Happiness is a Journey: The Unseen America

Factual America

10 Mar

Written By

Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan are award-winning filmmakers. Their documentary films have premiered at Sundance and won multiple awards including the Directors Fortnight best short film prize at Cannes. Patrick and Ivete's body of work focuses on the seldom seen and forgotten parts of American society.

Their most recent short Happiness is a Journey, produced by the Guardian, captures a night in the life of Eddie “Bear” Lopez, who spends his Christmas Eve and early Christmas Day delivering newspapers around Austin, Texas.

Ivete and Patrick join us to talk about their films, upcoming projects and how they find the inspiration and subjects for their films.

“It’s the process of creating beauty and music, and then thinking why that is missing from our collective consciousness of who we are as a country, or as people, that inspires to make films.” – Ivete Lucas

Time stamps:

00:00 - The trailer for Happiness is a Journey, and introducing Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan.
03:23 - What the film is about.
06:53 - How Ivete and Patrick met Bear and chose him as the subject for their documentary.
08:52 - The benefits of filming a documentary with an iPhone.
11:08 - Why Ivete and Patrice presented the film with a split screen.
13:25 - The relationship they formed with the Guardian and what it’s like working with them.
18:46 - What Roadside Attraction is all about.
24:43 - Why it’s fun to create shorts rather than feature documentaries.
30:03 - How they discovered Pahokee and why they decided to tell the community's story.
33:40 - Patrick and Ivete’s attraction to the unseen parts of America.
36:37 - The immigrant perspective that Ivete brings to their films.
37:54 - Patrick’s background as a visual artist and why he left that scene.
42:39 - Their upcoming feature film Naked Gardens about a struggling nudist resort in Florida.
47:55 - The new films they're shooting in Texas and Louisiana.

Resources:

Happiness is a Journey (2021)
Pahokee (2019)
Skip Day (2018)
Roadside Attraction (2017)
The Rabbit Hunt (2017)
The Send-Off (2016)
Naked Gardens
The MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Transcript for Factual America Episode 90 - Happiness is a Journey: The Unseen America

Ivete Lucas 00:00
My name is Ivete Lucas, and I am a Brazilian and Mexican director, the director of Happiness is a Journey, along with...

Patrick Bresnan 00:12
My name is Patrick Bresnan. I am the director of Happiness is a Journey, and The Rabbit Hunt, and an upcoming film called Naked Gardens.

Matthew 01:16
This is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company, making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome award winning filmmakers, Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. Their documentary films have premiered at Sundance and won multiple awards at festivals including the short film prize at Cannes. Their body of work captures seldom seen parts of America, focusing on the marginalized, and in many cases, the forgotten. Their most recent short, Happiness is a Journey, captures a night in the life of Eddie 'Bear' Lopez, who in the film spends his Christmas Eve and early Christmas Day delivering newspapers around Austin, Texas. Please join us as we talk with Ivete and Patrick about their films and upcoming projects. Ivete and Patrick, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?

Patrick Bresnan 02:15
Good.

Matthew 02:17
Yeah?

Patrick Bresnan 02:18
I can't complain. Not good to complain. So, I think that life is good.

Matthew 02:25
Yeah, well, good. It's great to have you on. Just for our listeners, it's a bit different format than we sometimes have. I mean, we are going to talk about, first of all, I gather's your most recent in terms of what's been released, doc, which is a short that was out last year called Happiness is a Journey. But we're also keen, you know, you've got a great filmography. Certainly, Pahokee, Skip Day, Roadside Attraction are some of the more recent ones, I'm familiar with. So, we love your work. And we're just excited to have you on, and to talk about what you guys are up to, and what you will be up to, and what we can expect from you in the near future. If, maybe to get us started, if you don't mind, Ivete, what is Happiness is a Journey all about?

Ivete Lucas 03:22
So, Happiness is a Journey is a Christmas story.

Patrick Bresnan 03:27
Happiness is a Journey involves the night before Christmas in a newspaper sorting warehouse, where the newspaper is combined with coupons. And, kind of, I guess you'd call them warehouse workers that leave the warehouse and go out into the city, take the newspaper, and they go out to different regions of the city and toss the newspapers at people's houses and sidewalks and leave them at convenience stores. So, the film focuses on one man, Bear Lopez, who's been doing this job for 20 years without a day off.

Matthew 04:15
And so, first of all, I mean, call me naive, but I didn't realize people were still getting the paper delivered. I mean, I guess to me what struck me - many things struck me - you but you're kind of documenting a dying industry, aren't you?

