Her third feature film is about two straight men making gay
porn. It’s a “bromantic comedy.”
Under no circumstances should Lynn Shelton quit making astute and
charming independent films to pursue a career in cocktail science. Her
experiments with novelty drinks are, on the whole, disappointing.
One afternoon last week, she was preparing for a fundraiser for her
film Humpday at Northwest Film Forum, a party she was calling
“Humpday Extravaganza II: The Humpening.” She had promised hump-related
cocktails. “So far we have the Swordfight,” she said, laughing
sheepishly, “but I’m also thinking—how about this?—the
Piledriver.”
Shelton—the 2008 Stranger Genius Award winner for
film—describes Humpday as a “bromantic comedy.” Through
some contortion of male bonding and macho posturing, two straight
college friends—played by Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair,
Baghead) and Josh Leonard (The Blair Witch
Project)—decide to make a movie for HUMP! Seattle’s real-life
amateur-porn contest that, as it happens, is put on by The
Stranger. “It’s about the limitations and occasional absurdity of
straightness, specifically male straightness,” said Shelton. “These two
guys try to ‘outdude’ each other by trying to ‘do’ each other, which is
kind of ironic.” Not only is the film playing at Sundance, it’s in
competition for a prize—one of 16 in the U.S. narrative feature
film category. A big deal.
Shelton is warm and disarming and fun, with dark blond curls and an
open face. Like an open-face sandwich. Of sincerity. She’s a master of
breezy naturalism and emotional acuity, and—along with
cinematographer Ben Kasulke—creates quiet, intimate spaces where
you might want to move in and stay awhile, if they weren’t so personal.
Her first film, We Go Way Back, premiered at the Slamdance Film
Festival (a Park City festival that runs concurrent with Sundance) in
2006; her second, My Effortless Brilliance, won the Special Jury
Prize for Excellence in Direction at the Atlanta Film Festival.
We walked to the store and collected potential cocktail ingredients:
juice, frozen berries, pomegranate seeds, cornichons, capers, limes.
Back in the kitchen, her first order of business was to construct the
party’s mascot/signature garnish, Señor Hump—two capers
and a cornichon speared on a bobby pin in a suggestive configuration.
He presided serenely over the rest of the afternoon.
The cocktails were unsuccessful. First up was the Bone-Ami, an
aimless but not wholly unpleasant brew of gin, limoncello, sparkling
water, and four black raspberries (after the movie’s four starring
balls). The second effort was the Dry Hump: $3 pinot grigio, sparkling
pomegranate juice, sparkling water, an awkward cucumber spear, and six
forlorn pomegranate seeds kicking around on the bottom. It tasted like
nothing—nothing bad, nothing good. “The Dry Hump,” Shelton
justified, “sometimes that’s all you need—a little dry hump. Kind
of weird and unsatisfying, you don’t go out looking for it, but you
don’t necessarily mind it.” She decided that the pomegranate juice made
it too sweet to qualify as “dry” and redubbed it the Leg Hump: “The
cucumber is the leg.”
Humpday was shot over 10 days for “less than a million
dollars, but more than 10 dollars” and is the third film Shelton has
submitted to Sundance (and the first to be accepted). She’s
noncommittal, or unsure, about why Seattle has such a strong showing at
the festival this year: “Jennifer Roth [a local producer profiled on
the next page] told me that outside of L.A. and New York, we’re the
biggest regional presence in the festival this year.”
I asked about the future of Humpday. Shelton answered, “I’m
really interested to see what happens. Because even though it doesn’t
have any A-list actors, I feel like it’s conceptually a marketable film
if it’s done right. I’m not super stressed about it, I’m just kind of
curious. Actually, I’m fucking thrilled. But maybe that’s just the
Bone-Amis talking.” LINDY WEST
The obscure filmmaker is doing his damnedest to remain
obscure. It doesn’t seem to be working.
David Russo does not want to talk
about it.
Despite the fact that his dizzyingly kinetic animations have been
admired at Sundance, used for a Thom Yorke video, permanently installed
at the Seahawks stadium, lauded at film festivals from New Jersey to
Spain, and purchased and broadcast by the French Ministry of
Culture—despite the fact that his first feature-length film,
The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, has been accepted at
Sundance this year—David Russo does not want to talk about any of
it.
