December 8, 2025 • 51 mins
Mike talks with director Sam Firstenberg and Reelblack founder Michael J. Dennis about Riverbend (1989). The discussion examines the film’s production, its depiction of racism in the Jim Crow South, and its unusual release history. Firstenberg reflects on working with Steve James, Larry Dobkin, and Margaret Avery, while Dennis provides broader context on the film’s place within independent Black cinema. The conversation also touches on the politics surrounding Riverbend, its themes, and how the film has been received over time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh he is, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring, don it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Off, turn it so listen, phyllis been a long ride.
(00:43):
How about to smoke my friend back here?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
There's a fine here stop.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
A cough.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Riverbend, Georgia, nineteen sixty six. A timeless community where nothing change.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
There'll be some.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Trouble if you come to town this morning, bikers, I'm wanting.
You can't just go on killing negroes.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Times you change.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Three Vietnam combat hero is falsely accused of war crimes.
Are hiding out in Riverbank.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's just a place to stay for a few days,
that's all. You can't stay here.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
We're only a mouth in town here. I don't have
time to play.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Where's the gun?
Speaker 5 (01:22):
No, we all know what happened to Marcus now as
the example of a man going to the laws and
god damn it, look what happened to him.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Now, come on out here, boy, I want to talk.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm doing the talking. I'm take care.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
It is narrow there's only one way to save this problem.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
That's to put a bullet in his head.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
All right, God damn it, get back. I swhere I can.
I don't ever ever want to hear the words boy,
nigger or color to use again. Understood, I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
About probably of you. Sound like we're about to have
a revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Only one man can teach them to fight. That's the
time we need to The town will be ours. The
people are now our hostages. We rather don't know what
the uh situation in the town is.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We can't get close. En'll find out.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
We get work from you that you have located the hostages.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You gonna know one of that front line.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Try.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I've located and freed the hostages. They're in the big church.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
They're all safe.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You can move in now, Margaret Avery. You don't get
out of here killing Steve James, Tony Franks. Two men
locked in combat.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
You Brad, it's been alone, Tom trummin.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Riverbend. The battle for freedom has just begun.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Hey boy, I want to talk to you so many.
Speaker 7 (03:18):
Hey folks, Welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, it is
the return of director Sam Furstenberg. He's talking about the
film Riverbend from nineteen eighty nine, which is getting a
new revival thanks to the efforts of Michael J. Dennis
from Real Black Cinema. That's our E E L B
L A c K dot com. Film is available for
(03:41):
pre order now through Real Black dot com. Thank you
so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this interview.
Before we even start to talk about Riverbend, I want
to know a little bit more about Steve James and
when you first met him.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Here is the story of the relationship between Steve James
and myself. At some point was nineteen eighty five, we
decided the company Kennon decided to do the movie American Ninja.
It was sequel to another kind of equal to another
three Ninja movies that they produced in the previously, and
we started. We worked on a script, myself, producers and
(04:17):
a writer, and those two characters emerged in the script,
the American Ninja, Joe Armstrong and his sidekick Curtis Jackson.
So and there are soldiers in the military and both
of them martial artists. Once the script and the character
was clear in our mind, what we want to do.
(04:40):
We started with the casting, so we decided on American Ninja.
So we decided on a casting which is called opencasting.
Not only agents usually casting auditioning in the movies, messages
being sent to agents, agents sent candidates, but we decided
to open it. Anybody who wants to come in audition
(05:04):
for these two parts American Ninja and Psyche can come
in martial arts school, amateur actors, agents, people to represent
by actually whoever wants to come. About four hundred young
people came. We had two stages of First they had
to meet Mike Stone. Mike Stone was the choreographer of
(05:25):
the movie Famous Martial Artists. So first they had to
meet with Mike Stone, and Mike Stone has to determine
if they are fit to do the part. As I said,
they didn't have to be necessarily martial artists, because if
somebody feits and you know, Mike Stone can teach them
the moves, et cetera. So first they had to go
(05:45):
to Mike Stone. If Mike Stone approved, they moved to
the second room, which was to meet me, the casting director.
But lines et cetera, et cetera. The process of choosing
American Ninja was lanthy to couple of stages. But the
part of Jackson, I must tell you, Mike, when Steve
(06:07):
James walked into the room, you know he's built. He
was built like a like an Atlas. What a build.
And he came and he introduced himself, and I asked him,
are you martial artists? Yeah, he was a martial artist,
Steve James. Probably we talked a little bit and maybe
we read we read some lines together. I don't remember
(06:29):
that much, and I knew right there and then we
don't have to look any farther. This is Jackson. This
is the character we are looking for. Probably the company
made an offer money offer. I don't know how how
this this side of it goes, and he accepted it.
And we liked him right away, even before we had
(06:49):
the finalist American Ninja. So this was Steve jack now
Steve James now in a low budget movies. As you know,
we don't have time. We don't have usually paget a
hot time for pre rehearsals to meet and read the scripts.
Usually we don't. And I was already sent right away
(07:10):
to the Philippine to start to prepare once once we
we also choose chose Michael Dudikov. The second time I
saw Steve James was in the Philippine in Manila when
he arrived, and this was the first time also that
he met Michael Dudekov and Michael Ludykov met with him.
The chemistry, as we know today, were fantastic, was fantastic,
(07:32):
and uh, you know this, this this duo of American
Ninja and Jackson, you know, Armstrong and Jackson worked fantastically.
So mean you know when when when the movie did
well and the company you you know, Mike, we did
not do American Ninja number two right away after General,
(07:55):
but rather we we shot the movie. We filmed the
movie Avenging four in between them and Avenging Force also
called for a similar situation in New Aleans political so
a black candidate for city and the hero, the Michael
(08:15):
the hero, so that it was perfect. So Menacham Golan
actually asked me, gave me the script and asked me,
do you think can you read this script? It was
while we were mixing the sound one day. Menach Golan
came to the mixing stage and he gave me the script.
I didn't know anything about it at that point. I
did not know that Chuck Norris already rejected the script,
(08:38):
and he said, can you please read it and tell
me if this script is good for Michael and Steve,
because by then they already saw the chemistry. I read
the script over a night that came back next next
morning to the office. I said, I said, menagaan Golan,
this is a fantastic script, a fantastic script and good
for both of them. So we traveled to a to
(09:00):
New Orleans and we filmed the movie. While we were
in New Orleans, the explosion of American Injia happened. It
was distributed all over the world. So as we came
back from New Orleans, I was in the editing. The
company already knew that they're producing American India Number two.
(09:20):
The day after we finished the sound mixing with the music.