Ivete Lucas 04:34
Yeah. Bear said to us that the people that he delivers the newspaper, that it doesn't grow it, like, the people just die off, you know?

Matthew 04:45
Yeah.

Patrick Bresnan 04:46
Yeah, our office was in that warehouse. So, every morning we would come to work, having seen them pack the newspapers at night. And in the morning, we would see all the excess newspapers in these giant dumpsters. And you would just, you know, we'd walk up the steps, and I would look down on these dumpsters with 1000s of New York Times and Wall Street Journals and Austin American Statesman, and you did feel like you were seeing the death of print media every - I mean, we felt that every day.

Matthew 05:24
Wow. And is that - go ahead.

Ivete Lucas 05:27
Even the way that we ended up there was related to that, you know, it used to be - the warehouse used to be also where they printed and sorted the newspaper. And then they stopped doing that. And they started doing it somewhere else, I think in San Antonio, actually. And so, then the paper would be shipped to that area. But then what happened was that there's, like, this huge area that's sitting empty, and the machinery is still there. So, you walk around that and you feel like it's a post-apocalyptic newspaper world.

Matthew 06:08
Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, I used to work right around the corner from the Washington Post. I mean, they still have the printing presses there and all that stuff. So, it's like, that just doesn't happen anymore. And you would have had all these paper employees, and also, it's not back in, like, the 50s or 60s, even when I was a kid, you could get a job delivering the papers. I mean, these people are relying on this to make a living still, for someone like Bear. How did you come - so, how did you - your offices were here in that warehouse in Austin, but how did you find Bear, and maybe latch on to him as a subject for a doc?

Patrick Bresnan 06:52
Yeah, well, Ivete is from Mexico, and I don't need to speak what that means to her. But when we go to Mexico, we drive and there's - you pass so many shrines. And Bear is a Mexican-American, and he's very artistic. He had turned the desk that he worked at in the newspaper office into a shrine. And so, you would see this very long warehouse full of wood table tops. And then, you'd get to one that, you know, it was so ornate, and it had so many relics from his life and souvenirs and ener - he saved energy drink cans. And there was photography on his desktop from East Austin, that he had done over the years. And we were just very drawn to it.

Ivete Lucas 07:55
Yeah, it's like a shrine to his lifestyle, is what it was. And actually, he had a plaque there that said, 'happiness is a journey, not a destination', and that's where the name of the film comes. I mean, it's, like, very significant to that - like, his journey; like, every night for him is a journey, you know, and it never stops. So, it is true that you have to find happiness in that.

Matthew 08:19
Okay, and then you've - so, as you say, you follow him around on Christmas Eve and into Christmas. I gather that was - based on the headlines in the New York Times - I gather that was 2018. But is, I mean, imagine you had to have a few dry runs just to get a feel for - or did you just say, you know, we're gonna rock up on Christmas Eve and film you?

Patrick Bresnan 08:45
No. I'm a big - we're both big fans of Sean Baker. And I think ever since Tangerine, I had fantasized about iPhone filming. And we - the first time we filmed, it was on Black Friday, because Bear was always talking about how thick the paper was on Black Friday, that it tripled in size with coupons.

Matthew 09:13
Right.

Patrick Bresnan 09:14
And we thought that pageantry - and the workers have Thanksgiving in the office, in the warehouse - and just thought that would be very cinematic and we wanted to shoot it on iPhone, so we wouldn't be intrusive.

Matthew 09:31
Yeah.

Patrick Bresnan 09:32
It would just feel like a family video. But what we didn't realize is that the Black Friday newspaper is made on Wednesday. So, they do Thanksgiving on Wednesday, and then we showed up to film on Thanksgiving, which is Thursday, but Thursday in the newspaper delivery business is actually Friday. So, Wednesday is Thanksgiving to them because they live in the middle of the night. So, we showed up to film and we were off by one day. So, we did shoot that film as a test run.

Matthew 10:19
Yeah.

Patrick Bresnan 10:20
And so, obviously, we planned, and we thought Christmas was a much more meaningful time to see people working in the middle of the night.

Matthew 10:33
Yeah. Because I think, as someone who used to get a New York Times delivered to their house, I've probably never thought about the fact that these people work. Certainly over holidays, over Christmas, and as you point out, hasn't had a vacation in 21 years, has he?

Patrick Bresnan 10:50
No.

