Bad Timing

As many of you know, we have been having a hard time getting V13 into a top festival. Our historical fiction film recounts the origins in Vienna before WW1 of what would become the Nazi Weltanschauung. One esteemed source in the industry told us that among decision-makers at film festivals the timing for our film V13 couldn't be worse.

Samuel H. Levine and Alan Cumming in V13, directed by Richard C. Ledes.

I reached out to the legendary film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum and asked him if he would watch V13. I have never previously had any contact with Jonathan Rosenbaum but I did this at the suggestion of a friend of the film who happens to be a distinguished European producer. For those of you who don’t know who Jonathan Rosenbaum is, Jean-Luc Godard once said of him: "I think there is a very good film critic in the United States today, a successor of James Agee, and that is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's one of the best; we don't have writers like him in France today. He's like André Bazin." In my opinion, Rosenbaum remains one of the most vital critics of cinema today.

After watching V13 he wrote back to me: “I found V13 quite absorbing--more like a night at the theater than a movie experience, but a very good theater experience (paradoxically, the most "cinematic" moments seem to be those that show the psychoanalysis taking place in a theater). It seems criminal for festivals to reject a film/play about antisemitism just when a thoughtful work about this is most needed.”

We remain cautiously optimistic that we will be able to announce the festival premiere of V13 in the near future.