By Dov Kornits
Established US-based filmmaker Yuri Zeltser takes to the mobile phone for his fascinating feature film, Circumcision.
“Circumcision is the way forward for filmmakers,” says Phillip Noyce. “It’s a true film of innovation. It’s all about making a film despite a lack of funds and support.”
First off, Phillip Noyce is, yes, talking about the film Circumcision, and not the occasionally controversial act itself. The powerhouse Aussie director of classics like Newsfront, Dead Calm, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Patriot Games and many more is also the ambassador for SF3 SmartFone FlickFest, the groundbreaking Sydney film festival where all entrants are shot completely on mobile phones, and that’s where the new film by his friend and sometime collaborator Yuri Zeltser has landed.
It has been a long journey indeed. “I was a member of an underground film club in Moscow many, many years ago,” the director tells FilmInk about his beginnings in filmmaking. “I was also distributing band literature and stuff like that. I was living on the edge and driving my parents crazy. We left when I was seventeen. First, we came to New York in 1981. I came with my family, and we lived in New York for a long time. I went to film school there, NYU, and then moved to LA, which is now home.”
Like most of the films featured in past iterations of SF3, Circumcision is a true feat of imagination, skill and adaptability. It’s a far different beast for Yuri Zeltser, who has worked previously in the low budget field, but certainly not on anything this low budget. The LA-based filmmaker has directed five films previously, largely in the thriller field with the likes of 1991’s Eye of the Storm (starring Dennis Hopper and Lara Flynn Boyle), 1994’s Playmaker (with Colin Firth and Jennifer Rubin), and 1999’s Black and White (with Gina Gershon and Rory Cochrane). Zeltser also worked on the screenplays for Carl Franklin’s crime thriller High Crimes and the Karen Black-starring horror flick Mirror Mirror.
Filmed in first-person POV, Yuri Zeltser’s Circumcision is a tragicomedy about an agnostic man, whose life is completely falling apart (and whose face we never see), until he comes to believe that his pre-teen son is The Messiah, destined to save the world. It’s a bold, intense work, beginning with its eye-catching (and eye-watering) title.
How do you know Phillip Noyce?
“I wrote a script for him, which was quite a few years ago. It was about Chechnya, and it was a great script that he loved, and he was going to make. And then we had this small event that happened called 911, and all of a sudden, all the attitudes have changed towards the rebels and so forth. Unfortunately, that movie never got made, but we have another project now that we’re working on together.”
Circumcision looks like a very personal film…
“This is a very personal project for me. I’ve been working on it for many years in my mind, and then I wrote it in two weeks, and I knew it was never going to be a part of the system. I had to find private equity investing. I worked with some producers that I’d worked with before, and I knew it was going to be a shoestring budget. The only thing that I wanted was basic, complete, full creative control.
“I’ve never done anything as personal as this. It is just my story. When I showed it to my daughters, they didn’t speak to me for two weeks. I have three kids [like in the film]… My ex-wife has not seen the movie…”
Why did you opt to make the film on a phone?
“It was initially just for budgetary reasons. I knew we had to do it fast and cheap. I pulled a lot of favours and got terrific actors who worked for virtually nothing or deferred their payment or got minimum SAG wage.”
But ironically, cinema has become quite boring, so it makes your film unique.
“Well, it’s partly because with Netflix, all those movies look exactly the same. They were shot by the same person. Amazing films are certainly still out there, but you really have to look for them now.”
Did you have to storyboard your shots? Or was it more spontaneous?
“I knew that we would never see the main character. That was the idea from the beginning… to make it as personal as possible. It’s like the main character is seeing everything and we never get to see him. That was a creative decision as I was writing the script, but then it became also a budget consideration. Because of that approach, we couldn’t do any coverage. It’s all one angle, we could do many takes, but I didn’t need over-the-shoulder shots or big wide shots because it was all just what the character sees. I thought, ‘Oh, great, I can shoot it in ten days.’ And we shot it in eleven days.
Did the actors struggle with that approach?
“Most of them actually agreed to do it for virtually no money because they were interested in that approach. We had a voice actor who was always behind me doing the lines with the actors. He was also trying to keep them in character. It wasn’t just reading the lines. Then I had this idea that the voice of the main character, who we never see, should be the same actor who was playing his friend or alter ego. So, we brought him back; Scott Cohen is a remarkable actor. He’s done a ton of stuff, and I also have known him for a while. We re-recorded all his dialogue, and it added another dimension to the movie. It’s like, ‘Is it all in his head? Does this guy even exist?’ It was a fantastic challenge for the actors. They all loved it.”
Were you holding the phone?
“Yeah, for a lot of the time. We also had a DOP [Australian Mark Pugh]. When we were shooting the first time, I also did the voice of the main character, but that just wasn’t working for me. I had to really concentrate on the acting and giving actors feedback instead of trying to read the lines.”
They were looking into the lens, not at you?
“We tried different things. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work. But the best way for me was for them to just look straight into the lens. Don’t look at me or the actor who is doing the voice. That was actually the hardest part for them, especially for the younger actors, because they kept looking at the actor, and I’m like, ‘No, no, no…just look at the lens!’”
Circumcision will close the SF3 SmartFone FlickFest at The Randwick Ritz on Monday November 18 at 6:30pm, with Yuri Zeltser (and his girlfriend) in attendance. Click here for all ticketing and venue information.
