EP013 – Go To the Love with Sandi DuBowski

07.10.2025 - Season: 1 Episode 13

Acclaimed filmmaker Sandi DuBowski has come to our hometown to present SABBATH QUEEN at Austin Film Society’s Doc Days. Twenty-one years in the making, Sandi has grown up with this film… and they’re taking the show on the road with dozens of fests, scores of community screenings, and an art house tour to rival any indie film this year. Sandi takes us on a heartfelt exploration of their work, from the groundbreaking TREMBLING BEFORE GOD to their work with the late ‘Good Pitch’ we delve into Sandi’s passion for creating documentary films that foster community and dialogue. And they’ve got plenty to share about their unique fundraising strategies, and their philosophy of building deep, lasting audience and distributor relationships. This one starts off with ducks and ends up with a lightning round of advice that we can all benefit from, though nothing hits home more than Sandi’s key takeaway: Go To The Love!

00:00 Introduction and High Fives

00:28 Meeting the Duck and Ducklings

03:00 Introduction to Sandi DuBowski

05:38 Trembling Before G-d: The Journey

11:56 Impact and Distribution of Trembling Before G-d

17:59 Personal Stories and Community Screenings

19:05 Spirituality and Filmmaking

25:56 Creating Spaces for Dialogue and Resistance

29:43 The Journey of Sabbath Queen

31:23 Balancing Filmmaking and Other Projects

35:17 Fundraising Strategies for Filmmakers

40:41 Advice for Emerging Filmmakers

43:29 Reflecting on Influences and Future Projects

48:10 The Importance of Community and Art Houses

49:10 Final Thoughts and Where to Watch

Rolling again.

We are rolling.

And Mark, do I get a high five?

Absolutely.

There we go.

Perfect.

Okay, Sandy, Debowski, Austin, Texas.

Beautiful.

Spring day.

Where are we going?

I'm taking you to my favorite place.

You know, I'm like, what?

36 hours in Austin and already I've got like my, my people, my animals, my place.

We're going right to my friend who I had dinner last night with and it was a duck.

It was a duck with her eggs.

You have befriended a duck.

I have.

We're gonna make a left right here.

Okay.

This is definitely a first.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why does it feel

to me like, uh, every city you go to.

You meet your people and your animals and your place.

Is that true?

That

is very true.

I do wind up having a, oh my gosh.

And you are not kidding.

No, I'm not kidding.

Look here.

I got it.

Keith.

This is the duck.

And you know what the amazing thing is?

So this was me yesterday.

Wow.

Like just sitting here, just you know, having dinner with my duck.

Hey, you know, just.

This

is unbelievable.

I'm so glad you showed us this.

And what's amazing is actually the ducklings, oh, were here and they're gone.

Okay.

The duck and the ducklings have probably moved into the river.

Wow.

Because they were all these ducklings there and it says.

No feeding the duck.

Yeah.

Expectant mother with stomach issues.

I mean, I will show you the, uh, this is the, let's see.

Wow.

This is the ducklings.

Oh my gosh.

That is incredible.

Sandy making friends everywhere you go.

On your left,

you're listening to Doc Walk with Ben and Keith.

Honestly, every city I'm going to either festival or cinema.

I am living that fifties game show called This Is Your Life.

Like there is somebody from either elementary school.

Or college or summer camp, or the queer world, or the film world, or the

activist world, or the Jewish world or jihad for love or trembling we forgot,

or high school, like there is someone from, you know, I mean, it's wild.

It's cre.

It's like community.

Every single city.

Well, it seems like you are incredible at maintaining that community, which is

what we want to talk to you about, right?

So, but first, introduce yourself to us.

Tell us who you are and Okay.

What you're doing right now.

Um, so my name is Sandy Debowski and I am, uh, born and bred in deep

coastal Brooklyn and live in Brooklyn.

Haven't been to Austin since I opened trembling before God here at Adobe.

And wow.

Adobe in 2002.

Oh, I love that.

The, that theater meant a lot to me.

Mm-hmm.

I went to grad school at the University of Texas Uhhuh, and that was the art cinema.

So we need to stop and talk about what we're seeing here really quickly.

We, we, this is a beautiful spring afternoon.

Set the scene for us, Sandy.

Um, we are in Mueller Park.

Is that what you call it?

Yeah.

Good job.

Mueller Park.

And we are.

Yeah, I mean I just, this is like my last, I mean, this is not a bombed

out neighborhood, but, but the last neighborhood that I was in where

it was like demolished and rebuilt, was in Christchurch during the Dock

Edge film Dust Wall in New Zealand.

