Authors — Peter Rinaldi
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Act Naturally: Working with Caveh Zahedi on the Web Series, The Show about the Show
Caveh Zahedi played the same edit over and over, one too many times. “I think I’m gonna go, man,” I grumbled. I’d reached my breaking point. The idea of a rough cut that gets whittled down doesn’t work for Zahedi. He needs to sand, polish and lacquer each piece of wood before deciding if he even wants to use that wood. Basically, he fine-cuts each take. Why, I’ve asked countless times, can’t we just choose the best take and work it in? His answer: how can we tell what the best take is unless we see them all working at […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Apr 21, 2016 -
Behind the Crowdfunding Campaign to Finish Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind
At first, I viewed the Indiegogo campaign to help finish Orson Welles’ last film as a desperate attempt to solve a troubled situation. I was hauling in all my feelings about the Kickstarter saturation that has infected indie film culture. Everyone and their mother is crowdfunding their films — now the late Orson Welles? It felt like a violation against his legacy and made me incredibly sad. After all of this time, Orson Welles still can’t raise money the “normal” way?! But now, after much thought and digging, I see the campaign as a triumphant way to actively and symbolically help […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jun 11, 2015 -
TransFatty Lives Forever: How Director Patrick O’Brien Documented His ALS
Waiting to see TransFatty Lives at the Tribeca Film Festival, I was in line behind a woman who didn’t know what she was waiting to see. The couple in front of her were filling her in, telling her all about the filmmaker/subject of the film, Patrick O’Brien (once known as DJ TransFatty), his “journey” with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and how the terrible disease had affected their own lives. It wasn’t a downbeat conversation in the slightest. They had discovered O’Brien through his online videos, posted over the course of ten years, documenting his worsening condition not with depression and […]
by Peter Rinaldi on May 28, 2015 -
Factory 25 Releases Caveh Zahedi Box Set Retrospective, Digging My Own Grave: The Films of Caveh Zahedi
Factory 25’s long awaited Caveh Zahedi box set is now accepting pre-orders and on the verge of shipping. From Filmmaker’s print edition, here’s Peter Rinaldi on the mammoth release. DVD is not dead. It’s the new vinyl. Unconvinced? Perhaps a six DVD set of an important and influential American director’s films, most of which have never been released on video, will change your mind. Factory 25’s “Digging My Own Grave: The Films of Caveh Zahedi” might be the most comprehensive collection of an independent filmmaker’s work available in one set: five feature films, over two dozen shorts, a feature-length series […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Apr 3, 2015
