Filmmakers seek city neighborhood stories
By Adam Brandolph
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Every Pittsburgh neighborhood has a story to tell.
The couple pushing a stroller down the street might have met in Bloomfield.
Maybe they shared their first kiss in Shadyside, got married on the North Side and had their first child at a hospital in Oakland. Now they take their daughter to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium in Highland Park and go shopping in the Strip District. Maybe they both work Downtown.
Everyone's story is different.
Local filmmakers Kristen Lauth Shaeffer and Andrew Halasz are listening.
Lauth Shaeffer, 26, is a short-film and media artist and Chatham College film instructor. Halasz, 40, is a teaching artist at Point Park University.
They're looking for filmmakers to tell stories that are intimately connected to one of the city's neighborhoods.
"Greetings from Pittsburgh: Neighborhood Narratives" will be a compilation of about 10 such films that couldn't take place anywhere other than the Pittsburgh neighborhood where they're filmed. The finished product will be a feature-length program screened next fall as part of the city's 250th anniversary celebration.
"This is about Pittsburgh filmmakers coming together to celebrate the city," Lauth Shaeffer said.
The genesis for their idea came from "Paris je t'aime," said Halasz, of Squirrel Hill.
"Paris je t'aime" hit select theaters in 2006. The film was a compilation of 20 films from 20 directors, woven together to make a single, full-feature movie with two themes: Paris and love. The film featured Paris' arrondissements (neighborhoods) as backdrops for each story.
"We want people to know -- without being told the neighborhood, and aside from background images -- where the individual story is located," said Lauth Shaeffer, who grew up in Oakwood, a small neighborhood near Carnegie. She lives in O'Hara.
"We want the films to speak to the experiences of that neighborhood," Halasz said.
The pair is taking plot outlines from local artists and, after receiving submissions, they'll give the green light for directors to begin production of eight- to 12-minute films.
"This is not a contest," Lauth Shaeffer said. "We opened it up to other filmmakers so it's an accurate and authentic portrait."
And the filmmakers are not just interested in Pittsburgh's largest neighborhoods.
"We'd like to see (synopses) for under-represented neighborhoods as well," Lauth Shaeffer said. "Maybe, after seeing the film (a movie watcher will) learn a little about a place they've never gone."
Because none of the 88 neighborhoods are too small, Halasz said.
"Every neighborhood has its own voice."
Adam Brandolph can be reached at abrandolph@tribweb.com or 412-320-7936.
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