Okay.

And I don't know, the vibe here is so happy, but the vibe there

was definitely a little different.

So I'm happy to see like a repurposed airport.

That's like, I don't know, full of like joy in life.

And, um, it's a really interesting example around urban planning.

So,

oh, I love that you're, so, your take on Austin, your feeling about Austin

this trip is that it's, it's it's joy.

Joyful,

yeah.

I'm having this like very, um, springy experience and actually

someone told me last night, she said.

This neighborhood is more racially diverse in a lot of neighborhoods in

Austin, which I hadn't thought about.

I didn't know.

I didn't, I didn't know that that was the case.

Um, okay, so you come from deep coastal Brooklyn.

What does that mean?

Is that Brighton Beach or where?

Um,

actually right next door.

Yeah.

Manhattan Beach.

Okay.

Um, so yeah, I came to Austin Film Society with my film Sabbath Queen, Sabbath Queen.

21 years in the making.

Um.

About a trickster, renegade, artist, performer, queer rabbi.

I know this is very much in line with your body of work, but for people who

haven't seen some of your work, tell us, uh, what the film is about and, um,

why it was important to you to make it.

Mm. So, yeah, I, I did this film called Trembling Before God, which

was at Sundance in Berlin in 2001.

And.

Kind of went really everywhere, you know, into theatrical and something new.

It was very,

an incredible experience as my first peach length dock.

Um, and that was about Hasidic and Orthodox Jews that are lesbian or gay.

So when I went to Jerusalem to look for people to be in the film, I,

uh, everyone kept saying, well, the chief Rabbi of Israel, his nephew's

gay, you gotta meet him, HAI.

And so Amika and I met.

And I asked him to be in, in, um, Sabbath, well in trembling and he

refused 'cause he's too much of a diva and he wanted his own movie.

He said, I don't do collage.

Oh wow.

So we just became dear friends for five years and built a

lot of trust and intimacy.

And then five years later, in 2003, we started filming this film.

So, you know, fast forward 21 years.

Here we are,

I wanna jump in here.

Trembling for trembling before God.

Yeah.

Which for 24 years, I have been calling trembling before GDAs D Oh yeah.

Well, until we met.

Well, movie phone would say trembling before gd You selected trembling.

Yeah.

Before Do, do.

Um, but that is one of those films that.

Had such a, like a breakthrough.

I mean, I was living in the Lower East Side when that film came out.

Uhhuh, I was living in a neighborhood that all of the buildings had, you know,

Hebrew letters in the, in the Parapets.

Oh yeah.

Um, and I live right across from a Matza factory.

Oh yeah.

The last Matza factory in the city, which is no longer there.

Straits.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

So that, that film, especially at that period of time, was one of

only a handful of documentaries.

That had like that true breakthrough, you know, I wasn't into documentary in 2001.

I was working in scripted feature films in New York.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but everybody was talking about that film in 2001 and I saw it more than once.

And I saw it at a community screening, I believe, in the lower East side.

Oh wow.

Cool.

That seems right.

I, you know, it's a long time ago.

Um, but I have like such strong, uh, memories of.

Yeah, just the access that you gained, you know, into a community that I've

been curious about but not invited into.

What were you doing right before that?

Like what got you to trembling?

So, I stole my father's to pay and the family cam recorder when I was

22 years old, and ran it over my 88-year-old grandmother's house who

lived five blocks away in Brooklyn.

Uh huh.

This was after I came back from college and was living with my

parents and then my grandmother said that she was like a tomboy.

She thought she was a man.

She thought my father wasn't a man.

It became like this gender blending tail across three generations.

'cause we pulled out her wigs she hadn't worn in five years.

We played dress up and film each other.

The Topez, everything.

It was like super playtime between an 88-year-old and a 22-year-old, and all of

a sudden I made this video called Tom Ick.

I didn't go to film school.

I just was like playing with oral history of my family and that video.

Then a programmer said, Hey, we wanna show it in San Francisco at Frameline.

And then all of a sudden the Rotterdam Film Festival wanted

to show it and the Melbourne Film Festival, and we got a prize from

the San Francisco Film Festival.

And I don't know, it just like it went to the new museum.

It went to the the Jewish Museum.

My partnership with the Getty and the Whitney, I mean.

Wow.

I was like.

And then it went on WNET.

So I was just

like-able, so you became a filmmaker?

