9 @ night
In 1988, the day after my film HEAT AND SUNLIGHT won the Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, I drove through the San Francisco Tenderloin district on the way to my editing room. The Tenderloin, then as now, was a place where law enforcement paroled people out of prison, where drugs, prostitution, and gang violence flourished, where ordinary citizens walked the streets with practiced care.
My younger brother Greg, diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic and a missing homeless man for the previous 10 years, was on my mind that day as I watched the shopping bag ladies, the brown baggers, the screamers, the hookers and the gang bangers mingle with citizens just minding their own business and trying to survive. As in all my trips through the Tenderloin, I thought I might see Greg on the Glide Memorial food line or at Hospitality House waiting for drug counseling. He didn’t appear, but something else happened that day.
In 1992, along with Rand Crook and Ethan Sing, I started the Tenderloin yGroup, a free acting workshop and cinema production ensemble working in the San Francisco Tenderloin and serving inner city residents, professional actors and all comers. A place for marginalized people to learn and practice the Direct Action Cinema method of making community movies, our “players” came from all walks of life and every kind of experience. Some overcame homelessness, substance abuse and mental disturbance and used workshop experiences as a form of empowerment. Others were interested in acting for personal reasons and came to experience the strong emotion and human orientation for which our workshops were known.
We had as many as 50 people attending our player’s workshop each week, representing all races, countries, denominations, sexual identities and self definitions… an inner city melting pot of people and ideas. Gradually we developed a working ensemble of 25-35 players who met regularly, rehearsed and acted in our collaborative films. In our system actors are called players, recalling the traveling players, minstrels and acting troupes of Medieval Europe but also emphasizing the human “play” of collaboration, improvisation and the expression of cathartic emotion. Although most members were amateurs, professional actors also participated because of our emphasis on honesty, strong emotion and self- realization.
Our first dramatic feature, CHALK, was voted one of the top films of 2000 by the Village Voice. Other films have played around the world to excellent reviews including retrospectives at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Mill Valley International Film Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pacific Film Archives, the .MOV Festival and the Manila International Film Festival in the Philippines, the Fargo International Film Festival, Resfest both in Korea and in South Africa, the Kansas City Filmmaker’s Jubilee and many others.
For the last nine years we have been at work on 9 @ night, a series of stand alone dramatic features which together create a portrait of 40-50 marginalized inner city characters at the turn of the 21th century. Kieslowski’s DECALOGUES, or his RED, WHITE, BLUE series were an inspiration in the direction we have pursued in this project. Now, we have completed 9 @ Night features, and we’re preparing for the premiere of the entire series.
As we begin work on our new venture, Citizen Cinema, based in the East Bay, where we will continue our cinematic work with everyday citizens and film professionals, we are ready to market and promote our 9 @ night series for release in 2008. We are planning to work with community institutes, film festivals and international art venues to make the 9 @ night film series known to the world.
September 17th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Hi Rob -
- I want to touch in with you and send to you my support of what you are doing. Your work and direction resonate with me and what I am doing. I have several commonalities with you.
- In 1971, my first job in San Francisco, outside of working at ACT, where I had come for acting training, was at Hospitality House. I assisted Richard Rekow, who ran a theater project there. My specialization was in the Theater Games of Viola Spolin, who had been my teacher when I was a teenager in Chicago, my home town.
- Now, I teach independent filmmakers how to use improvisation in their rehearsal process, along with Stanislavski’s techniques from his later life, which incorporated improvisation.
- I create original scripts using a combination of improv & writing. What I am drawn to is creating theater, and now film or video about issues most people want to keep secret, but desperately need to get out in the open. One of these “theater pieces” that I co-wrote and acting in made it to off-Broadway.
- I also have taught at FAF, and now teach ACTING for student filmmakers and animators at Cogswell Polytechnical College’s Digital Motion Picture Dep’t. In 1979, I started a school and theater in San Francisco, The Next Stage, where I train actors, directors and total beginners in improvisationally-based acting (I’m not sure what to call this, but you know what I mean).
- I now have several students who have created successful feature length films, using the techniques I teach. I first heard about you thru one of them.
- I would love to know more about what you are doing. I am looking for opportunities for me as an actor and director that connect me with like-minded artists who are focused on getting out to the public the untold stories of forgotten members of our society. I use Theater, Film and Video as tools for healing and education.
- I would love to talk to you about your work and see what you are doing.
Thanks -
Marcia Kimmell
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I wanted to let anyone who knew him and loved him, that Richard Rekow passed away last night, the night before Thanksgiving…
November 27th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
please email me if you’d like to contribute to Richard Rekow’s obituary. thank you.
palms joined
_/|\_
November 27th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
[gary dot gach at gmail dot com]
thanks, r. nillson for the bandwidth; i owe you one. gary
December 6th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I was very close to Rich during the late 70’s and well into the 80’s. We kept up intermittently in subsequent years. I would love to add what I could to an obituary.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hi,
I wanted to find out whether there is going to be the possibility of obtaining your series on DVD - Region 2 for Europe - UK.
