If a bear ate me...
Watch & experience "Kaval Park" on YouTube
Hello from Alaska, friends!
More on why I’m here in a later publication.
I started touring with my documentary films in 2018 meeting the audience face to face in Q&As. It quickly became obvious that people were undeserved intellectually and spiritually. Those encounters fueled me to form a film company in 2021 - Itchy Rodent Films - putting touring with our films at the core of the company’s mission.
I believe that prioritizing an intimate director to audience relationship can heal the growing disconnect in our industry. The rest is theory that lives in the head. The rest is numbers and hypothesis.
And while the head is important so is the energetic imprint a live audience will leave on a film director.
Yesterday a friend remarked, “No one will make a movie like Tarkovsky’s Stalker today.” I invite friends and colleagues to be patient, to be kind, to be curious, to make their film as if it’s the last one they will ever make. Doesn’t every Andrei Tarkovsky film, every Ingmar Bergman, David Lean or Orson Wells film feel like the last one of their careers? Doesn’t every great novel we have inherited through the times feel like the last one we will ever read?
If Death was to do us apart tomorrow, what kind of film would we leave behind today?
I’d like to think that my film “Kaval Park” is one of those What if a black Alaskan bear ate me today film.
To begin with, from day 1 of filming in 2016 to the spring of 2018, I didn’t know how long the main protagonist Alexander Eppler had to live. Luckily for us all, he will now live forever on YouTube!
The YouTube release of “Kaval Park” is part of a broader strategy to engage audiences with our company. We plan to release more films on the channel in the coming months. So be sure to subscribe.
I’m not sure what went on through Alexander’s head when in 1971, only 14 years of age, he got on a Greek cargo ship to go to Bulgaria. The storyteller in me likes to imagine his adventure is as crazy as facing off with a bear - except this bear happens to be a communist. The rest is on YouTube.
OMG! Finally! I’ve wanted to watch KAVAL PARK forever.
Enjoy!
Bogdan
P.S. Please, watch on your phone only in case of an emergency!
If you live in Seattle, don’t miss “Flying Blind.” My daughter and I learned a lot about the blind community. An original musical “Flying Blind” weaves together scenes, stories, and music to describe the challenges, joy, and heartbreak of the blind and low-vision community. The play is performed by a predominantly blind cast, including Jen who is the one person I’ve known the longest in the US. We went to acting school together in the late 90s! Performances go through June 8th. Buy your tickets here.