I became a filmmaker by, 'cause the audience told you

that you were a filmmaker.

Yeah.

And you know, often when we're in early stage, like the question of whether

we're a verb or a noun, it's like, it you make a film or are you a filmmaker?

And it took a while for me to get from the verb to the noun.

Let's go to the left.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, so I think that was.

It's really my beginning and trembling started as a video

diary for me to think, huh?

Is there like orthodox, like other gay people in the orthodox world?

And you know, at first it was much more like this personal

question and this exploration.

And then I started meeting people who were kicked out of their families

and thrown out of religious schools and really in marriages like.

You know, being like closeted to their spouses.

Right.

So, yeah.

And, and you were finding a lot of those people, it sounds like enough

to like motivate thinking like, this is an audience that I could speak to.

Yeah.

And just like I had a deeper responsibility than

I had originally imagined.

Interesting.

Like, I really, these were all people who were gonna tell their story

to the world for the first time.

This was a community that had not had a public voice.

So, you know, it was very, um, charged and very delicate.

And you know, I remember I waited like years before I even went to Orthodox

rabbis to even broach these questions.

And Orthodox rabbis had, by and large not spoken about homosexuality in public.

And if they did, it was only about sin or sickness.

So it was like really breaking through.

You know, this moment that a community was ready to tell its story, the

world was ready to hear it, and then trembling became an absolute tipping

point and then changed the, changed the whole orthodox world around

the issue when the film came out.

Wow.

Did you, did you find that those rabbis, uh, had a different.

Stance privately versus publicly?

Like when you were talking to them with, without the camera rolling

versus when you were talking to them with the camera rolling.

Yes.

And like some of them were very reticent to say anything differently publicly.

Mm-hmm.

Like some of them would condemn homosexuality from the pub pulpit,

but then they would see the film and they would stop doing that.

They would just, wow.

Like, I don't know what to say anymore.

And we had parents who disown their children.

And they saw the film and they had started speaking to them again.

Oh, wow.

We had orthodox synagogues actually show the film in the synagogue.

I mean, we did like a lot of, we did a secret.

I'm just stopping here.

Yeah.

Because of the dogs.

Let's, we gotta, we gotta visit.

I'm just wondering if the babies that I just met are here.

Yeah.

But I hope that they're doing okay.

So, yeah.

I think, you know, trending became this absolute tipping point.

And really change the dynamic.

We even did things like, um, we did a secret underground conference

for orthodox psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists to

give them queer affirmative therapy.

Wow.

Um, we, we trained 12 fci 12 facilitators in Jerusalem, um,

that were secular and religious.

And, um, because we knew the film was gonna broadcast in

the country and they had no.

Like they, they'd not been trained at all.

So all the kids were gonna talk about the film, but they

had no way of dealing with it.

So we did, um, private screenings for 2000 principals, teachers and school

counselors in the entire school system, including the religious school system.

So, you know, like,

and how much of that was your.

Driving an agenda of distribution.

I mean, if you're, you're basically becoming a filmmaker mm-hmm.

You're, you're taking a personal moment with your, with your grandmother, turning

that inadvertently into a statement that catches people's attention, recognizing

there's room for more conversation here.

Mm-hmm.

And feeling the bug to kind of grab your camera and travel around

the world and expand on that idea.

Mm-hmm.

And then when the film is done.

Spending, it sounds like months and years sharing it with the world in unique ways.

Like are you driving all of that as an activist and a

distributor and a, and an artist?

Are you partnering with organizations?

Are you collaborating?

I mean, I always, like, I worked with a theatrical distributor for, for trembling.

I worked with New Yorker films.

Mm-hmm.

New Yorker films is one of those companies that went under, so.

You know, but they were never a distributor for me.

They were always a partner in distribution.

So I remember having my premier in New York at the, at Lincoln Center,

at the Walter Reed Theater, and we were the closing night of the Human

Rights Watch Film Festival, which was another casualty right of this time.

And Jose, who was the head of the theatrical, he said, Sandy.

Okay, I'm seeing what's happening tonight.

We need to speak tomorrow.

Come to the office.

And I was like, uhoh, what's gonna happen?

And he said, it is clear that you created a family and we were gonna

open this like a normal film.

We were gonna open a week in New York, you know, next week la.

And it was like, no, we need to do what you do and move this film like a family.

So we're gonna open New York and let that build and then open LA

and then slowly roll this out.

And this is 2002.

This was 2001.

2001 into two.

