SYRACUSE - A film produced by a Syracuse entrepreneur will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
The 105-minute-long documentary will debut May 22 in the "Cannes Classic" program. The film's acceptance into Cannes was announced Wednesday.
Jimmy Conroy II, Syracuse, served as executive producer of "No Subtitles Necessary: The Story of Laszlo and Vilmos."
The synopsis of the film, according to the film festival's Web site, says, "'No Subtitles Necessary' follows the lives of renowned cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond from escaping the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary to present day. As film students in Hungary, they shot footage of the Russian invasion of Budapest and subsequently volunteered to smuggle it out of the country. Barely escaping with their lives, they fled to America and settled in Hollywood, eventually saving enough money to buy their own 16mm camera to begin shooting movies."
The cinematographers went on to work on such films as "Easy Rider," "Deliverance," "Paper Moon" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
Directed by James Chressanthis, the documentary features interviews with Barbra Streisand, Sharon Stone, Jon Voight, Martin Scorsese and others.
In a telephone interview Friday afternoon, Conroy said the documentary is a NC Motion Picture LLC release. He is part owner of the movie production company.
Several years ago, Conroy said, he and his fraternity brother from college and an associate decided to look into producing a movie or two. Congress had passed an act that encourages domestic film, providing a tax write off of up to $15 million if the film flops. Conroy said the investment opportunity, plus the glamour of producing a movie, was why he initially got into movie making.
After making a short film, "No Subtitles Necessary" dropped into their lap, Conroy said. Conroy helped provide the funding, and the filming began.
"The big honor for me is to tell the story of these guys," Conroy said. Kovacs and Zsigmond helped define modern cinema, as well as many cultural reference points such as "Easy Rider," Conroy said.
And being accepted into Cannes is like icing on the cake.
"It's a tremendous honor, a tremendous honor," said Conroy.
With his businesses in Northern Indiana to take care of, Conroy said he doesn't plan to attend the Cannes premiere. However, he already has seen the finished film. He said it's filmed in high definition and is a high-quality film. It's a very "humanizing" film, but audiences also will learn about the backgrounds of some of Kovacs' and Zsigmond's films.
"It really is a really good story," said Conroy.
After Cannes, Conroy said they plan to take the documentary on the film festival circuit, with the Toronto Film Festival next on the agenda.
"We want to make sure as many people as possible see this film so they can learn these guys' stories," said Conroy.
"Their body of work is so big, we could have taken seven hours to tell their story, but we got it down to one hour and 50 minutes."
The Cannes Film Festival (French: le Festival de Cannes), founded in 1939, is one of the world's oldest, most influential and prestigious film festivals alongside Venice and Berlin, according to wikipedia.org The private festival is held annually (usually in the month of May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, in the resort town of Cannes, in the south of France.
On the Net:
Cannes Film Festival: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10802753/year/2008.html
