Jef Sewell
"Wendell Berry's Kentucky" premieres on PBS - ...
Jef Sewell
"LOOK & SEE" to play 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Jef Sewell
New "Look & See" Poster
New "Look & See" Poster
Jef Sewell
First Fruits of our Kickstarter Campaign
Jef Sewell
SXSW Awards Special Jury Prize to THE SEER
SXSW Awards Special Jury Prize to THE SEER

Recently Unearthed UNFORESEEN Press Conference

Took the weekend to do a big garage cleanout.  In the process, we unearthed this never-before seen press conference for The Unforeseen. Exec Producer Bob Redford joined director Laura Dunn and D.P. Lee Daniel to talk with reporters at the Alamo Drafthouse.   Those familiar with Alamo (a.k.a. the greatest movie theater in the world!) may get a kick out of watching at 26:08, as Alamo founder and foremost-terror-of-disruptive-moviegoers Tim League tries to bait Redford into giving an impromptu "Don't Talk during the Movie" PSA:

Bob: "Does that happen here?"

Tim: "We're pretty militant about throwing people out..." (An epic understatement.)

Hope you enjoy this bit of Two Birds history.

Recap of our LA Fundraiser for FORTY PANES

We're back from Los Angeles. 

Our fundraiser was a terrific success and we owe that entirely to Nick Offerman.  He assembled an amazing lineup of performers (not the least of which was himself!) and managed to hold back a few huge surprise guests, too.  More on that momentarily.

As the doors opened, we fired up a slideshow featuring a number of James Baker Hall photos of Wendell.

Wendell.jpg

The audience streamed in over the course of an hour. Things kicked off proper around 8:45PM and Nick took to the stage to great applause.  He thanked everyone for coming and then explained to the audience just who Mr. Wendell Berry was and why his work merited their attention. (If we have our history correct, Offerman himself was introduced to Berry's writing by actor Leo Burmester on November 5, 1995, during their work together on Steppenwolf's production of BURIED CHILD.) 

Nick explained to the audience what a promising literary career the young Wendell Berry was enjoying.  After graduating from UK, he had been invited to attend Stanford's creative writing program.  Upon completing his first novel, Berry and his family lived in Europe courtesy of a Guggenheim Fellowship.  A year later, in 1962, Berry accepted a teaching position at NYU.  Here was a man who truly had the world before him, Offerman explained, yet Berry surprised everyone when he announced he was leaving New York to return to his native Kentucky. He would move back to his own people in Henry County, Kentucky. And from the small town of Port Royal (population ±79)  Berry would go on to write dozens of enduring short stories, novels, poems and works of non-fiction.  And love his wife. And raise his children. And farm his land. And be a member of his true community.

I don't think Nick's rendition of Berry's arc was lost on this audience.  Los Angeles, like New York, is a city where people move to "make it."  It's not a place those in the process of "making it" would necessarily think to leave.  Yet Berry himself did something like that.  And for Berry, that has made all the difference.  But I digress.

Nick then said that if everyone in this country would read Wendell Berry, it would be an immeasurably better place to live. He went on to share his excitement that a documentary was being made to bring greater awareness to Berry's thinking.  After some kind words about THE UNFORESEEN (Two Birds' previous documentary) Nick then shared the audience would now get to see a brief preview of the opening moments of the film.  We then played the first four minutes of our 22 minute teaser.  Backstage, incidentally, a number of folks stepped up the view the footage from the wings, including Nick's lovely wife Megan Mullally. 

This particular clip ended with a FORTY PANES title card and a cursor flying onto the screen to click pause.  Nick elicited more than a few laughs when he commented that our production was so in need of money that it couldn't even afford to put a fade out after the title card.  Nick then brought director Laura Dunn on stage.  She thanked everyone for coming and let them know that tonight's proceeds would pay for our next location shoot in Kentucky.  Laura also thanked our friends from Sundance Institute in the audience as well as composer Kerry Muzzey.  She then graciously exited to stage left as Nick introduced a three minute clip from one of Laura's recent interviews with Wendell.  

The Largo forbids photography of performances, so we thought we'd share scenes from backstage. 

We wanted to publicly thank all of the additional performers and others who contributed to make the evening a success.  We've linked to their Twitter accounts where possible, but in some cases they don't use social media, and alternate links are used.

In order of their appearance on stage, they are:

PERFORMERS:

Bo Burnham

Zach Galifianakis

Andrew Bird

Nancy and Beth

Sam Elliott

(Came out and read Wendell Berry's "The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer!" For real.)  Sam  doesn't appear to do Social Media, but check this AV Club interview with Elliott where Nick gets caught again sharing his love for Wendell Berry)

"I really enjoyed Nick [Offerman]. Not to belabor it, but he’s a very smart guy. I left there with a couple of books that he passed on to me by a guy named Wendell Berry, and they’re pretty heady stuff. Even though they’re kind of simplistic on some level, they’re really well written, and they’re the kind of books that you’ve really got to work at to get into. I’m not a voracious reader, and I’ve been on kind of a fast track lately, so every time I sit down to read Wendell Berry at night, it’s like, I’ve got to f@!*in go back and find my way in, because it’s really incredible writing. In the last two months, though, my wife Katharine’s read both books. I’m still fighting my way through the first one! [Laughs.] That’s all I can say about Offerman, other than that he’s a f@!*in  great guy: He’s a man of the earth, and he’s a smart guy. He’s going to make a big contribution to this game, I think."