Matthew 10:50
And so, I mean, what's interesting, too, I find, is that you went with this - whose idea was it to go with a split-screen? I thought that was very interesting to - is it Ivete? Was that your idea?

Ivete Lucas 11:08
I think so. Or maybe we discussed that together...?

Patrick Bresnan 11:11
No, that was Ivete's idea. For sure.

Ivete Lucas 11:14
But I do remember why. And it's, it just feels like, you know, it's - we decided to do one night, but it had to feel like many nights, if that makes sense. And even, like, in the warehouse, too, it just wasn't, it didn't, it wouldn't express the feeling of being at the warehouse, right, if we were just with one screen, because there's so many things going on. So, the split-screen is both a spatial - it's both a spatial and a time choice.

Matthew 11:58
Yeah.

Ivete Lucas 11:58
It's like, let's see the space and all the people at the beginning, and then, when we're in the car with Bear, it's about feeling one journey that is an every night journey. And it happens at many angles, and it has many feelings, and that's how we decided to express it.

Matthew 12:18
I agree, it does feel like you're capturing more than one night. And I guess it's roughly around 12 minutes long, but it feels - I mean, in a good - I mean, in the best way, it feels like you get more than 12 minutes worth of, certainly, of film in there, obviously. But I mean, it just kind of has an interesting - I thought it was really - I really enjoyed that aspect of the film. Now, you worked with the - is that a baby monitor that you've got?

Patrick Bresnan 12:48
Oh, yeah. I think he hears Ivete's voice through the wall, so he got up, but he'll go back to bed.

Matthew 12:56
Okay, well, that's fine. I mean, if you ever have to get up, don't worry. I've got children myself.

Ivete Lucas 13:00
No, no, no.

Patrick Bresnan 13:00
He's fine.

Ivete Lucas 13:02
It's better not to get up right now.

Matthew 13:04
I know the feeling. Don't make eye contact, certainly. So, you worked with the - so, you work with The Guardian on this - newspaper, here in the UK - with this, and it's the second time. How's that partnership come about? And how have you found that relationship?

Patrick Bresnan 13:24
Well, we loved working with The Guardian. It came about we made a film called The Rabbit Hunt. And Charlie Phillips, we were reading a review of the short films of that year The Rabbit Hunt came out, and Charlie referenced the film and that he really liked it in this article. And so, we wrote him and said, you know, thanks for the shout out, Charlie.

Matthew 13:56
Yeah.

Patrick Bresnan 13:57
And we have another short that we think is, you know, quite profound. And how would we go about pitching it to you, and that was Skip Day.

Matthew 14:10
Right.

Patrick Bresnan 14:10
So, like a lot of our films, we record them with no budget ourselves, and then they may sit for a year or longer until we can create space to work on them.

Matthew 14:27
Right.

Patrick Bresnan 14:27
And Skip Day, we edited that film toward the end of our post-production of a feature called Pahokee. And it was really on the verge of never entering the world. I mean, we've shot a lot of films that are just on hard drives. But yeah, that was a film...

Ivete Lucas 14:50
Parenthesis that those were all edited in that warehouse.

Matthew 14:55
Okay.

Patrick Bresnan 14:56
Yeah. So, we pitched Skip Day to Charlie. We sent him a clip from the film. And he and The Guardian came right on board. And gave us the production budget to finish the film, and, you know, we were lucky enough that that was programmed at Cannes and won Best Short at the Directors' Fortnight. So, I think it was a huge breakthrough for us as artists. And also, for The Guardian, it was one of the first films they've had at Cannes. So, yeah, I mean The Guardian, we pitched the New York Times a bunch of times, and it's - I always speak for myself, but it's a very humiliating experience to talk to the New York Times Op Docs because they're so literal. And I had pitched them Skip Day. And they had me write three pages about why I made it. I sent it to them. They never responded. And yeah, it's just very humiliating as an artist. And the whole discussion with The Times was, 'What's your opinion?'

Ivete Lucas 16:31
Yeah, I think it's like that in the US a lot of the times really wants you to have an angle. And that is that. Yeah, and we work actively against that sort of notion that in the beginning of watching a story, you have to have an opinion already. And then, we're, like, selling our opinion to the audience, and that's not what we do at all. What we like is for an audience to experience something and develop their own thoughts as they watch it. So, it's sometimes hard, you know, and with The Guardian, we've never had a problem like that. They were just - I mean, I think they've hired people, the people that work in film there are very sophisticated and they understand cinema.

