Photograph by Nick Schnelle
On a recent brisk winter’s morning, producer and director Brad Hodge, director and cinematographer Derek Elz and actor (and on-set jack-of-all-trades) Chad Bockholdt gathered at Rooster, the downtown coffee shop/café, to discuss their artistic efforts, including the recent success of their low-budget noir thriller, Mosquito Kingdom, which took home two awards from the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase.
After about four years of active efforts together, the trio—who operate as the collective Film Neshui—has produced a handful of feature and documentary works, with a core of actors, producers and support personnel coalescing around their shared vision of making “handcrafted” digital films from a base of operations in St. Louis. Though calling the Gateway City home, Neshui’s worked on productions in locales as near as Florida and as far as Morocco, Hungary and Spain.
Befitting their status as friends as well as co-workers, the three trade stories and mix in a few personal barbs, such as when Elz reminds Hodge of his lightly packed suitcase for a wintry trip to Budapest.
“For a three-week shoot, he packs books, a Speedo and a going-out-to-nightclubs jacket,” Elz claims dryly, while noting he himself was saddled with “200 pounds of camera gear and seven bags.”
While jokes salt their conversation, the three are more likely to praise one another for creativity, an ability to stretch a dollar and the desire to work whatever hours are necessary.
Says Elz, “We really think of it as a team situation. Chad’s not sitting in a trailer, he’s setting up lights or seeing if there’s anything—anything—that can be done. It’s a total team attitude.”
Commitment, says Bockholdt, is the central tenet of Neshui sets.
“It works,” he says of the group’s process. “It does give everybody a sense that this is our film, not his film, or his film, or my film.”
“The neat thing about St. Louisans is that when they believe in you, they’ll go anywhere and do anything for you,” Hodge says. “They’ll work harder than anyone. I can’t find someone that works harder than actors from St. Louis. In Spain and Morocco, we had people working 20 hours at a stretch—and without the actors, you couldn’t do it. They’ve got backbone, for sure.”
In the meantime, Mosquito Kingdom has new life, with the SLIFF wins an extra calling card. “We’ve been, specifically, working to get Mosquito Kingdom into some film festivals, and it’s really tough to promote outside of St. Louis,” Bockholdt says. “But we want to get something going, so that we can get some money from Chicago or Los Angeles. Have people see our work and say, ‘This is a pretty good flick. Stay in St. Louis and work. And here’s some money for this film, or that film.’”
Though they wouldn’t turn away generous financing from some anonymous (or not-so-anonymous) investor, the three are not letting money, or the lack thereof, stand in the way of rolling forward on new projects. An as-yet-untitled film updating the Romeo and Juliet story line—but casting young Palestinian and Israeli actors as the star-crossed lovers—is on target for a 2009 release, while another in-process feature is coming into preproduction reality.
Adds Hodge, “It’s been about four years now. And we’ve kept it underground. It’s easier to work that way. Myself and Derek work full-time on this, and Chad does too, basically. If you get caught up looking around yourself all the time and spend your time trying to promote yourself, well … we’re just trying to make great films. And it’ll come along from there.”
You can watch Film Neshui trailers, or simply buy their works, at filmneshui.com.
