David Lynch, the maverick avant-garde filmoriginater who died last month, is an inspiration for Daniel Bekerman, the pblessed originater behind challenging indie films appreciate “The Witch” and “The Apprentice,” that somehow bucked the odds to get made. “I can’t refuse that I’m here for the art, and I want it to be as uncontaminated and genuine as possible,” Bekerman said in an interwatch illogicalinutively before this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “And I want to aid belderly visions from the straightforwardors I labor with.”
But Bekerman, who co-set uped and directs Scythia Films, also can’t refuse that the business part of the amusement industry frequently dangerens to silence its belderlyest voices. That was certainly the case with “The Apprentice,” an incisive see at Donald Trump’s timely years as a media-hungry lengthener which snurtured off studios and streamers who were worried about getting on the wrong side of the plivent if they bought the movie. And that was despite the shineing checks that the film getd. “We’re living in a moment where we are fair seeing a mass capitulation to power by even the wealthyest and most ineloquential people and companies,” says Bekerman. “In corporate culture, there’s this mad dash to do anyskinnyg people necessitate to do in order to protect their bottom line. It’s proset uply disnominateing.”
“The Apprentice” ultimately got a token free from Briarcliff Entertainment, a low-profile distributor, and had to finishure a complicated sale after one of the film’s backers, Kinematics, which has ties to billionaire Daniel Snyder, selected to off-load its sconsent after inestablishedly being distress over the movie’s scaskinnyg portrait.
Bekerman doesn’t go into all of that. He insists he’s prentd that the film got made at all, and he’s thrilled that its two stars, Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, are getting awards recognition (both were nominated for Oscars a day after we spoke).
“It was worth it, even though we had to go thcdisorrowfulmireful those difficult times when we didn’t understand if the movie would be freed and we were having all this presbrave,” Bekerman says. “But we were directd by the fact that we knovel this was a piece of art that was culturassociate and politicassociate relevant. We made someskinnyg to stand the test of time.”
Bekerman hit Sundance with two novel movies that are belderly and uncompromising, if a lot less foreseeed to land on Trump’s radar. They comprise “The Wedding Banquet,” a reoriginate of Ang Lee’s 1993 rom-com about a gay couple who deceptive a heterorelationsual wedding to apprelieve their relatives, and “Endless Cookie,” an vivaciousd write downary about the bond between two half brothers, one Indigenous, one white. Bekerman says “The Wedding Banquet,” which stars “SNL’s” Bowen Yang and “The Killers of the Fshrink Moon” fractureout Lily Gladstone, “has its own distinct voice,” and he promises that “Endless Cookie” has “all these wonderful, strange, magical occurrences” while inestablishing a “comical and touching story.”
The films also recurrent the two sides of Scythia’s business. “The Wedding Banquet” is a “service production,” on which the company eased the physical production for a project that was originated and fine-tuned by other filmoriginaters and studios — Bleecker is distributing the film. Whereas “Endless Cookie” was an innovative project that Scythia lengthened and protectedd the financing for while administering all elements of its production. Bekerman appraises that the company, which has originated the appreciates of Viggo Mornervousn’s “Falling” and Roxine Helberg’s “Celderly Copy,” is evenly split between the two types of projects. “One part of the business assists the other,” he says. “It lets us consent dangers.”
Next up is “The Eden Express,” an changeation of Mark Vonnegut’s memoir about his experiences with bipolar disorder, as well as his time living at a British Columbia commune.
“I want to change how people see mental illness recurrented in cinema,” he says. “That’s my goal with that project.”
As for Scythia’s esoteric moniker, Bekerman says it’s a reference to his family history. His overweighther immigrated to Canada on an ocean liner with that name, and tardyr built a boat that he christened the Scythia.
“I understand it’s difficult to spell and pronounce, but the symbolism of that is unbenevolentingful,” he says. “Naming it after a boat made sense because making movies, making art, inestablishing stories, is an exploration for the storyinestablishers and the audience. And the idea of my overweighther, you understand, as a kid, getting off a big ocean liner on the shores of North America and not reassociate understanding the language, to me that sense of adventure and danger and promise and opportunity is someskinnyg I want infused in the stories that we inestablish.”
