Author Archives: Rafal

Girl 5

 

Girl5 is a film about a fictional pop/rock band, and the idea is to find five talented teenage girls who can sing, dance and act (and hopefully play instruments), and then to have a select music-team come up with one or two dozen numbers for them.

The concept is that they each come from a different continent so we may cast it not only in North America, but in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, as well.

The music might also come from musicians and songwriters around the world submitting tracks, the girls themselves or the music team.

Once the tracks are produced, there will be an extensive rehearsal period before the movie is shot.

The film will be a series of music videos strung together, and the story (our screenplay) will be part of the music videos, so the current script will not be shot in it is entirety – rather it will be shown in snippets and used more of a guide to improvise upon, the way music some videos are done.

The last week or two of the shoot will involve taking the group on a “mini-tour”, and have them perform live.  The performances will be filmed, and we will also create a behind-the scenes “fake documentary” as if the band was real, with interviews and “candid” improvised moments with the girls. The performances and this documentary footage will also be intercut into the movie.

To keep it within an indie budget and give it a hip-eclectic style, portions will be shot on a green screen, even with hand-drawn and animated backgrounds (we do not have to go to locations around the world, or shoot in huge concert venues). Sometimes the girls will literally turn into cartoons (when we cannot afford to stage the car chases, and big action sequences). The animation will be 2D, rather than the expensive 3D CGI kind, more like early Disney cartoons (think South Park, Family Guy, Adult Swim). We have already begun by working with a talented graphic artist-illustrator from the UK to create some samples.

If the film succeeds this could spin off into a TV series and the band actually going on a real tour and releasing more records.

Spritz sells cola around the globe in 1001 flavourts, but when Sean and Randy pitch Girl 5, they can’t say no. It will sell even more cola!

After a global search across five continents, the five mystery girls are chosen. The manufactured band and the manufactured sound is a smashing success! 

But someone forgot something in the all the excitement. It has no soul. The over-hype, over-promotion, over-marketing, boils over. It’s a total melt down and the fans turns violent.

Spritz faces a total write down, puts a contract out on the two swengalis and sicks the Dept. of Homeland Security on the band. The girls run into hiding, go underground. 

Suicide is not an option. They were chosen for their “talent”, not their looks, right?

They will not fail! They work, they sweat, they write and… they sing… for real.

They find their sound, their beat, their voice. And it’s the cry of the world all in one. Someone sneaks out a tune…. it goes viral.

Who are these sirens, these muses, these mystery goddesses? Everyone wants to know.

FEED THE WORLD – DANCE THE WORLD – LOVE THE WORLD – BE THE WORLD.

Spritz on!

 

Carnevale

Tanja-Schulz-Venice-Carnival-79

 

“CARNEVALE”.

Carnevale is a contemporary romantic adventure inspired by Shakespeare’s “Midsummer’s Night Dream”.

A young hipster American couple go to Venice during the time of Carnival, to party and experience the clash of old and new,  and test their relationship, which leads to a quarrel and eventual split up.

Fate would have it that both individually meet one half of trendy Italian couple also temporarily estranged.

Through a series of mishaps our four college students become the owners of a stolen diamond mask that makes them the target of rock stars, crooks, the police and an assortment of eccentric local Venetians.

Each of the four lovers finds what was lacking in their former partners.

Romance and passion blossoms amid a festive mood where the line between reality and fantasy merges.

Eventually true love shines through and the couples re-unite, switch and rediscover their former mates.

Carnival in Venice, Masks. Italy

Carnival in Venice, Masks. Italy

Bardo Thodol

to create reverence for life

to show that we are accountable for all our actions, words and thoughts

to show that death is not the end, but also the beginning of life

to create a mass media global marketing of an enlightening message in a commercial entertaining and at times humorous

trans-cultural, trans-religious, trans-racial vessel

to uplift, to give hope and bring one closer to God

THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

Bardo Thotrol (Bar-do’i-thos-grol) in Tibetan or more commonly known as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, is a classic of the world’s religious literature. It concerns the nature of the mind and its projections – beautiful or terrible, peaceful and wrathful – which seem to exist objectively and inhabit the external world. In particular it describes these projections as they appear immediately after death, in a much more overwhelming form since the consciousness is no longer grounded and shielded by its connection with a physical body. It teaches recognition of these terrifying and seductive forms, and through recognition attainment of the state of enlightenment. This centuries-old scripture was traditionally read aloud to the dying to help them attain liberation – death and rebirth as seen as a process that offers the possibility of attaining ultimate liberation.