The next day, I was already on the plane my
way to South Africa to prepare for our American India
Number two and Steve. One day, Steve, Steve James calls
me and he said, listen, you know South Africa apartheid,
(09:42):
how is it? Tell me I'm reluctant. I don't know
if I should come or not. By then it was
kind of the end of apartheid in South Africa. So
I told him Steve, first of all, it does not
apply to America, of course, but nonetheless being in a
(10:03):
part of it is not a pleasant situation. But it
was winding out. It was already the end of apartheid. Actually,
the week that I arrived was the last week of
different identity cars. They used to have three different identity
cars according to the races, but this was canceled. The
week I arrived was the last week of the three
(10:24):
different So I said, no, save the atmosphere is excellent,
et cetera, et cetera, h relaxive. And he came to
South Africa and the first weekend we decided to go
out on the street to a market. It was Sunday,
the market. Now, the minute we walked out with him
in the street, we didn't realize he was already a
(10:44):
hero because the kids already saw the movie American Ninja.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
We couldn't walk with him in the street because in
South Africa he was this African hero, you know, in
American African, but nonetheless for them it was this African hero.
We just couldn't walk with him in the street. He
was mapped by the children, the kids who just saw
(11:10):
the movie America Ninja. So this was so we became.
It was friendly. We were you know, we lived not
far from each other here in Los Angeles during the
time we were in South Africa. He married in Israeli.
His wife, Nava, was an Israeli. So there was a
lot on kamen, a lot of camen between me and
(11:32):
Steve James. We liked the same type of movies. We
were crazy about Akira Corosawa movies, both of us. So
there was a lot of camen, and we became very
good friends. But you know, sadly enough, as you know,
he passed away two to too young, too early.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
And how did Riverband come about?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So those three movies are out, you know, a big deal,
America and Ninja one and two. Riverbend was not as
successful as American Ninja by any means, but maybe I
directed a few movies in between one or two. One
day I received from my agent script. It was called
The Night of the Eagle before Reburban. Night of the Eagle,
(12:17):
big script, one hundred and sixty pages, one hundred and
eighty pages, and I read it just you know offer
through my agent. Somebody sent you a script. I didn't
know anything about it. They want you to read it
and see if you would like to direct it. I
read the script. I'm dying to direct this movie. This
is fantastic material, unbelievable, and so I gave my positive, real,
(12:41):
you know, affirmative. I want to do it, and I
had a meeting. It turned out the producers are from Texas.
It's money, it's the investors from Texas. Producers are from Texas.
And my agent told me they will come to Los
Angeles to meet with you, and indeed they There were
four producers, two couple, and they came to Los Angeles.
(13:04):
They came to my house. You know. We arranged the
meeting in my house. And while we were talking, they
wanted to sense me out if I if I understand
the material. I guess and then they while, how do
you know about me? So they saw the movies, especially
Avenging Force. They saw Avenging Force the main the writer,
(13:25):
he was more knowledgeable, the writer, producer Sam Vance. He
saw the movie and the movie deals with white supremacy,
it deals with the racial subject Avenging Force. And then
they turned to me, they say, do you think you
can bring in Steve James. We want him for the
lead part. I told him, I'm sure Steve James will
(13:49):
be more than happy to do the script this movie.
He will be more than happy. So it was, you know,
we parted, and then I learned to my agent that
they want me to direct the movie. They want to
cut a deal and and at the same time they
want me to bring in Steve James into the project.
And I think, I don't remember the detail like contact Steve,
(14:14):
you know, gave him the script. Of course he was
very very happy to do such a little They know,
they didn't even need me. They could have contacted him
directly because for him this this movie was and that's
this was the initial contact between me and the producers
of the of Riverband eventually Ribband. At the time, it
(14:36):
was Night of the Eagle, and that's how we started
to work on the project.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Mister Davis, I would love to get a little bit more.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Well, you know, I'm a filmmaker by train, but I
have a YouTube channel called Real Black TV, and a
little bit before the pandemic, I started uploading movies that
I thought were falling into the digital divide, you know,
because we from a black film in Philadelphia. You know,
things that if they weren't preserved or shared, they would
(15:05):
be forgotten. And one of those movies happened to be Riverbend,
which is a movie that I didn't really know that
much about until I met a gentleman named Charles Woods,
who's sort of my mentor. He does many lectures on
the channel about black film history, and it was one
of his favorite films. In fact, he had five VHS
(15:27):
copies in his collection, right, So that alone impressed me, Like,
why do you have so many? We had this at
the video store, we had like one copy. Why do
you have five? And he said, watch it and you'll understand. Right,
So when I saw it for the first time, after
you know, being tutored by Charles, you understood this is
a very special film. It's one of the few films
(15:48):
where black characters have agency over their own fate. Most
of the films made up until that point and even
to today, that have black themes or majority black casts,
there's always some white savior or some sort of a
character where they don't really get to determine their own fate.
Even a movie like say Queen and Slim or juice,
(16:12):
you know, the characters meet their fate through accident as
opposed to deliberate decision, you know. And it just seemed
like this was one of two movies that I can
think of. And I know a lot about movies that
show black people standing up for one another, teaching one
another what they know to empower themselves. It's this movie
(16:33):
and one from nineteen seventy three called The Spooky Sap
of the Door. It's a very important film to me,
and I wanted to share it. I had on a
YouTube channel, and about a year later, it's twenty nineteen,
well about a year and a half later, I get
an email from Sam. The header is like, I am
Sam Furstenberg, director of Riverbend. So I'm about to open
(16:56):
it up. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be
a cease and desist, you know, I'm ready to take
it down. And he said, no, you're doing this film
a great service. It was produced independently and it needs
all the exposure it can get. And from there we
started talking about how the film was made, how does
this movie even exist? And we started to talk. In
(17:17):
the process of our conversations, a thirty five millimeter print
shows up as a listing on eBay, and at the
time I had never bought a thirty five millimeter print
of anything, you know, but I knew this was important.
It might be the only print that exists, is what
I was thinking. So I put a bit on it
(17:38):
and we won. It was in South Africa, so it
was during the pandemic in twenty twenty one when this
was happening, and it took about three or four months
for the show up. I wasn't even show it was
going to make it here, and then when it finally
showed up, it took another six months or so for
me to raise the money to get it transferred to
case Scan and it had every scratch known a man.
(18:03):
It must have sam it must have played through every
projector every crappy grindhouse theater between New York and Johannesburg.
But fortunately found Preig Rodgers at Deaf Crocodile and he
cleaned it up. It looked beautiful. We had to replace
some scenes that were missing, but we premiered it in Denton,
(18:23):
Texas in January twenty twenty four, and from there a
whole bunch of series of serendipities happened. That led us
to be able to obtain the negative from MGM Amazon,
not the least of which was meeting Valerie Vance, the
widow of Sam France and co producer Sam.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Can you tell me a little bit more about the
actual filming of the movie, because it's I mean, it's
so ambitious that it's actually a period piece and it
looks fantastic, really recalls the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
As I mentioned earlier, the money the investors were from Texas,
from the Dallas area, and they put the money privately.