I mean, we had such a hands-on distribution and it's, I mean,

I'm mirroring that in, in what I'm doing now with Sabbath queen too.

It's like everything is like slowly built, moved.

Grown, you know, city by city, community by community.

It's such an incredible way to share your work.

I mean, I remember the first film I made, Iza Me played an independent lens, and

we had done 30, I did four festivals, four or five festivals and 30 community

screenings, and I only got to go to maybe five of the community screenings.

And then it went out on TV and they gave me a carriage report and

they said, oh, 2 million eyeballs or 2 million people saw the film.

But I didn't feel anything about those 2 million people.

I had no relationship to their experience.

Were they, were they eating?

Were they chatting during it?

Did they get up three times and go to the bathroom?

But the community screenings, like in a public library, you know, in the

back room of the public library with 14 people there, you know, like changed

my whole relationship to filmmaking.

Brought up questions I had never considered while I was making the film.

Mm-hmm.

And created a little bit of a, li a sense of what you're talking about, right?

Like how did that.

How did that 2001 distribution model change you?

I mean, it just shaped, I did 850 live events for trembling before God.

Wow.

Over three years and more.

That's incredible.

I mean, tonight in Austin I'm doing my 120th q and A for

Sabbath queen, for Sabbath queen.

That's so how do you have time to make other projects when you, when you I'm not.

Okay.

Well, and it sounds like you don't need to, if the movie's resonating.

On that level.

Mm-hmm.

Where it can play for three years.

Mm-hmm.

And you can be an event with the film and your participation.

Like that's, that personally sounds amazing to me to go do.

And I, I had a little touch of that with Winnebago Man, where we did

that for about a year and a half.

Mm-hmm.

And it was so much about sharing my experience with.

Befriending Jack Rebny, and I would call him on the q and as and

things, but it, you know, mine was more of a personal journey film.

Whereas yours sounds like you are, you're questioning something

very fundamental about one of the, the world's oldest religions.

Mm-hmm.

So, I'm interested in the spiritual aspect of documentary, of filmmaking for you.

Mm-hmm.

Like, is it a. Would you consider yourself a spiritual person?

And is documentary a spiritual practice for you?

Mm-hmm.

I, you know, remember that this film is so personal to me.

I mean, HAI buried my father.

Wow.

You know, he, like my father was in the hospital and he died.

I was there and I called Amika and he rushed to the hospital

and he, my mom, my husband and I all, you know, did last rights.

Wow.

And then he comforted my family in a year.

Mourning.

I'm really telling the story of, uh, of my generation, of, you know, all of the, so

many people I know who've been touched by HAI and, and so many people who feel this

question right now of like in this raw, fraught times, like what are our values?

Right.

What is our spirituality?

Where is our anchor?

Where is our, you know, like, how does justice relate to all of this?

And you know, it's been very potent to bring people together

in person, in cinema, you know, to really have a communal experience.

'cause I think people are really needing that right now.

Like, I'm feeling the, I'm feeling how raw and tender our audiences are.

Yeah.

How, how, oh, go ahead.

So, yeah, just putting it out there to have someone have an individual

experience on their laptop doesn't feel to me where we are now and

where this film can reach people now.

Absolutely.

Because the reactions are extraordinary.

I have people coming to see the film.

Do we have to stop for sound?

No, no, but let's get a shot of the helicopter.

There's a hospital nearby.

And to be honest with you, every time I hear that sound in the helicopter.

I imagine somebody's life is a lot worse than mine right now.

And take a moment to be grateful for this.

Yeah.

For our

health right as we walk.

Um, I wanted to ask, when you go to, when you go to, when you have these community

screenings and you have not community screenings, like this communal experience.

Yeah.

Where, what is a moment that's surprised you?

What is a moment that, that you realize like, oh, this is a singular moment

in time and it's part of what makes.

Becoming a traveling salesman.

Mm. You know, uh, so valuable.

I mean, I think I've been a bit shocked by how many, by people coming

to see the film like multiple times.

Mm. I think that's been something I did not anticipate, that I made

something that was actually very dense.

Mm. Like people need to really chew on it and really like see it,

get something, come back, get all these kind of other things from it.

Bring people to see it.

Like I had a mom who, you know, came to IFC.

We were, we were in IFC center in New York for like five weeks, so we really

kept playing and playing and then she's like, I have to come back this weekend.

And she comes back with her 16-year-old and 19-year-old daughters.

And this 16-year-old says, mom, this film just changed my life.

