It has been a year of steady and hard work, but ultimately thrilling to experience Plastic Man with appreciative audiences. More than a thousand people saw an updated version of the film last July at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival….
The best audiences were found in Berkeley ( Jerry received a standing ovation!), Phoenix and Washington DC where the discussions were so exciting as the audience responded to the multi layered story of art, dyslexia and the bail bond stories.
After completing and launching the first version of Plastic Man October, 2014 here is what else has been accomplished:
*Developed a website: plasticmanbarrish.com with the creative eye of Courtney Buffington
*Produced a trailer that is now available on our website.
*Hosted two “market screenings” at the February, 2015 European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival. Email promotion was sent out to 4,000 film festival programmers, museum curators, sales agents and TV buyers. This resulted in film festival invitations and a sale to Israel Television Channel 8!
*Invited to film festivals at Mill Valley, Sedona, Mendocino, San Francisco, San Diego, Washington DC Jewish and Denver Film Festival in the United States. Jerry and Director William traveled to Hof, Germany for our International film festival premiere.
*Invited for special screenings in New Jersey (art community in Lambertville), New York City (Soho’s Bowery Poetry Center) arranged for a screening in Phoenix in conjunction with the International Sculpture Conference at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society’s Cutler/Plotkin Cultural Center. This was so special…the old building was the original Temple Beth Israel built in 1920’s…my dad was part of the team that bought the building back from a Mexican Baptist Church...
*A special moment at the Denver Film Festival where we had a multigenerational audience —
One thirteen year old boy “Do you ever get frustrated and want to quit?" And Jerry responded: I go to the studio every day, I get frustrated all the time..that is part of the creative process..and I never quit.."
*Produced promotional materials, poster, postcards and press kit
*Booked Plastic Man into the Roxie Theatre for a one week run in conjunction with a retrospective of Jerry’s 3 independent films and his recent short videos using his art as characters, followed by 3 days at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.
*Hired Larsen Associates PR and received rave reviews in the Huffington Post, SF Chronicle, Examiner, SF Weekly, the Bay Area Reporter and the J- Weekly. Links to the press attached here:
*Best of all, Jerry’s commissioned bronze was (finally) installed last March, 2015 in a neighborhood park in the Bay View/Hunters Point. We were able to film the installation of the "BayView Horn', a 16 foot bronze sculpture that inspired this film. We replaced the last 6 minutes with images of a large truck careening down the street with a big sculpture on it, the fork lift that raised the art off the flat bed and then the construction workings securing the base into the ground.
The installation process was followed by a scene of Jerry back at his studio, surrounded by friends and sculptures, with the blinking neon " Barrish Bail Bond" sign giving additional punch to the film’s ending visually and emotionally. I am so happy with this film!
- Janis