The whole movie was financed privately, and they had one stipulation,
we must shoot, we must film in Texas. They were
not willing to move with any other Now, the story
takes place I think in Georgia in the south, so
(19:19):
but this was okay. We very quickly we found out
that there is an area in Texas south of Dallas
which is called Wak Sahachi. The main town is Waxahachi,
and the entire surrounding of this Wak Sahachi has very
much the look of the South of Georgia. I mean, anyway,
it's the same type of more or less characteristics architecturally
(19:45):
and atmosphere, so it was good enough, actually more than
good enough. It looks exactly like the South. And the
other time. The other thing they stipulated the crew must
be Texans. They to hire local people cast and crew.
So the only people that came from outside was myself
(20:10):
and Steve James. Obviously. They had also a production manager
that came with us, Norman Stevens. That's it. All the
casting was done locally through theater, theater from all over Texas,
not only from the Dallas area, from all over Texas.
And of course the crew, including the cameraman. The cameraman
(20:34):
he was a Hollywood camera man, but he was a Texan.
He worked television in Hollywood, but he was local. He
was Textan. And then only the only other thing that
came up was the leading lady. They wanted, obviously that
the best thing for a movie is a name, somebody
recognizable name, and they started, we all agree that we
(20:55):
want once the name came up, we want Margaret Avery
from Color Purple, and they started dealing with the agents
in Hollywood. She agreed and she came. So except those
I think four people, everybody was locally and we started
scouting for locations. We don't need. There is not many
(21:17):
locations in this movie. It's basically this little town. There
is the bridge, there is the house where she lives,
Margarette lives. They are about six or eight locations, all
of them we found and they were modified to look
you know. Of course, we had our department production designer,
(21:39):
everybody local, everybody from Texas, so they modified everything to
look ninety sixties. The vehicles, you know, there was a
vehicle managers, somebody in charge of vehicles. He found all
the correct vehicles that we look. Of course, the wardrobe,
the uniform of the National Guard, and the uniform of
(22:01):
the sheriff. Everything was modified like we do in movies,
to look period, and that's basically it. It was not
difficult at all to modify this Waxahachi area, the few
towns that we found. The main city is called Venice, Texas,
(22:22):
not far from Waxahachi, and everything was modified at just
twenty years big because the movie or thirty years back.
The movie was shut was filmed in eighty nine. We
were talking about the movie in nineteen sixty six, ninety sixties, nineties,
so it was not difficult at all.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
It was easy when you have a hero as good
as Steve James. You need to have a villain who
is pretty darnk good as well. Can you tell me
about Tony Frank who plays a sheriff.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Tony Frank is a local actor, Texan actor, and he
was in movies before. He was a television movie actor
established in this area, in the in the Texas, in
the Dallas area. And he came in into the project
I did. I did not even I was not involved
in casting him when when I came to I was
(23:11):
recruited and hired a little bit late at the stage
of production. Most of the local actors were already part
of the cast before I came, before I arrived in Dallas,
and and Tony was was already in I never met
him before the first day of shooting. As customery in
low budget movies, we don't have money in time for this,
(23:35):
and and he was just right on spot on. Now
for people who see the movie, people who saw the movie,
or people who are going to see the movie, you
know how mean or you will know how mean he
is in the movie. So mean, you know, Bustard Hima.
But Tony Frank himself as a personality was completely the opposite.
(23:59):
He was the sweet gentle man who was friendly. Everybody
loved it, joking and jokes, and he was the exact
opposite of the character of the sheriff in the movie. Yeah,
when we are looking today the movie and most of
people that look at the movie, they're really commending his performance.
(24:22):
His performance is magnificent. How villain villain is performance he is,
But that's what he is. He was a local guy.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
When you ran across that YouTube channel that mister Dennis
runs and you see that he's got the movie up there,
I mean, what is that when you guys start talking
and especially start talking about this restoration, the scanning process,
I mean, what's that feeling for you?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Like? The movie was distributed by Paramount as a matter
of fact, big company, you know, Paramount, the major dissolution company,
but they were had very few prints, never screened in
the West Coast. I hear that there were a couple
of screenings in the West Coast and in Texas and
(25:07):
in New York. That's what I hear. Never in the
West Coast. And then they distributed the movie. They came
up with with VHS cassettes for the rental business, and
the VHS cassette was of a very poor quality. I
must say that the visual quality of the of the
cassette was really really poor. And I had a copy,
(25:31):
one copy, and you know this, and the movie disappeared,
you know, after initially, so I don't think they printed
or what do you call the copy too many cassettes.
There were very few cassette you know, rental places that
had it, very few and with no campaign. They didn't
(25:52):
put any campaign, nothing. They just threw the cassettes to
the stores. I had one copy, probably they gave me
one or whatever. They send me one, and I had
to contractually they had to give me one, so Paramon
sent me one. Now I remember they send me one
copy and the copy was, as I said, poor quality.
And this always bothered me, you know, movie disappearing like
(26:15):
one month two months after it's coming out, completely disappearing
from the market, from the from the knowledge of the
knowledge based nothing that and this thing bothered me for many,
many years. What can we do? At some point I
took this v Ages cassette and I digitized it. By
the time it computers. At that time, there was no
(26:38):
home computers, and there was no Internet, of course, no YouTube.
So at some point I took it to digitize it,
and I loaded it to my YouTube channel, and I said,
let's see what happened. Let's see if anybody. Usually, when
you load the copyrighted material or material that has a
contractual distribution, immediately the complaints are coming within day. So
(27:03):
I said, let's I'm going to upload it and let's
see what happened. And no complain, nobody, nothing. And one day,
while I'm searching googling, I see somebody else. I realized
there is another copy of Riverbend in the Internet. I
follow this route and I arrived to Reel Black dot
(27:23):
com or Real Black TV. That there are a couple
of channels of Real Blake I never heard about before.
So I start to investigate. I look who they are,
a website, et cetera. I said, this is a kind
of an institute, kind of organization which are restoring and recovering,
restoring black cinema, black history cinema. So I just wanted
(27:46):
to thank them first. The first thing, I wrote a
little letter I didn't know, like Dennis, just a general
Real Black dot com thank you very much for loading
you know, doing the I did you know, I recognize
I identify myself, like Michael told you, and I did
the same thing there. Now there are two copies in
the internet. This was our meeting. That's how our path
(28:10):
merged together. And at that point we only agreed that
something has to be done about this movie. Further, I
didn't know which way to go because on my investigation
through the years didn't bear any fruits. I couldn't follow.
