New York filmmaker Sarah Friedland took a trip across the Hudson to make a documentary about the Branch Brook Park Roller Rink, located in Newark, New Jersey, one of the few remaining urban rinks of its kind. Now, one might think how interesting can a documentary about a roller rink be, but Sarah digs way deep, and after almost five years of hard work, she emerged with “RINK” a film thats tells more than a story about a roller rink, but a space transformed and its symbolic representation to those who use it. In the documentary “RINK,” two main characters emerge: Bonesaw, a tough talking, tattooed member of the Garden State Roller Derby Team; and Graylen, a deeply spiritual, Gospel Night skater. On the surface these two characters are different, both ideologically and in their social and racial backgrounds. However, the film reveals a shared past of violence and drug abuse from which the rink provides a much needed refuge. 

We caught up with director Sarah Friedland at the 2013 Brooklyn Film Festival where she is screening RINK, to learn more about the film, and find out how did a New Yorker end up making a documentary about a roller rink in Newark, New Jersey.

VIMOOZ: First, congratulations on RINK being an official selection in the 2013 Brooklyn Film Festival … this is the NY premiere – are you ready for the NY audience?

Sarah Friedland: I am extremely excited to be part of BFF.  My first feature, “Thing With No Name”, premiered at BFF in 2009 and we had  great festival experience then.  The Rink is a film about Newark but New York City is my home, so I am thrilled to show it to the NYC audience.  

VIMOOZ: How was the World Premiere screening at the NJ International Film Festival?

Friedland: The NJIFF screening went very well.  We had a very receptive and large audience of folks from all over New Jersey.  It was great to be a part of a New Jersey festival and share the film with Newarkers and folks from the rink.

VIMOOZ: Tell us about RINK – the story? 

Friedland: The film is about Branch Brook Park Roller Rink in Newark New Jersey- one of the last remaining roller rinks in the tri-state area.  We use the rink as a microcosm for the city of Newark and, in doing so, the film dips into many facets of Newark’s rich history, including: urban renewal, the rebellion of 1967, and the current gentrification of downtown Newark. We follow two main characters: Bonesaw, a tough talking, tattooed member of the Garden State Roller Derby Team; and Gralen, a deeply spiritual, Gospel Night skater.  These two folks appear very different on the outside but have a shared past of violence and drug abuse from which the rink provides a refuge.  In many ways, their stories parallel that of Newark, which is often labeled as violent and crime ridden, while all of its good parts are ignored. The film also sees the rink as an endangered space of urban recreation.  There used to be hundreds of roller rinks in the tri-state area, now there is one.  So Branch Brook is a very important place, not just for Newark, but for the entire skating community, which has recently lost many key rinks to real-estate speculation and gentrification.

VIMOOZ: Where are you from? 

Friedland: I am from Hastings-on-Hudson New York, but I have lived in New York City for the last fifteen years.  When I was little growing up in Hastings, we used to skate in the basement of the high school.  It was something I looked forward to every week.  Most people seem to have some connection to skating from there childhood, even if they don’t skate anymore, and that is one of the great things about this film- we enter it from a point of nostalgia.

VIMOOZ: How did you find out about the rink in New jersey?

Friedland: My co-producer, Ryan Joseph, was living in Newark at the time and was the staff photographer for the Garden State Roller Derby team who practice at the rink. We originally thought that we would make a film about them, but when we spent time in the rink, it became clear that the space itself was so interesting and that the film should reflect Branch Brook as a whole.  

VIMOOZ: How long did it take to shoot the documentary?

Friedland: We shot for about three and a half years and edited for a year and a half.  It took us so long because we made a big effort to get to know the people we were following and make sure everyone was comfortable before starting to shoot. It’s very important to both Ryan and I that we have a certain level of intimacy with the folks in the film before pulling out the camera.  Ryan knew Bonesaw from working with the derby girls but I met Gralen after doing a series of pre-interviews with other Gospel Night skaters.  So that was a new relationship.  He and his family were really gracious with their time and let us into their lives openly. It was also a complicated film to put together because it was ricky to weave Newark in as a character.  We started editing and then realized we needed to shoot more to flesh out a few things, so it was a back and forth.

VIMOOZ: What’s up next for RINK? 

Friedland: We received a small grant from my union, I am an Assistant Adjunct Professor at John Jay College, to take the film on tour to roller rinks around the country.  I am currently contacting rinks and planning where to take the film.  We will actually be showing the film inside the roller rinks to create a more visceral response between the viewer and the space. If anyone out there knows any rinks that might be interested, send them my way!

VIMOOZ: What’s up next for you?

