I would like to share with you some great news about the film.

“Every Day Is a Holiday” has been greenlit by public television through the Independent Television Service (ITVS)! Once I raise $38,313, ITVS will provide an additional $79,120 towards completion of the film.

Please support my effort with a tax-deductible year-end gift.

As of today, I have $36,763 to go. As much as I like palindromes, make this one go away!

Please visit the Support and Donate and follow the instructions on that page.

Thank you for your support.

I am showing a rough cut at the Chen Dance Center on Dec. 28, 2010. Optional dinner in Chinatown afterward at Old Sichuan; other possible activities include a visit to Apotheke or Winnie’s. Please do stop by if you can. Otherwise, here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011!


Tuesday, December 28, 2010 

Reception at 6:30pm 

Screening starts at 7:00pm (one hour)

Q&A following screening
Venue: 
Chen Dance Center 
70 Mulberry St, 2nd Floor 
New York, NY 10013
Admission: 
Free to the public; suggested donation 

Please RSVP by calling (212) 349-0126
“Every Day Is a Holiday” is made possible with generous assistance from the Chen Dance Center and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund.

I attended an art opening of “Drill Baby Drill” at gowanusedge.com on Thursday for Dan Ford and other artists in a group show.  One of the other artists was named Emily Auchincloss. I wasn’t going to ask her, but then decided, why not? It turns out that Emily is the great-granddaughter of Congressman Auchincloss, the man who sponsored a bill so that my dad could become a U.S. citizen. She had no idea her great-grandfather would do something like that.

It really is a small world. Many thanks to Christine Chen, who introduced me to Jocelyn Ford, who introduced me to Dan, and that’s how I met Emily. I was just working on an extended trailer that talks about Congressman Auchincloss.

When not working on documentaries, talking bears, and digital media, I think up quirky projects. One of my latest projects is creating a music video, set to a song I heard in Phys Ed class called “Chicken Fat.” I adapted the song into a two-minute version, collaborating with artists from The FilmShop, as well as my new friend Katrina Gregorius. Hope you like it!

Also known as “The Youth Fitness Song,” “Chicken Fat” was composed by Meredith Willson and sung by Robert Preston for President Kennedy’s Physical Fitness Program. Recordings of this song were sent to school districts throughout the United States to accompany the official U.S. Physical Fitness program of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

Thank you, Director,Vinti Bhatnagar; Editor, Graham Meriwether; Puppeteer and Editor, Kate Cook; Archival Editor, Sally O’Grady; Actor, CK; Animator, Katrina Gregorius. Thanks to: Shelldon the Tortoise, Geoff Green, Archive.org

It was a busy June and has been an even busier July, but I wanted to share some notes from a conversation between Sheila Nevins and Geoffrey Gilmore. The discussion happened on April 25 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Geoffrey noted that Sheila has been called the “Medici of TV” or the “Dominatrix of Docs.” She used to work at NY’s Channel 13 and has a theater background. She likes to see TV as theater, and says, “Curtains Up!” when she turns on the TV. Sheila mentioned that she gets bored easily, which she repeated in a recent article in the NYTimes called, “The Force Behind HBO’s Documentaries.”

HBO Documentary Film Stats:
Acquire – about 15%
Produce in-house – about 70%
Finishing funds – about 15%

Sheila said that if your film (she calls them “docus”) could be on free tv, HBO won’t take it. I would like to know if other people agree.

Here’s how HBO rates its programs in order of importance:
1 Movies
2 Series
3 HBO movies
4 Sports Docs
5 Fights
6 Docs

If you send your work to HBO, they should get back to you within four weeks. Sheila suggested contacting her associate, Lisa Heller, VP of Documentary Programming, at extension 5303.

Another fact about Sheila:
Sheila Nevins participates in a web site called Women on the Web . There are other high-powered women “of a certain age” who write for the site regularly, including Liz Smith, Whoopi Goldberg and Joan Ganz Cooney. Sheila said that the site is like a hobby, “like needlepoint.” I think (and hope) wowOwow will evolve, especially since I received an online questionnaire asking me what I liked about the site and if I would be ok with a wowOwow online store.

• – I have been working with my composer, Samantha Sutton, on creating a score for the film. I am very excited by her work.
• – As you can see, I have relaunched the film’s website. Many thanks to Jacqueline Yue and Doug McLellan for their time and effort. Please let me know what you think of the new site!
• – I screened part of my work-in-progress at the FilmShop and received some valuable feedback.
• – I attended a really great panel at Women Make Movies with Caroline Libresco and Debbie Zimmerman about the Sundance Film Festival. More in a separate post.
• – I am working on grant proposals!
• – I missed “Kevorkian,” the last film of Stranger Than Fiction’s spring series.

A secret diary. My father is celebrating his 65th year of freedom from a World War II prison-of-war camp.

Recently, I discovered a secret diary my father kept while he was a teenage prisoner-of-war in Japan. This film documents a story of triumph over adversity, showing major historical events through a deeply personal lens using interviews, rare archival footage, and my father’s wartime diary. Each chapter in this layered story begins with a quote from my father’s diary, visually rendered in his elegant penmanship. The film structure mirrors the old-fashioned television and radio “chapter plays.”

Like a real-life Zelig, my father was there: from purchasing opium in Malaysia, to sailing to Iran as a merchant seaman, to driving a tank over exploding kim chee vats in Korea. My father believed that since he survived the horrors that surrounded him as a POW, then every day held potential for joy, making every day a holiday.

Won’t you join us in this journey?

I ran into Alice Elliott at the Bedford Barrow Commerce Street Fair this weekend.  The BBC Block Associate event is the best street fair in New York City, and Alice is a great advocate for the Village and its residents.

Alice is the Academy Award nominated director of “The Collector of Bedford Street.”  Visit her production company web site, Welcome Change Productions, or her interesting filmmaker distribution company, New Day Films.

I received a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.  The check arrived in the mail today!

Thanks to the LMCC and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, I will be having a screening this year of the film.  Stay tuned for more.

The LMCC also organizes events at Governor’s Island and helps artists from various disciplines in the form of grants, artist workspaces, and more.