In the early 1990s, teenagers enrolled in Fred Isseks’ Electronic English would regularly report on the illegal dumping of toxic waste in their community, their investigation culminating in a student film at the end of the course. Now thirty years older, these former students and Isseks look back on their projects and reflect on their impact on the town’s legacy. Editor Christopher Passig delves into the process of cutting Middletown, including the insane amount of raw footage he worked with, the “extreme levels of candor” he tries to bring to every project and the sympathy he now feels for his […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? The one day that stands out, and will forever, from the production of our film Middletown, is the summer day when we travelled upstate to meet our subject Fred Isseks, for the first time, at his home in Middletown, New York. Fred is a former high school teacher. Our documentary is about a ground-breaking […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 28, 2025