I knew that there was a company, the company went bankrupt,
and this is it. Michael, of course much more knowledgeable
(28:33):
and experienced than me, and he took it much much
farther than I could.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Can you tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Yeah, it's interesting. I was just checking the date. Our
upload was November twenty nineteen, and Sam he uploaded in
January twenty twenty. So within a month the Seren Deputies begins,
you know. But the scanning, you know, the first print,
you know was, like I said, it was just terrible.
It was missing scene means. But Sam and I collaborated
(29:02):
to put together the best possible version for the festival circuit.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Extuly, Mega, I must tell the story that one day
you contact me and you told me, wow, I found
a print in South Africa. Oh, that's true. Yeah, you
pursued it, you were you were actively looking for a
print one thirty five millimeter print because of the quality
of the VHS was so poor.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well, I it just was serendipity. I don't I don't
know if I was looking to buy it. I think
I was just searching eBay for Riverband and one day
a print showed up, and I didn't know what to
do with it, but I knew I should bin on
it just to preserve it, you know. So it wasn't
It wasn't like intentional, like oh I need a thirty
(29:48):
five of Riverband. It was more like, this seems like
it's a very rare item and if I don't get
on it, it's going to get lost.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
So so when we got to transfer, the had every scratch.
I mean, I could show you the original scan and
before the restoration that Craig did, and it was just
it was unfathomable how bad it was. But we were
able to clean it up digitally and remove the majority
of the scratch, isn't it It was?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It looked good.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I think we were happy with it, but we knew
it wasn't marketable, Like we couldn't just put it on
Blu Ray and have people happy with it because it
was transitioned to VHS or this that. But we were
still taking at the festivals. And I happened to be
at a screening with my students of a movie called
Naked Acts by Bridgette Daniel in Philadelphia. And I didn't
(30:40):
know when I brought the students to the screening that
it was the world premiere of the restoration, and that
the person who restored the film, Milestone Films. Dennis and
Amy were sitting literally two seats away from me the
whole night. But afterwards, you know, I was introduced to
and I told him about the premiere we had in January.
(31:02):
This is March of twenty twenty four, and you know,
Sam and I we hit all kinds of walls. You know,
we tracked down to a certain extent. We knew that
the film was an orphan film, but we didn't necessarily
know if we had the permissions to be able to
distribute it properly. Dennis has been in the business forty
(31:24):
years and I told him the story and he said,
you know, I think, I said, where's the negative. I said, well,
we've been calling labs the Labs went out of business.
They became other companies. No one seems to know what
happened to any film elements. He said, well, you know,
I think I can track that down and within i'd
say less than a week by the if it was
(31:45):
Tuesday by Friday said I know where the negative is,
but you can't have it. So fortunately we had met
Valerie Vance in Denton, Texas at that time, and eventually
we worked out an arrangement where we could reclaim all
the elements. And then we went to another gentleman named
(32:06):
Austin Squatieria Real Revival, and he did an immaculate transferring
six K and did the restoration, which was basically light
dust removal. I mean, because the think about it, the
film had never been touched. It had literally been sitting
in a vault being paid for by MGM for almost
(32:27):
forty years and no one had ever touched it. So
it was minimum work needed to bring it to the
level that we have now, which is going to be restored.
It's been restored.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
We'll have.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
A debut of the DCP probably in February March of
twenty twenty six, and then the Blue Rao hit stores.
It'll hit people's hands. People have been pre ordering it
through shop dot real Black dot com. It'll be in
their hands on June teenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Tell me about the screaming that you guys just had
and what was that print that you showed.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
We found one print that had never been played and
it's premiered at the Aero Theater on October fourteenth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Five, presented by the American Cinematic.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It was amazing. Julius Tennant, who's one of the co stars,
along with Margaret Avery and Alex Morris were there and
Debbie James, the daughter of the late Steve James, were
there along with Sam to participate in the panel. And
then we had a big surprise. You know, Julius is
married to and it has a production company with Viola Davis,
(33:38):
and she does such a great gesture by coming out
and giving literally handing Margaret Avery's a bouquet of white roses,
and that surprised the whole audience and everybody's.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Like, wow, you know, this is so the spirit is great.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
The other night, what excited me most was just to
be I would say, of all the things that we've
done for Riverband, to bring it back to life. That
night was the best, and this whole experience was the
best because it's almost and Valerie Advants couldn't be there,
but just hearing the stories and seeing how much they
(34:17):
love one another everybody has been amazing for me. I mean,
that's the way I'm having right now.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's rare anyway to see a thirty five millimeter print
screening nowadays. You know, there are a few places revival
houses in many cities around the country. American Cinema tech
are trying to show movies in thirty five milimeter print,
not always. Sometimes it's a digital screening. And Mike and
we went to few screenings there were all digital screenings.
(34:47):
We didn't have a print with us. So we went
to a Denton Film festival, the Denton Black Film Festival
in Texas. We showed the movie digitally beautiful and they
were missing scenes in the digital print that we had.
There were missing scenes. And then we went to another
festival in Boston, right Roxbury Film Festival, and it was
(35:08):
but that night that you were talking about. Not only
it had the stamp of the American Cinema tach on
it that says, okay, we recognize we want to show
this movie to present it. It was from a thirty
five minimeter print in a pretty historical theater. Eero Theater
in Santa Monica is a famous revival house and four
(35:30):
hundred seats. So you see the movie running like the
way we used to see it when we were kids
or you youngsters, with the grains on the screen and
all the scenes. There were no missing scenes. So all
the scenes, all the missing link the scenes that we
didn't see before, some like six or seven scenes that
(35:51):
were missing. Everything was there and it all makes sense. Beautiful,
glorious colors from a brand new print.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
It was a very time the movie played in Los
Angeles and it was the very first time in over
thirty five years that the entire film was projected on
celluloid in front of an audience.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
It was quite Michael. One more thing that occurred to
me after we saw the movie. There was a very
important scene is a meeting of the heads of the
little town Riverbend, the segregated town mayor, etc. And the
other important people in the town and the sheriff, which
is an evil sheriff, you know, bigot sheriff. He comes
(36:33):
into the meeting and he claims that things are changing.
We are too reluctant about our black population of the town.
And some of the people in the in the meeting
tells him, you know, Sheriff, times are changing because this
is sixty six during the Civil rights movement, and he
rejected this idea. The times are changing, and maybe this
(36:56):
sprint that we found in South Africa was there during
the apartheid. They couldn't show a scene like this. There
is a white people who are rejecting apartheid, you know,
so maybe perhaps Michael, they cut out this scene because
it was censored.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
My understanding is in nineteen eighty nine. You know, this
is Chris Poggiali, who has a book I called These
Fast Break Bricks. He's also a researcher. He did a
lot of research for US and he said that in
nineteen eighty nine all American films were contraband. So it's
(37:32):
hard to know when the edit the editing was happening,
but I feel it was more to make the film
streamline so it could double feature or a triple feature.
