Eric Anderson and Amelia Dellos are out to prove that America isn’t as divided as it’s made out to be.
The husband-wife filmmaking team are poised to embark on a Midwest tour, interviewing everyday people across the political spectrum for their debut documentary “Red, White and Blue.”
“For the past year or so the rhetoric has been so hostile on both sides,” said Anderson, an award-winning screenwriter who runs the Oak Park graphic design firm EBA Creative.
“Hopefully our film will humanize the conversation and get the level of shouting down.”
Anderson and Dellos plan a 14-day drive through Illinois (a blue state), Iowa (a “white” or narrowly divided state, where Anderson grew up) and Kansas (a red state, where Anderson was born).
Dellos, marketing director for the League of Chicago Theatres, will be the primary interviewer. “She’s extremely good at getting people to tell her things that they wouldn’t normally tell somebody,” Anderson said.
“One inspiration for us was watching Barak Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention, where he said ?we worship an awesome God in the blue states?and we have gay friends in the red states,'” Anderson recalled.
“We’re hoping to find, and the survey on our web site has shown, that you can’t lump an entire state into one category or another.”
The filmmakers are seeking $15-25,000 to complete the film, which Anderson’s manager Alexia Melocchi of Little Studio Films has committed to rep. “She said, ?you make it, I’ll find a distributor for it,'” said Anderson.
“She thinks there are quite a few viable outlets in television, but our ultimate goal is to show it in theaters and get as many people in the seats as possible.”
Melocchi is also producing the feature thriller “Black River,” from Anderson’s screenplay. The picture is in development, with Alex Ranarivalo of Los Angeles attached to direct. In mid-December Ranarivalo directed the short “Morphin(e)” from Anderson’s script.
Anderson is also working on a novel-to-screenplay adaptation with Project Greenlight finalist director Scott Smith. Another script, “Dream Come True,” co-written with Tom Flanigan of Second City, just won writemovies.com’s A/E Exposure screenplay competition.
See http://www.redwhiteandbluemovie.com.
– by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
