‘Brix and the Bitch’ Offers Stronger Female Roles

By Julie Pendray

IDYLLWILD, Ca. — The story of a woman trying to escape an illegal fighting ring took top honors at Idyllwild International festival of Cinema in January. It was the first time  in the event’s  seven-year history that a “short” has won Best of Festival. “Brix and the Bitch” is just under 10 minutes.

The movie, which has garnered numerous awards at festivals across the United States, brought home the Best Director of a short award in Idyllwild for Nico Raineau . He’d been a finalist in Season 4 of HBO’s rebooted Project Greenlight right before he made this short.

In an interview after the Idyllwild festival, Raineau told me it marks a different direction for him.

“The Project Greenlight contest was very demanding and the experience very rewarding, but all the attention I received was for comedy. I felt myself being pigeonholed.”

So Raineau made the polar opposite: “Brix and the Bitch.”

“Rarely do we see films where women behave with the degree of raw violence as we feature in this one,” he said. “As a feminist filmmaker, boundaries need to be pushed in the pursuit of women having the same opportunities for creative expression as men, especially within the male dominated action genre, but I nonetheless recognized that the violence needed to be justified narratively.”

Nico Raineau directs Dre Swain (viewer’s left) and Alex Marshall-Brown in “Brix and the Bitch.” Photo courtesy Nico Raineau.

He said he wrote the film for actresses he already knew: Dre Swain and Alex Marshall-Brown . The women each won a Best Actress award among shorts at the festival. They tied with Academy Award winner Melissa Leo for her role in “Mother’s Day.”

“Brix and the Bitch” also won Best Editing and Cinematography  and Best Supporting Actor (David Carey Foster) in the short category.

Dre Swain (viewer’s left) and Alex Marshall-Brown tied for Best Actress in the Short category at Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in January. Still frame courtesy Nico Raineau.

Swain leads as the heroine known in the fighting circle as “The Bitch.”

She told me, “The roles were as challenging physically as they were emotionally – a rare combination to find for female roles. Our characters were not defined by our relationships to any of the men in the story. So many times it’s about whose wife, girlfriend, mistress we are. These ladies stand on their own and have their own compelling story to tell.”

Marshall-Brown, who plays The Bitch’s lover, Brix, said, “We’re in a new age for how women are represented in cinema.  As a society, we have not escaped the trend toward the manic pixie dream girl, the breathy voluptuous femme fatale, nor from those damsels in distress who frequently defer to the male hero’s ‘What’s next?’ plans.  However, the notion of a heroine, capable of garnering  her own salvation, is a fairly recent novelty which (gratefully) is gaining a more universal acceptance.”

Raineau said he was exposed to feminism from a young age by his mother, who raised him almost exclusively since his father’s work required him to travel a lot.

“She was an example of a strong woman who balanced parenthood, marriage, and being a business owner, and I think that influenced me quite a lot,” he told me.

Raineau said his girlfriend Lauren Schacher, a writer and filmmaker, also opened his eyes to gender inequality.

“She inspires me with her advocacy in the feminist movement,” he said. “She is very outspoken in the industry, not just in regards to feminism but also racial diversity. She is the co-host of a female oriented screenwriting podcast called Chicks Who Script.”

Marshall-Brown added, “Our focus on female empowerment was affirmed when the Connect Film Festival awarded us with The Bechdel Award.  We passed the Bechdel test proving that the success of the female characters driving our plot was not dependent on the influence of a man.  Winning that award was a great achievement for all of us.”

She said Raineau and Swain took great pains to develop The Bitch heroine.

“Allowing her journey to take shape in a hyper masculine environment, such as an underground fight ring, highlights the strength and ability for women to not only adapt but survive the obstacles intrinsic to our male driven society. She does not rely on someone to save her from her new-age indentured servitude. Yes, she does receive some help/guidance from her lover, but in the end she is responsible for claiming her own victory.  She has the power to buy her own freedom.”

Marshall-Brown said “The Bitch” is a “contentious moniker” worth discussing.

“It is most likely a label placed on her by the spectators within her fight ring, designed to belittle, degrade, and dehumanize her. Nevertheless, she claims it.  She stands strong within it, and grows empowered by the reputation she has built from it.”

Marshall-Brown came into this movie with a few years of martial arts under her belt.

