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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Enviro Film Fest Revs Back Up In Age Of Trump

Warady.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 - As the Trump administration begins to formalize its opposition toward taking action against climate change, water pollution, and the depletion of non-renewable resources, a nearly decade-old, student-run environmental film festival in New Haven is staking its claim on its mission to support environmental education through artful, entertaining, and socially significant films.

The annual series, the Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY), kicks off its ninth year of programming this week, bringing five feature films and five shorts films to different venues around Yale’s campus and downtown New Haven. This year’s lineup of movies explores a diverse array of environmental issues, from the effects of climate change on U.S. national security to the fight to preserve seed biodiversity to the violence related to charcoal exploitation in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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Student Filmmakers’ Work Shines At “BestFest”

Rae O'Hara, 18, student filmmaker from East Haven High School (Thomas Breen photo)

December 12, 2016 - Sitting in front of a white wall covered in band names, bumper stickers, and other vibrant logos and designs, each employee at Darkside Tattoo looked into Rae O’Hara’s camera with a smile and reflected on the art of tattooing.

Carlos Lopez became a tattoo artist when he realized that he didn’t want to be in the streets or go to jail anymore. Dan Adamczyk paints in watercolors or sculpts in clay when he gets tired of making drawing after drawing after drawing. Mikey Har made his first tattoo while stationed at an army barracks in Germany, drawing an L on his buddy’s left foot and an R on top of his right.

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Individual Dignity, The Movie(s)

Karyl Evans (Phil Nolt photo)

February 22, 2016 - How do you stay focused when making a movie about a musical work based on a collection of poems written about the life of a World War II medic?

For local five-time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Karyl Evans, the answer is easy: Focus on the people. Even in a multilayered work like Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio, a film about art, war, and PTSD that Evans released in 2015.

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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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Two Filmmakers Preserve New Haven’s Stories

Travis Carbonella (Lucy Gellman photo)

November 13, 2015 - You’ve seen Travis Carbonella before. Jumping on and off stage at Jose Oyola’s show at the College Street Music Hall; trailing along with the giant puppet parade in Westville; interviewing people all over downtown about their lives, their backgrounds, their passions and talents. Carbonella is a freelance videographer, and a dedicated storyteller. He’s New Haven’s Man with a Movie Camera, capturing the essence of this city one video at a time.

“I like showing the human experience, whatever that means, vulnerabilities and all,” Carbonella said during the first segment of an episode of WNHH’s “Deep Focus.” “Everybody has such amazing gifts. If I can create an opportunity for someone’s voice to be heard, especially when that voice is normally not heard, overlooked, marginalized, I think that’s the most fulfilling thing for me.”

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God Save The Screen

Brendan Toller (Lucy Gellman photo)

November 2, 2015 - New Haven-based filmmaker Brendan Toller excels at making music documentaries that are about more than just the music. His first two feature films, I Need that Record! (2010) and Danny Says (2015), document the communities of artists, fans, record store owners, and journalists who live to discover new music and share the music they love. Without their voices, Toller’s movies contest, the story of music, and of punk rock in particular, is conspicuously incomplete.

Toller (pictured) came by WNHH’s “Deep Focus” to discuss making movies about music, the importance of preserving those spaces where we learn about new and interesting art, and the benefits and challenges of being a filmmaker in New Haven. Click on the audio player below or subscribe to the WNHH podcast on iTunes to listen to the full episode.

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On Broadway

Elihu Rubin (Thomas Breen photo)

October 9, 2015 - There’s a picture of Robert Moses tucked behind Book Trader Café on Chapel Street. His arms are crossed and he’s smiling, though there’s something a little uneasy about his pose: his tie is slightly off-center, his face half-hidden in shadow. He looks eager to get back to work.

For the observant pedestrian, here hangs a picture of a man who was never elected to public office, but who nonetheless exerted so much power, built and destroyed and reshaped so much of New York City over the course of the 20th century, that cities throughout the country are still wrestling with the influence of his vision: one of swift, merciless, inescapable modernity.

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New Amistad Doc Offers A People’s History

Ghosts of Amistad (2014)

September 24, 2015 - Marcus Rediker sat just barely above water in a canoe weighed down by three historians and a fisherman. The narrow wooden vessel struggled to stay afloat as it ferried its passengers through the shark and hippo-infested mangroves of southeastern Sierra Leone.

Rediker, a celebrated historian of the Amistad revolt, and his two American colleagues were desperately searching for Lomboko: the infamous, makeshift slave depot that was the point of departure for untold masses, including the captives who would eventually take over the Amistad, as they made the harrowing transatlantic trip from freedom in West Africa to slavery in the New World.

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Environmental Film Festival Puts People First

Deep Time (2015)

April 2, 2015 - “Everyone here recognizes that environmental issues are often the 100 millionth concern on most people’s minds. They’re the big elephant in the room that people are aware of, and are completely overwhelmed by,” said Don Mosteller, executive director of this year’s Environmental Film Festival at Yale. He straightened his back, his voice soft but steady, like a drummer preparing for a solo. Kroon Hall, home to Yale’s Forestry & Environmental Studies graduate school, where Mosteller is a student, had long since emptied.

“It leads to a lot of ambivalence about what to do, a lot of anxiety, which I think only fuels the denial of climate change,” Mosteller continued. “It’s just really … heavy.”

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