I can now imagine being a Jew.

And I'm getting that like consistently.

Wow.

Whether it's Jew, Catholic, Mormon, evangelical, Muslim,

Buddhist, Hindu, like, like queer, straight intergenerational.

There's like the film is touching like in a such a intense way.

Like I have 190 pages.

Of people writing me their kind of, how the film affected them.

Wow.

Like, I mean, we're just in the, we're not even at the first year.

Like I'm still just, um, just taking in the kind of enormity of the, of

what the film is doing to people.

And so I really want to be there.

We were just in New Mexico doing a new, me, like a Southwest tour.

Mm-hmm.

And I did Santa Fe, Taos, Fort Collins, Tucson, and Denver.

And, um, I brought Shera, who's in the film.

So we created a Friday Night Sabbath Queen ritual in Santa Fe.

Okay, so like a Shabbat service?

Yeah, yeah.

But like got optional artist driven, everybody friendly.

Like not your parents or grandparents Judaism.

You know, I had people who I knew who were native queer folks, two-spirit folks.

I had a friend who's a Yuba priest.

I had Jews.

It was like queer, straight.

It was all.

A amazing, and you know, we have done soul spas like as we

moved like in different cities.

What does that mean?

Soul spas?

Like, um, another kind of ritual of the Sabbath where, you know,

it's got optional, everybody friendly, artist driven.

It's like it contemplative singing conversation like ways to spiritually

come together, um, in unexpected ways.

So in that

way it does sound like, to bring it back to my mm-hmm.

Question, that documentary has become like a spiritual practice for you.

Yeah, and, and I think any form of community building, like any way

that we can build community so that it's expanded cinema, you know,

it's not just a movie in a theater.

There is a deep engagement.

You know?

Yeah.

For this, you know, someone said that, oh, a filmmaker came out and

said, you're medicine for the moment.

Wow.

Well, I was gonna ask, I mean, releasing a, a film that is about being Jewish

and questioning what it means to be Jewish, particularly right now Yeah.

Feels very fraught.

And how did you, or a unique opportunity Yeah.

Or a unique opportunity.

Yeah.

How, how did you, how do you, how are you

actively dealing with that?

Well, I mean.

Amika has actually been doing, I did screenings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv like

a premier, but he's been doing screenings on his own and like he just did one in

the house with Solidarity, which is a left space in Tel Aviv with a Palestinian

queer person in discussion with them.

You know?

So that's like a real co resistance space.

So I think that what we're doing there.

Is, you know, different than what we would do outside, you know?

But I think that this is providing a space that is, you know, calling, like

in the film calls for ceasefire, stop the war, you know, stop the occupation.

Like it definitely is providing a voice.

Um, and I have a wide range of people who are embracing the film from people who.

Our, you know, pro-Palestine left folks to people who are

even kind of centery, right?

Who I would define maybe as more kind of, sort of pro-Israel, you know, like

people like the film's actually reaching an interesting spectrum and maybe because

it's a character driven film so bad.

I mean, I do have people who come out of the film and say, I love the film.

I hate the Gaza piece because it's, you know, it's critical of Israel.

But then I have some people who say, I love the film.

I hate that piece, but I'm still recommending it to all my friends.

Mm-hmm.

And I feel like that's a win for me because they're kind

of sitting in the discomfort.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and they're able to,

um, you know, well you're creating a space for conversation.

And I mean, I think so many.

Documentary, uh, grant applications and panelists, we always talk about,

we wanna spark a conversation, we wanna spark a dialogue, but a film that doesn't

allow space for an alternate part of the conversation to exist isn't sparking

conversation, a sparking monologue.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, and so yes, you obviously have a point of view when you're creating

these films and your characters certainly have their, their lives are.

A point of view.

Mm-hmm.

But by, by reaching across and, and speaking to people that, you know, going

into territory where, you know, there's a, whether it's a hostility or, or, or a, or

a negative kind of take on, on the subject matter and asking for conversation.

Mm-hmm.

You create a space that we can all now mm-hmm.

You know, have that conversation.

I think because things are framed around questions, you know.

And they're framed around the human story and we've gotten really specific, like

what I love about this is that people who have no connection, you know, to

this are finding it so deeply interesting and actually really educational.

And then people who are at the core center of this say, wow,

you did not dumb this down.

So it's been fascinating to see.

It also resonate for people who are very inside and people

who are kind of on the outside.

So Sabbath queen is something that really was born out of the

trembling before a God process.

Mm-hmm.