Bardo means gap. It is not only the interval of suspension after we die but also suspension in the living situation. According to the Tibetans, death happens in the living situation as well. The bardo experience is part of our basic psychological make-up. The book is not only a message for those who are going to die and those who are already dead, but it is also a message for those who are already born: birth and death apply to everybody constantly, at this very moment.

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Into the Light

A love story at the end of the world.

Inspired by Alain Resnais “Hiroshima mon Amour”, a haunting love story co-written by play-writer Susan Champagne.

Jacob and Tanya meet to make love a final time as the nuclear missiles fly towards cities in America and Russia. Set in flashbacks of how they met in St Petersburg and then again in Los Angeles, interwoven with the current frozen moment as well as the future, they bodies burned and lying in rubble – – – if these two can find love, compassion and forgiveness, perhaps this was all just a nightmare, the world can be saved, and there can be peace on earth.

Fun

 

“Fun” – a Rafal Zielinski film

based on a play by James Bosley, screenplay by James Bosley

In a suburban wasteland of freeways, fast-food and pre-fab housing, two teenage girls meet one morning, become fast friends, share their secrets and later that afternoon, on a rising wave of frenzy, murder an old woman. They did it, they later say, for “fun”.

John is a journalist given the challenge of making sense of this “senseless crime.” Jane is a counselor committed to breaking down the barriers that block the girls’ from expressing any remorse over their crime.

Bonnie and Hillary, 14 and 15, staunchly refuse to soften their stand that the killing was fun, and challenge their adult inquisitors to defend a society that offers them no voice, no understanding, no love.

The story moves from the juvenile detention center where the girls are kept, to the girls on the day of the killing. We see them meet, talk, confess painful details of abuse and neglect. They share pain and secrets and find joy in their discovery of a kindred spirit – at last. It’s like love at first sight. They “get high just on each other’s company.” They begin a journey of ecstasy and murder.

Alicia Witt & Renee Humphrey, "Fun", a Rafal Zielinski film

The Film

FUN, coined by Graham Fuller of “Interview Magazine”, as “the most provocative new movie at the Sundance Film Festival”, where it won two Special Jury Awards for Best Acting for each of it’s two young stars, Alicia Witt and Renee Humphrey, started out as a stage play written by James Bosley. Developed at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and first produced at the Manhattan Class Company, it tells the story of two teenage girls who murder an old lady for “fun” .

Rafal Zelinski, having just completed “Ginger Ale Afternoon” written by Gina Wendkos, also based on her play, saw FUN at the Burbage Theatre in Los Angeles, and was profoundly affected by it.

After developing it together with James Bosley into a full length feature script, he set out together with executive producers Rana Glickman and Jeff Kirshbaum in raising financing. During the next year and a half of frustrated efforts, several times coming close to having it packaged with stars, Rafal decided to forge ahead with FUN as a low budget independently produced production. Further financing  was obtained by co-producer Daminan Lee who put together a Canadian tax-shelter deal.

The production team was joined by Sharon Ben-Tal – production manager/line producer, Gloria Zimmerman – production co-ordinator, James Zatolokin – production council, Jens Sturup – director of photography, and editor/associate producer – Monika Dorfman-Lightstone. Principal photography was completed in eight days. The prison sequences shot at the Central Juvenile Hall (a real working prison) were filmed in super 16 (later blown up to a b&w 35mm interpositive) and are filmed in cinema verite style. All the flashback sequences are filmed in 35mm AGFA color. The dialogue is to script although at times the intensity of the performances appear to be improvisational. A psychiatrist for abused teenage girls coached the actresses prior to principal photography. The color sequences were shot in Canyon Country, North of Los Angeles.

