Cinema Canada (Dec 1974-Jan 1975)

expenses including subtitled prints for Cannes. Now it’s starting to make money and will finance future films.” “I’m not going to spend my whole life distributing this film. I’m not going to spend more than another three months working on it full time. Filmmaking and distribution are two different emotional worlds. Producers and distributors do not share a community of interests. It should be generally realized that the daily practice in all forms of show business is a jungle daily practice. Everybody is battling, fighting everybody else with all kinds of dirty tricks. And to really enter into the process of the next movie, I’m going to have to step out of this. But you can never step out of it altogether. I see one day a week forever, writing special letters to people and so on. Bruck plans to write down his experiences with film distribution and make the information available as soon as possible. “It’s going to be about how to distribute films. Over the years this has been done by other filmmakers with other films and with relatively good results, but no-one has heard about those and how it’s being done. I’m trying to codify and write down everything I’ve learned over the last year and make it available to anybody else who wants to do the same thing. 'As soon as I can type it up, it will be available for a dollar through the mail.” “What I’m trying to do in my ‘pushy and arrogant’ way, is to provide filmmakers with information that will help them jlook out for themselves. I want to demonstrate that one |person — working alone, without prior experience, with only the haziest idea of what needs to be done, and certainly with no working capital to start with — can do this on his or her 9 own. The Future “IT want to continue making documentaries and I want to continue making them in black and white — it permits a style of filmmaking that I think is important. I want to make documentaries that interpret the world and maybe in some small way help make it better.” 36 Cinema Canada that level of quality and with as little cash.” Barry acknowledged that he is “‘going way out on a limb” by choosing to work in a commercial format (35mm colour features) with non-commercial concepts. However, his basic interest is in bringing experimental film approaches into the mainstream of film production, and he is prepared to risk rejection by both camps. The Future “I don’t think you can predict what is going to happen with this film. First I spent a year writing and rewriting it. Then directing and editing. That was a long process. Now we are selling and exploring where our market is. I resisted it at first, but now I’m realizing that it’s part of the process. It’s tiring, but if you want to maintain autonomy, you have to learn. I don’t know anything about film festivals and distribution and all that — Frank and I are learning as we go.” The Second Coming of Suzanne has already won three awards at the 1974 Atlanta International Film Festival (Best First Feature for Michael Barry, Best Film Editor for Frank Mazzola, and Best Cinematographer for Isidore Mankofsky). “We want to make the next film together too. Frank and I want to start a company and trade roles making films — Ill write and produce and he’ll direct and edit and then he’ll produce and I’ll direct. ... Who knows if The Second Coming of Suzanne will make it? But if you don’t have any goals, there is nothing to shoot for.” -s