For her remake of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, filmmaker Marissa Chastain did not have the big bucks the original production spent on replica stunt cars for the famous scene in which parkers take a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder for a joyride not.
After losing her job as a comedian and yoga instructor during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 36-year-old Chicago resident was a $ 9 remote-controlled toy.
What she did have were two roommates who were willing to be her co-directors and cast, access to the same places in Windy City as the original and a sense of humor. The latter was the most important to secure one of the 11 finalists in The Sweded Film Festival for creative re-creations.
“We have this desperation to create,” Chastain said. “The pandemic has certainly made it clear among the three of us that, no matter what, we are still here – even if there is no money behind it, it is something that drives us as human beings.”
The Sweded Film Festival for Creative Re-Creations is now in its fourth year a celebration of homemade versions of film classics. Among the other shorts that CGI trades for adhesive tape and cardboard are loving relaxation from ‘Air Force One’, ‘The Hard’ and ‘No Country for Old Men’. For this installment, the Pittsburgh-based festival became national and virtual, as well as a concession as an event born out of the pandemic.
Although this film festival does not exactly carry the prestige of Cannes or Sundance, there is a serious cause behind the ridiculously cheap production values.
Half the $ 3.99 ticket price for virtual shows starting Feb. 12 will be alleviated for participating independent theaters devastated by the economic consequences of Covid-19.
“It’s about easing the pent-up demand,” says Brian Mendelssohn, owner of Row House Cinema in Pittsburgh and founder of the festival. “The fact that we can not really go to the movies, enjoy the movie experience and love movies as we have always loved – it’s an outlet for people to enjoy movies, even if they can not watch movies in a movie theater . “
Mendelssohn, whose theater was closed during the pandemic, raised money for the cause at the Quarantine Cat Film Festival last year. The screening of cat videos raised $ 75,000 for participating independent theaters, he said, with the same 50-50 split.
Every dollar now counts for those theaters. Only 35.4 percent of the 6,037 movie theaters in North America are currently open, according to Comscore, a media analysis company.
Those who can keep their doors open are not thriving for a long time. Studios have repeatedly clashed with big budgets, driving moviegoers to theaters, whether to later release dates (like the Bond film “No Time to Die”) or directly to streaming (“Wonder Woman 1984”).
The national box office has dropped by 81 percent in year-on-year returns from 2019 to 2020, reports the National Association of Theater Owners. Losses ranged from 70 to 100 percent, depending on location and state constraints, a spokesman for the trade organization said by email.
The longer the pandemic continues, the greater the possibility that many independent theaters will not reopen.
“The owners of these independent theaters have a deep love and affection for films, but not necessarily deep pockets to withstand the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the industry,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior box office analyst at Comscore , said. “They do not have the kind of financial fundamentals that enable them to sleep for months on end.”
The first Sweded Film Festival launched in 2016, two years after Mendelssohn opened Row House Cinema.
“When we opened a movie theater in 2014, we were mainly showing older films, and a lot of them didn’t have trailers, or the trailers were really outdated,” Mendelssohn said. “So after a while we made our own trailers, just with the staff as actors.”
The inspiration comes from the comedy ‘Be Kind Rewind’ directed by Michel Gondry in 2008, with Jack Black and Mos Def in the heads of the clerks of video rental shops who were forced to create scenes from the films they accidentally deleted . The term “Sweded” comes from a joke in the film, while customers are told that replacement VHS tapes are on their way from Sweden.
“Then our audience wanted to catch up a bit,” Mendelssohn added, “so we decided to just go on a little game.”
A total of 17 theaters in 13 states hosted the Sweded Film Festival this year, but organizers expect the number to exceed 100 by 12 February.
One of the participating theaters, the historic Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon, Washington, has a fixed interest. Manager Roger Gietzen’s version of ‘Stop Making Sense’ is one of the finalists.
Filmed with real instruments, the three-minute, 45-second film is an ode to the 1984 concert film – only with googly-eyed cardboard clips taking center stage instead of the actual Talking Heads.
‘I do not think we all met as staff except via Zoom in the ten months before we shot the video [in December]”Gietzen said.” Everyone was just excited. “
The cutouts were part of a previous fundraising initiative at the Lincoln Theater, in which patrons sponsored cut-outs of themselves to sit in the audience during live concerts filmed in the venue and virtually screened. With the theater closed since March 9, Gietzen and his staff, many of whom were plagued earlier this month, need to be creative to have a chance to return.
Gietzen said that the gate of the Sweded Film Festival cannot solve the financial problems of the theater on its own, but it has an equally important function.
“I hope the audience will just see the joy of making these films,” Gietzen said. “To see how committed we all are.”