FUN endured budgetary restrictions, time constraints, and natural disaters (L.A.’s January earthquake) which contaminated the baths at Deluxe Film Labs in Los Angeles, as well as tumbling shelves of original negatives.  The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (winning the two awards for acting) and went on to the Sydney Film Festvial (voted 5th best movie), the Munich Film Festival (voted best American Independent Feature), the Edinbrough Festival, as well as the Montreal and Toronto Festivals.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

“FUN”  premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received two Special Jury Awards for Acting Achievement and went on to show at the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver as well as other international film festivals including Sydney, Edinbrough, Munich, Vienna, London, Cambridge, Stockholm, Sao Paulo, Hawaii, Hamburg, Rimini, Mill Valley, San Jose, Warsaw, Oslo and Wales.  The Film opened theatrically at the Film Forum in New York  and received two nominations for Best Newcomer Performance and Best First Screenplay for IFP Spirit Awards.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

Graham Fuller, Interview Magazine

Fun was the most provocative new movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This fictional case study of two teenage girls who jaunt across suburbia culminates in murder has more sociological import than a fistful of Gen X movies. Hyperkinetic direction and blistering performances by Renee Humphrey and Alicia Witt, though having taken a some time to get released it’ll now suffer comparisons with Heavenly Creatures.

Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express

A Clockwork Orange for the ’90s? Two wayward teenagers get their kicks from a sinister form of fun. This is a dazzling and disturbingly plausible piece of ’90s cinema which refuses to let any of its characters–or viewers–off the hook.

Washington Post

Good, unnerving performances from its young actors give Fun more edge than the usual independent movie.
They carve their initials in your memory forever!

The Village Voice

Infinitely trickier and more satisfying than Heavenly Creatures.

The Melody Maker

Digs deeper, disturbs far more thoroughly and speaks a hundred times more forcefully about disaffected youth than Natural Born Killers!

 

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Gingerale Afternoon

 

 

A comedy about birth, love and betrayal, Ginger Ale Afternoonis set in the middle of a rundown Texas trailer park, where we find Jesse (Dana Anderson) and Hank (John M. Jackson) living out their lives and trying to understand why everything has to be so difficult.  Nine months pregnant, Jesse is no more prepared to cope with life as a mother than she is about being a wife.  She spends her days half-heatedly cleaning the trailer, lazing around outside in a bikini working on her tan, and fighting with Hank.

Life is fairly predictable, though not particularly satisfying, until Jesse discovers that Hank is messing around with Bonnie (Yeardly Smith), a plump little teenager given to shorts and halter tops, with a wisdom beyond her years.  Words fly, tempers soar, egos bruise and we see deeply into the hearts and minds of three sensitive and generous people.

This intimate, warm, and touching comedy was written for the screen by Gina Wendkos from her original stageplay, directed by Rafal Zielinski (“Hey Babe,” “Fun,” ,”Age of Kali”,”Bohemia”). Shot by cinematographer Yuri Neyman (“Liquid Sky,” “D.O.A.”),  Ginger Ale Afternoon offers a spectacular wall to wall music score by blues legend Willie Dixon.

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Hey Babe

 

 

“Hey Babe!” is the story of Theresa (Yasmine Bleeth), a rebellious, gutsy orphan from Brooklyn, who has dreams of show business success.  She tries desperate schemes to launch herself into the public eye, until finally meeting mentor, Sammy Cohen (Buddy Hackett), whose own career fizzled as a result of alcoholism.

As Rafal Zielinski’s first film, it the opened the Taormina Film Festival, had it’s North American premiere at the Toronto FIlm Festival, and went on to play at AFI Fest as well as a number of other international film festivals.  ”Hey Babe!” introduces the 13 year-old Yasmine Bleeth, who would go on to become a major Hollywood actress in shows such as “Babewatch” and “One Life To Live,” in her first film –  alongside the legendary comedian Buddy Hackett, the much loved musical-comedy performer of such films such as “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “The Music Man, and “The Love Bug.”

Written by Canadian artist Edith Rey, with music specially composed by techno-star, Gino Soccio, the movie contains plenty of disco fever that will keep viewers lighthearted and entertained.

It is an uplifting, bitter sweet and gritty journey which is at the same time  whimsical, dreamy and full of magic. The combination of Bleeth and Hackett creates a provocative and often fascinating song-and-dance extravaganza!

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Tiger Within


OFFICIAL TRAILER:


written by  Gina Wendkos

A young skin head runs away from home to New York City where she is befriended by a Holocaust survivor.

Casey, 16, is a loner…and a lost soul in search of love. The film opens on her disastrous first day of school in Michigan suburbs where she is humiliated and disrespected.  At home, it’s not much better.  Her mother’s new boyfriend is an abusive drunk, while her mother, Marge, has good intentions but is ultimately weak.  When the boyfriend threatens to leave if Casey doesn’t, Marge sides with him and arranges for Casey to live with her estranged father in New York City.

