Elan Bogarín was nominated for at the 2009 Gotham and Spirit Awards for producing “Big Fan.” She co-founded The Wassaic Project, an arts festival/residency program that has hosted thousands of artists. Bogarín and her brother Jonathan are the co-directors of El Tigre Productions, a bilingual digital strategy/production company that creates innovative non-fiction films and content for the world’s leading museums and cultural institutions.
“306 Hollywood” will premiere at the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival on April 30. The film is co-directed by Jonathan Bogarín.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
EB: When siblings Elan and Jonathan Bogarín lose their grandma, they face a profound question: when a loved one dies, what do we do with everything they left behind? Turning documentary on its head, the Bogaríns embark on a magical-realist journey that transforms Grandma’s cluttered New Jersey home into a visually exquisite ruin where tchotchkes become artifacts, and the siblings become archaeologists.
With help from physicists, curators, and archivists, they excavate the extraordinary universe contained in a family home.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
EB: My brother Jonathan and I are inspired by the magic of real life, and our goal was to create a documentary whose very form embodies the vividness, complexity, and humanity of ordinary experience. In “306 Hollywood,” we travel to the most ordinary of all places — the home — and find that instead of drab curtains, you’ve entered a universe.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
EB: Everyone will lose a loved one but most often our grief goes unspoken. More than sex or religion, grief is generally taboo. Our modern society lacks rituals and resources to cope with the complex nature of loss. But what happens when we treat grief not as something to be “gotten through, but rather a strange landscape where we re-learn the world”? I’m quoting Meghan Rourke and her book “The Long Goodbye” here. It was a real inspiration.
Our film is about the stories we leave behind — the crazy, personal, funny, thought-provoking stories we tell each other. I hope that our film sparks viewers to think about their own families and lives. What stories do they remember? What did they learn?
We’re looking to share other people’s stories — simple photos with a caption. For example, one viewer sent a picture and amazing story of their Grandmother’s 1960s vibrator! Another sent a photo of a ring that her whole family spent 20 years fighting over. Reach out!
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
EB: The biggest challenge was convincing financiers, and the community, that we could and should make a non-traditional documentary without an easy to define call-to-action or standard form. Certainly, no one gave us permission. We had to have an almost finished film before the community started to believe that what we were pitching was in fact possible.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
EB: For most of the years we were working on the film, my brother and I were outside of the industry. As I mentioned earlier, no one wanted to put seed money into the project, so we made the choice to form our film production and digital strategy company, El Tigre Productions.
Our company served as a funding source for our film, and a training ground for our skills, and I’m proud to say that our clients include some of the world’s leading museums.
But our path changed entirely when we first participated in the IFP Labs, and then we were chosen for the Hot Docs Forum where we pitched our film to the documentary community. That experience was like a magic trick.
We began our pitch for “306 Hollywood” as unknowns but after the pitch, we had meetings with every major industry professional, and better yet, had received funding from the most amazing, down-to-earth, and inspiring investor group, Chicago Media Project. Their partnership allowed us to finish the film and really changed our lives.
W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at Hot Docs?
EB: Playing at Hot Docs is extremely meaningful because it is where everything changed for us.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
EB: Not best or worst, just advice: Don’t wait for permission to tell the stories you want to tell. Find the way. But don’t ruin your life while you’re at it. Don’t let your filmmaking allow you to go broke. Take vacations. Try to have some fun.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
EB: As a female director, I struggled a lot with self confidence. For years I was desperately embarrassed that it took me so long to finish my first feature to the point where I stopped admitting that I was even making a film, let alone wanted to direct. During that time, the central drama in my life was wanting — needing — to finish my feature, and I felt ridiculous that this caused me such angst, and that I had let it affect my professional, financial, and personal life. For a while I termed my struggle “my crazy niche problem.”
Making a movie is not reinventing the wheel. Others have come before you, and traveled the path. Seek out mentorship. Don’t struggle by yourself. Who knows why we’re driven to do this but we are! Ask for help!
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
EB: Agnès Varda’s “The Beaches of Agnès.” She is the master of the personal and the poetic! She mixes together subject matters that don’t obviously go together! The documentary stems from art not journalism! She doesn’t play by the rules! She goes for it! What a character.
W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. Many women — and some men — in the industry are speaking publicly about their experiences being assaulted and harassed. What are your thoughts on the #TimesUp movement and the push for equality in the film business?
EB: #MeToo #TimesUp