But yeah, we don't know when it was cut or
who cut it or why.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
What kind of reactions are you guys getting at these screenings.
I'm so curious.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
The beauty of Riverband is that it's a period piece,
right even though you know the music is very nineties,
It's set in the sixties, and it's dealing with an
issue that's still relevant to today, and it was relevant
in nineteen eighty nine. So when people have the distance
of time and perspective, they say, wow, this is still
going on, you know, the racial aspects, the fact that
(38:20):
police are still terrorizing us. There's very few movies offer
a solution. So this I think gets people thinking in
terms of how can we empower one another to face
some of these issues that continue to this day, the
racial oppression, the suppression of all voices right now. But yeah,
(38:46):
I mean it's been tremendous. I've not heard. I mean,
when people have a chance to see it, they kind
of expect like Rambo with black people, and what they
get is a little bit more. And I think it
turns on a switch in the udience's mind that they
weren't expecting they have to turn on. But Sam does
it in such a way it was entertaining and you
(39:08):
get a little bit of a message, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
The movie came out was finished nineteen ninety, let's say
nineteen ninety, and it was out there. Nineteen ninety were
kind of quiet time in racial tension the way I
remember it. So the movie was, you know, okay, we're
telling us a story about the civil rights movement time
nineteen sixty six. You know that's fine. Yeah, it still
(39:31):
exists today. But the restoration our first screening was already
after all the few things that happened in the last
three or four years, George Floyd, the other killings, and
Blake's like matter. So suddenly the subject became much more
intense than it was in nineteen ninety, much more intense.
(39:52):
And we showed it to young people. We went to
a college and we showed it to the leg Cinema
Club of the university. So those young people you're talking
know about nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty, they were shocked when
they saw the movie. Am I right, Michael? Those young films.
(40:14):
And in another screening in Roxbury, there was a bunch
of teachers in the crowd and they came to us.
They said, wow, you know, we must have a copy
and show it in schools, etc. How come we never
heard about this movie?
Speaker 4 (40:27):
That's to the credit of Sam and val Evans. I
think they spent ten years trying to get this movie made,
and then the opportunity presented itself when they met the Dales.
They could have easily made some pablem you know, but
they chose to do something that was direct from their
experiences and had something to say, you know. And I
(40:49):
think that's that's why the film stands attest the time,
because they were very brave and in terms of wanting
to say something. You know, it could have been if
it was just disposal entertainment. Yeah, what, I'm gonna straight
the video and yeah, nice that it's cleaned up. But
you know, especially after George Floyd, people see this and
they're like, why don't I know this already? How come
(41:12):
I don't know this movie? You know, Do the Right
Thing came out in nineteen eighty nine. This movie came
out a year after a few months after and it
just went away. Whereas Do the Right Thing is Champion,
it's in the National Registry and all that other stuff.
It deals with the same issues in a way. Yeah,
I mean, everybody's been super positive about it. I think
(41:33):
it's about the rediscovery of something that was lost and
I think it's very important that people understand that we're
not done yet. We still need help, and the way
to help is to go to shop that Real Black
dot com and support us financially by either pre ordering
the Blu ray or buying some cool merch, you know.
(41:54):
And it's it's it's a limited edition a lot of
this stuff, So they got to act.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Now, Pin, there is a beautiful pin.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Mister Dennis, do you now have a flavor for this?
Are you going to start looking for other films to restore?
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Being in Los Angeles for this premiere, I've had a
couple of meetings with people that have orphan films and
or films that are rare, i should say, And we're
looking to create an opportunity to build the label Real
Black Renaissance around this this idea. You know that there's
work that needs to be seen, that needs to be
(42:29):
resurrected and restored. And Riverband is just the tip of
the iceberg. You know, there's a lot of black cinema
that's in danger being lost if we don't take care
of it now, you know. So, you know, but that's
that's that's another step or two away, you know, But
right now, Riverband June nineteenth, twenty twenty six. That's what
we're trying to get to.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Mister Furstenberg, What are you working on these days?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I'm not working. I'm not in the movie anymore. But
my main effort, my main is preserving the legacy of
those movies that I was involved in and other directors,
because in the eighties there is now we recognize a
chunk of movies or pie or slice of a pie,
which is called the independent law budget genre movies of
(43:18):
the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, and it
kind of it became a group by itself, Toby Hooper
movies of Toby Hooper, Josito, Sam Fursenberg, Sheldon Laditch, et
cetera group of directors who made law budget independent movies
for those companies like Kennon Shapiro, Gligans, all the other companies.
(43:42):
Nowadays it's a body of work, mostly mostly action, some
of them sci fi. Of course, there was horror. Horror
was a big deal by itself, so that belongs to
another group. So I'm I'm I'm kind of busy, and
I see so much interest in it. I'm getting so
(44:03):
so much attention and question and podcasts like you and
interviews dealing with this subject. A couple of books already
came out, the book about the History of My Movies,
a book about Sheldon Ledite history, and et cetera. There
are more and more interest in this group, and and
(44:25):
nowadays it's recognized that those movies they have the look,
you know, the early Van dam movies, the early Schwarzenegger movies,
the early you know do the Michael Luddikov movies, and
they have a look. It's called the look of those eighties.
And and this look comes out of the fact that
all the action that we have done this group. Certainly,
(44:45):
I can tell you my movies never used any optical effects. Never.
Every piece of action that you see in those action
movies were actually performed, physically performed. And this is nowadays.
This is rarity when we see the today's action which
obviously everything is blue screen and AI could never generated
(45:06):
the CITYI or whatever. So it has a group. So
that's what occupies me most of the time, the preservation
of this legacy of this group of movies, including the
movies that I've directed. And I'm busy with this. I'm
not about to direct any other movie from this genre
(45:26):
that any way disappeared. There is no filmmaking of this
type of mid budget movie. We were privileged because it
was the time of the beginning of the video video
cassette business, the home viewing, so there was enough money
to make movies which did not have the budget of studios.
(45:48):
Obviously we didn't have budget of James Bond, but we
had good enough money, good enough budget that we could
film for eight weeks, six days a week, all whatever
we needed. And the and the movies have been there,
they look good enough. So this was this group. So
that's what where I put my energy.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Sam literally is the pied piper for American genre action movies.
