What drives Erik Greenberg Anjou to make feature films and documentaries? He
recently answered that question at Hollywoodlot.com when he told them, “Passion is
Requirement #1. It trumps all other qualities other than animal drive and perseverance.
People want to work with artists who are driven by passion and have significant stories to
communicate.”
Anjou embarked on a career as a screenwriter, director and recently a movie producer
after graduating from Middlebury College in 1983. He earned a MA from Northwestern
University in 1985, and attended the Center for Advanced Film Study at the American
Film Institute in 1986. Some of the projects which he has worked on over the years
include being a writer and/or director for such movies as “The Cool Surface” (1994), “Jon
Schueler: A Life in Painting” (1999), and “Hadassah Film and Video” (2000-2003). His
first project as a producer was the documentary film, “A Cantor’s Tale” (2005), which
was a break out film for him and is still talked about today.
“My first move into producing was A Cantor’s Tale,'” he tells. “I did it simply because, I
felt, if I didn’t step forward and take responsibility for making the movie then it wouldn’t
get done. I would say the same for my second documentary, Eight: Ivy League Football
and America, and The Klezmatics film. I consider myself a writer and director first and
equally. The producing thing, I wrestle with it. It’s a huge challenge, an indescribable
amount of work that sometimes has nothing to do with the creative process, and a
learning curve that informs and pressurizes my life. Knowing what I know about
producing, I will, in some shape and form, remain a producer for subsequent projects.
That being said, it is equally, if not more important, to form great partnerships. Producing
shouldn’t be used as a platform for fiat. Great movies come out of collaboration, and the
producer’s chair is first and foremost the platform for, and invitation to, creating a
wonderful team.”
Following “A Cantor’s Tale,” he made the film documentary, “Eight: Ivy League Football
and America,” which is based on a book written by Mark F. Bernstein on American Ivy
League Football. The experience allowed Anjou to exercise some of the knowledge
which he acquired as a high school football player, but Anjou’s most recent film
documentary, “The Klezmatics: On Sacred Ground,” allows him to explore the fabrics of
Jewish culture. The Klezmatics documentary is based on the people and songs of the
New York City-based klezmer music group, The Klezmatics, who won a Grammy Award
in 2006 in the category of “Best Contemporary World Music Album” for their album
“Wonder Wheel.” Anjou is hoping that the film will be ready for release in 2009.
Anjou’s works have been showcased at Cleveland International Film Festival, Two Boots
Pioneer Theater in New York City, Jacob Burns Film Center, The Jerusalem
Cinemateque, Danish Film Institute, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Atlantic Film
Festival in Nova Scotia, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Berlin Jewish Film Festival,
Montreal Jewish Film Festival, Boston Jewish Film Festival, and the Jewish Cultural
Festival in Krakow.
What keeps him making movies can be defined in a few simple words, “I love film and
literature equally so.” He lists that some of his artistic influences have been, “Let’s include
Charlie Chaplin, Peter Weir, Ryscard Kapuscinski, Ernest Hemingway, Alan Paton,
Martin Scorcese, Billy Wilder, Mark Helprin, Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, J.D.
Salinger, as seminal influences. I know there are more.”
He expresses, “To me, the creation of art,’ however you’d like to define it, is the collision
between all worlds: imaginative, creative, personal, familial, economic.” He explains that
he walks into each of his projects with a basic plan, “My first goal is always to make the
most beautiful, effective film I can. Then, I hope and pray it finds, and connects with, an
audience. You never know. We have found extraordinary success after extraordinary
struggle in fomenting A Cantor’s Tale. It has been most moving traveling with the film,
and hearing from audiences from Warsaw to San Diego to Baltimore, how affecting the
film has been for them. A Cantor’s Tale has most definitely been significant in the Jewish
world. I am hoping of course for the same success for The Klezmatics: On Holy
Ground.'”
His documentary film, “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground” is a project that has become
close to his heart, though he confesses, “”I was never, and am not now, an aficionado of
klezmer music. Their choice to create and re-create in this genre, their passion for it
given their own wildly divergent background and influences, and their utter dedication to it
over the course of more than twenty years against, in a sense, any kind of financial logic.
Their passion and dedication against all odds is the heart of the story, and yes, that
includes a look into their personal lives and sacrifices.”
His interest in making the documentary on The Klezmatics occurred to him after he met
The Klezmatics trumpeter, Frank London. “I certainly was aware of The Klezmatics,” he
recollects, “but it was really working with Frank London on my documentary film, A
Cantor’s Tale, that sparked my passionate interest in the band.”
He shares about making The Klezmatics film, “The process will be three years in
November 08. I am aiming high and hard for a spring 09 release. I believe that there will
definitely be a place for the film in theatrical venues. I’ve also been in the business long
enough not to believe in predictions. A few distribution queries have been received, but I
believe it’s best to wait for a finished film to secure the right deal.”