That wasn’t always the case. Back in 2004, when he won a Stranger
Genius Award for filmmaking, Russo was ebullient about Little
Dizzle, with the crackling glee of someone whose project is still
perfect in his mind, not yet alloyed with the dull air of the actual
world. In the profile of him in that year’s Genius issue, he crowed
about Little Dizzle: “If it’s allowed to exist, it’s going to be
a cannonball. It won’t be ignored.” Last week, he replied to an
interview request with a terse e-mail: “Thanks so much, Brendan. But
Lynn Shelton is your story, not us. Trust me on that.”
Russo, clearly, is a man of moods. In the opening narration to his
stop-motion short I Am (Not) van Gogh (2006), Russo pitches the
film (which we’re already watching) to a stodgy panel that selects
public art for a festival. “I’m just using his name in the title ’cause
he’s the archetype for all the mad, misfit, misunderstood artists out
there, you know?” Russo explains to the panel. “There’s a lot of them,
and I think I’m one.”
Russo’s stop-motion shorts are more imaginative, intricate, and
meticulously designed than most feature films. He gives inanimate
objects the kinetic power of an avalanche. In I Am (Not) van
Gogh, he sends birds, fish, and a disembodied mouth soaring through
the crowds at Bumbershoot by painting full-size animation “cells” and
holding them for individual shots while the world whirls around him.
Russo appears for split seconds, holding the figures among the surging
crowds—a tiny peek into the operose labor required to create his
graceful, fluid hallucinations.
Little Dizzle sounds like one of those hallucinations. The
film is about a young, pious Christian named Dory who gets fired from
his data-crunching job and becomes a night janitor, along with a
menagerie of addicts and petty criminals. The janitors are the
unwitting subjects of a corporate experiment: They eat cookies laced
with something that causes visions, mood swings, and an odd kind of
pregnancy among the men, who become midwives for each others’ virgin,
back-end births. (The film was originally titled #2.)
This dark, nocturnal fantasia sprung from Russo’s years of working
as a night janitor, according to Michael Seiwerath, executive director
of Little Dizzle and the former director of the Northwest Film
Forum. (Producer Peggy Case says much of the film was shot at night in
City Hall, where the crew had to be out by 6:00 a.m., when the city
employees started showing up.) While Seiwerath was still its director,
the Northwest Film Forum awarded Russo its sixth start-to-finish grant,
a years-long commitment to throw the weight of the institution behind a
feature film. Among other things, the grant does some bureaucratic
jujitsu that allows a filmmaker to raise both nonprofit money through a
501(c)(3) and private investment through an LLC. The ideal David Russo
shoot, Seiwerath says, “would be like summer camp—just him and
three friends with a camera in the woods.”
Case tells a story about the first day of shooting Little
Dizzle: “David was used to working completely by himself with small
crews and being completely in control. He goes into his basement and
comes out with a finished film. This was a union shoot, so everything
was by the book and there was a fairly large crew. The first day, David
turned to me and said, ‘Who are all these people? What are they doing
here?’ I said, ‘David, they are here to make your film.'” BRENDAN KILEY
It was her idea to shoot the new Robin
Williams
movie—the entire thing, which is rare
for this town—in
Seattle.
Of the three Seattle films heading to Sundance this year,
one—World’s Greatest Dad—was neither directed by nor
written by nor stars a Seattleite. The star of the film is Robin
Williams (who lives in San Francisco) and the writer/director is Bob
“Bobcat” Goldthwait (who lives in Los Angeles). The money for the film,
around $4 million, is not from local sources—it’s almost
impossible to raise that kind of money (though it’s not that much) from
investors and companies around town. Even an established director is
lucky to get $10,000 from a single investor, and Vulcan
Productions—owned by Paul Allen—keeps all of its cash away
from the hubbub and uncertainties of the local scene, which is why
Vulcan has no part in this new wave of films heading to Sundance. (For
the record, Vulcan once turned down one of my scripts.) So why are we
celebrating World’s Greatest Dad as a “Seattle” film when,
ostensibly, it’s not a Seattle film? Because it was made in this city
and was made (mostly) by this city.