At the screening, he had people coming with I don't
even know where they found that revenge in the ninja poster.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And America ninja posters, Ninja posters, I.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Mean, they come, they come from miles around and uh
To to experience this, you know, and we want to
bring this one to to people's homes, you know, in
the best possible way. So if you're watching, send it,
send an email to Real Black Ink R E E
L B L A C K I n C at
live dot com. You know, let us know that you
(46:50):
watch Mike White and the first person to do so,
I'll send one of those enamel pins.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
This is not your only gig restoring incredible film films
and taking them around the country. Can you tell me
a little bit more about your organization and what you're
doing for the community there in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Well, I'm just starting to get back.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
We just did.
Speaker 4 (47:09):
We just started to do some screenings again. But for
about sixteen seasons, I hosted a monthly screening series. Then
the pandemic hit. Right before the pandemic, we stopped the
series because of you know, just aging out of the
audience and more people were wanting to see things at home.
And then eventually, you know, and then during the pandemic,
(47:32):
the YouTube blew up and then blew back down.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Michael is trying to be modest. He has one and
a half million followers.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Yeah, on the YouTube channel, and you know, but right
now it's it's real Black Renaissance and teaching adjunct film
studies classes at Temple University. So you know, everything I
do is about film, you know, and I love it
that way.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time today.
This was so great talking with you.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Thank you, and thank you listeners and the viewers, and hopefully,
and I'm sure it will happen that this movie Riverband
will be viewed and seen by many many movie lovers
all over Steve James fans. There are so many Steve
James fans around the world that want to see what
(48:21):
he has done. Sam Furstenberg followers movies, but in general,
I really I'm confident that this dream is about to
be materialized. Once the Blu ray comes out and streaming,
eventually this movie will be seen the way it deserves
to be seen by many, many people around the world.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Well, thank you, gentlemen, this was so great.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Okay, thank you for having.
Speaker 6 (48:47):
Us stram.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Look at leave the Trample. Thank god miss our family.
I know that place down away.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Some found rout, you know.
Speaker 6 (49:17):
Then I want antiway singing Amy my song, someone that
m down the way, down at the ribble, be down
(49:39):
at the ribble, my thirty, someone at the down at
(50:18):
beginning of the highway, down at the river beds, down
at the river beds. I'm all down at the way.
Wake more than na stay.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Sit me in jute can make them.
Speaker 6 (50:40):
Not to be by face. I know that thing away
to do before then, all everywhere, seeing that.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
My son.
Speaker 6 (51:01):
Someone else rods down again of a highway, down at
the Nporby, down at the Neponby, down at the Nemonby,
Oh he is, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring, don it.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Off, turn it so listen, phyllis been a long ride.
(00:43):
How about to smoke my friend back here?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
There's a fine here stop.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
A cough.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Riverbend, Georgia, nineteen sixty six. A timeless community where nothing change.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
There'll be some.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Trouble if you come to town this morning, bikers, I'm wanting.
You can't just go on killing negroes.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Times you change.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Three Vietnam combat hero is falsely accused of war crimes.
Are hiding out in Riverbank.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's just a place to stay for a few days,
that's all. You can't stay here.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
We're only a mouth in town here. I don't have
time to play.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Where's the gun?
Speaker 5 (01:22):
No, we all know what happened to Marcus now as
the example of a man going to the laws and
god damn it, look what happened to him.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Now, come on out here, boy, I want to talk.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm doing the talking. I'm take care.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
It is narrow there's only one way to save this problem.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
That's to put a bullet in his head.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
All right, God damn it, get back. I swhere I can.
I don't ever ever want to hear the words boy,
nigger or color to use again. Understood, I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
About probably of you. Sound like we're about to have
a revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Only one man can teach them to fight. That's the
time we need to The town will be ours. The
people are now our hostages. We rather don't know what
the uh situation in the town is.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We can't get close. En'll find out.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
We get work from you that you have located the hostages.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You gonna know one of that front line.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Try.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I've located and freed the hostages. They're in the big church.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
They're all safe.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You can move in now, Margaret Avery. You don't get
out of here killing Steve James, Tony Franks. Two men
locked in combat.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
You Brad, it's been alone, Tom trummin.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Riverbend. The battle for freedom has just begun.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Hey boy, I want to talk to you so many.
Speaker 7 (03:18):
Hey folks, Welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, it is
the return of director Sam Furstenberg. He's talking about the
film Riverbend from nineteen eighty nine, which is getting a
new revival thanks to the efforts of Michael J. Dennis
from Real Black Cinema. That's our E E L B
L A c K dot com. Film is available for
(03:41):
pre order now through Real Black dot com. Thank you
so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this interview.
Before we even start to talk about Riverbend, I want
to know a little bit more about Steve James and
when you first met him.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Here is the story of the relationship between Steve James
and myself. At some point was nineteen eighty five, we
decided the company Kennon decided to do the movie American Ninja.
It was sequel to another kind of equal to another
three Ninja movies that they produced in the previously, and
we started. We worked on a script, myself, producers and
(04:17):
a writer, and those two characters emerged in the script,
the American Ninja, Joe Armstrong and his sidekick Curtis Jackson.
So and there are soldiers in the military and both
of them martial artists. Once the script and the character
was clear in our mind, what we want to do.
(04:40):
We started with the casting, so we decided on American Ninja.
So we decided on a casting which is called opencasting.
Not only agents usually casting auditioning in the movies, messages
being sent to agents, agents sent candidates, but we decided
to open it. Anybody who wants to come in audition
(05:04):
for these two parts American Ninja and Psyche can come
in martial arts school, amateur actors, agents, people to represent
by actually whoever wants to come. About four hundred young
people came. We had two stages of First they had
to meet Mike Stone. Mike Stone was the choreographer of
(05:25):
the movie Famous Martial Artists. So first they had to
meet with Mike Stone, and Mike Stone has to determine
if they are fit to do the part. As I said,
they didn't have to be necessarily martial artists, because if
somebody feits and you know, Mike Stone can teach them
the moves, et cetera. So first they had to go
(05:45):
to Mike Stone. If Mike Stone approved, they moved to
the second room, which was to meet me, the casting director.
But lines et cetera, et cetera. The process of choosing
American Ninja was lanthy to couple of stages. But the
part of Jackson, I must tell you, Mike, when Steve
(06:07):
James walked into the room, you know he's built. He
was built like a like an Atlas. What a build.
And he came and he introduced himself, and I asked him,
are you martial artists? Yeah, he was a martial artist,
Steve James. Probably we talked a little bit and maybe
we read we read some lines together. I don't remember
(06:29):
that much, and I knew right there and then we
don't have to look any farther. This is Jackson. This
is the character we are looking for. Probably the company
made an offer money offer. I don't know how how
this this side of it goes, and he accepted it.
And we liked him right away, even before we had
(06:49):
the finalist American Ninja. So this was Steve jack now
Steve James now in a low budget movies. As you know,
we don't have time. We don't have usually paget a
hot time for pre rehearsals to meet and read the scripts.
