peter Kunhardt, a six-time Emmy and a Peabody Award winner, collaboration with family is in his DNA. As Executive Producer and Director, Peter partners with two of his sons, Teddy and George, at Kunhardt Films to produce critically acclaimed and socially relevant documentaries about the people and ideas that shape our world.

After ten years as a producer at ABC News, Peter gave up the hectic commute to New York City and founded Kunhardt Productions in Westchester in 1987.  His first film project for HBO, JFK: In His Own Words, was in collaboration with his father, Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., the longtime managing editor of Life Magazine. He had watched the toll that forty years of commuting from Chappaqua took on his father. Peter and his wife Suzy were raising their family in Chappaqua and he wanted to work closer to home.

A Family Business at Heart

“It’s definitely a family business with multiple departments,” says Peter Jr. All the Kunhardt children interned with their father. Peter Jr. worked on two Lincoln books with his father and grandfather. He is now the Executive Director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation and the Gordon Parks Foundation that preserves the work of photographer Gordon Parks and educates the next generation of scholars and students on his work.

Teddy and George joined their father at Kunhardt Films in 2009. George knew as a teen that filmmaking was his future. Teddy, an artist and chef, took a slight detour and ultimately joined his father’s company. Both brought their gifts and talents.

“My skill set and interests are the creative and the technical. I’m more of the people person, in the trenches on filming and working with my crew,” says George whom his father and brother call the “peacekeeper.” “He’s the best spokesman for the company,” says Teddy.

Teddy’s skill set is the business side: deals, the budgeting and more of the legal side, dealing with the lawyers. Their father Peter is overarching, and knows everything about everything says George. “He sits back and listens and chimes in when needed when he has something appropriate or important to say.”

“I listen hugely hard to both Teddy and George. Frankly, they are taking over more and more of what I used to do, and I continue listening,” says Peter. They agree 95% of the time, but Peter will have the last word when they disagree.

While their business office is in Pleasantville near the Jacob Burns Film Center and Metro-North, which were draws for this location, most of the team is in New York at HBO.

“We are fortunate to be partners with HBO. People would be surprised to learn how long it takes to produce a film, and HBO gives us the time we need,” says Teddy. “Pleasantville is the brains, the budgeting, the pre-development side of the projects, and the heavy lifting of producing,” says George. “The HBO team is young, creative, hip and where the exciting culture of filmmaking is done.”

(L-R): George, President Bill Clinton and Teddy
(L-R): George, Hillary Clinton and Teddy
(L-R): Teddy, John McCain, George and Peter
(L-R): George, Joe Biden and Teddy

 

Exploring Moral Leadership Through Film

The notion of moral leadership is always their default in selecting subjects for their films. “Years ago, we said we wanted to explore this concept of moral leadership,” says Peter. “In this day and age of what we’re experiencing now it seems to be a more and more important thing to be doing to remind people what true leadership and true moral courage look like. Fortunately, we were a little ahead of ourselves picking an important kind of theme early on. That’s why it takes us so long to pick the people.”

“And sometimes you have to wait for the hook,” says Teddy. The hook for King in the Wilderness was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. He was on their list in 2009 but the film did not come into fruition until 2018. “We couldn’t have found a home ten years ago, but once the anniversary was approaching it all seemed right.”

Their very personal film in 2015, Living with Lincoln chronicles their six-generation struggle to preserve Abraham Lincoln’s image for more than a century. As a love letter to Peter’s grandmother Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, it explores the emotional and physical connection to the president starting with William Meserve and his Civil War diary. Dorothy, a quirky Lincoln scholar, is best known as the author of the beloved interactive children’s book, Pat the Bunny.  It was a glorious burden for the family. “I never planned to dedicate so much of my life to Lincoln, it just happened. I felt I owed it to my father, just as he owed it to his mother, just as she felt she owed it to her father,” says Peter.

Teddy and George enjoy working with their father. “We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Our communication is so strong that it has been the key to our success,” says George. One of the downsides though is that they talk about their work all the time, which is fun for them, but not so much for their wives.