He projects, “I think that The Klezmatics embody a personal and religious variety that
transcends Judaism. Hey, you’ve got a Quaker bassist who plays fifteen instruments, so
the doors are wide open. Aside from that, the concerns and drives of the band from
family to earning a living to keeping their work alive are issues that many are intimate
with and attuned to.”
He cites, “The documentary was shot in various locations from New York to Los Angeles
to Madison, Wisconsin to Poland and Hungary. Interviews were conducted across the
country, and we captured concerts in various venues in some of those cities. There will
NOT be a narrator in the film. My choice is to let the characters and their music tell The
Klezmatics story.”
He describes, “The process has gotten smoother with time, like a good wine. The band
members are extraordinary people and musicians, but I wouldn’t say having a camera in
their faces was the most natural or relaxing process for them. They’ve been a team for
20-years and know how to do things and how they want things done. The camera slowed
them down. It was particularly challenging during the recording of their Grammy
Award-winning Wonder Wheel. But, the ultimate victory of this challenge is the existence
of some wonderful footage reflecting the band’s process and ascent.”
To immortalize this moment in The Klezmatics lives, Anjou made a point of using quality
camera equipment. “Our A-camera, used for some 90% of our principal photography,
was the Panasonic Varicam. It’s an amazing and expensive High-Def camera, and you
definitely need to be working with a professional camera house to procure it.”
He imparts, “There is kind of a loose script when I begin. There are topics I wish to cover,
questions I wish to ask. But then the answers to those questions inform the next draft’ of
the script, which is what unfurls as the filmmaking itself progresses, and perhaps the
band members answers are quite different then what I expected and lead me down a
different path. We’ve been working on this project for going on three years. Who would
have guessed that the band would win a Grammy, then part ways with its manger after
such a success, and then basically spend the next 6-8 months not touring and figuring out
from Step 1, Where do we go from here?’ There’s no way to script things like that. It’s
part of the fun, the unpredictability, and the chaos of documentary filmmaking.”
In hindsight, he remarks, “I learned primarily about the way the band makes decisions as
a group. It is a blessing and curse. A blessing because every band member has a say in
how things are executed creatively and infrastructurally. A curse because this open
forum creates a sometimes open-ended and long series of discussions and delays.
Sometimes band members are traveling to other gigs, etc., so the information flow is
often frustratingly slow. The band itself becomes stronger due to the process, but for
others, filmmakers, managers, promoters, etc., it can be quite frustrating.”
Though the frustrations in filming “The Klezmatics: On Sacred Ground” were greatly
different from those encountered during the filming of his previous project, A Cantor’s
Tale, Anjou enlightens that there are some similarities in the two documentaries. “They
are obviously different films. That being said, there are similarities: Jewish music, the
ideas of defining and re-defining tradition across the generations, the extraordinary
resilience of the music and people after suffering the Holocaust, how music defines
culture and culture defines music. These leitmotifs all reflect upon and inform one
another. The Klezmatics themselves are a much different ball of wax then Jackie
Mendelson,” he reasons, “as different as Sun and Moon. Jack is a cantor first, a
wonderful musician second. He creates first and foremost from within the tradition. The
Klezmatics are musicians first and klezmorium second. It is their deep and diverse artistic
backgrounds which allowed them to enter klezmer and re-make it to some degrees as
per their vision. It’s also why they’ve been so successful in creating diverse and dynamic
music in many different genres. They are inspired by, but not ruled by klezmer. I do
believe that The Klezmatics documentary may be more readily entered and experienced
by an audience that isn’t necessarily Jewish.”
Anjou is also presently writing for a new film being produced by Rony Yacov. It is entitled
“The Sixth Commandment,” which Anjou comments, “The Sixth Commandment is a
feature screenplay. I was commissioned to write by the wonderful Israeli producer, Rony
Yacov. Rony and I developed the story, which is loosely based on an Israeli novel that
Rony had optioned. It is a bold, incendiary romance between an Israeli soldier and a
Palestinian journalist beginning in the 1967 war and bridging the first intifada. I’ve got
several projects on the transom right now, but this is the boldest and perhaps the most
important.’ Israel and the Middle East are the navel of the world, and what happens there
remains integral to the future of mankind. This story tells that story like no other I’ve read
or encountered. Rony’s shoulder is to the wheel to make sure the movie happens, so we
are working and praying. Next year in Jerusalem.”
Though Erik Greenberg Anjou has established himself in the filmmaking business, he is
just getting started. He tells Hollywood Lot.com, “I chose the path of the pen and the
camera. There’s nothing else I want to be doing.”
