For her remake of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” filmmaker Marissa Chastain didn’t have the big bucks the original production spent on replica stunt cars for the famous scene where parking attendants take a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder for a joyride.
After losing her job as a comedian and yoga instructor during the Covid-19 pandemic, the 36-year-old Chicago resident’s biggest budget was a $ 9 remote-controlled toy.
What she did have were two roommates willing to be her co-director and cast, access to the same Windy City locations as the original, and a sense of humor. The latter turned out to be the most important to get one of the 11 finalists in The Sweded Film Festival for Creative Re-Creations.
“We have to create this despair,” said Chastain. “The pandemic made that clear among the three of us, that no matter what happens, we’re still here creating – even if there’s no money behind it, it’s something that drives us as humans.”
Now in its fourth year, the Sweded Film Festival for Creative Re-Creations is a celebration of homemade versions of cinematic classics. Among the other short films shown that trade CGI for duct tape and cardboard are loving recreations of “Air Force One,” “Die Hard,” and “No Country for Old Men.” For this episode, the Pittsburgh-based festival has gone national and virtual, both as a concession and an opportunity emerging from the pandemic.
Even if this film festival doesn’t exactly carry the prestige of Cannes or Sundance, there is some serious cause behind those ridiculously cheap production values.
Half of the $ 3.99 ticket price for the virtual screenings starting Feb. 12 goes to relief for participating independent theaters devastated by the economic fallout from Covid-19.
“It’s about easing pent-up demand,” said Brian Mendelssohn, owner of Row House Cinema in Pittsburgh and the festival’s founder. “The fact that we can’t really go to the movies, enjoy the movie experience, and love movies the way we traditionally love them – this is an outlet for people to enjoy movies, even though they can’t watch a movie in a movie. cinema. “
Mendelssohn, whose theater closed during the pandemic, had some success raising money for this cause with the Quarantine Cat Film Festival last June. That showing of cat videos grossed $ 75,000 for participating independent theaters, he said, with the same 50-50 split of the shot.
Every dollar now counts for those theaters. According to Comscore, a media analytics company, only 35.4 percent of North America’s 6,037 movie theaters are currently open.
Those who can keep their doors open are far from thriving. Studios have repeatedly run into big-budget movies, driving moviegoers to theaters, either to later release dates (such as the Bond movie “No Time to Die”) or straight to streaming (“Wonder Woman 1984”).
The domestic box office plummeted 81 percent in year-over-year returns from 2019 to 2020, the National Association of Theater Owners reported. Losses ranged from 70 to 100 percent, depending on location and state restrictions, a trade organization spokesperson said by email.
The longer the pandemic lasts, the more likely many independent theaters will not reopen.
“The owners of these independent theaters have a deep love and affection for movies, but not necessarily big pockets to withstand the pandemic’s devastating impact on the industry,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior box office analyst for Comscore. “They don’t have the kind of financial base that can keep them inactive for months.”
The first Swedish film festival was launched in 2016, two years after Mendelssohn opened Row House Cinema.
“When we opened a movie theater in 2014, we mainly showed older movies, and a lot of them didn’t have trailers or the trailers were really outdated,” said Mendelssohn. “So after a while we made our own trailers, just with the staff as actors.”
The inspiration came from the 2008 Michel Gondry-directed comedy “Be Kind Rewind”, starring Jack Black and Mos Def as video store clerks who were forced to recreate scenes from the films they accidentally deleted. The term “Sweden” comes from a joke in the movie, as customers are told that replacement VHS tapes are on the way from Sweden.
“Then our audience wanted to get involved a little bit,” Mendelssohn added, “so we just decided to go ahead and do a little competition.”
A total of 17 theaters in 13 states have signed up to show the Sweded Film Festival this year, although organizers expect the number to surpass 100 on February 12.
One of the participating theaters, the historic Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon, Washington, is of great interest. Manager Roger Gietzen’s version of “Stop Making Sense” is one of the finalists.
Filmed with real instruments, the 3-minute 45-second film is an ode to the 1984 concert film – only with round-eyed cardboard cutouts taking center stage instead of the actual Talking Heads.
“I don’t think we all met as staff, except through Zoom in the 10 months before we made the video [in December]’Gietzen said.’ So everyone was just excited. ‘
The cutouts were part of an earlier fundraising initiative at the Lincoln Theater, in which customers sponsored cut-out versions of themselves to sit in the audience during live concerts filmed and virtually screened at the venue. With the theater closed since March 9, Gietzen and his staff, many of whom were given leave earlier this month, need to be creative to have a chance to return.
Gietzen said that the Sweded Film Festival gate not only solves the theater’s financial problems, but serves an equally important function.
“I hope the public will see the joy that went into making these films,” said Gietzen. “To see how committed we all are.”