But you say it's 21 years in the making.

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about maybe some touch points during the 21 years that.

That are, that you, you were capturing pieces that ended up in the film, and

did you know, as you were capturing those pieces, that eventually this

film would exist or, or, you know, kind of where were you in those 21 years?

I don't know how I had this like, ultra marathon of patience, but I was willing

to just submit to time, you know, and allowing a life to unfold before the

camera and however long that would take,

you know?

So, so you knew as you were filming.

That it was, you weren't, you didn't feel the pressure of, of completing

something with those individual.

I let go of festival deadline.

I let go of life deadline.

I just said story, story will dictate, you know, let the story unfold and the

story will say when it's done, you know?

But I didn't know all the twists and turns of that story in the beginning.

I was so interested in the drag character.

Right.

And I was like, wow.

All the wigs, the glitter, the sparkle, the commentary, the satire.

I was really into that.

So in some ways, in the beginning I was more documenting performances.

Mm-hmm.

I wasn't plumbing, like psychological depths, you know?

And how

were you making money?

How could you keep going for the, yeah,

that time.

So I was producing and co-producing and doing this film jobs like Good

Pitch, which I did for seven years.

So.

Like only later, later in the process.

Was I working on it full time?

Okay.

Um, what is good pitch?

So, good pitch was, um, doc Society, which was based in the uk and we did

Maxine, Maxine just search dearly departed bd, fin Zi, um, Elise Mcca like we did.

Um, we selected about seven projects.

Social issue docs.

And then we did a high impact pitching forum with, um, sometimes like 400 people.

Wow.

And I would curate the room.

Okay.

So it was broadcasters, digital platforms, nonprofits, philanthropists,

foundations, business government, like anyone who could partner with

the film on the various issues.

And that issue could be.

Climate change.

It could be racial justice, it could be, um, education, it could

be gender equity, women's health.

I mean, it, we had so many different issues in films and I worked on it

with, I think I did like 125 films.

Wow.

So that was like, and I worked on it in, in the US and then kind

of helped with India and Mumbai.

Taipei and kind of popped into Latin America a little bit in, in Europe.

But yeah, a good pitch was like a kind of phenomenon of impact documentary.

That's incredible.

So you're doing, doing this at the same time that you're making Yeah.

Yeah.

Sabbath

queen.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that model of kind of creating like coalitions, partnerships around film?

Yeah.

Through every sector of civil society.

You know, I mean, that's what we need now.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, I was just

gonna say, you've pulled off this incredible, uh, trick in a way

where like the more individual it seems like we are and mm-hmm.

You know, the.

System is kind of imploding.

Mm-hmm.

In terms of everybody's not watching things together any longer, and

distribution is a big question mark.

And even the streamers are mm-hmm.

Have kind of made the most content they can possibly

make and are cutting way back.

You are actually getting people to go to the theater and experienced

something communally, which is not really happening right now.

That's amazing.

We've talked a lot about like the incredible communal experience you have.

Yeah.

Ben and I are sufficiently jealous and envious in every way.

Um, but you can do it too.

Well, we can do it too.

And that's what I wanna get to.

Let's get to nuts and bolts.

How does an emerging filmmaker with their very first film, how does a

couple old hands, like Ben and I, trying to still figure out this, this

crazy business, how do we model after

just modeling old hands?

Yeah.

How do, how do we, how do we take a page out of Sandy's book and, and, and

follow through on what you're doing?

So incredibly,

everyone does have relationship.

S people have gone to school with people.

People have worked with people.

People you know, have family members.

Like I threw 15 benefit parties through the making of this film.

I raised a lot of money through house parties in Boston, New York, Miami,

dc, Chicago, Philly, San Francisco, la We did it in a way where we said.

We're not going to, um, charge a ticket.

People are just gonna show up.

We have donated, um, drink and food hor d'oeuvres, and then we show a trailer

or we show a sample reel, and then we get someone to pitch the audience and

give to their, my fiscal sponsor and, you know, and then follow up with them.

It could mean that someone there.

Becomes an executive producer for 50,000, 75,000, a hundred thousand,

whatever, you know, levels people set up.

It could be that that room of people give a hundred each.

Wow.

You don't have to mail out invitations anymore.

It's all digital.

So all those house parties.

I already had hundreds and hundreds of people who were invested in

the film before we even came out.

So when it, when you make it and you are on a tour, then all those people

want to tell their friends Yeah.

To come see the movie they've invested in.

Yeah.