“I’ve been training in Muay Thai (or Thai Boxing). It’s a system that utilizes punches, kicks, knees and elbows to engage in close combat.  I also have  a fair amount of combat training in other systems including kali, silat, and various performance-based weapons training.”

Swain trained with her in a gym to prepare for her performance.  She said the fight scenes are her favorites.

“I love getting to be physical as well as emotional, so when you put it all together, it’s an incredible challenge,” she said. “Exhausting, yes, but incredibly satisfying. I didn’t have any formal fight training going into the film. I was very strong and very fit and very active, but since I was playing a fighter (and sharing the screen with two actual fighters, Tim Storms and Alex), production put me in Muay Thai. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, prepping for this film. I changed my diet, my workout, my everything to get into the right shape to do Nico’s character justice. I’d wake up at 4:30 a.m., run, come home, shower, meal prep, go to my day job … weight lift after work, then go to fight training after lifting, then sprinkle in rehearsal, fight choreography, fittings, etc. It was the busiest, most exhausting, challenging time of my life. But I sincerely loved every second.”

Swain said her workout is still strict, though not as demanding.

“I run three days a week, weight lift five days a week and sprinkle in the occasional fight training/bouldering/dance class,” she said.

Swain said she kept up with the fight training because she fell in love with the workout, the discipline and the community. As far as diet goes now, she eats mostly paleo and keeps alcohol to a minimum, she said.

In some fight scenes, Swain appears almost like a gravatar due to the slow motion and fighting style, but Raineau said no digital effects were used.

“The visceral and realistic quality of the fights really comes down to the talented people involved in making the film,” he said.

Leo Kei Angelos was the fight director / stunt coordinator. He was a fellow Project Greenlight Top Ten Finalist with Raineau.

“Leo is a very talented director himself,” Raineau said. “We discussed the story and characters at length, and then Leo choreographed the fight sequence, beat by beat, with me interjecting to re-shape certain moves and moments to ensure the story was being told through the action and that each move was true to the characters.”

Marshall-Brown said Angelos has vast knowledge of physical dynamic movement.

“He built the fight around how our bodies move best,” she said.  “Also Dre did a phenomenal job of training beside me in a Muay Thai gym to build the necessary muscle memory to look like the ultimate fighter.  We rehearsed for a little over two weeks leading up to the shoot.  Once we got on set, we were a well-oiled machine. Some of the hits were masked to camera while others, like some of the stomach kicks, did involve direct contact.  Ultimately, we trained with safety as our primary focus.  All the blood that we shed was fake.  We did get fairly bruised up by the end of the shoot, but not much more than we anticipated.”

Nico Raineau directs Dre Swain in “Brix and The Bitch,” which won Best of Festival in Idyllwild. Photo courtesy Nico Raineau.

Makeup in the movie was realistic.

“Lili Kaytmaz was our kickass makeup artist,” Marshall-Brown said. “She made everything look more gruesome and brutally lifelike. That lady is crazy talented.”

Raineau said he met with Kaytmaz early in pre-production, once  the fight was mostly choreographed, and went through every movement of the fight to decide what the impact of each hit would look like.

“On set, we filmed the fight sequence in chronological order, stopping in between every few hits so Lili could add the proper make-up effects,” he said.

“Brix and the Bitch” won seven awards at Idyllwild. Photo courtesy: Nico Raineau.

John Gardiner was the award-winning cinematographer.

Scott Morris edited the movie. He was involved from the beginning, reading drafts of the script and providing feedback, Raineau said.

“I enjoy involving the editor in the story development process because, after all is said and done with shooting the film, the shaping of the story really comes down to the director and the editor sitting in a room together and deciding how the story is going to be told. Scott is remarkably talented and an intuitive storyteller, so he really helped bring this film to life.”

Swain, Marshall-Brown and Raineau are all based in Southern California. Swain grew up in Winfield, Kansas. Marshall-Brown describes herself as “a foreign service brat,” who grew up predominantly in the Caribbean and South Africa before attending boarding school in North Carolina. She later escaped the New York winters for more sunshine on the West Coast.

Raineau, a native of Mystic, Connecticut, started out as an actor in his high school drama club. Soon he realized he preferred directing.

