documentary Get a taste of revolution Mahershala Ali’s first starring role from writer-director Daniel Klein finally premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival in October after a 25-year delay. Now, the film is being screened at the 4th Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF).
Following the film’s premiere at a film festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Klein shared some insights into the project’s long journey during a brief Q&A, which was also witnessed by Colin Trevorrow The long journey of the project (jurassic world franchise) appeared in several small roles and served as executive producer. Ali plays a revolutionary leader named MacLaszlo who leads a summit of a group of young people hoping to change the world and vent some frustrations. The story is told through the lens of two filmmakers documenting the summit on camera.
Get a taste of revolutionKline’s feature directorial debut was completed in 2001 but was shelved after 9/11, with Kline and collaborators later reviewing the footage and editing it into the film during the coronavirus pandemic. Phil Cohen, Maury Loeb, David Link and Kevin Link produced the project, with Ali, Klein, Trevorrow and Cohen serving as executive producers. The cast includes Alexander Birou, Jeremy Dubin, Jane Niles, Jeremy Belle and Ali’s current wife Amatous Sami-Karim.
“Mahershala and I were both in school. He was an acting school graduate, about to graduate, and I was an undergrad in film,” Klein told the RSIFF audience. “We met in a coffee shop and started talking about music and basketball, and then it branched out into everything else.” Kline mentioned the project, telling Ali: “I can make this movie without spending any money,” he recalled. . “I really hope you’ll come join us.”
But Klein devised a different character for Ali, Malik Brown, who was eventually played by Kevin Bozeman. “[Ali]came to me and said, ‘I shouldn’t be like this. Why can’t I be the leader of this group?’ I said, ‘Oh, this is a comedy. This guy is supposed to be super boring. That’s not you at all. . He said, “Please let me come in and read it. “He came in and read for the role. You can see it on screen and he’s just otherworldly. He’s fantastic. And the opportunity to work with him.
When Klein was trying to make a comedy, he shared, “I had no idea what I was doing.” When Ali came on board, “he was so great, and then it stopped being a comedy,” Cline recalled. “Then it becomes different and my perspective is better and more resonant.”
But then the terrorist attacks happened. “We were in post, 9/11 happened, and all of a sudden the movie made no sense,” Klein told the Saudi audience. “It felt like a weird, dated production. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was a young filmmaker. I didn’t know what to make of it, so we pieced it together for the cast and crew It’s a shameful clip, and it’s incredibly embarrassing. I mean, it’s a shame to share this movie. I want to respect the people who put the time and effort into it, because we didn’t give it to them. Money. I showed them that movie and it was literally one of the two worst nights of my life and then we buried it.
He sees it as a learning experience just like the past. “Then (Ali) won the Oscar, and then he won his second Oscar. So I sent him a clip from the movie,” Kline recalled. “Here he was giving a speech. It was three minutes and 45 seconds. He was so great. He called and said, ‘We have to finish this movie.’
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, people couldn’t film new projects, so the team had time to sift through footage. “We turned around and admired the shots,” Klein explains. “We literally had 130 hours. It was a shocking amount of footage. So we dumped everything.
After completing the new edit, he screened the updated version for Ali, Sami Karim and others in California. Despite initial concerns that the film might appear dated, “someone stood up and said, ‘Sadly, I worry that this film will always be relevant because it’s about a chapter of life that people go through. It’s not necessarily relevant. It had to do with the timing of the shoot,” Klein shared.
When asked about Trevorrow’s involvement, he said: “He’s involved in the movie. He plays a guy who introduces all the different groups around the camp, and then he’s a drug addict, and then this guy in the tree, oh , he was an overdose victim and he was there from the beginning.
Klein chuckled and remembered Trevorrow’s feedback. “He read the first draft of the script and then he wrote me this really long email, and email was still relatively new at the time, and it was really long,” he explains. “It was like a book, and he said, ‘Here’s how not to screw up your movie.'” We met in film school and were so happy with each other’s work that he actually came to the shoot. Sometimes he would grab the camera and help direct the background B-roll. It is very valuable and important on many levels.
One audience member asked if Ali had any money invested in the final film. “No, no money was invested.” Klein replied. “It was more of his blessing. For lack of a better description, it was very positive for us. We just had a sense if he was excited about it. The currency was enough.