Matthew 17:22
So, one reason I was smiling there is that not because of your misfortune with Op Docs, but I have one producer credit to my name, and it was on a short as well. And Op Docs got in touch with us, we were really surprised, and then just send them the film, followed it up, followed up again. They never reply. So, we didn't even get to the two or three paragraphs. But yeah, it's a very interesting observation you have, and I think, the point you said about not having an angle, which brings me to another short you've done, which is Roadside Attraction, which I thought was, I love that doc. I mean, I love, you know, alI your work but it's - I think someone, I don't take credit for this, I saw somewhere, I don't know, was it on YouTube or something, saying it was the most apolitical political doc they had ever seen. And maybe tell us a little bit about that because I think it's a wonderful little observational film that you've done. And I won't, I don't want to explain it. You can tell us what Roadside Attraction is about.

Ivete Lucas 18:40
I mean, you can. You love telling this story!

Patrick Bresnan 18:45
Well, I'll just say, and I always speak for myself. When you're a couple that direct films together - Ivete was born in Latin America, I was born in New York City. We're very different. And I'm eight years older than Ivete; so, I kind of come out of the punk rock scene. You know, I grew up going to Fugazi shows and smashing my face. And, you know, I'm lucky I'm married, you know, I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 20. So, we're very different people. But I make films for everybody. I don't care what your political views are. I think that art is a place where we can reach people on a human level. You know, we can strip away the tattoos, the T shirts, the flags, the politics. That's really the goal of what we're doing. So, Roadside Attraction. We were living in Pahokee, Florida, which is in the Everglades, and it's 80% community of color and we were in a very tiny sh- it was a shack. One room shack. And we had no washer and dryer, so, we would drive across the county to my brother's house in West Palm Beach to do our laundry every Sunday. And when the presidential plane was, you know, we passed that plane all the time, because Donald Trump was home on the weekends to play golf. And it was like a carnival. You know, you would drive by and they were...

Ivete Lucas 20:31
First there was the Trump plane that used to park there.

Patrick Bresnan 20:34
Yeah.

Ivete Lucas 20:35
And then it became Air Force One.

Patrick Bresnan 20:38
Yeah.

Ivete Lucas 20:38
And that was what started...

Patrick Bresnan 20:40
Sure, yeah. So, it was Air Force One. And it was a carnival. And it wasn't, people were in awe that a plane was that big. And it was parked right next to the road. And it says 'United States of America' on it. And so, it kind of became this - you're driving, and then all of a sudden, you're pulling off the road, because it's so - there was a little patch of grass, there was parking, and you could walk, like, 30 yards away from it.

Ivete Lucas 21:12
It also speaks to, like, the unexpected quality of this event happening, that he got it with him. That's why I like it. It used to be Trump's plane. And then suddenly, it's Air Force One. And it's, like, nobody was prepared for that. So, there wasn't the security that was needed. So, they had these, like, school buses lined up in front to protect them because there wasn't, it was just like, nobody was prepared. So, it was a very interesting phenomenon. And I think when he talks about - and when the person talked about, like, it's an apolitical political doc, because it is, like, showing a political event that happened and that effect on people, but I think when we decided to get out of the car and just start shooting, we were initially saying, Well, let's, like, shoot this and other things and try to, you know, capture this moment in time, but then we realized it's like, it's really about the people coming in and out. And like, we can just spend the whole day here, and this is a movie, you know, and it's really about that. It's about, it doesn't matter who you are, or where you're from, you're drawn to that. And then we as an audience, we as filmmakers, get to share with an audience what that means.

Matthew 22:41
Yeah, and I love the - I mean, you've got the sign that says, No Trespassing, whatever, and yet, you've got the cops come in, and then you think, Oh, they're just going to roust everyone, and then they start taking pictures with everyone and selfies and things. But what happened at the very end? What happens at the end, because the cops run...?

Patrick Bresnan 22:58
Well, at the end, when what's really interesting that happens is Trump and the First Lady were coming toward the plane, meaning that Mar a Lago, this beach, this beach resort, where they live is right down the street. And so, the police at a certain point had to clear out the public so that those set of limousines could pull up with the President. And so, Ivete evacuated...

Ivete Lucas 23:37
I was gonna get something to eat.

Patrick Bresnan 23:38
Yeah.

Ivete Lucas 23:38
And I left. And he was there by himself. And he couldn't leave. Everybody had to leave. But he didn't have a way to leave.