Usually we don't. And I was already sent right away
(07:10):
to the Philippine to start to prepare once once we
we also choose chose Michael Dudikov. The second time I
saw Steve James was in the Philippine in Manila when
he arrived, and this was the first time also that
he met Michael Dudekov and Michael Ludykov met with him.
The chemistry, as we know today, were fantastic, was fantastic,
(07:32):
and uh, you know this, this this duo of American
Ninja and Jackson, you know, Armstrong and Jackson worked fantastically.
So mean you know when when when the movie did
well and the company you you know, Mike, we did
not do American Ninja number two right away after General,
(07:55):
but rather we we shot the movie. We filmed the
movie Avenging four in between them and Avenging Force also
called for a similar situation in New Aleans political so
a black candidate for city and the hero, the Michael
(08:15):
the hero, so that it was perfect. So Menacham Golan
actually asked me, gave me the script and asked me,
do you think can you read this script? It was
while we were mixing the sound one day. Menach Golan
came to the mixing stage and he gave me the script.
I didn't know anything about it at that point. I
did not know that Chuck Norris already rejected the script,
(08:38):
and he said, can you please read it and tell
me if this script is good for Michael and Steve,
because by then they already saw the chemistry. I read
the script over a night that came back next next
morning to the office. I said, I said, menagaan Golan,
this is a fantastic script, a fantastic script and good
for both of them. So we traveled to a to
(09:00):
New Orleans and we filmed the movie. While we were
in New Orleans, the explosion of American Injia happened. It
was distributed all over the world. So as we came
back from New Orleans, I was in the editing. The
company already knew that they're producing American India Number two.
(09:20):
The day after we finished the sound mixing with the music.
The next day, I was already on the plane my
way to South Africa to prepare for our American India
Number two and Steve. One day, Steve, Steve James calls
me and he said, listen, you know South Africa apartheid,
(09:42):
how is it? Tell me I'm reluctant. I don't know
if I should come or not. By then it was
kind of the end of apartheid in South Africa. So
I told him Steve, first of all, it does not
apply to America, of course, but nonetheless being in a
(10:03):
part of it is not a pleasant situation. But it
was winding out. It was already the end of apartheid. Actually,
the week that I arrived was the last week of
different identity cars. They used to have three different identity
cars according to the races, but this was canceled. The
week I arrived was the last week of the three
(10:24):
different So I said, no, save the atmosphere is excellent,
et cetera, et cetera, h relaxive. And he came to
South Africa and the first weekend we decided to go
out on the street to a market. It was Sunday,
the market. Now, the minute we walked out with him
in the street, we didn't realize he was already a
(10:44):
hero because the kids already saw the movie American Ninja.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
We couldn't walk with him in the street because in
South Africa he was this African hero, you know, in
American African, but nonetheless for them it was this African hero.
We just couldn't walk with him in the street. He
was mapped by the children, the kids who just saw
(11:10):
the movie America Ninja. So this was so we became.
It was friendly. We were you know, we lived not
far from each other here in Los Angeles during the
time we were in South Africa. He married in Israeli.
His wife, Nava, was an Israeli. So there was a
lot on kamen, a lot of camen between me and
(11:32):
Steve James. We liked the same type of movies. We
were crazy about Akira Corosawa movies, both of us. So
there was a lot of camen, and we became very
good friends. But you know, sadly enough, as you know,
he passed away two to too young, too early.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
And how did Riverband come about?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So those three movies are out, you know, a big deal,
America and Ninja one and two. Riverbend was not as
successful as American Ninja by any means, but maybe I
directed a few movies in between one or two. One
day I received from my agent script. It was called
The Night of the Eagle before Reburban. Night of the Eagle,
(12:17):
big script, one hundred and sixty pages, one hundred and
eighty pages, and I read it just you know offer
through my agent. Somebody sent you a script. I didn't
know anything about it. They want you to read it
and see if you would like to direct it. I
read the script. I'm dying to direct this movie. This
is fantastic material, unbelievable, and so I gave my positive, real,
(12:41):
you know, affirmative. I want to do it, and I
had a meeting. It turned out the producers are from Texas.
It's money, it's the investors from Texas. Producers are from Texas.
And my agent told me they will come to Los
Angeles to meet with you, and indeed they There were
four producers, two couple, and they came to Los Angeles.
(13:04):
They came to my house. You know. We arranged the
meeting in my house. And while we were talking, they
wanted to sense me out if I if I understand
the material. I guess and then they while, how do
you know about me? So they saw the movies, especially
Avenging Force. They saw Avenging Force the main the writer,
(13:25):
he was more knowledgeable, the writer, producer Sam Vance. He
saw the movie and the movie deals with white supremacy,
it deals with the racial subject Avenging Force. And then
they turned to me, they say, do you think you
can bring in Steve James. We want him for the
lead part. I told him, I'm sure Steve James will
(13:49):
be more than happy to do the script this movie.
He will be more than happy. So it was, you know,
we parted, and then I learned to my agent that
they want me to direct the movie. They want to
cut a deal and and at the same time they
want me to bring in Steve James into the project.
And I think, I don't remember the detail like contact Steve,
(14:14):
you know, gave him the script. Of course he was
very very happy to do such a little They know,
they didn't even need me. They could have contacted him
directly because for him this this movie was and that's
this was the initial contact between me and the producers
of the of Riverband eventually Ribband. At the time, it
(14:36):
was Night of the Eagle, and that's how we started
to work on the project.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Mister Davis, I would love to get a little bit more.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Well, you know, I'm a filmmaker by train, but I
have a YouTube channel called Real Black TV, and a
little bit before the pandemic, I started uploading movies that
I thought were falling into the digital divide, you know,
because we from a black film in Philadelphia. You know,
things that if they weren't preserved or shared, they would
(15:05):
be forgotten. And one of those movies happened to be Riverbend,
which is a movie that I didn't really know that
much about until I met a gentleman named Charles Woods,
who's sort of my mentor. He does many lectures on
the channel about black film history, and it was one
of his favorite films. In fact, he had five VHS
(15:27):
copies in his collection, right, So that alone impressed me, Like,
why do you have so many? We had this at
the video store, we had like one copy. Why do
you have five? And he said, watch it and you'll understand. Right,
So when I saw it for the first time, after
you know, being tutored by Charles, you understood this is
a very special film. It's one of the few films
(15:48):
where black characters have agency over their own fate. Most
of the films made up until that point and even
to today, that have black themes or majority black casts,
there's always some white savior or some sort of a
character where they don't really get to determine their own fate.