What World’s Greatest Dad makes clear, the message it sends
to other filmmakers and producers around the country, is that Seattle
has the infrastructure for serious film production. This is something
that Jennifer Roth, one of Dad‘s producers and a prominent
member of the local film community, emphasized when we met at a new
restaurant, the Oddfellows Cafe & Bar. Roth—a New York
native, a mother of one, a wife, a former specialist on Arab culture
and language, a line/executive producer for several high-profile films
(Smart People, The Squid and the Whale, The
Wrestler), the president of the board of Northwest Film
Forum—ordered a salad crowned by slim and skinless slices of
chicken.
“Is it snowing outside? Fuck me! Oh my God, it is. Great, like we
haven’t seen snow in forever.” We looked out the window—snow
everywhere. By the end of the holidays, everyone in Seattle had had
enough of the stuff; everyone was tired of the sleighing buses, the
delays, the dangerous roads, the works. After recovering from the snow
shock, Roth said, “Well, it all began when the producers [of
Dad] started talking about where to shoot the film. I was on
board at this point, and I put it in their heads to shoot in Seattle
because a new tax incentive passed, [reimbursing] 20 percent of what
you spend in Washington. David Russo’s film also benefited from the tax
incentive. Any film with a budget of $500,000 or more can benefit from
it. But there was only one problem: Seattle has too much personality,
and the director wanted the city to be anonymous. But we were able to
find places [without personality] in Wallingford, Loyal Heights, even
downtown.”
When asked what the film is about: “It’s a dark comedy. The
character Robin Williams plays has a son who is really an awful human
being. Williams, on the other hand, is mediocre, and everything is
going fine until his son (Daryl Sabara from the Spy Kids
films—he’s all grown up now) dies from an autoerotic asphyxiation
accident. Well, hilarity ensues.”
When asked about the shoot: “It took 25 days, all in Seattle. It was
the first film of that size to shoot from start to finish in our city
in a long while. Usually the shoot happens in Vancouver, and they come
down here for specific locations. But [Dad] was all down here.
Not Vancouver. And with the exception of the director of photography
and the costume designer, everyone on the production end was entirely
local.”
When asked to explain the importance of Dad to Seattle’s film
community: “When Bobcat and Robin Williams come to town to make a
little indie film, it’s great that they find the support and people
they need. I mean for Russo, it is obvious, and Shelton, it is obvious
that you can make a film here. But for people like Bobcat and Robin
Williams, it’s not so obvious. It makes us all relevant.”
That settled that and we settled the bill. Outside, the snowfall was
thickening. It swiftly fell over Seattle. Over Cal Anderson Park, over
the cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried, over the traffic crawling on
I-5, and the towers, the waters, the ships. We exchanged good-byes.
Roth went one way and I the other. CHARLES MUDEDE 
Do you hate gay people? Is this movie being shown in one of the theaters owned by that Prop 8 donor? Are you going to make sure the hotel you stay in is not owned by a Prop 8 supporter? Don’t you know Prop 8 supporters deserve to lose their jobs? Why are you supporting them? Why are you attending a film festival in a Hate State and supporting that Hate State’s economy? Shame on You.
Do you hate gay people? Is this movie being shown in one of the theaters owned by that Prop 8 donor? Are you going to make sure the hotel you stay in is not owned by a Prop 8 supporter? Don’t you know Prop 8 supporters deserve to lose their jobs? Why are you supporting them? Why are you attending a film festival in a Hate State and supporting that Hate State’s economy? Shame on You.
Attending Sundance this year is a gross insult to gays. These filmmakers disgust me.
Don’t make comedies about gay porn if you’re just intending to kick all gay men in the nuts promoting your film in a state controlled by Mormons intent on denying us equal rights.
Lynn Shelton should be ashamed. This is just appalling.
Are you people being willfully obtuse?
Or are you all just one insane person?
you know how i knew this article was gay? it’s dick tastes just like shit.
Your Name, what is obtuse? Any film maker attending Sundance this year despite the protests and the boycott has a lot to answer for.
Support the boycott – Support marriage rights for everyone.
You want to punish an entire state for what a few people in it did? Utah isn’t all Mormon, Sundance certainly isn’t. and frankly the town where the festival is held only has so many theatres and yes some of them are owned by a backer of Prop 8. Sundance has supported so many queer filmmakers over the years that you haev to really be kidding yourself to think that its an anti-gay festival. You people are just provincial.