In an interview for TheDay.com he said, “What I was so passionate about as an actor was embodying a character and getting to understand why someone does what they do and how they interact with the people around them. I realized that if you step back even further, a director gets to do that — but with all the characters. Then it becomes not just about psychology but also sociology. It just opened up a whole new world, and I haven’t looked back.”

At the Idyllwild awards ceremony, he gave perhaps one of the most heartfelt responses of the evening as he accepted a trophy for his team’s efforts.

“Being a film maker is f*****g hard,” he said in the spotlight. “We elevate each other.”

Judging by the inspiring stories of struggle and success that were socially shared by his peers during the festival, we can only imagine many in the audience could feel his “pain.”

You can view the official trailer for Brix and the Bitch on Vimeo by clicking here.

The movie will screen at these festivals in March and April:

Omaha Film Festival
March 8th – 13th
http://omahafilmfestival.org/

River Bend Film Festival
March 31st – April 2nd
http://riverbendfilmfest.com/

Phoenix Film Festival
April 7th – 14th
http://www.phoenixfilmfestival.com/

Copyright to Julie Pendray & SpecialsNotOnTheMenu.com . No permission is given for re-publication.

‘Art Bastard’ Visits Idyllwild

New York artist Robert “Bob” Cenedella is the subject of “Art Bastard” to be shown in Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. Used by permission.

By Julie Pendray

IDYLLWILD, Calif. — The “Art Bastard” has arrived in Idyllwild.

The man himself. And the movie.

New York painter Bob Cenedella is on his first visit to this mountain village, where this week people are braving snow to see more than 100 independent movies in Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. Cenedella is here to promote his autobiographical feature documentary with executive producer Chris Concannon.

Executive producer Chris Concannon and artist Bob Cenedella are in Idyllwild to promote their movie “Art Bastard.” Photo: Julie Pendray.

“Art Bastard” screens from 8 to 9:20 p.m. tonight at Caine Learning Center. The movie is interesting not only for art lovers but also for anyone fascinated by psychological profiles, history and sociopolitical commentary. Audiences will be reminded how cathartic creative expression can be. They’ll see an example of how kids who’ve been told they don’t fit and who feel that they’re failures can continue on as leaders, independent thinkers and successful people in their chosen fields. “Different” can be good. It can be better than good.

Cenedella has been an artist for more than 50 years, primarily portraying the colorful everyday life in New York City. His moniker Art Bastard derives from his discovery at age 6 that the man he thought was his father was not his biological dad. In the movie, he talks with his sister about their “dysfunctional family” and we learn he had a hard time learning in school because of dyslexia. We feel his pain as he works out his demons on canvasses throughout his life. Illegitimacy, anger and justice are recurrent themes, as the artist challenges institutions and battles to receive acceptance of his work. These days, having won international acclaim, he is an esteemed instructor passing along tips to the next generation at the same school where he received his art training, The Art Students League of New York.

In an interview in Idyllwild this week, Cenedella said his work is very serious but there’s a lot of humor in it. He loves color and his work shows his gift for observing humanity in intricate detail. He’s an emotional man, as the movie shows. Feelings are not only important to him in his life but also in his art.

“Art was the special part of life for me, the part that was above the gutter,” he says in his movie. “I had a number of things in my life that I wish weren’t true. I decided not to be a tragic figure.”

Cenedella moved from Massachusetss to the Big Apple with his family at age 12.

“Soho Lives,” by Bob Cenedella. Used by permission.

“Everything about New York was fascinating,” he says in the movie. “You could learn so much. Every neighborhood had different food. My work is a lot about the energy of the city.”

He grew up in a household that he describes as “fairly well off” until about 1953. His father was bumped from his job as head of the Radio Writers Guild and blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

“He’d never been a communist but that wasn’t the point,” the artist says. “We went into poverty immediately.”

Cenedella developed an anti-establishment attitude. He was expelled from the High School of Music and Art in New York for writing a satirical letter about the atom bomb drill to the school’s principal. He took his anger out in his art, which often includes violent scenes such as street brawls or fighters in boxing rings. His rebel personality  and “sardonic gallows humor” (as one interview subject describes it) have drawn polarized responses from the public.

“He’s a magnet. He’s loved by everyone!” one student enthuses in an unrelated online video clip, in which Cenedella is hugging everyone at an art reception. On the other hand, an art magazine editor interviewed for “Art Bastard” says of Cenedella, “He’s a pain in the ass.”

