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Features are long films;
they take a long, long time.
Documentary and Fiction:
We like to mix it up.
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| sTitles
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Tokyo Cowboys: The Documentary
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| sVideos
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| sBrags
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You might have seen Tokyo Cowboys here:
Japan Film Festival, Los Angeles
(the only non-Asian directors in the whole show)
Little Rock Film Festival
(nominated for best documentary)
The Seattle True Independent Film Festival
(winner of the rising sun award)
Cannes in a Van
(screened from the back of a van at Cannes)
Doc Shop
(@ hot docs film festival in toronto, canada)
Ischia Film Festival
The Atlanta Underground Film Festival
The Naperville Independent Film Festival
(nominated for best documentary)
The Thin Line Documentary Film Festival
(nominated for best short documentary)
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| sPhotos
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Here we are. All young and green. Shooting our first feature Tokyo Cowboys.
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| sWordss
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A
friend from my Tokyo days comes into London, and we meet up and
drink. A lot. It is 2001. I show him some of our films. He says I
should shoot
something in Tokyo. As a matter of fact, he will give me $5,000 if I
can match it. A few weeks later, we've got an idea and an additional
investor. I call up my friend to get the 5K. He has no idea what I'm
talking about. Drinking does that to you. But we have already booked the
tickets, so there is no turning back.
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Ken is the main cowboy. We shot him over a period of two years as he tried to make it big on Japanese TV.
This movie is still for sale. If you want to buy it or if you want to sell it for us, you should email us. Also, the 500 hours of footage is housed in Jeremy Larkin's
lockup in London. It would be great if someone out there could bring it
to us on your next trip from London to where we are not.
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| sLinks |
Because we are so interested in process, we blogged about this project from 2002. I still sometimes write things on that blog.
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| sLogos |
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--------------------feature project in progress--------------------
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| sTitles
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Chalmatia!
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We
started writing "Chalmatia!" in 2002 after a trip back home from
London. We were struck by the strangeness of this community: just four
miles outside of the New Orleans French Quarter, the place seemed more
like a small white town.
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| sPhotos
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In
the summer of 2005, we gave up our flat in London and went to Sweden
for the summer to get Tokyo Cowboys in shape for a proper editor. Our plan was to
move back to New Orleans in the fall and begin work on Chalmatia! while
turning Tokyo Cowboys over to NOLA editor Tim Watson.
In August, we got word through
Swedish TV that the city had washed away. Family and friends scattered
to the four corners of America. We had to go back to London and
re-group. Katrina was as wide reaching as all that.
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After that, we knew we couldn't
ignore Katrina, but we didn't want to make a Katrina film. We started
looking around at the post apocalyptic landscape for inspiration. The
place lends itself to magical realism and social realism all at once.
We're talking dystopia. We're talking science fiction. We're talking
escape.
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| sEnds |
this is the end.
tokyo cowboys blog.
chalmatia! blog.
go back home. |
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