Patrick Bresnan 23:45
Yeah. So, I was there with a tripod. And I just kept filming. Because it was so interesting to see, like, the jet. There's a little canal next to this road. And so, there were navy jet skis going up and down the canal, there were helicopters flying overhead. And so, it was just like seeing the whole mechanism of military and police that are used to clear the pathway so the President...

Ivete Lucas 24:18
Yeah. So, anyways; so, that's what happened.

Matthew 24:26
So, we've been talking about up to this point, your shorts. I mean, do you have a preference for shorts? I mean, I know you have one feature, and I guess you've got another feature coming, or is that just how it's kind of worked out that you've mostly made films that have been shorts?

Patrick Bresnan 24:43
Yeah, we love short films. You know, the thing that's so much fun about short films is you get to be on a stage with eight to twelve people. You get to see a variety of work from around the world and make friends, which is a very different process from a feature.

Ivete Lucas 25:06
It's much more low stakes in many ways because it's less money, it's less, like, you have to deal with industry pressures less, and, like, you really get to make what you want, which we still do with the features, but with the features it's more of a battle to continue getting to do what we want, and with the shorts we can experiment and just do things that are much more spontaneous; so, I don't think we will ever stop making shorts.

Matthew 25:38
Okay. I think that actually takes us to a good point to give our listeners a quick break. We'll be right back with award winning filmmakers, Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. We've been talking about Happiness is a Journey is one of their shorts, among others. And you can see some of their work there on The Guardian newspaper website here in the UK.

Factual America midroll 26:03
If you enjoy Factual America, check out the moviemaker podcast. That's all one word: moviemaker, where our friends at moviemaker.com interview everyone from filmmakers just breaking in, to A-Listers like David Fincher and Edgar Wright, about their moviemaking secrets and behind the scenes tricks of the trade. They go deep and let the guests speak uninterrupted to get you the most film insight. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 26:59
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with award winning filmmakers Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan. We're talking about their film Happiness is a Journey. We've also been talking about Roadside Attraction, Skip Day. One thing I was gonna ask you, you know, these are shorts, but yet, you still have this beautiful cinematography in them. And I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I also noticed - I was struck by the sound even when there's no dialogue, or, I mean, sometimes music comes through, like someone's radio, but it's very much - even in Happiness is a Journey, just the ticking over of Bear's engine on his truck, you know, it's just very - it feels as much a part of this film as the visuals and everything else that's going on. Is that something you do on a - is that something you're conscious of when you're making these?

Ivete Lucas 27:58
100%. Yeah. It's part of the - the sound is a very important part of the editing process. And I think that we don't do any music, obviously, over anything. And in one way it's about not leading the audience into how to feel over things. It's about not assaulting our senses and really allowing for the space that's needed for people to process things and to feel like they're there. But also, I do when I'm editing highlight certain sounds of the scene, you know, diegetic always, and, like, I do love a lot of ambience, experimental music, and I think that the editing has to be like Brian Eno, you know! It has to be, you know, like it just - the editing has to give you a certain rhythm. So that you don't need anything that is outside of the world to make you go through that experience, feeling, like, that you're out of rhythm or like you're out of there. So, it's very conscious for sure.

Matthew 29:14
Yeah. No, I like the - even just the roadside sounds, you know, in Roadside Attraction or, you know, with Happiness is a Journey you've got - I mean even, like, little snippets - I mean, I think you got a boy on a cell phone, you get a little snippet of his conversation kind of comes in, you know, that kind of thing. Could we, maybe - maybe let's - this all takes us to your feature that you have done. And, we can talk about Pahokee, you've already mentioned that you lived there for a while, obviously because you were filming there. It's a great feature, but how did you find this town on Lake Okeechobee and decide that this is - you know, how did this come about? The idea for this film?

Patrick Bresnan 30:01
Sure, so my family moved to Palm Beach County, where Pahokee is, 20, 25 years ago. And I found, at that time, that the beach community, the coastal community of Florida, to be a place I really didn't enjoy being. And so, I started driving into the center of Florida, and discovering the communities around Lake Okeechobee, and seeing the sugar cane and the harvest, and the burning of the sugar cane, and in university and high school I had been doing volunteer building projects. So, I became very interested in working with people in Pahokee on housing issues. And I think anybody who's volunteered or worked in Pahokee really gets pulled in, because this region has such a strong culture and such strong family values. And the only stories coming out of that part of the US typically involve crime or football.

Matthew 31:35
Yeah.

