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Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s Award-Winning Filmmaker Jesse Kreitzer Presents First-Look at 3rd Annual Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival ( MNFF), Vermont Symphony Orchestra ( VSO), and Middlebury College’s Mahaney Center for the Arts are proud to present an exclusive first-look Jesse Kreitzer's latest film Caregivers, a hybrid documentary about eldercare in the hills of rural Vermont. Told over the course of four seasons and featuring live accompaniment by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the film is a powerful meditation on acts of compassion, grief, and the quest for closure. Currently in development, Kreitzer will detail the creative and conceptual evolution of Caregivers, pairing film excerpts with three live musical performances by a VSO chamber ensemble, including the world premiere of composer Paul Dedell's "Breath".
The event features takes place on Sunday, August 27 at Middlebury College’s Robison Hall at 1pm. Admission is free and open to MNFF badge holders and the general public. Attendees are encouraged to make tax-deductible donations to support the ongoing production of Caregivers via the Vermont Folklife Center ( VFC), a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor dedicated to preserving and sustaining the diverse cultures of Vermont. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the VFC. |
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A first-look at excerpts from Kreitzer's Caregivers will be presented in the Mahaney Center for the Arts' Robison Hall at Middlebury College on Sunday, August 27.
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In August 2016, Kreitzer was awarded the inaugural “ Vermont Symphony Orchestra Award for Best Integration of Music Into Film” at the 2nd annual MNFF for his short film Black Canaries, a 1900s coal mining folktale inspired by his maternal ancestry. As part of the award, the VSO paired Kreitzer with Dedell to collaborate on an original score for Caregivers and present it at next year’s festival.
"To see the VSO Award process bear this kind of innovative fruit is remarkable, honestly," said Lloyd Komesar, MNFF Producer. "We are really excited to see Jesse Kreitzer and Paul Dedell's collaborative effort unfold at this breakthrough Festival event, especially with the VSO performing the film score live in a perfect setting like Robison Hall at the Mahaney Center."
A native of Marlboro, Vermont, Kreitzer returned to his hometown in 2016 to produce Caregivers. This past year, he has formed partnerships and garnered support at state, regional and local levels to bring the film to fruition. “I have wanted to tell this story for over a decade and I now have the opportunity to do so,” said Kreitzer. “I spent the past year building a framework for the film to exist and will spend the next few years bringing it to fruition. This will be a wonderful opportunity to share the project in its current stage.”
Kreitzer intends to continue production on the feature-length version of Caregivers through 2018. In partnership with the VSO, he plans to tour the film with live accompaniment using a pay-what-you-can ticketing model to rural and medically underserved communities nationally and throughout Vermont, and partner with national, state and regional underwriters to do so. “Jesse is a talented Vermont filmmaker and his partnership with the VSO is a great example of the powerful stories in our community, and how Vermonters use their unique talents to tell them,” said Scott Campitelli, Vice President of Content for Vermont PBS. “We’re excited about the possibility of sharing this collaboration with our audience via Made Here, a Vermont PBS initiative that brings local stories to broadcast.” |
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A still from John Hanson's Northern Borders (Caméra d'Or, 1979 Cannes Film Festival), a pioneering hybrid documentary about North Dakota farmers. Hanson serves as a creative advisor on Caregivers.
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Rooted in the traditions of neorealist cinema, Kreitzer has embraced a “docu-narrative" hybrid approach to the film's production process. Working alongside eldercare staff, volunteers, and clients, opposed to professional actors, Kreitzer's goal is to reveal intimate, authentic, and deceptively simple exchanges between caregiver and client.
Filmmaker John Hanson, whose pioneering hybrid documentary Northern Lights was awarded the Caméra d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, signed on as one of the film’s creative advisors. "In Northern Lights, my first feature many years ago, we cast North Dakota farmers and small town folk in primary speaking roles,” said Hanson. “They brought a deep authenticity to the film and were a big part of why the film had success around the world. With his similar mix of documentary and dramatic techniques and his deep respect for the people featured in Caregivers, I’m sure Jesse will create a moving film destined for great acclaim.”
The Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging ( V4A), a statewide umbrella organization advocating for Vermont's five regional aging councils, showed enthusiasm for the project early on. “The journey of caregiving can be one of the most personal experiences we have,” said Janet Hunt, Executive Director of the V4A. “Knowing Jesse Kreitzer’s work, I am confident that Caregivers will shine a spotlight on the many dimensions involved from an emotional and physical vantage point. It is my hope that Jesse’s film will help to raise awareness of the need to enhance the supports for our Vermont caregivers.”
Limiting the film’s scope to southeastern Vermont, where Kreitzer is based, he partnered with Senior Solutions, the region's nonprofit aging council that has supported its elders, caregivers and families for over 30 years. “If we hope to live our lives fully and be supported as we age, we must not fear aging,” said Carol Stamatakis, Executive Director of Senior Solutions. “We must be willing to look upon elders and those who care for them without sentimentality. Jesse Kreitzer's groundbreaking work gently nudges us to open our eyes and see this.” |
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Featuring a live musical score by Paul Dedell, Kreitzer will present a collection of scanned glass plate negatives from photographer Porter Thayer, who documented Windham County in the early 1900s.
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Focusing primarily on non-medical, grassroots and in-home caregiving models, Kreitzer also partnered with the Brattleboro Area Hospice ( BAH), one of less than 200 volunteer-driven hospices left in the United States. “Caring for each other is not only a practical act, but a spiritual, emotional and communal one as well,” said Susan Parris, Executive Director of BAH. “It is an honor for the staff and volunteers at Brattleboro Area Hospice to work with filmmaker Jesse Kreitzer to share through film and music the depth of human experience at the end of life.”
Following the first-look event on August 2, Kreitzer will present Caregivers and Dedell’s “Breath” as part of the VSO’s Made in Vermont Statewide Tour. “The partnership between the VSO and the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival has now been a year in the making, and we’re so proud of what we’ve built,” explains Benjamin Cadwallader, VSO's Executive Director. “This is a pioneering partnership both for the VSO and for our industry, as few public orchestras award filmmakers an original score. We are thrilled to get a glimpse into the process by which composers, filmmakers, and orchestras work together to celebrate the interplay of sound and visual elements. And in keeping with the “Made in Vermont” theme of our September statewide tour, the fact that Paul, Jesse, and the film festival are all Vermont-based makes this project that much sweeter!”
The VSO's Made in Vermont Statewide Tour will take place from September 20-26 in Randolph, Woodstock, Brattleboro, Middlebury, Derby Line, and Castleton, Vermont. Click here for the full schedule and ticketing info.
Download the Caregivers/MNFF poster here:
Version 1 I Version 2 |
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Jesse Kreitzer: Truth in Filmmaking
By John Arvanatis, Take Magazine - July 28, 2017
“If you just say hospice care or elder care, you can sort of watch the walls get built up. We’re not good at it and we don’t talk about it. I get that, and I understand that very well, so the trick is to use narrative, stories, and cinema as a medium to get into these issues. I want to explore how we care for our aging communities, specifically in Vermont. I’m looking at what’s happening in my own backyard.”
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Vermont Filmmaker, Composer to Create Film on Elder Care By Amy Lilly, Seven Days - Jan 18, 2017
"Caregivers' topical subject matter makes it a movie to look out for. This is a real issue — our aging parents and how we tend to them," the young filmmaker says. "We're at this apex where our nation is getting older, yet death is still a cultural taboo."
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