Concord is reaching into its huge library of music recordings for a first-of-its-kind initiative with Outfest to support up-and-coming LGBTQIA+ filmmakers of color.
Over the weekend, the festival premiered three short films selected for the initiative — each of them making creative use of a song from the Concord IP holdings, which include more than a million recordings and music compositions.
Skate, a short written and directed by Zoë Hodge that’s set in a roller skating rink, incorporated Sylvester’s disco anthem “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Avivar, a drama that revolves around the patriarch of a Latino family and his queer son, drew inspiration from “Tres Días de Carnaval” by Latin music icons Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco. Miles Lopez directed, while Jonathan De La Torre wrote and stars in the film.
Artificial, meanwhile – a sci fi romance written and directed by Chanelle Tyson – drew upon Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the musical Carousel, a soaring version of the song recorded by opera star Renée Fleming.
“Concord pre-identified 3 songs from their vast library of music IP that felt like exciting launchpads for short films, ran a pitch competition and selected these 3 films as winners,” the privately held company explained. “Concord then financed the production of the films and provided development and production support throughout the process. Concord is also involved in helping to secure distribution for the films, and potentially developing one or more into a feature film project.”
Charles Hopkins, director of development and production for Concord Originals — Concord’s narrative content creation division — came up with the concept for the initiative and spearheaded the partnership with Outfest. Sophia Dilley, SVP of Concord Originals, played a key role bringing the initiative to life and in mentoring the filmmakers; Nick D’Angiolillo, Concord’s VP of non-traditional licensing, also helped make the initiative a reality. The Concord-Outfest program is part of Concord’s Impact Investment Initiative – “a $10M fund to deploy capital into projects and companies that serve or are led by members of underrepresented and marginalized communities.”
The significance of winning the Concord-Outfest initiative wasn’t lost on the young filmmakers.
“It is just a great honor,” Tyson, director of Artificial, told Deadline. “I love being able to broaden the way I think about creativity because obviously music is always a big part of film, and I always like that conversation between the visual and the music.”
Tyson’s film begins with a scene of two women becoming intimate at home, while nearby their “virtual assistants” – you know, the ones that have become synonymous with Amazon and Apple – spring to life to play appropriately romantic music. The amorous vibe kindles something between the disembodied assistants.
“These AI devices are just so ubiquitous at this point. It’s this idea of, what if there was a Lesbian romance between Siri and Alexa?” Tyson said, adding that the scenario arose from a conversation with a friend. “We were kind of joking at first. I was like, I wonder if I could pull that off and what that would look like and how do you make these two like stationary devices actually have a connection?”
In Avivar, the children of a dying man gather at their father’s deathbed. In flashbacks, we see the father treating his kids harshly when they were young, and expressing disgust for one son he perceives as effeminate. De La Torre, the writer-actor, played both versions of the father – young and old – and had to bring a certain menace in the flashback scenes filmed with child actors.
“The entire time that I was in that head space and in that character, I couldn’t really look at the kids in the eyes until Miles would say, ‘Action!’” De La Torre recalled. “And then I have to do my job. But before that I couldn’t bear to look at [the kids] because I felt myself kind of channeling all of the fear and hatred that really comes with what this person signifies. He’s kind of like a cancer of the family, if you will.”
De La Torre and Lopez sound prepared to expand the short to feature length if they get the chance.
“We’ve had some ideas. We’ve talked about it,” Lopez told Deadline. “We have two different ways that the feature storyline could go. So, yeah, we’ll see.”
Hodge shot Skate in the Atlanta area, focusing her story on a young man (played by Dwany Guzman) and his attraction to a gifted roller skater (Jérome Rucker) who is helping him improve his skills in the rink. But when Guzman’s character impulsively kisses his “instructor,” he fears he’s gone too far too fast.
“We got our two leads about a week before we started shooting,” Hodge said. “We were having a lot of difficulty finding people who can skate and act… But I had worked with the lead [Guzman] on a short film in college that never saw the light of day and never will.”
The relationship between the young man and his father becomes a subplot in the film. The father appears to frown on his son’s sexual identity, yet in a poignant moment offers surprisingly supportive words, telling his boy not to end up like him – alone and unloved.
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t too irredeemable where the audience is like, ‘I hate him. He needs to go completely,’ which is why I wanted to give him a little speech,” Hodge explained. “Even though [father and son] disagree on everything else, they can agree that at the end of the day, if you don’t have anybody who cares about you and you don’t care about anybody, then what are you living for?”
Young filmmakers typically wouldn’t possess the budget to license songs like “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “Tres Días de Carnaval,” or “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” by the late Sylvester. The singer-songwriter’s estate had to approve the director’s use of the song. When they heard what her story was about, they agreed.
“Charlie [Hopkins, of Concord] would call me and he’d be like, ‘We connected with them and they really love this. And they said this is exactly what this song was made for,’” Hodge said. “[I felt], I’m on the right track. That’s what I think I’ve learned, like my one phrase is, ‘Okay, I’m on the right track.’ That’s all I keep telling myself.”