Patrick Bresnan 31:36
And so, when I met Ivete, I thought, because I had been to prom in Pahokee, I thought that we should go there and try and tell the story with the community, and make a film that was more like a wedding video, where you're making a video of this very sacred event to the community, that they in turn, will own in the end. And so, that was the premise for the first film we made there called The Send Off. And then, that kind of led to the other short films and then the feature.

Ivete Lucas 32:29
Yeah, it was a lot of years before we made a feat - like, by the time we said, Let's make a feature, like, people had known us very well. We had taken people with us to Sundance, they'd seen the shorts, they loved the work, they were happy with it. And so, it was like a process where we earn not only their trust, but also their confidence. And they wanted us to tell that story. So, it took a lot of years of friendships and, you know, doing things together.

Matthew 33:02
I mean, as you're saying, you're not - Patrick, you're not that drawn to coastal Florida but so, you headed inland; I mean, what strikes me is that your films, the first one, we're talking about, Happiness is a Journey, but then Pahokee and others, it feels to me, like, at least, you're capturing a part of America that is often hidden. That is, maybe, well, if not marginalized then certainly seldom seen. Is that what attracts you? That's what - this is something you're putting - and I think is interesting, you said something about this, they have their own unique and very strong culture because I was trying to explain it to my daughter just the other day, she asked me what film I was watching, and I was talking to my son about high school, because he doesn't know what it's like to go to high school in America, and I was trying to explain it to him. But I said, But you know what, Pahokee is actually not - I mean, I did experience some of the same things, but there's a very unique culture here as well, that's not anything I would have experienced, either. So, is that what - I mean, is that one of the things that attracts you to - in what you were trying to show through this film?

Patrick Bresnan 34:15
Definitely.

Ivete Lucas 34:17
Yeah, and I think both Patrick and I have always been, kind of, I mean, Patrick's talking about growing up in the punk scene and DIY, and I was also, you know, into, like, metal and stuff, like, growing up, like, Nine Inch Nails and we were not people who were happy with the norm ever, you know? And we are also people who really like DIY, so, like, people doing a lot with little and creating culture. And I think a lot of the times, like, we think of people who are creating culture and we think of mainstream culture, but to us, like, the real creators are people who are living outside of the norm. And we've been, like, I was doing it in Mexico, when I met Patrick. And then when we got together, we had been driving all over the United States. And he had been doing that before, too, taking photos and participating in events, and always around people who are doing performance and music. And so, obviously, it's not just the part of being either marginalized or not conforming to the mainstream culture. It's also the process of creating beauty and music and, you know, and then thinking about, like, why is that missing from our collective consciousness of who we are as a country, or as people, you know, and so, when we see that, something that really inspires like that, then we make films.

Matthew 36:02
Well, thank you for making them. I'll add I - it's my own personal opinion - but I think you've got great taste in music, at least you did in your youth. But, I mean, Ivete on that - I mean, do you - as coming at this - I mean, obviously, Patrick, you come from New York, but you've come from Brazil via Mexico, and does that help, does that give you a different perspective that you think helps with in terms of bringing these films, you know, to making these films?

Ivete Lucas 36:36
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, for me, observing, and learning, and respecting people, even when they are different than me, and appreciating the differences, has been a mechanism for survival. You know, being twice an immigrant, like, going from Brazil, where we speak Portuguese, to Mexico, where they speak Spanish, and the culture was very different. And then to the United States. So, it's really who I am. And when, so it just it, like, you see it in the films. And that's why also we don't need a lot of dialogue to express things. The visual, a visual language has become my, like, the language that I'm most comfortable with. And I think that metaphors and poetry has helped me navigate those differences. And so, I think it's just only natural, that that's how we make films.

Matthew 37:45
And then I guess, Patrick, you also have a, I gather, background as a visual artist. So, I guess that plays right into this as well, doesn't it?

