Pizza: A New Haven Love Story

A Veggie Bomb pie from Modern Apizza.

Friday, February 9, 2018 - 

Local filmmaker Gorman Bechard feels strongly about a lot of things. The Replacements are the greatest rock band of all time. Animal abuse should be prosecuted as a felony.

And there are only three pizza places in the whole world that matter: Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern.

Having already made documentaries on ‘80s rock and animal rights, this eclectic local filmmaker is now turning his camera’s eye to New Haven’s nationally celebrated culinary delicacy, and to the three pizzerias that, he argues, do it the best.

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In Rock Doc, A Song Is Born

Local filmmaker Gorman Bechard.

Monday, Nov. 27, 2017 - 

How does a song come to life on screen? In New Haven filmmaker Gorman Bechard’s latest rock documentary Who Is Lydia Loveless?, the magic lies in the editing.

Bechard’s movie follows Lydia Loveless, a 24-year-old country rocker from rural Ohio, as she and her band tour across the Midwest in 2014 and 2015.

Bechard, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a consummate chronicler of the passion, restlessness and unpredictability of those devoted to rock ‘n’ roll, finds in Loveless a case study for the expressive potential and logistical difficulties of trying to make a living as a full-time musician.

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Documentary Fest Puts Elm City On Screen

Thursday, June 1, 2017  - The New Haven Documentary Film Festival will be celebrating its four-year anniversary this June with a slate of nonfiction films that feature the Elm City and its residents both in front of and behind the movie camera.

“If I were to identify the theme of this year’s festival,” NHDocs co-founder and co-director Charles Musser said on a recent episode of WNHH’S Deep Focus, “I would say that the theme is New Haven. We have a wide range of films about people who work in New Haven, about communities in New Haven, about incidents in New Haven.”

For Musser, who teaches documentary film at Yale University and is an experienced filmmaker in his own right, the focus on New Haven not only recognizes people in this city who have not had a chance to see themselves or their neighbors on screen before; it also offers an opportunity for New Haven audiences to take a step back and better understand the great diversity of people, communities, challenges, and achievements that make up this city of 130,000 residents.

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Local Filmmakers Prepare Students For Fall Film Festival

Thomas Breen photo

June 30, 2016 - Surrounded by shelves upon shelves of DVDs, with the Great Directors section to his left and Cult Classics to his right, 17-year-old filmmaker Caden Rodems-Boyd reflected on the challenges of making a feature-length movie while just a junior in high school.

“It was really, really difficult,” he said, looking out at a small but rapt audience of fellow high school students who had gathered at Best Video on Whitney Avenue on Tuesday night.

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Color Him Obsessed

Gorman Bechard (Thomas Breen photo)

January 22, 2016 - Just after the closing credits of Color Me Obsessed, Gorman Bechard’s 2011 documentary about the rise, fall, and lasting influence of the ‘80s punk rock band The Replacements, musicianPatrick Stickles struggled to articulate just what made their music so exceptional.

“If you’re a human being,” he said, “this is the best ... This is the most human band. Music for humans. No band has deserved that title more than the good old Replacements. Music for humans.”

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Documentary Fest Focuses On CT Filmmakers

Trailer for A DOG NAMED GUCCI

June 4, 2015 - “It was an absurdity, an embarrassment that there was this documentary filmmaker who hung out here a lot, and we didn’t even know each other,” said film historian and Yale professor Charles Musser, in between sips of coffee at the Willoughby’s on Church Street. Musser’s office is at the Whitney Humanities Center, just a few steps away from the café, which has been managed by local filmmaker Gorman Bechard’s wife for the past 20 years.

“It really emphasized the fragmentation of the community, the inability to communicate,” Musser said.

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