The movie cuts seamlessly between interviews with Cenedella’s family, art critics, museum directors, students, New York elite and the artist himself, to bring an honest and endearing profile of the man and an understanding of his work. The soundtrack is eclectic and fun,  including such diversity as Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” to A. J. Croce and Leon Russell’s “Rollin’ On” and a Gregorian Chant.

Along the way, while we see Cenedella’s need to stir things up and irritate, we can admire his survival skills and the way he can chuckle about his life, while trying to be the best dad he can be.

How many people might come chuckling out of an interrogation by CIA agents during the Nixon era? The movies relates how the agents believed Cenedella’s photographic dart board targets of political figures encouraged violence.

“But I was about reducing the violence by taking it out of the streets and into a game,” he says. “At the end of the interview, the agents asked for a Johnson dart board,” Cenedella tells us in the movie, with a hearty chuckle.

Some of the artist’s work is filled with the faces of celebrities and politicians, while others depict everyday people on the streets or in bars. Many of the paintings include such a detailed montage of elements that it takes considerable time to figure out the bigger picture. The canvasses are so complex and colorful that you can almost hear the ruckus of the crowd and feel the jostling elbows.

“Battlefield of Energy,” by Bob Cenedella. Used by permission.

His 1985 painting “Third Movement”is an example of his political work. In the piece, Hitler is conducting an orchestra. Some people in the audience have Hitler-like mustaches.

The message?

“You can criticize Hitler but he had many people who went along with him,” Cenedella says.

In “Southern Dogs,” police have dogs’ heads and the dogs have police heads. Which is which?

“Southern Dogs” by Bob Cenedella. Used by permission.

Cenedella describes his style as closest to German expressionism. He was influenced by his mentor, exiled German satirical painter George Grosz, who was his instructor at The Art Students League of New York.

George Grosz, Bob Cenedella’s mentor. Used by permission.

“There have been people who’ve told me that I’ve missed the boat. They say no one does that type of art any more,” he says in the movie. “Again, I’m not legitimate.”

In the 1960s era of Andy Warhol’s pop art and the abstract artists, Cenedella’s controversial subject matter set him apart from the mainstream commercial art world. He was considered the anti-Warhol.

He still eschews what he considers mindless art that fetches big bucks.

“You can’t do a bad abstract,” he says. The modern lack of standards and definition of art are contentious issues for him.

“The abstract form was the perfect thing to ignore what this country had been going through,” he says. “My heroes were the guys from the 20s and 30s, like (George) Bellows …. They painted the lynchings in the South and scenes from the Depression. They recorded history.”

Cenedella would like the art world and the public to review his work based on his traditional painting skills, rather than seeing him as akin to a political cartoonist. For example, he said in our Idyllwild interview, he has used white lead for luminescence sometimes like old masters such as Vermeer. Oil painting allows him to work in many layers, giving depth to the colors and feelings of each piece. He appears to be a man of deeply thoughtful, insightful layers himself.

How do we define the value of art? Who decides what is “good”? These are questions the movies raises.

“Money and art have nothing to do with each other,” Cenedella says. “You can bastardize everything else in life but if you compromise with art, why be an artist?”

In the mile high village of Idyllwild, which draws artists and independent spirits by the droves, this message should resonate well.

It’s not that Cenedella is opposed to wealth. His biological father — a Colgate University English professor — bequeathed an island off the coast of Maine to him. Cenedella now sometimes enjoys quiet and lack of electricity there.

Here in Idyllwild, I asked him about the issues he’s most concerned about now.

“I’ve been commissioned to do a piece on the end of the world. I just hope I have time to finish it,” he said with a hearty laugh.

He’s worried about what the world will be like for his grandchildren.

“There are more guns than people in the United States and it’s still not enough apparently,”he said.

But Cenedella keeps rollin’ on through life.

“I laugh more than most people” he told me, “even though I’m consumed by the unpleasant.”

“Art Bastard” is directed by Victor Kanefsky.

To see the trailer, click on this Vimeo link.

Caine Learning Center is at 54385 Pine Crest Ave., Idyllwild.