Patrick Bresnan 37:53
Yes, I was very lucky to be in San Francisco and Philadelphia, at the, kind of genesis of the street art movement. I mean, the genesis street art movement is much older than the 90s. But I was in San Francisco around a lot of great graffiti artists, like Barry McGee, and I was lucky enough to go on and work for them when they became gallery artists. And I think we, I built a number of shows in Hackney at Stuart Shave's modern art, for Barry McGee and his wife, Clare Rojas. And, to be quite honest, that world to me was disgusting, in the sense that the last show I built, really, for Barry was at Stuart Shave's modern art. And the process was beautiful. I mean, we really enjoyed the creation, I was working for Clare Rojas, and, you know, you work right up until the end, and then Stuart would walk in with an older lady holding a poodle. And she would just start pointing at the walls and a little, you know, his little assistant would start putting red dots on the wall and Stuart kind of hustled me off into his office because we were all sweaty and dirty, and the opening was about to happen. And I sat in his office and I looked up at the TV and I saw Hurricane Katrina happening in the US and I saw people on top of houses and trapped on bridges and I just said, this making art, you know, participating in the art making process, so that rich people can come and buy it is - it felt so - it had no meaning whereas the impulse to do graffiti or the impulse to make a piece of art and leave it on the street was very beautiful, and is beautiful. So, I went back to the US, and I found a Mennonite organization to volunteer with, and I moved to Louisiana and I worked with religious people building houses, and that experience of being and being in a community and working for free and, well, volunteering, it was so beautiful. And there was so much more in that process of helping people rebuild their lives or that I just, you know, the visual art world became something I wasn't interested in aspiring toward. So, yeah, that's how that - yeah, that was the - but from being in communities and earning trust and having access to people's culture, being invited to dinners and going to church services and going out on shrimping boats. I found those were stories that I wanted to tell. And so, that's how our path kind of diverged into community storytelling. But we do have a basis in the visual arts and so, there's a lot of thought that goes into composition and cinematography and editing and sound. But they're really stories that are based within communities.

Matthew 41:52
Reminds me of a director I've worked with who, he was filming Pentecostal communities in Louisiana, and he spent his first few weeks, he said, the camera never rolled. He was just doing the deliveries of - they do a lot of charity work, and delivering food hampers and things to people, and that's what he did for the first several weeks that he was there. You know, I'm conscious that your little man might be waking up, soon. I don't know if - why don't we - let's talk about what's in your future. What's next. I gather you've got a film in post-production called Naked Gardens. What can you tell us about that film and what we can expect to see.

Ivete Lucas 42:38
Well, Naked Gardens is a film that we made at a struggling nudist resort in Florida. A little bit close to Pahokee, actually... Yeah, I don't know. We can't tell too much about it, But...

Patrick Bresnan 42:56
Yeah. Well, while we're making; while we're making...

Ivete Lucas 43:01
... Coughing behind us...

Patrick Bresnan 43:02
Yeah. While we were making - yeah.

Matthew 43:06
I love the dog. What kind of dog do you have?

Patrick Bresnan 43:08
You can have him.

Matthew 43:13
Oh, really?

Patrick Bresnan 43:14
I'll pay the freight.

Ivete Lucas 43:15
He's very sweet and highly manipulative.

Matthew 43:20
I can't take him. We just got a Romanian rescue dog.

Patrick Bresnan 43:24
Okay. Well, he's Hungarian. They'll be best friends.

Matthew 43:27
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah...

Patrick Bresnan 43:28
Maybe not. Maybe not.

Matthew 43:29
It depends on whether this dog's from Transylvania or not, but yeah, I agree.

Patrick Bresnan 43:33
Yeah, we have a good friend from Transylvania. Well, so, while we were making Pahokee, I was at Costco getting groceries. And while I was loading the car, a person invited us to the nude - they saw I had long hair, and, I mean, if you're a little bit different in southern Florida, you really stick out. So, they said you need to come to our drum circle tonight. And so, I said, Sure, yeah. And she said, Well, it's at a nudist resort, and it's free tonight and it's youth night. And, you know, I'm 40 something years old, so, I'm thinking, Wow, she thinks I'm a youth. This is great. But we realized that the nudist resort is desperate for young people. And so, we called and asked to get a tour. Because we're always looking to tell stories about communities, especially communities that are, I think, there's a lot of connotations in nudism. And there's a lot of prejudgment about the naked body and people together.

Ivete Lucas 44:54
About why people would want to be nude. But this is a community that people live there. You know, people live there full time. It's a camping community, but it's full time camping. So, long term. And it's not just like a resort that you go and spend some time naked. It's like a commitment to live your life that way. And it's an act of defiance. And we wanted to know what that's like to live that life and every - every, like, feature because feature films take a long time, so every feature that we make are experiences that we want to have as well, like, when we went to Pahokee, we lived there for almost a year. And when we filmed this nudist resort, we lived close, like, right next to it; not full time there, but we also got nude and filmed with them, because it's - you cannot point a camera at nude people wearing clothes yourself, you know, it's just not good.

Matthew 46:01
No, that's - I think if it's anything, I'm sure it will be like any of your other films, it's going to be well, well worth a watch, and I'm definitely looking forward to it. I mean, can you say anything more? Can you say roughly about when it will be coming out? Do you know? Do you know yet?