Upon arrival at Kennedy Airport, Casey sees her father and his family before they see her.  She hears her three half-sisters and step-mother complain about her reputation as a trouble-maker and decides not to step forward. After a while, her father reluctantly leaves without her.  Casey can see the relief on his family’s faces. Now she is in New York alone.

She tells a cab driver to take her to a place “where no one will stare at me” and he drives her to the roughest part of town he knows.  She joins the rest of the bums, punks, junkies, and prostitutes and wanders the streets alone. It’s only a matter of time before her bag is stolen; she’s approached for sex; and she sleeps where she can, including a Jewish cemetery.

The next morning, Samuel Benz, a Holocaust survivor, is making his daily visit to his wife’s grave when he discovers Casey asleep on her tombstone. At first taken aback by the swastika covered jacket which covers her shoulders, he decides to wait for her to wake up.  When she awakes he invites her to eat and wash up at his apartment with no strings attached. She accepts the offer but is so exhausted that she eventually falls asleep in his bathtub.  The next morning she thanks him and returns to the streets.

Three months later, Casey is working in a massage parlor – jerking guys off for money.  She’s a little wiser now and number. She runs into Samuel a couple of times, then again on Christmas eve. Over dinner he reveals that he lost his two twin daughters in the camps and never had a chance to fulfill himself as a father… he then explains an old Chinese saying “embrace the tiger,” which means to learn to love ones fears “so you can control them and they not you.”

Taking this advice, Casey takes a cab to her father’s house in the suburbs. In a very awkward scene, he introduces Casey to his wife and three daughters. Later, Casey overhears his wife complaining about the new “trash” they’ve let into their house and what kind of “influence she’ll be on the girls.” Casey runs away again in the middle of the night…to Samuel’s house in the city, where she angrily confronts the old man for telling her to go in the first place.  Samuel quickly comforts her and offers her his house as a new home.  The only “catch” is that she must take the swastika off her jacket, and start going to school. She agrees.

The school won’t let Casey register without signatures from one of her real parents, so Samuel and Casey take the train to Michigan together to confront her mother and the boyfriend. Marge reluctantly agrees to sign Casey away. On the train back to New York, Casey asks Samuel why he’s going to all this trouble. He answers that he once made a promise to his wife to stop hating, and that initially he hated Casey…”You were the challenge God presented me that day in the graveyard… if I’d learn not to hate you, a child in a swastika, then I could learn to forgive all before I die.”

At school, Casey excels in poetry and makes friends with a young man named Tony.  Before going on a date with Tony, Samuel helps Casey “prepare” by buying her a dress, some stockings and shoes. The date goes well. Later, Samuel takes Casey to a health clinic to have “the talk” with health counselors.

One summer day, Casey and Tony begin having sex on the beach.  At the same time, Samuel is viciously attacked near his Temple by a gang of skinhead punks.  Casey finds him in the hospital later that day. He is close to death. Within the next few days his condition deteriorates and Casey begins to withdraw back into herself, avoiding Tony, neglecting the apartment, sleeping in the bathtub like her first night there. When Samuel finally dies, she completely reverts back to her old ways…including the massage parlor.

In the parlor, about to “work” on some guy, Casey comes to a revelation and quickly bolts during the middle of the “session.”  She goes to the cat section in the Bronx Zoo and sticks her hand in between the bars of a tiger’s cage in order to test her fear.  The tiger roars at first, then licks her hand lovingly.  Casey has embraced her fears.

Age of Kali

a Rafal Zielinski film

written by John Steppling

According to Hindu mythology, we are living in the Kali Yuga (“Age of Kali”), a time of decadence, desire and deterioration…

Written by LA’s “quintessential” playwright, John Steppling (screenwriter of Steve Buscemi’s “Animal Factory”), shot by Eric Steelberg (DOP, “Juno”, “Up in the Air” and Sundance 2006 Grand Jury and Audience Award Winner “Quinceanera”) and directed by Canadian director Rafal Zielinski (whose “Ginger Ale Afternoon” and “Fun” both premiered at Sundance in the Dramatic Competition), the film stars Taylor Nichols, a veteran of Wilt Stillman’s films (“Metropolitan”, “Barcelona”, “Last Days of Disco”), Sarah Zoe Canner who stars in Agnieszka Holland’s latest film “Prawdziwa Historia Janosika i Uhorcika“ and Whitney Able as Sabrina, whose new film Monsters was the rage of this year’s Toronto Film Festival and is about to come out  theatrically in the US and Canada.