It's, it's thinking of this as community organizing.

Like, wow.

Building, building, building.

Put mailing lists into audience.

That is the most simple thing.

Everyone, every filmmaker should own their data.

They should not give it to the algorithm.

So.

I have a mailing list at every single screening.

I put clipboards in audience, people sign up because they love the film and

they want to keep in touch and they want to send their friends in other cities.

So it's like, and I've done that through, from trembling through

Jihad for Love, which I produced about Islam and homosexuality

with the Muslim gay director.

And I did that like consistently over the span of my 30 plus years of filmmaking.

Wow.

So.

Yeah, 30 years.

So it's like I've now built up, you know, circles of audience and community.

That's incredible.

Wow.

But you put out your first film at a time that was pre-social media when it was

really easy to keep in touch with people.

Well, in that same way, email still exists.

I mean, we haven't moved to a post email

place yet.

Do you find it easier to fundraise for distribution of the film and

this kind of community outreach plan than actually making the film?

Or are they the same to you?

They have D like sometimes convincing philanthropy to fund

film making is harder, you know, because it's like we have to move

outside just the film funders.

Right.

You know, we've gotta get our issue.

Funders who care about your film.

You know, to get involved, you know, if there's a film there, but there

are funds that funds everything.

There are funds that are focused on economic justice.

There are funds that you know are looking at like bipoc

leadership in electoral politics.

Like, I mean, you can move in a lot of different funding worlds.

I think what I'm really proposing to people now is help me get this film

to college campuses and high school.

For the impact because, you know, I go to art houses and by and large,

like, you know, high schoolers, college students, twenties are not

necessarily coming to the art house.

You know, so they're coming for repertory films.

Right.

Interesting.

Like they want to come for the.

For the analog, you know Right.

Experience of repertory.

Right.

But they don't want to come see a new song.

Not as much.

There's something kind of hip about, you know?

Yeah.

It's very interesting.

I've been talking to like the theater owners, um, about this dynamic.

Well, let's use this as an opportunity, Sandy, for a lightning round.

Yeah.

Oh, I like it young.

You're good at this young emerging filmmakers.

Yes.

How do they turn?

A video with their grandma into a 25 year career.

Uhhuh.

I know that's a big question.

What advice do you have for emerging filmmakers?

Just understand that the world is not gonna be the way it is now.

So just like plow forward, make work that is deeply passionate, that isn't

obeying any conventional wisdom.

Go to everything.

I love what you said the other day.

Like go to every rough cut screening, go to every meetup.

Like, like connect with, like just, just gotta show up.

Show up.

Build community.

Don't be afraid of asking.

Be your own advocate.

Sometimes you can approach people who are more veteran in the field and say,

look, can you be my consulting producer?

Can you be my consulting editor?

Mm-hmm.

That's a great

people, people get too hung up on finding that perfect partnership.

Yeah.

Finding that big voice that's gonna give so much of themselves, but asking

somebody with more experience to give a little of themselves a little

Yes.

That's smart.

Like, like, would you watch my rough cut?

You know, I mean, it's hard.

People like have limited bandwidth and time, but okay, I've got one.

And, and also rejection is a part of the process.

That's good.

Rejection is a part of the process.

Sabbath Queen has been and trembling and jihad for love.

We've been rejected from film festivals, rejected from, um, grand

applications, rejected from awards.

It is, that is normal.

That is part of the process.

Don't let that get you down.

Just move through.

Go to the love.

Just go to the love where the love says yes.

Go there.

Okay.

Couple more lightning round questions.

Yeah.

What was the documentary that convinced you that you wanted to

spend your life making documentaries?

Yeah.

What

was the gateway drug?

Well, I think tongues untied.

By Marlon Riggs, you know, which interestingly was attacked in Congress,

um, for being sexually explicit.

And PBS, I mean, it was a, it was like the black gay, like test testimony film.

It was like a real breakthrough film.

Have you either of you seen?

I don't know it, no.

Oh, you have to see it.

It's really a collective, incredible voice plays with form.

So inventive, Marlon Brigg's tragically died of aids.

Um, and, you know, he was part of like a real queer wave.

Yeah, it came from a communal place.

I, I just, yeah, it was very formative.

Amazing.

And then what is the project that got away?

What is the movie you tried to make and couldn't, or the film

that you would make if you could?

You know, I mean.

If you do long film, you know, like this is longitudinal, you're going

to then give up other ideas of films.

But I rather go deep, you know, like dive deep than just swim in some tributaries.