I know! How about moving Sundance out of Utah?
Punish the state, but don’t punish the filmmakers. Art is long but life is short, and the timeline of production on a film makes it impossible to switch tracks and pull out of a festival – the BIGGEST festival in the country, importance-wise – because, yes, the Mormon church, which is from Utah, continues to be up to some despicable business. Jesus, the backbiters in this – I mean your – town.
Rationalize all you want, but Sundance directly benefits theater and hotel owners who waged a campaign against equal rights.
These film makers should be embarrassed to be there.
Sundance used to be cool… not anymore.
Spending money at Sundance directly benefits the haters.
How can any self-respecting artist attend?
I can’t think of a worse epitaph:
“Seattle thinks you’re a genius!”
Sure aren’t any backbiters in L.A.
Oh , BTW Grant, sorry you spent your fortune on a movie as pathetic as you are. KTHXBYE.
But seriously everyone else, how can you hold a whole state accountable for one shitty church? Look at what America has done in the last 8 years… should we not talk to each other because all our hands are bloody? Stop whining, get to work fighting bigots in a productive manner, and leave the silly film people alone.
Hey, Meow, at least I don’t talk shit anonymously on comment links.
I am under no illusions about Hollywood, but it doesn’t pretend to be a utopia, or a ‘community’, and isn’t small enough for shit-talkers to be noticed: Seattle is, however. Thanks for the memories, and keep sniping!
“…with the crackling glee of someone whose project is still perfect in his mind, not yet alloyed with the dull air of the actual world.”
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SENTENCE!
Grant Cogswell I had no idea what you were talking about so I googled your name.
You’re THE MONORAIL GUY?
That turned out well. You must be pretty proud of that achievement.
If you’ve “renounced” Seattle (according to Wikipedia) then wtf are you doing hanging out on Stranger message boards? Sad isn’t it???? Seems like renouncing Seattle would include no longer reading The Stranger.
all of you fucking lynn shelton haters are stupid. lynn shelton is brilliant! i would like to see any of you motherfuckers do anything that she has. i have seen almost all of her stuff including some humpday clips and its all awesome. humpday is hilarious, take it at face value. how many of you can say you got a film into sundance? thats what i thought. shut up.
madaminadam,
It must be nice for you to read about all those sundance theater owners (Cinemark and others) giving thousands of dollars to Mormons in order to deny me my rights.
It must be nice being such a hater.
Lynn Shelton is supporting hate and bigotry, pure and simple. She’s supporting a festival which will directly and disproportionally benefit people who do not think I am an equal citizen under the law.
But hey I guess I am just a second class citizen AND a motherfucker, according to you.
First of all none of you know whether her film is screening at a Cinemark theatre. NONE OF YOU. Not all of the theatres are Cinemark. And its certainly not “nice” to read about Cinemark’s support of the Mormon church. But if you think that everyone in the State of Utah supports the Mormon Church, you’re just plain wrong.
As for Lynn Shelton, she isn’t supporting a festival at all. A festival is supporting Lynn Shelton.
None of you are second class citizens or motherfuckers and that includes Lynn Shelton and every other filmmaker screening at the festival.
Lastly, I wonder how many queer people live in Utah. How many queer kids are growing up there? Just imagine how much a festival like Sundance has transformed that state making it more feasible for queers to live there at all. You must realize a boycott has an impact on those people, especially if it has an impact on the festival.
apttitle, oh yes, think of THE CHILDREN… the sweet little children!!
The kids in Utah will be harmed unless Mr. Cinemark can have his most profitable week of the year and donate all the money to deny me civil rights.
Lynn Shelton is profiting on the hate as well. Nobody said she’s supporting the festival. By going, she is supporting the hate.
The Sundance HQ is the Park City Marriott, fully staffed by tithing gay bashers.
You tell me how Shelton is supporting the hate when Sundance, much like our very own SIFF, and frankly every fucking film festival in country doesn’t pay mot of its filmmakers a dime. Nothing. If anything take out your aggression of the festival organizers not the filmmakers. Filmmakers get exploited by festivals, which is its own story entirely, and one I doubt The Stranger would ever cover.