A young, recently married Los Angeles couple –  Tom, a promising architect and  Ellie, manager of a trendy modernist furniture store – are certainly on their way to affluence – they are sophisticates, but with some edges.

Sabrina, a teenager of questionable age with radical pretensions and a desperate, dangerous, flirtatious nature, becomes a force of “destruction” and at the same time “creation” Like the goddess Kali, in a way, she represents cyclical time-consciousness that transcends individual destiny.

A psychologically erotic triangle — a downward spiral of obsession and compulsion — a dangerous journey of self-discovery.

Director’s Statement

My experiences in Living in Calcutta as a teenage, my passion for the three masterpieces (Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’, Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’, Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’), fascination with the disturbing plays of John Steppling, and the never-ending search for some sort of illumination, created the inevitable necessity of making this film.

Exploring Erotic Spirituality in India and in my film Age of Kali 

India is a land of deep spirituality, where the sacred and sensual have long been intertwined. As a teenager living in India, I visited many ancient temples adorned with erotic sculptures—symbols of the divine union between the physical and spiritual. These artistic expressions of eroticism are not just provocative; they represent a higher understanding of life’s cycles of creation and destruction.

In my new film, Age of Kali, now available on Apple TV, Amazon, and Google Play, I explore these themes through a modern lens, exploring themes that include narcissistic eroticism.

The Goddess Kali, often depicted as the fierce embodiment of destruction and rebirth, is central to this spiritual narrative. Kali destroys not out of malice but to pave the way for transformation—a theme that runs deeply in the film’s characters, who navigate their own journeys of obsession, love, and self-discovery.

In contemporary times, we may feel disconnected from these ancient ideas, but the chaos and upheaval in our world today reflect the same cycles of destruction and rebirth that Kali represents. Erotic spirituality in India teaches us that the path to enlightenment is often through confronting and embracing our desires, understanding that the sacred and sensual are not separate, but part of the same divine journey.

In Age of Kali, a young couple’s life is upended by a mysterious girl, embodying the destructive, yet transformative, force of Kali. The film explores themes of love, temptation, and the inevitable breakdowns that lead to personal rebirth—just as Kali’s dance paves the way for creation in Indian mythology.

Intrigued? 

Discover a film that intertwines ancient wisdom with modern-day dilemmas, and let it spark your own exploration of the balance between destruction and creation.

PLEASE SUPPORT INDEPENDENT CINEMA.

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Bohemia

Bohemia, a Rafal Zielinski film, poster

memory, darling

Gabi, an aspiring young Czech filmmaker feels compelled to create short films about her life; one of them –

Jack works as a writer in the world of advertising. He is discontent with his present life and the choices he made; he did not follow his idealistic youthful dreams of becoming a ‘serious’ writer.

Spending the weekend in a faceless Los Angeles hotel, with a view of a concrete freeway bridge, writing a cat litter commercial, Jack feels he has reached an all-time low. After finding an advertisement in the local paper that reads: “Scheherazade: I’ll tell you stories”.

The call girl (Gabriella) comes to Jack’s aid, for a price – this Czech beauty came to North America chasing her own dreams, she hides her pain in the fantastical stories she tells for which she charges her clients by the hour.

She begins her story with a young man named Jake, who takes an extended holiday in Prague, a haven for young expatriates, in search of culture and rejuvenation.

On the Charles Bridge, he meets Gabi, filmmaker and dancer. Pure, passionate, mysterious, enchanting, she instantly falls in love with Jake, her “American dream-man”. They have a whirlwind romance, exploring the rich, mysterious “Kafka-esque” city.

The exact opposite of everything that Jake represents, Gabi intuitively begins to help Jake uncover his lost self. By unwrapping the numerous layers of fear, denial and disappointment in which Jake hides, Gabi uncovers his true and innocent nature. Yet, alas, the two must part, and do so, sadly.

A story, within a story, within a story… Jack is Jake, or is he… Gabi is Gabriella, is is she…

…like films and memories, stories cannot stop, they must live forever…

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