Beacon musician makes a movie
Jeremy Schonfeld is a musician who wanted to make a movie.
“I had to figure out who around me could help,” he says.
It took a city: Dozens of people from the Beacon arts community paraded across the screen or helped behind the scenes during the production of The Father Who Stayed: Life in 27 Songs, a visually and sonically inventive work that has been screened three times, including at Prophecy Hall in Beacon.
“Fewer than 100 people have seen it so far,” says Schonfeld, who is submitting the film to festivals hoping it will attract a distributor.
Schonfeld, who directed, produced and wrote songs for the film, says he hired as many as 100 people, from the cinematographer and colorist to the extras, in the community.
“When you have so many people involved and it’s just me putting this together, the scheduling was like herding cats,” he says.
The Father Who Stayed: Life in 27 Songs
With Christian Campbell, Caroline Sottile, America Campbell, Ryan Dunn, Annalyse McCoy, Jen Malenke, Kelly Ellenwood, Rinde Eckert, Daniel Rowan, Sarah-Jane Casey, Gus Schonfeld, Melvin Tunstall III, Stephen Clair, Dimitri Archip, Donna Mikkelsen, Shoshana Bean, Blaine Alden Krauss, Will Bryant and Reji Woods
Rob Featherstone (cinematographer); Benjamin Lieber (editor); Lucas Millard (color, post-production); Ian Hatton (sound, post-production); Will Bryant (music); Rinde Eckert (concept development, spoken-word script); Tara Latorre (line producer); Ianthe Demos and One Year Lease Theater Co. (concept development)
The film, a ghost story, took two years to complete. It runs an hour and 47 minutes and only a few scenes have dialogue. The action unfolds through 27 songs played by Schonfeld and other musicians.
“We thought about breaking up certain songs by putting quotes for people to read onscreen or overdubbing voiceovers, but I wanted to show instead of tell, so it’s storytelling through music and the songs and the stories speak for themselves,” he says. “There is nothing typical about this film, so there was no roadmap to follow.”
The Father Who Stayed was filmed over a month, mostly in and around a rustic white building with green trim at the University Settlement Camp on Route 9D in Beacon. It centers on an essay written by a 13-year-old girl (Caroline Sottile) who was abandoned by her mother and shared a bond with her father (Christian Campbell) during nightly reading sessions. The girl died at age 15 in an accident.
The film’s rollout has been a slow burn, says Schonberg, because it is self-financed and he is new to movie marketing. He also plans to release the soundtrack, along with another dozen songs.
A stalwart of the local arts scene, Schonfeld is a founder of the Beacon Bonfire Music + Arts Festival. After moving here with his family in 2018, he recorded an album, Brooklyn to Beacon, and like many transplants from the borough, he’s become a civic booster.
“Part of why I got involved with Bonfire is that I wanted to shine a spotlight in this area with a mission to create art where we live, to show that we don’t need to be validated by New York City,” he says.
“We have plenty of wonderful artists, so it was easier and more viable to build the machine [for the film] here than in the city, where we thought we had to be if we were to be considered serious artists.”
