Visit the Substantial Films website for more details.
FILM:
NAZIM HIKMET: LIVING IS NO LAUGHING MATTER. My documentary is coming out in 2012. I am in the midst of getting various copyrights and permissions, but we are headed to the finish line.
This film was my first creative project upon returning to the States in the early 1990s after living overseas in Brussels, Turkey, and briefly in Egypt, for several years. It is a labor of love that has been long in the making, I know, but funding and time have been an issue all along.
FILM:
NAZIM HIKMET: LIVING IS NO LAUGHING MATTER. My documentary is coming out in 2012. I am in the midst of getting various copyrights and permissions, but we are headed to the finish line.
This film was my first creative project upon returning to the States in the early 1990s after living overseas in Brussels, Turkey, and briefly in Egypt, for several years. It is a labor of love that has been long in the making, I know, but funding and time have been an issue all along.
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| Poster by Ervis Hyseni |
I love this film and the subject, and especially the writing of Nazim. The 86-minute film----shot in the U.S., Turkey, Russia, France and the U.K. and mostly on 16 mm----is a biography of the dashing Turkish dissident poet Nazim Hikmet--one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in any language. He spent nearly 16 years in prison in Turkey for his fight for human rights, and ultimately was banned in both superpowers. He had to be saying something worthwhile! His life and work will be of interest to anyone seeking the origins of the revolutions sweeping the Middle East in 2011. The current youth movement gets all the credit for the masterful orchestration of the latest and largest attempt at real change and reform in the region. But this film shows just how long and hard so many in the Middle East have been struggling for human rights.
Funding has been a chore (note the five-country shooting tour), so I had to write an international business bestseller, Shackleton's Way, about the brilliant Antarctic explorer, to keep the film going! Sir Ernest would have been proud. He loved poetry. One of his favorite pastimes aboard his ship the Endurance was to have the men stage poetry slams in which two teams would each read or recite poems of their favorite writer and vote on who was the best. This was at a time when poets were the rebel-heartthrobs of the day, before youngsters turned to rock stars, and then film and TV celebrities.
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| Barnes & Noble, Fifth Avenue |
BOOKS:
THE REAL PEPSI CHALLENGE:
My company, Substantial Films Inc., is seeking to option my second book for film or for a television miniseries. It's a story that has to a be told: a bold chapter in the civil-rights movement. It's not the usual rags-to-riches story. The do-gooders who mentored them weren't helping the unfortunate. These were well-educated, middle-class, talented professionals who sought opportunities in corners of American society that refused to recognize their competence and clout. They were the black Mad Men of the WWII era. Overqualified and underpaid, they helped write the book on modern American marketing to niche consumers. The brave leaders in the mainstream business community who helped them knew the huge risks they were taking in being boycotted and shunned by the wider population. And they knew the people they were helping were more than capable of taking their jobs. It's the hardest move for anyone to make: helping an equal in every measure of the word be equal.
THE REAL PEPSI CHALLENGE:
My company, Substantial Films Inc., is seeking to option my second book for film or for a television miniseries. It's a story that has to a be told: a bold chapter in the civil-rights movement. It's not the usual rags-to-riches story. The do-gooders who mentored them weren't helping the unfortunate. These were well-educated, middle-class, talented professionals who sought opportunities in corners of American society that refused to recognize their competence and clout. They were the black Mad Men of the WWII era. Overqualified and underpaid, they helped write the book on modern American marketing to niche consumers. The brave leaders in the mainstream business community who helped them knew the huge risks they were taking in being boycotted and shunned by the wider population. And they knew the people they were helping were more than capable of taking their jobs. It's the hardest move for anyone to make: helping an equal in every measure of the word be equal.
The individual family profiles of the men represent a remarkable cross-section of achievers and pathfinders. And their stories are told against the backdrop of the golden age of jazz and the golden age of black media. It's a deeply rich and rewarding story.
Contact me about film and television rights.
Contact me about film and television rights.
SHACKLETON'S WAY:
My first book, is now out in Hungarian! The business book, co-authored with Margot Morrell, made No. 7 on The New York Times business bestseller list when it came out in 2001. It was also a top seller in the U.K., Canada and Australia, and a surprisingly big hit in Germany.
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| Available in Hungarian, 2011 |
My first book, is now out in Hungarian! The business book, co-authored with Margot Morrell, made No. 7 on The New York Times business bestseller list when it came out in 2001. It was also a top seller in the U.K., Canada and Australia, and a surprisingly big hit in Germany.
The book tells the story of the 1914-1916 Endurance expedition to Antarctica led by the great Irish-English explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, a genius of leadership, especially of leadership in crisis. He set out to cross the frozen continent on foot but ended up getting stuck in the ice just a day's sail from the coast. The ship then sank, leaving the men stranded on the ice some 1,200 miles from civilization with only three rickety lifeboats. Only Sir Ernest could have gotten all his men back to safety in good mental and physical health.
EXHIBITIONS/COLLECTIONS:
The Real Pepsi Challenge collection has been acquired by the Smithsonian! I am proud and delighted to announce that in April 2011, the Smithsonian's newest museum, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture accepted my collection of memorabilia related to my 2007 book. It is a fitting tribute to these pioneers.
The year after my book came out, I guest curated a popular exhibit at one of my favorite New York museums, the Queens Museum of Art. It was built on my own collections of black Pepsi memorabilia of the 1940s and 1950s, plus those of two main profiles in the book: Edward F. Boyd, leader of the post-World War II special-markets team, and Allen L. McKellar, who, with Jeannette Maund, was one of the first black interns hired at Pepsi-Cola Company in 1940
Since then, I have acquired the private papers of the succeeding black Pepsi intern: Philip Kane. Former New York adman Andy Hirschorn was kind enough to give me his original copy of a profile he wrote on the Boyd team for Printers' Ink trade publication in 1949. I also acquired half a dozen letters that Mr. Boyd wrote (on wonderful Pepsi stationery!) explaining to Pepsi bottlers, consumers and newspaper editors the function of the so-called Negro Market campaign.
And after six years of scouring the Web, I have found original copies of 12 of the 13 Pepsi ads that these special-markets pioneers ran in Ebony in the 1940s. My personal collection now consists of about 120 original items, plus 35 reproductions on newsprint of the Leaders in Their Fields ad campaign and about a dozen newspaper columns that wrote on "suave Ed Boyd" and his good-looking Pepsi team.
EXHIBITIONS/COLLECTIONS:
The Real Pepsi Challenge collection has been acquired by the Smithsonian! I am proud and delighted to announce that in April 2011, the Smithsonian's newest museum, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture accepted my collection of memorabilia related to my 2007 book. It is a fitting tribute to these pioneers.
The year after my book came out, I guest curated a popular exhibit at one of my favorite New York museums, the Queens Museum of Art. It was built on my own collections of black Pepsi memorabilia of the 1940s and 1950s, plus those of two main profiles in the book: Edward F. Boyd, leader of the post-World War II special-markets team, and Allen L. McKellar, who, with Jeannette Maund, was one of the first black interns hired at Pepsi-Cola Company in 1940
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| Guest Curator Stephanie Capparell,QMA, 2008 |
And after six years of scouring the Web, I have found original copies of 12 of the 13 Pepsi ads that these special-markets pioneers ran in Ebony in the 1940s. My personal collection now consists of about 120 original items, plus 35 reproductions on newsprint of the Leaders in Their Fields ad campaign and about a dozen newspaper columns that wrote on "suave Ed Boyd" and his good-looking Pepsi team.
