Filmmaking Focus

Most of the films of Frank Hudec are of the “crime and/or psychological” genre with a “dark sense of humor.” A New Orleans-born filmmaker currently living in New York, Frank has produced a number of films, including the award-winning LOW.

LOW, which his ex-wife Lisa Raven directed, is about “a towel boy at a Brooklyn boxing gym,” who, “kidnaps a woman to impress an ex-boxer.” Frank’s other films include Building Bombs and Der Tausch.

Building Bombs is the story of “a working class girl and her trust-fund boyfriend,” says Frank, who “moves into a downtown New York tenement apartment to try to make a life together. Their volatile relationship is further complicated when they learn their angry downstairs neighbor is building an A-bomb in his apartment. Bomb building is a metaphor as well for these people’s interpersonal lives.”

Der Tausch, which means “The Exchange,” is about “a Russian Nuclear physicist dying from a plutonium splinter lodged in his thumb.” The film shows how he “tries to make money for his soon to be widowed wife by selling radioactive material to some very stupid mobsters in Berlin.”

The latest film he is working on is The Sleeping Shepherd, “which is based on the story of Stephane Breitweiser who stole over $2 billion in art, but because of his co-dependent relationship with his mother, stored it all in his childhood bedroom. After he was caught, she chopped it all up and threw it into a river.”

Frank’s interest in filmmaking began when he was a child and the movie Star Wars came out and many articles about how it was made. Although Frank says he was never interested in making a Star Wars type movie, he says that this “was the first time I became conscious of what it took to make a film. Within a few years, my tastes changed radically when I was introduced to the 60’s films – from the ‘Nouvelle Vague’ to the English ‘free cinema’ movement.”

For screenwriting Frank recommends David Mamet’s book On Directing Film. Other books he had to recommend include Edward Dmytryk’s On Film Editing and Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer.

For anyone serious about getting into filmmaking, Frank advises, “Know that it is work and not glamorous. For every red carpet minute, it is months of toil. You better be doing it because you wouldn’t know what else to do with yourself.”

For more information about Frank Hudec and his films visit www.frankhudec.com.