Either way the point is moot. Very few people are boycotting Sundance, and if the press didn’t have their heads so far up their own asses they would be asking the filmmakers what they think of prop 8. Its the filmmakers who have the bully pulpit right now, and I can say with absolute certainty, most of them aren’t afraid to tell you what they really think.
Sundance ain’t cool this year. And all the true power players are going to the inauguration anyway!
Aptitle, rationalize all you want. Deep down you know anyone rejoicing in Sundance this year STINKS.
Nice writing Mudede.
Boycotts are often necessary and it is important to not succumb to being lauded by the wrong entities. Walk your talk. However, movies can be hugely influential propaganda for a cause, for a voice, and it is important that they play in places such as Utah, even Sundance, a somewhat tarnished version of it’s original self. What is once outside the norm is eventually swallowed by the culture and it then loses it’s edge and original marginal position. Look at the sixties for one. Boycotting Sundance doesn’t change the Mormons. However these movies represent another view and it is ironic that they are screened in a state such as Utah. Life is ironic. Kudos to all these wonderful filmmakers associated with Seattle, and the people that made them here with local labor who often must travel far from home to find work in their field. Praise too for those who worked at getting the tax incentives passed. That is part of this story. “Boys Don’t Cry” didn’t screen at Sundance for some reason but it was nurtured at Sundance Institute. They do take chances where other festivals might not. Kudos for those of you who are angry and voiced your opinions. I do hope things change soon for all of our sakes and for the lost children, many young boys in great numbers, who roam the streets after being banished from their Mormon homes, perhaps they are luckier than the girls who remain in those homes. For those of you who will be there protesting, kudos to you for exercising your rights.
(a local crew member who knows firsthand what it is to be blacklisted for standing up for her rights against abuse & for professionalism; at least I am in good company).
As Freud said…”Love and work… work and love, that’s all there is.” He also said, “The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.”
Sundance should stay in Utah and even in theaters owned by Prop 8 supporters because maybe instead of kicking and screaming and a whole lot of whining, those who are opposed to Prop 8 could try to work to positively change the opinions of others through cinema and art. Because just yelling at anti-gay rights supporters won’t actually solve anything. What better place to do this than at Sundance, the most important film festival in the country?
Here’s some info via indieWIRE about a panel held this year at Sundance regarding Prop 8.
Responding To Prop 8: Cooper, Rich Defend Sundance and the People of Utah
“This is my twentieth or twenty-first Sundance,” cultural critic B. Ruby Rich said at a panel today at the Queer Lounge. “In 1992, when we did the panel here on GLBT film and video, it was an amazing landmark event. At which people came out. People stood up in the audience and said ‘My name is such and such and I work for Disney and I’m gay.’ It was a very, very powerful moment… Sundance has been a beacon for queer filmmaking and queer film activity. It’s a place that’s been much more welcoming that any other large film festival or even most small film festivals that I can name. I mean, try going to Cannes. Try going to the big festivals. You don’t find anything, except for Berlin, like you find here.”
Rich moderated the panel, which focused on LGBT civil rights, film activism, and most dominantly, the controversy surrounding Proposition 8. Sundance’s Director of Programming John Cooper and “The Times of Harvey Milk” director Rob Epstein were among the panelists who sat down with Rich.
The passionate dialogue they collectively created spoke poignantly against the villainization of both Utah and the Sundance Film Festival in the months since the passing of Prop 8.
“In my experience here as a filmmaker,” Epstein expressed, “the most exciting aspect of the Q&As has always been with Salt Lake City residents. I’m always surprised. I forget that residents come to this festival and have a whole other experience that those of us in the industry.”
Cooper agreed. “Salt Lake has, and the whole Utah region around here has one of the most film literate communities there are outside of the two coasts,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing. I go down there and talk to the people… There’s old people that know, shit man, they know more than me. They’re quoting old movies, independent stuff too. It’s fascinating.”
But the argument went well beyond the cinematic interests of Utahans.