“We get a lot more from people because we are a family business,” says George. “When we interviewed Joe Biden for John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, we got a lot more access from him. He loved that Teddy and I were brothers. He took my cellphone and called my dad, and told him how much he enjoyed working with us.”

Trust is Key

“The biggest challenge we face is gaining trust,” says Peter. “Once you gain the trust of your subject you begin getting better access, content and stories.” When they filmed Becoming Warren Buffett, Buffett gave them strict restrictions in the beginning, only one interview, but they ended up filming him for fifteen hours. “Trust comes in a few ways: for one, they have to feel that we’re not out to give you a gotcha question. We’ve never been in that business, but we’re not in the business of a soft fluffy story either.”

Storytellers at the Core

They take a deep dive into the lives of their subjects. “We’re not historians, business people or news correspondents,” says Teddy. “We’re storytellers and in order to tell the story we need to get all the pieces of the puzzle.” They often look for people who have a relationship or don’t have a relationship with their parents and explore that in the film.  “That’s a unique perspective to take because we’re very interested in lineage: Fathers/sons, fathers/daughters, mothers/sons, mothers/daughters,” says George. “That’s our wheelhouse. It is fun for us to do that within a film and something we look for when we do a project.”

“When you go back to someone’s childhood you learn about strengths and weaknesses and how they came to be in a way that would be hard to imagine by just focusing on the adult period of someone’s life and their success,” says Peter. “It’s fascinating to go back and see what influenced a child, what hurt a child, what helped a child. And how they were shaped by that.”   

On the Horizon

Teddy and George have brought some fresh ideas to the film company.  In addition to cable, there is now the film festival route.  Jim: The James Foley Story premiered at Sundance and won the Audience Award, King in the Wilderness had its world premiere at Sundance and True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality will open the AFI DOCS film festival in June. George says that one of the best things that they are doing now is the establishment of the Kunhardt Film Foundation with its mission to put their high-quality educational programs, raw interviews and teaching tools into the hands of the public and schools. “This is our future where we are heading towards. We are doing more not-for-profit,” says Peter.

Their next film, True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality will have a screening at the Jacob Burns Film Center on June 25th, and debuts on HBO the following day.

Always reflecting as well as looking forward, they are proud of their high-quality work and very thoughtful filmmaking. “We are fortunate in that we can continue to infuse values into the work we do, and pick people to tell their stories that we think have lessons,” says Peter. George sums it up well: “We’re curating an interesting perspective of people and ideas that people need to be learn about. That is what I hope people enjoy about Kunhardt Films.”

Jacob Burns Center Creative Culture Fellowship Program: An Incubator for Emerging Filmmakers

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Creative Culture Director Sean Weiner with filmmakers Emily Ann Hoffman, Kerry LeVielle, Leah Galant and Reginald Altidor at the premiere of the 2018 Creative Culture films shown at the Jacob Burns Film Center. PHOTO BY LYNDA SHENKMAN

A 97-year-old Holocaust survivor belts out death metal lyrics as the camera traces her every grimace and growl.

A young red-haired woman, arms riddled with bug bites, slyly challenges her tiny tormentor.

A Haitian-American teen finds nowhere to hide when he is forced to confront a parent about hugely uncomfortable truths.

These are among the moments captured on screen by eight emerging filmmakers, all participants in the Jacob Burns Film Center’s (JBFC) Creative Culture Fellowship program that premiered its 2018 roster of films on April 5. Launched in 2016 to, ostensibly, fill “a gap in support of filmmakers in the Hudson Valley,” it offers an abundance of support and resources to a new generation of Spielbergs, Spike Lees and Sofia Coppolas.

The Selection Process

Applicants to Creative Culture submit a reel with three work samples, an artists’ statement and a short film proposal. Once accepted, each fellow receives mentorship, studio space, production equipment and networking opportunities plus a stipend to fund, wholly or in part, a short film; the program helps each fellow secure independent funding for a second work.

