Director: Jeremiah Zagar

Running Time: 4:00

For more information visit: www.cinemantics.net,
www.hzfilms.com

Official Selection:
• SXSW Film Festival
• Tribeca Film Festival
• Times bfi London Film Festival
• The Hamptons Int'l Film Festival
• Brooklyn Underground Film Festival
• Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival
• World Wide Short Film Festival
• Palm Beach Int'l Film Festival
• Indianapolis Int'l Film Festival
• Coney Island Film Festival
• Jacksonville Film Festival
• 1 Reel Film Festival
• Gen Art IGNITE
• San Francisco International festival of Short Films

A mix of 35 mm film, digital video, and animation, this documentary becomes a dream as a man reminisces about his youth in Coney Island.

Jeremiah Zagar was born in South Philadelphia in 1981. At 19, he shot DELHI HOUSE, a documentary about a hospital and orphanage in India. The short premiered at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival and went on to screen at the Egyptian Theater in L.A. and on PBS affiliates across the country. A year later, Zagar's THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH was a semifinalist in the student Academy Awards and was named Best Narrative Short in the Philadelphia Film Festival. The movie has screened at a number of festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival and Denver International. Zagar's BABY EAT BABY, a film about war and truth starring nude babies and people made of clay, premiered at the 2004 Florida Film Festival and was named Best Experimental Short at the Atlanta Film Festival. Zagar is currently filming a documentary about his father, the artist Isaiah Zagar, and he hopes to return to India to expand DELHI HOUSE into a feature. His first feature-length screenplay, PAPER GIANT, was given the Irene I. Parisi award in the Set in Philadelphia Screenwriting Competition, and he is putting the finishing touchEs on a new script called OLIVE. A graduate of Emerson College, Jeremiah lives in Brooklyn and teaches filmmaking to high school students.

What inspired you to make this piece?

My mother encouraged me to make a movie about my father. This was one of his stories.

Briefly tell us how you made your film or video: what camera and format did you use to shoot your piece, and what system did you use to edit it? What is your working process? Did you use any special techniques to make this work?

We shot on 35mm and Digital Video. Editing was done on an AVID. Our animation was handled by Jon Cammisa and Version 2.

Do you have any interesting behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this particular work?

Nothing too exciting other than the fact that we only had three or four days to prep for the shoot. Cinemantics was executive producing a series of short films called "Ten Takes on NY" and when another filmmaker dropped out, we were brought in at the last minute. We cast, found locations, and pulled our crew together on incredibly short notice.

The boy in the film was my cousin and he never did anything exactly the way I asked, but everything he did imperfectly turned out better than anything I could have dreamed up.

What is the relationship between your work as a video/filmmaker and life in the New York metropolitan area?

I love New York and Coney Island especially. Just yesterday I jumped off Steeplechase Pier and thought god I wish this were on film.

What films/videos and makers have inspired you or influenced your work? And why?

So many but recently RATCATCHER by Lynne Ramsay and THE TIN DRUM by Volker Schlöndorff. I'm not sure why but they stick with me. Errol Morris certainly influenced me -- just his idea of being able to do a re-creation in documentary and make it beautiful and interesting enabled me to envision this.

If viewers are interested in obtaining copies of your work for rental and purchase, whom should they contact and at what address and phone number?

Inquiries regarding CONEY ISLAND, 1945 should go to Ari Krepostman of Cinemantics, LLC. His email address is: ari@cinemantics.net

For inquiries regarding all other work including the feature-length documentary also on my father, you can contact mail@hzfilms.com. More information is available @ http://www.hzfilms.com/