“Well first it was the call that Sundance needs to leave Utah,” Cooper said. “Just like that because it’s just that easy. Our organizations have no problem raising money at all and we just have thousands of millions of dollars in the bank. And we haven’t spent years and years building a community here. I didn’t want to leave here because I like the subversive nature of it. Personally, I like coming here to Utah.”
click here
Rich also said the fact that the festival occurs in Utah has an “extra subversive aspect to it,” and the fact that the world media being here “meant that you could make a really big difference.” “For me, it’s a question of right aim, wrong tactic,” Rich continued. “I think unfortunately, Prop 8 is one situation where it’s not ‘by any means necessary.’ I think some of the means have been wrong and I think that was a very understandable and angry but ultimately silly kind of reaction. It also shows what people don’t know. They don’t know that Salt Lake City isn’t a Mormon majority city. They don’t know that the University of Utah is a very progressive university. People don’t know what goes on in the rest of the country.”
Cooper admitted her never thought Prop 8 would pass in the first place. “That’s how naive I was,” he said. But when it did, in part due to large contributions to the “Yes on 8” campaign from the Mormon church, people immediately criticized Sundance’s relationship with Mormon-owned companies like Cinemark and Marriott.
“The whole thing about Cinemark,” he explained, “it just came down to [the fact that] by November were so locked in here. You know, the festival’s done. Everything is signed. It would have cost us close to, just to close Cinemark and not even find a place to do it, would have cost us probably half a million dollars… And that’s on top of us having to cut two million dollars out of our budget already because we know that sponsorship and all these other places that used to give money are fading away. So it’s a very scary time. It’s like, do I really believe in something so much that I’m going to create financial hardship and maybe ruin an organization I believe in? No.”
To an audience of many locals, Rich spoke about the challenges of LGBT life outside the obvious American cites.
“I used to say that being gay or lesbian was a great passport,” she said. “It got you out of your small town and you got out of this state in the middle of the country. It got you out of these places that nobody else was getting out of. You know, they’re still there selling used cars or something. I got out… There is a way in which there has always been a geography attached to being LGBT and there are people who defy that logic and stay where they grew up and hold on to an out identity. My hat off to all of you, because I think most people can’t do that.”
One of those people, a Mormon-identified transgendered lesbian, personified Cooper and Rich’s words.
“We need you here,” she said emotionally. “For those of you that don’t know Utah, can you picture Salt Lake City with 30,000 people at Pride? We do, for the last five years… We have a movement here and we need your help. Especially creative queer people in film because we don’t know where to go… So thank you for not listening to the boycott.” [Peter Knegt]
Good reporting from the front lines there at Sundance…this is not intended to take anything away from the Seattle movies playing Sundance, but it is relevant and it is timely. If you would like to see/support another movie shot in the NW based on the true story of a woman who rescues these kids from the Mormons…It was shot in Oregon & was mostly local Oregon crew. To view the trailer go to.
http://www.followtheprophetmovie.com/
World Premiere Screening
In Competition at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
A controversial thriller surrounding a young girl’s escape from a polygamy cult.
Screening Schedule:
Friday, January 23rd, 9:45pm, Metro 4
Saturday, January 24th, 1:45pm, Metro 4
Sunday, January 25th, 3:30pm, Victoria Hall
Tickets available at http://sbiff.org/site/
The Hotel Santa Barbara is the hub of the festival and they give discounted rates to festival goers.
We hope you can come and lend your support for the World Premiere of the film, or please feel free to pass this announcement on to anyone you think might be interested. Audience members have the opportunity to cast a vote for “Audience Favorite” – be sure to ask for your ballot if you come!
We appreciate your involvement and support for the film!
Red Road Productions
Follow the Prophet
Who will save the children?
Congrats Lynn Shelton & Company…
This just in from Indiewire
“Magnolia Takes “Humpday”; Film Will Go From VOD to Theatrical This Summer
Worldwide rights to Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday” have been acquired by Magnolia Pictures, the company announced tonight at the Sundance Film Festival. Magnolia said tonight that the film will launch on VOD …”
http://www.indiewire.com/article/magnoli…
Meanwhile, somewhere in reality, it’s cool that Seattle actually has a goddamned film being held in some sort of critical and commercial regard.
The musty wine-burb stink of this city’s self-loathing and its inherent hate and mistrust of anything that aspires to succeed is amazing. Someone needs to make a film about THAT.
Maybe those dudes in Bellingham in the other article.
teşekkürler yararlı manken bi yazı olmus