This year, the genres range from magical realism to mixed media to poetic documentary to a claymation ballet. As Creative Culture Director Sean Weiner notes, the intent is to “select filmmakers making wildly different types” of films. He adds, “By selecting the strongest projects we end up with a diverse group.”

Sean Weiner: Creative Culture Director

Weiner is, in fact, the secret sauce behind the program’s success. Beyond his official designation as director and mentor, an unofficial dubbing could be, as fellow Emily Ann Hoffman says, “super-human.”

Weiner’s own journey began with a penchant for acting and visual arts that evolved into filmmaking, an art form that “scratched both itches.” A Cinema Studies graduate of SUNY Purchase with an MFA from Hunter College, he has taught documentary filmmaking to incarcerated persons through the Westchester Department of Corrections and helped that population discover that they are more than “what everybody says they are.”

At the Burns, Weiner formerly ran the high school program, Creators Co-op, and a one-on-one fellowship program.

Accolades All Around for Weiner and the Program

Leah Galant, a fellow, credits Weiner who “harnesses our vision and helps us execute it” and the artists who bring “talent, passion and drive.”

Reginald Altidor, a fellow, says, “Sean is the type of person every filmmaker needs by their side – to motivate them, to push them, to make them think from a different perspective to achieve different reactions from your audience which you wouldn’t have been able to attain on your own.”

What’s next for Creative Culture? Weiner hopes to have a database of talent in the film community including cinematographers, musicians, sound designers, and other film crew members become more interactive and connected.

The successes are mounting. Films produced through the program have gotten into 37 festivals including the prestigious Sundance and SXSW (South by Southwest). Several fellows are already working on feature-length films.

What does the future hold for the emerging filmmakers? Envelope please…

Portrait of the Artists

Emily Ann Hoffman of Bedford has had her films accepted at several festivals internationally and nationwide.

Emily Ann Hoffman, creator of “Bug Bites,” Bedford. Hoffman studied illustration at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where she discovered animation which “sparked film for me.” It allowed her “to tell a story,” and add humor to the mix.

While at RISD, she created The Emily and Ariel Show with another Creative Culture fellow, Ariel Noltimier Strauss, which was accepted into several festivals including LA, New Orleans, and Tricky Women (in Austria). The experience “helped me understand the indie film world.”

Her first Creative Culture film, a claymation film, Nevada, got into the highly competitive Sundance 2018. Funding her second film, “Bug Bites,” helped her understand the process of securing money through crowdfunding and grants. A Sundance Ignite Fellow in 2017, she is currently a screenwriting mentee with Sundance’s Feature Film program.

Leah Galant of Cortlandt Manor introduced her film at the Creative Culture premiere in April.

Leah Galant, creator of “Death Metal Grandma,” Cortlandt Manor. Galant was named one of Variety’s “110 Students to Watch in Film and Media,” while majoring in documentary film production at Ithaca College.

She was looking for a job as an usher at the JBFC when she learned about Creative Culture. “This was a project I really wanted to do – it was a perfect time in my life for this to happen,” she says.

Galant was a Sundance Ignite Fellow in 2017 and another of her short films, “Kitty and Ellen,” also about Holocaust survivors, screened at DOC NYC 2017. “Death Metal Grandma” premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and will screen at Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Festival.

Reginald Altidor of New Rochelle introduced his film at the Creative Culture premiere in April.

Reginald (“Reggie”) Altidor, “Do Not Disturb,” New Rochelle. Altidor started writing stories at eight and filmed comedy skits inspired by Dave Chappelle while in middle school. “It was the baby steps of filming,” he says.

A class in filmmaking at Westchester Community College matured his interest; he received a B.A. in film production from Brooklyn College.

Altidor praises Creative Culture for working with persons from “different backgrounds coming together for a common goal.” As each film was different it took away the competitiveness that sometimes occurs in film school. “We worked collectively, in a group,” he says.

Altidor’s first Creative Culture film was “The Jux.” He currently has three short films in post-production and is working on a feature film and freelances as a writer, director and actor.