I really, I'm good at just taking one thing and just plumbing, plumbing,

plumbing, you know, the depths.

And really like building, building, building community.

I don't know if I'm as good at just like popping from one thing to another.

It's just not how I work.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

I can appreciate

that.

I am the opposite, but I, when I hear you say that, it makes

me want to dig in deeper.

Every one of my films has taken longer than I intended it to Uhhuh yet, but

I've never set out to make a film.

That played with time in the way that you do.

Mm. Um, and, and it gets me really excited.

Like where is something that, and I think it works for my, like a DHD

rattled, you know, like juggle is to have one or two things that you could

kind of pick pieces off in between other things towards a long-term goal.

Right.

Well, it's like I also then listened to you and I'm like, wow, how fascinating.

To like just have multiple things happening and.

You know, people are like, what's the next thing?

I'm like, well, is it gonna be 21 years?

I'm like, no, it's 21 hours.

You know, like, it's like how could I do something that is more sort

of playful and short and mm-hmm.

You know, but you know, remember that Sabbath queen was the first time

that I ever did something like this.

I never did a character driven film.

I always did like a chorus of voices around an issue.

So, you know, it was.

Hey, so it was, this was a diff this stretched me as an artist and I, you know,

I definitely like each project that I'm doing stretches me in a different way.

Everything that you've said is inspiring me to want to go back to the drawing

board on the way that I approach distribution, on the way that I approach

my relationships as far as maintaining.

F fostering, seeding and watering that garden.

Um, funding sources.

Funding sources from parties

in order to fund your films.

Absolutely.

But also it just makes me want to You are already great parties at your house.

Well, that's right.

Uh, but it also, Sandy, it just makes me so excited that we are doing this podcast

or that we're participating in film events because we get to meet inspiring, you

know, artists like yourself that have, have really kind of like stretched our

understanding of, of what this work is.

So I just wanna say thank you.

This has been wonderful.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

And I'm walking away similarly inspired and thinking about things in a new way.

Mm-hmm.

I'm so focused on how everybody is just individually, uh, accessing

documentaries and stories right now.

And you're reminding me that no, people still go to the theater.

They want to be involved in communal movements.

And I, I'm really grateful for that.

So thank you.

And I would say support your local art house.

There are four art house cinemas that I've been just.

In, in the past month that are expanding.

They're building more screens and more theaters.

There are theaters popping up in places that haven't had them.

Like in, in Sonoma County, there's a new theater.

It's incredible.

Like, like this is actually the Pickford in Bellingham, Washington.

Wow.

You know, which is kind of a second home for me.

Like they are expanding the Loft cinema in Tucson is building more screens.

Like we're talking about a thing that is.

Like if we support it, it will build

bookstores, record stores, indie cinemas.

Like there's something going on out there where people are craving authenticity.

They're craving a small but personal relationship with the media

and the art that they bring in.

Um,

and saying, you're doing it.

You're doing it.

Provid it.

So thank you and thank you.

Keep going.

You're doing it.

Thank you.

Doing it.

Thank you.

And, and where, remind me where you're off to Next.

Beacon.

Beacon, then Long Island.

And where can people see the film?

Um, so people can go to sabbath queen.com and there's like our list

of screenings and they can go to our Instagram, which is Sabbath queen film.

Excellent.

Cool.

For there.

Wow.

Okay.

Good to see you friend.

Yeah.

Thank you for doing this.

It was a pleasure to meet.

Yeah, same.

Next time on Dock Walks, we're doing something a little bit different.

Join me in a long form conversation with San Francisco based husband

and wife filmmaking team, Amanda McBain and Jesse Moss.

I. They are the creators behind the Overnighters Boys state Girls

state, and they're down here in Austin presenting their newest film

Middletown at Austin Film Society's Doc Days documentary festival.

And so, uh, thanks to the Film Society for letting us tag.

In on the long form q and a that Jesse and Amanda agreed to sit for, for the

documentary intensive lab that, uh, that we put on in conjunction with doc days.

And so anyway, it's gonna be me and Jesse and Amanda.

Ben's in the audience for this one.

We're not walking.

But we are talking and, uh, I hope you'll tune in for a very special,

long form seated conversation with Amanda McBain and Jesse Moss.

Thanks a lot and we'll catch you next time.

On Doc Walks.

Doc Walks is created, produced, and edited by my friend Ben Steiner of the Bear.

Hello, and my friend Keith Maitland of Go Valley.

Thanks for tuning in.