Copyright to Julie Pendray and SpecialsNotOnTheMenu.com

 

 

 

‘Story Behind Nights in White Satin’ Up for Best Documentary

By Julie Pendray

IDYLLWILD, Ca. — When the ethereal strains of “Nights in White Satin” hit the airwaves in 1967, radio DJs knew there was something different about them. Eventually the public caught on to the symphonic and trance-like sound that included the deep tones of a new keyboard instrument, the mellotron, accentuating the crescendos of the heartfelt melody.

The Moody Blues were on their way into the psychedelic era with the groundbreaking album Days of Future Passed. They set the tone from then on with a style that was “elegant, artistic and complicated,” according to music and documentary producer David Minasian. It earned the British band the highest of praise from Rolling Stone magazine, which dubbed them The Sistine Chapel of Rock.

Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema will rekindle the public’s love affair with that hit song next month with “The Story Behind Nights in White Satin,” Minasian’s movie, which is nominated for Best Documentary.

David Minasian,music and movie producer. Photo courtesy David Minasian.

It’s Minasian’s first participation in the Idyllwild festival, which is coming into its seventh year. This week, in a phone interview, he said he’s “very excited.” The Hemet resident said he’s especially delighted that festival producer Trinity Houston is allowing time for one of his other movies, “Watching and Waiting,” too. Both highlight Moody Blues songwriter Justin Hayward.

Hayward was 19 years old when he wrote “Nights in White Satin.” He was facing the end of one love affair and the beginning of another. Soon after he penned the song, he joined The Moody Blues and offered it to them for the landmark album that became known as one of the first successful “concept” efforts.

Days of Future Passed was about the life of “everyday man” during one day, according to a BBC interview with Hayward in recent years. It also expressed humanity’s interest in the mystical. The band had been looking for fresh ideas and a new sound. They decided to drop acid to pave the way.

“We were searching for some kind of enlightenment,” Hayward said in the interview. (LSD) opened the door in my mind. I could see the world as it really was.”

An early performance of “Nights in White Satin.” Still frame courtesy of David Minasian.

In the “White Satins” documentary, we hear how the delay of a flight bringing The Supremes to a television show in France gave The Moody Blues an opportunity to go on-air with its brand new song that would become a mega hit.  The documentary shows the first time the group performed the song on film. It was shown on French television within days of the album’s release.

“The whole story of how this song became a hit is interesting,” Minasian said. “Days of Future Passed was a demo record to showcase stereo, which was just coming out. Decca wanted to show that stereo could be used for both orchestral music and rock. They decided to come up with an album that blended both.”

The album features The London Festival Orchestra.

“The song didn’t even reach number 1 on Billboard until 1973,” Minasian said. “Half the people at Decca wanted to release it and half didn’t. Some thought it was too long.”

“Nights in White Satin” expresses the sweetness and exhilaration of love, with the mellotron for grand dramatic effect. It was the single that propelled the album to fame.

“The mellotron hadn’t been used before,” Minasian said. “It was difficult to play. The only guy who could play it was Mike Pinder, the keyboardist in The Moody Blues, because he’d worked for the manufacturer. Nothing else sounded like it.”

The Moody Blues went on to sell more than 70 million albums worldwide, collecting 18 Platinum and Gold Discs.

Minasian’s documentary is one of an estimated 100 movies and shorts to be presented at Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema Jan. 5 to 10 at various venues. Idyllwild is a mountain town between Palm Springs, Los Angeles and San Diego. The festival draws tourists and movie makers from all over the United States and the world.

“The Story Behind Nights in White Satin” will screen at 7 p.m. Jan. 6 at The Rustic Theatre. Minasian and executive producer Michael Pinkus will do a question and answer session with viewers after the movie, then there’ll be a screening of “Watching and Waiting,” a piece about a solo Hayward concert. For more information on the screenings and accompanying  VIP reception, click here.

Still frame courtesy David Minasian.

Minasian and Pinkus have worked with Hayward and The Moody Blues on a variety of projects. DVDs of some of the Hayward performances are available through PBS stations.

Today’s version of The Moody Blues band includes original 1964 drummer Graeme Edge, along with Hayward and bassist John Lodge from the 1966 lineup. They’ll start a 23-cities tour March 3 in Florida. For details, click here.

To see the schedule of the Idyllwild festival screenings click here. Tickets are available through the festival web site

Copyright Julie Pendray and SpecialsNotOnTheMenu.com