Please, the following is a bit cheeky - sorry; but would it be possible at all to arrange for the information to be posted through Diane Gaidry’s blog. There is a huge following of funs interested in Diane Gaidry’s work and we read frequently updates posted on that site.
Many, many thanks.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
A blaze of poetic symbols derived from the human experience.
Love.. Hate.. Energy.. Angst..
All Raw and True. An achievement that would have made maestro Cassavetes proud..
Can’t wait to see it Mr. Rob!
– Raymund Cruz
August 14th, 2008 at 1:01 am
My condolence as to the loss of Richard Rekow go out to all.
I appreciate this opportunity to be able to remark on the workings of the above #1 responder named Marcia Kimmell along with Richard Rekow as well. I believe at this time in my life I would much rather attend her school, “The Next Stage” in San Francisco than even my life long dreams of attending ACT in San Francisco after reading about her accomplishments in her remark. I find myself impressed by her achievements.
Julie Marie Angel
September 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Julie -
- I just read your email by chance. I was looking for my own website (www.sillyzen.com) which has disappeared. I am sending an old one I had with AOL in the slot given for replies.
- I am a little shocked to hear about Richard Rekow’s passing. Does anyone know what caused his death? He was a dynamic actor, director and teacher. I was fortunate to work with him.
- I’m glad to hear you are interested in my work. I love it and love sharing it. I hope you read this and email me at marciakimmell@sbcglobal.net. I would love to tell you more about it and why ACT inspired me to start The Next Stage for people who wanted a safe place to take risks.
- I hope we talk -
Marcia Kimmell
September 7th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Rob -
- Thanks for 9-at-night. I would like to stay in touch with you.
- After we met I got a job teaching beginning level Theater and Video Production at a San Francisco public high school. It has been the most challenging job I have ever had. AND I know I am in the right place. I love exposing kids to how to work with a script improvisationally and giving them a chance to make a movie instead of just passively watching. They are so vital. I feel I am letting the beasts out of the cages and letting them play as they are meant to. It’s like riding a bucking bronco.
- I hope you are doing wonderful things!
Marcia
January 17th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Dear Rob Nilsson,
Your film series 9@night is so poignant, precious and rare. There is an incredible progression.The narration and how the films are related together is really intelligent and the directing very intuitive. There is also poetry in the desperation of all those broken souls fighting for survival … it’s really addictive and your actors (the players) are just phenomenal.
I found Keiron McCartney exceptional in “Pan”, who has such a strong presence. In “Stroke” who impacted me a lot, Teddy Weiler delivers an astonishing performance and Edwin Johnson is remarquable. There is kind of a variation around “Midnight cow boy” where those two lost souls who decided to survive together, disappear … together. Nobody saw it. Except us … the spectator !
Drowned in our memories. The water like a mirror. The weight of culpability.
Cory Duval is really energetic, filling his life with situations in “Scheme C6”. And very Intense in his wheel chair in “Need”.
And What about Robert Viharo ? He has such an animal presence which reminds me Harvey Keitel’ s work. Violence on the edge. Massive and charismatic performance. In “Noise”, “Used”, “Attitude”.
I think that Michelle Anton Allen did in “Go Together” is really profound and touching. This long shot in the kitchen with the couple collapsing in the routine of everyday life is extremely powerful. The sex scene is also beautiful as it was in “Heat and Sunlight”…
The flesh, the violence of the sentiment, the impact of music ….
I like also the dimension of women in your films. You know them, one can feel it. “Need” propose some great portraits of them.
There are many things in your movies.Complexity and beauty. Sense and meanings. Pains and sorrows. There is also brutality, violence and hope. “Pan”, this beautiful character doesn’t quit. On the last scene, by planting these seeds with the young boy, Pan gives hope to humanity …
And there is love. Tons of Love.
As I told you before, I have discovered Cassavetes’s movies in Avignon, France at a festival in 88.”Opening Night”, “Love streams” and “Faces”, blew me away.
20 years after I discover your direct action cinema which has its own style and spirit. On the same path.
Finally what 9@night film series do ? It flatters and unleash your creative instincts. Don’t pretend, just do ! I started to write my script the night I finished to watch your series.
So Rob, I really thank you.
And let me say that I admire your tenacity, your freedom and your kindness.
It’s really a lesson, for us, as an audience and personally as a filmmaker to receive your work and share the experience.
I will finish this letter by listening to the great song by David Hess on the end credits of “Go Together” …
Vagabond !
Merci.
Laurent Le Gall
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I knew Rich Rekow when he taught a drama class at Stanford in 1969. He was one of the most gifted actors and coach for other actors I have known… I remember him to this day and wanted to find him and so googled him and found these notes… I had to add my thoughts…
June 29th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
It is funny how trailers to movies sometimes make the movie a heck of alot better than it would be. Any other good ones coming out this summer?