Strange Culture in Theaters This Month!

Strange Culture is getting theatrical distribution. The film tells the tale of Steve Kurtz, a real-life artist suffering outrageous harassment from the Justice Department. Following the sudden death of Kurtz' wife in 2005, Steve found himself the subject of an investigation leading to bio-terror charges. Though the health department ruled that there was no foul play in his wife's death, and a grand jury refused to hand down any bio-terror charges, the Justice Department continues to pursue JAIL TIME for misdemeanor charges dealing with improper paperwork used to requisition harmless bacteria used in high school labs all over the country.


It's a scary, Kafka-esque tale, and anyone concerned about civil liberties in this country needs to see this film. Indiewire called it, “…probably the best and certainly the most urgent film in the (Sundance) Frontier section…”

Lynn Hershman directed it. Hiro Narita shot it. I consulted on the script.

The film opens in the Bay Area on September 21.

ROXIE FILM CENTER in San Francisco
Nightly at 6:00, 8:00 & 9:30. Plus Sat, Sun & Wed at (2:00) & 4:00.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER, San Rafael
For showtimes: www.cafilm.org or call 415-454-1222

It opens in New York at the MOMA(!) on October 1, and at Cinema Village on October 5.

I'll keep you updated if this film gets broader distribution. Let's hope it does!

Strange Culture at the SF Int'l..

Strange Culture played the San Francisco International Film Festival last night. It was great fun! Writers lead quiet lives of lonely desperation. Screenwriters at least get to go out and get comped a movie ticket and a cocktail every once in a while.

Fun aside, there's nothing like a film festival to really bring home what you're trying to do. There's an audience, and they're gonna laugh or not laugh at your jokes. When you meet them, you get to remember just how special and powerful writing can be.

There's the film crew... and you remember how you're just one cog in the wheel. You talk to the sound operator, or the post production supervisor, the actors, the director. Everyone is linked by the fact that they've ALL been working in their own field to tell the same story. You remember how screenwriting is more about getting all those people working toward a single goal, and not about a clever line of dialogue.

In this case, I remembered how many shifts, changes, and warping screw ups this film went through. It's a narrative/documentary hybrid (some would say mongrel). It was conceived as such. Then they ran out of money and time, and tried to piece together a narrative. That didn't work. Then they got some more money and time. Then the facts of the case changed. Then it got cut and recut numerous times, both for artistic and legal reasons. What you see is the product of a lot of people working very hard. It could have failed at any number of points.

Writers, myself included, place huge value in their words. It's natural. As a new screenwriter, I never understood what a script has to stand up against in the production process. I'd worry about a line here or there, or fight to the death to defend a paragraph of backstory that means nothing to the people who'll use the script to make a film.

Going to film festivals reminds me of how strong your base idea has to be, and how simply and carefully you have to communicate it.

Strange Culture

For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area, a film I helped write is at the San Francisco International Film Festival this year. It's playing at the Castro Theater on Saturday, April 28. Full information, other dates, and the blurb are here.

The movie is called Strange Culture, and it stars Thomas Jay Ryan, Tilda Swinton, and a very chatty Josh Kornbluth. It tells the ongoing, true story of artist Steve Kurtz, who has been a victim of Justice Department harrassment for two years. After his wife died unexpectedly, Steve woke to the horrible realization that he was a suspect in her death after authorities found bacterial cultures used in his art, as well as books on civil liberties abuses and the war on terror in his house. A day later, the cause of her death was determined to be an undiagnosed heart condition, and the Buffalo, NY police and health department publicly cleared Kurtz. But the Justice Department wasn't done with him. To this day, they refuse to drop a groundless case against him, opting instead to push for endless court date deferments, in hopes of either bankrupting Kurtz through legal fees and forcing him to cop a plea, or of the case fading from the public eye.

I'm credited as "Script Consultant" which means I wrote, rewrote, reconceptualized, and brainstormed with the director in the months up to and just after principal photography.