 

    CONTRIBUTORS:

    Sundance Institute invited us to become Documentary Fellows program and four friends from the documentary institute attended the evenings performances.   David Courier, Kristin Feeley, John Cardellino and Tabitha Jackson.

    Largo at the Coronet proprietor Mark Flanagan who generously donated the theater for the evening.

    Composer Kerry Muzzey, whose music graced a good portion of our last film THE UNFORESEEN, was himself in attendance.  Thanks Kerry!

    The James Baker Hall Archive graciously allowed us to show some select photos of Wendell Berry made by fellow Kentuckian James Baker Hall.  Hall's friendship with Wendell spanned many decades and but for his inspired and prolific shooting, the visual record of Berry's early life would be far fewer and further between.  We're especially indebted to James' wife Mary Ann Taylor-Hall and JBH archivist Sarah Wylie A. VanMeter.

    (Lest you fear the night was a wash for the performers, please note that they did not go entirely uncompensated as each received Offerman Woodshop Tee Shirts. We probably don't need to tell you how cool that is.)

    To say we were humbled by the generosity of Nick and his friends is an understatement. We truly want to again thank each one of them.  We hope you all like the film you have helped fund!

    Unhanging Tobacco

    interviewtobacco.jpg

    Back in October 2012, we blogged about hanging tobacco.  Much of the fresh cut tobacco we've filmed has been a strong mix of yellow and green.  In bright sunlight, the yellow has often overwhelmingly dominated, producing an almost irritating color.  In shade, and on the underside of their semi-translucent leaves, the green has seemed much more pronounced.  

    During our last shoot (December 2013) we filmed crews unhanging their tobacco. As you can see from this behind-the-scene shot, it was raining.  What you can't see is that it was also 35°F and windy!  For our crew, the weather meant long wet, bone-chilling shoots... and we loved every minute of it!  For tobacco farmers, the season's weather had been remarkably cooperative, yielding beautiful, fragrant golden brown leaves likes the ones above.   Many we spoke to were quite buoyed this year as harvests from the previous two years had been especially poor. 

    We are working to return to Kentucky this spring and summer to finish up our shooting. While farmers labor under the Damoclean sword of potentially poor weather... doc filmmakers need a different kind of rain, namely, dollahs. To that end, we headed to Los Angeles next week to attend a fundraiser for the film thrown by a woodworking son of a farming family. If you're going to make it, please let us know!

    Nick Offerman Hosting a Fundraiser in LA for Forty Panes

    Many people know Nick Offerman as a performer, actor, woodworker, and best selling author.  Yet not everyone knows that Nick is also a tireless champion of Wendell Berry's. In fact, Berry is so clearly top of mind that his name spills into practically every third interview Nick gives to the press... A few cases in point:

    • USA Today (Sept. 25, 2013) "I finally got to finish Michael Pollan's latest book, Cooked. I'm really enthralled by his writing. I think that he in a sociological way touches on issues that are first espoused by my favorite writer Wendell Berry, the great agrarian writer, poet and novelist."
    • The Believer (Oct. 2012) When asked if Nick could see his Parks & Rec character Ron Swanson running for President, and if so, who would his inaugural poet be, Offerman responds, "Probably himself. Or Wendell Berry. I think Ron would be a big Wendell Berry fan."
    • Barnes and Noble - Calling "The Memory of Old Jack, by Wendell Berry..." his favorite novel, Nick expands, "The first novel I read from his charismatic career of fiction detailing the fellowship of the fictional Kentucky town of Port William. My absolute favorite living writer. If everybody read Wendell Berry, I believe we’d have a shot at being more decent."
    • Men's Health - (May 2013) Nick's "Nine Rules every American male should follow" include this prescription, "Read Wendell Berry. I would direct you to his short stories, which is a quick way to discern if you’re going to like him or not. If you decide you don’t like him, you’ve made a mistake, so go back and start again... If the citizens of our nation all read Wendell Berry, it would be a lot more decent in its dealings with the rest of the planet. "

    Nick's advocacy for Wendell Berry has made its way into his own writing.  In his recent bestseller "Paddle Your Own Canoe",  Offeman writes.

    I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favorite writer, Wendell Berry, writes on this topic with great eloquence.  He posits that we've all been sold a bill of goods, claiming that work is bad, that sweating is working, especially if soil or sawdust is involved, are beneath us.  Our population, especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labor that one loves is actually a privilege.  To be on the receiving end of this gift of a life complete with human body, mind and heart is the be indescribably blessed indeed, but all of our conveniences and comforts and amazing technological advances have made us completely soft and fully pusillanimous!"

    We're humbled to announce that Nick is hosting a fundraiser for FORTY PANES in LA on Saturday, February 8th.  In addition to Nick's talents, other featured guests include Nancy and Beth (Nick's wife Megan Mullally and Stephanie Hunt) and Zach Galifiniakis and other "serious special guests."  Tickets are already almost sold out, $60 for the cheap seats, $100 for the closest thing to VIP available. 

    Tickets are available here.

    Our Tax-Deductible Donation Page now Live

    For those looking to directly support our filmmaking efforts, you can now make a tax-deductible donation to the FORTY PANES film through our fiscal sponsor the Austin Film Society by clicking here. You will receive a letter acknowledging your gift to the Austin Film Society on behalf on the project. Since AFS is a non-profit organization, your donation may be deducted from your taxes as a charitable contribution under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service code.

    If you don't wish to donate but still wish to support FORTY PANES, we still would love your help! Please subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter!

    If you enjoyed LOOK & SEE, we encourage you to join The Berry Center, which is putting Wendell Berry’s writings into action.