Dear Friends and Colleagues:

 

When I was a boy my father shaped human figures out of sand on the beach in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Sometimes I asked him to cover me with sand and shape it around my body, so that I could be a part of the Sand People family. There was something magical about this and slightly sinister. The Sand Man and the Sand Women were like large golems that might just stir to life. Last weekend, while attending the Mendocino Film festival, I took time out to go to the beach were Big River meets the sea. I bought a shovel at the hardware store and borrowed a bucket from my host. Then I made my Sand Parents as I remembered them. I took pictures to show to Zsófi Tasnádi, my art director in Budapest, exactly what these figures looked like.   Here they are. They took 2 ½ hours to make.

 

 

All twenty-five recreations scenes are being shot in Hungary with sixteen Hungarian actors in non-speaking roles and a Hungarian crew. Because Hungary in a landlocked country there are no ocean beaches, but fortunately there is an a white sand beach just outside of Budapest where an enterprising Hungarian developer has created a Caribbean beach resort in the heart of Central Europe. Go figure. There are no waves but we can add them in post production. Why not shoot the American scenes in the United States and the Hungarian Scenes in Hungary?  To be continued...

 

 

I’d like to recommend to you a documentary film I saw in Mendocino that has just become available on Netflix,  Satan and Adam.   The most astonishing thing about it is that it was twenty-three years in the making, following two lives over a quarter of a century. I am humbled by the commitment of the filmmaker, V. Scott Balcerek, whom I met at the film festival.  Scott spent half his life on this project, between gigs working for Industrial Light and Magic, and as an editor and shooter. The Festival's description of the film:

 

 

In 1986, when harmonica player Adam Gussow asked if he could jam with one-man band Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee, it was the beginning of an unforgettable collaboration— dubbed Satan & Adam. Amidst the racial tension in New York, this Jewish Ivy League graduate and black Mississippi blues man made an unlikely pair, but their musical styling perfectly aligned. After a chance encounter with members of U2 and a celebrated debut record, the duo rose to international acclaim from their Harlem street corner. But as quickly as they were discovered, their meteoric rise was cut short when Mr. Satan mysteriously disappeared. The result is an odyssey 23 years in the making that captures a miraculous journey of friendship, heartbreak, and the transformative power of music.

 

Stay tuned for more about The Restless Hungarian film

 

Warmest regards,

Tom Weidlinger