Friedland: This year I co-founded Perinspire, a production company with my long term film partner Esy Casey.  We are finishing a film called Jeepney, which she directed and I am co-producing.  The film is about the most popular form of transportation in the Philippines  beautiful, blinged out buses called Jeepneys.  These fascinating  handmade and designed vehicles have their origins in US military jeeps that were left in the Philippines after World War II.  The film speaks about Filipino history and culture through the Jeepney.  It will come out sometime this fall.  I have also been working as an editor on two feature docs: tentatively titled “Camp Kinderland” by Katie Halper, which is about a political, Jewish summer camp; and “Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger” by Sam Feder, which is about the amazing gender theorist and performance artist Kate Bornsteim.  Both of those films are slated to come out this year.  After that, I will take a nap.

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Director Dan Eberle returns to the Brooklyn Film Festival for a second time, this time around with his new film “CUT TO BLACK” in which he again plays multiple roles – actor, director, writer, and producer. Eberle, who also lives in Brooklyn, New York was featured in the 2008 festival with his film, the critically acclaimed action thriller “THE LOCAL.” In his latest film CUT TO BLACK  which is shot in lavish black and white tones, and set against stark, gritty urban modernity, Eberle, plays Bill Ivers, a disgraced ex-cop, hired by a wealthy former friend to rid his estranged daughter Jessica of a stalker. We caught up with the super talented Eberle at the Brooklyn Film Festival to talk about CUT TO BLACK.

VIMOOZ: First, congratulations on CUT TO BLACK being an official selection in the 2013 Brooklyn Film Festival again … which time is better, the first or second time?

Dan Eberle: We were in the Brooklyn Film Festival in 2008 with an earlier feature called ‘The Local’. It it was a great experience for us, but it was definitely a looser, scrappier event back then. The Brooklyn Film Festival has come a long way in the intervening years. They now have their own swanky venue, indieScreen, the movie theater/lounge in Williamsburg–that alone gives the event a cool, nightclub-like experience. The theater itself is a great sounding room and excellent projection. As a filmmaker, you really couldn’t ask for a better screening venue. I’ve always liked the diversity in the film selections at the BFF. Marco and his crew are fearless in their programming! They are also among only a few established festivals that still program gritty crime films like ours–right along side introspective character pieces, documentaries, and international films. It really is about the quality of the films, and nothing else.

VIMOOZ: Tell us about CUT TO BLACK – the story?

Eberle: ‘CUT TO BLACK’ is about a depressed ex-cop named Bill, who is hired by a wealthily former friend to run off a peeping tom who is terrorizing his estranged daughter, Jessica. In the course of Bill’s investigation, he learns the stalker is the least of Jessica’s problems. As the stakes get considerably higher for everyone involved, Bill pins the sum of his life’s worth to the resolution of Jessica’s increasingly intractable situation.

VIMOOZ: Your film is stylistically different, was there a reason behind that/any influences?

Eberle: In some ways, ‘CUT TO BLACK’ is a throwback to classic film noir. We lean on some familiar character archetypes and setups, but that’s really just a point of departure. ‘CUT TO BLACK’ is deliberately mired in anachronism. Its a modern story, shot in Black and White, with high contrast lighting. There are present-day affectations like cell phones and new cars, but much of the architecture of Brooklyn is very old world. The characters listen to a mix of traditional jazz, but the score is overtly electronic. Because of these elemental contradictions, the overall experience of the film is transporting. ‘CUT TO BLACK’ becomes a world of its own.

VIMOOZ: You write, produce, direct and star in all your films – what do you not do?

Eberle: I may do all those things, but I do none of them alone. Every part of the filmmaking process is a collaboration of one kind or another. Even though I didn’t have a co-writer on ‘CUT TO BLACK’, many of the clever ideas in the script came from other people, both in and out of the production. For example, another filmmaker friend of mine, Jonathan Jacobson, actually suggested the one-way mirror at the strip club where Jessica works. He came up with the ‘confessional’ idea and I ran with it. I’d go on about how that idea actually became an integral story element, but I don’t want to get into spoiler territory! My co-producer, Danielle Primiceri, designed all of Jessica’s elaborate costumes for the dance sequences and Gayle Madeira choreographed all of Jillaine’s dances. Those scenes are some of the most striking imagery in the film. Obviously no part of the film would have worked without the executional brilliance of our director of photography, James Parsons, who I’ve collaborated with going back to my first full-fledge feature ‘Jail City’. James once said that he likes working on independent films because, out of necessity, the vocational boundaries are softer. Everyone is seemingly working in every department, pitching in where help is needed, or where a creative solution is required. For this reason, working in independent film is not for everyone. I’ve learned the hard way that you just can’t be rigid. The words ‘its-not-my-job’ have no place on an indie set. 

Eberle: I do, but not professionally. For now.

VIMOOZ: What’s up next for CUT TO BLACK?

Eberle: We’re thinking about what festivals we can do next before a theatrical run. We are planning a US release in the Fall or Winter of this year. 

VIMOOZ: What’s up next for you?

Eberle: I’ve got a new project called ‘The Interventionist’ that is right on the cusp of a greenlight, but we’re still ironing out some business there. It’s about an unconventional evangelical minister who performs Christian interventions. He comes to the big bad city to find a secular friend who has disappeared while working under his auspices. It’s not a comedy. 

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