Patrick Bresnan 46:17
Yeah, yeah, it will come out this summer. We're just negotiating various premieres. But, you know, it should. We would love to bring the film to the BFI. We have our producer Roberto Minervini on the film, who's been to BFI many times, and...

Ivete Lucas 46:38
He's a director who's producing...

Patrick Bresnan 46:40
Yeah, and we have two producers who are from London. Yeah, Julia Nottingham is a producer, and Tabs Breese is a, kind of, an up and coming British producer living in LA. So, we really want to bring this film to BFI. We've had almost all of our shorts at BFI, so.

Ivete Lucas 47:08
But, yeah, this is definitely a film that needs to premiere in the summer, because that's when we all want to be naked. So.

Matthew 47:17
And I think, and hopefully things will be opening up a little bit. Even more so over this summer. And if you bring it to BFI, yes, I'm now based outside of London, but hopefully we can actually meet up in person. Imagine that. That doesn't happen very often these days. But, I mean, it's another film set in Florida. I guess Florida is a rich mine. For subjects and topics. But you're sitting there, you're in Austin, aren't you?

Patrick Bresnan 47:49
Yes.

Matthew 47:50
Any plans for any Texas subjects?

Patrick Bresnan 47:55
Yes, we're shooting two new films in Austin. And in two weeks, we're going to shoot a film in Louisiana. When I was volunteering in Louisiana, that was a, you know, about a four year period. Someone brought, on a weekend, brought us to a town called Eunice where there's a very famous family of Cajun musicians and also accordion makers. And so, for years and years, myself and then later, when I met Ivete, we would go to Cajun Mardi Gras. And so, this year feels we're all dying inside, and so, the release of going to a Mardi Gras in a rural community that has such rich history of music, to run through the rice fields, and drink, and film, and take pictures is - yeah, that's our next project.

Ivete Lucas 49:09
Yeah, but we've done a lot in Florida because his family is there. But yeah, we definitely have new ideas around us as well.

Matthew 49:19
Well, we look forward to seeing all these. I mean, that sounds amazing, actually - the Louisiana one, I mean. I went to a folk festival once, years, ago outside Boston, and it was - they had a session with the accordionist, and it was, I think, the Irish one said it was the instrument that you - that was the youngest in the family always got the accordion because all the other instruments had been picked, already. So, you just had - that's what you got forced on you, but I can't remember - I gotta try to remember who the Cajun accordionist was that was there. But...

Patrick Bresnan 49:56
Clifton Chenier?

Matthew 49:57
Well, Clifton Chenier - it wasn't Clifton Chenier, but Clifton Chenier is famous. I mean, that's - is that who you're talking - ? Are they from Eunice?

Patrick Bresnan 50:05
Mark Savoy and the Savoy family - their whole life has been dedicated to preserving Cajun culture and keeping Hollywood out of it. So, they're true purists. So, yeah, we're lucky enough to hang out there once in a while.

Matthew 50:28
Well, that sounds like a dream. I think we've actually just about come up to the end of our time together, Ivete and Patrick. I just wanted to thank you again, so much for coming onto the podcast, it's been great to get to know you a little better and talk about your films. And if we haven't scared you off, I'd love to have you on after Naked Gardens comes out and talk about that film and some of your new films that are coming out. So, thanks again. And, yeah, wish you all the best.

Ivete Lucas 51:07
Thank you for inviting us. It has been lovely.

Patrick Bresnan 51:10
Yeah. It's an honor to join you and let us know when you're back in San Antonio.

Matthew 51:16
I will. I will. I'm not sure. Well, I won't make any promises. But I'm hoping it will be relatively soon. So, and there's talk of some of us heading to Austin as well, or certainly somewhere in Central Texas, which is where my mother's originally from so, so great. I look forward to it. Hopefully, if not in Austin than maybe at the BFI. So, so good luck. And, yeah, take care, and we look forward to having you on again sometime.

Patrick Bresnan 51:48
Okay, thank you so much.

Ivete Lucas 51:51
Thank you.

Matthew 51:52
I'd like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe Graves at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England, in deepest, darkest Yorkshire. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas. You can reach out to us on YouTube, social media, or directly by going to our website, www.factualamerica.com, and clicking on the Get in Touch link. And as always, please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 52:34
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

Happiness is a Journey: The Unseen America

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Happiness is a Journey: The Unseen America

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