Even a movie like say Queen and Slim or juice,
(16:12):
you know, the characters meet their fate through accident as
opposed to deliberate decision, you know. And it just seemed
like this was one of two movies that I can
think of. And I know a lot about movies that
show black people standing up for one another, teaching one
another what they know to empower themselves. It's this movie
(16:33):
and one from nineteen seventy three called The Spooky Sap
of the Door. It's a very important film to me,
and I wanted to share it. I had on a
YouTube channel, and about a year later, it's twenty nineteen,
well about a year and a half later, I get
an email from Sam. The header is like, I am
Sam Furstenberg, director of Riverbend. So I'm about to open
(16:56):
it up. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be
a cease and desist, you know, I'm ready to take
it down. And he said, no, you're doing this film
a great service. It was produced independently and it needs
all the exposure it can get. And from there we
started talking about how the film was made, how does
this movie even exist? And we started to talk. In
(17:17):
the process of our conversations, a thirty five millimeter print
shows up as a listing on eBay, and at the
time I had never bought a thirty five millimeter print
of anything, you know, but I knew this was important.
It might be the only print that exists, is what
I was thinking. So I put a bit on it
(17:38):
and we won. It was in South Africa, so it
was during the pandemic in twenty twenty one when this
was happening, and it took about three or four months
for the show up. I wasn't even show it was
going to make it here, and then when it finally
showed up, it took another six months or so for
me to raise the money to get it transferred to
case Scan and it had every scratch known a man.
(18:03):
It must have sam it must have played through every
projector every crappy grindhouse theater between New York and Johannesburg.
But fortunately found Preig Rodgers at Deaf Crocodile and he
cleaned it up. It looked beautiful. We had to replace
some scenes that were missing, but we premiered it in Denton,
(18:23):
Texas in January twenty twenty four, and from there a
whole bunch of series of serendipities happened. That led us
to be able to obtain the negative from MGM Amazon,
not the least of which was meeting Valerie Vance, the
widow of Sam France and co producer Sam.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Can you tell me a little bit more about the
actual filming of the movie, because it's I mean, it's
so ambitious that it's actually a period piece and it
looks fantastic, really recalls the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
As I mentioned earlier, the money the investors were from Texas,
from the Dallas area, and they put the money privately.
The whole movie was financed privately, and they had one stipulation,
we must shoot, we must film in Texas. They were
not willing to move with any other Now, the story
takes place I think in Georgia in the south, so
(19:19):
but this was okay. We very quickly we found out
that there is an area in Texas south of Dallas
which is called Wak Sahachi. The main town is Waxahachi,
and the entire surrounding of this Wak Sahachi has very
much the look of the South of Georgia. I mean, anyway,
it's the same type of more or less characteristics architecturally
(19:45):
and atmosphere, so it was good enough, actually more than
good enough. It looks exactly like the South. And the
other time. The other thing they stipulated the crew must
be Texans. They to hire local people cast and crew.
So the only people that came from outside was myself
(20:10):
and Steve James. Obviously. They had also a production manager
that came with us, Norman Stevens. That's it. All the
casting was done locally through theater, theater from all over Texas,
not only from the Dallas area, from all over Texas.
And of course the crew, including the cameraman. The cameraman
(20:34):
he was a Hollywood camera man, but he was a Texan.
He worked television in Hollywood, but he was local. He
was Textan. And then only the only other thing that
came up was the leading lady. They wanted, obviously that
the best thing for a movie is a name, somebody
recognizable name, and they started, we all agree that we
(20:55):
want once the name came up, we want Margaret Avery
from Color Purple, and they started dealing with the agents
in Hollywood. She agreed and she came. So except those
I think four people, everybody was locally and we started
scouting for locations. We don't need. There is not many
(21:17):
locations in this movie. It's basically this little town. There
is the bridge, there is the house where she lives,
Margarette lives. They are about six or eight locations, all
of them we found and they were modified to look
you know. Of course, we had our department production designer,
(21:39):
everybody local, everybody from Texas, so they modified everything to
look ninety sixties. The vehicles, you know, there was a
vehicle managers, somebody in charge of vehicles. He found all
the correct vehicles that we look. Of course, the wardrobe,
the uniform of the National Guard, and the uniform of
(22:01):
the sheriff. Everything was modified like we do in movies,
to look period, and that's basically it. It was not
difficult at all to modify this Waxahachi area, the few
towns that we found. The main city is called Venice, Texas,
(22:22):
not far from Waxahachi, and everything was modified at just
twenty years big because the movie or thirty years back.
The movie was shut was filmed in eighty nine. We
were talking about the movie in nineteen sixty six, ninety sixties, nineties,
so it was not difficult at all.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
It was easy when you have a hero as good
as Steve James. You need to have a villain who
is pretty darnk good as well. Can you tell me
about Tony Frank who plays a sheriff.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Tony Frank is a local actor, Texan actor, and he
was in movies before. He was a television movie actor
established in this area, in the in the Texas, in
the Dallas area. And he came in into the project
I did. I did not even I was not involved
in casting him when when I came to I was
(23:11):
recruited and hired a little bit late at the stage
of production. Most of the local actors were already part
of the cast before I came, before I arrived in Dallas,
and and Tony was was already in I never met
him before the first day of shooting. As customery in
low budget movies, we don't have money in time for this,
(23:35):
and and he was just right on spot on. Now
for people who see the movie, people who saw the movie,
or people who are going to see the movie, you
know how mean or you will know how mean he
is in the movie. So mean, you know, Bustard Hima.
But Tony Frank himself as a personality was completely the opposite.
(23:59):
He was the sweet gentle man who was friendly. Everybody
loved it, joking and jokes, and he was the exact
opposite of the character of the sheriff in the movie. Yeah,
when we are looking today the movie and most of
people that look at the movie, they're really commending his performance.
(24:22):
His performance is magnificent. How villain villain is performance he is,
But that's what he is. He was a local guy.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
When you ran across that YouTube channel that mister Dennis
runs and you see that he's got the movie up there,
I mean, what is that when you guys start talking
and especially start talking about this restoration, the scanning process,
I mean, what's that feeling for you?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Like? The movie was distributed by Paramount as a matter
of fact, big company, you know, Paramount, the major dissolution company,
but they were had very few prints, never screened in
the West Coast. I hear that there were a couple
of screenings in the West Coast and in Texas and
(25:07):
in New York. That's what I hear. Never in the
West Coast. And then they distributed the movie. They came
up with with VHS cassettes for the rental business, and
the VHS cassette was of a very poor quality. I
must say that the visual quality of the of the
cassette was really really poor. And I had a copy,
(25:31):
one copy, and you know this, and the movie disappeared,
you know, after initially, so I don't think they printed
or what do you call the copy too many cassettes.
There were very few cassette you know, rental places that
had it, very few and with no campaign. They didn't
(25:52):
put any campaign, nothing. They just threw the cassettes to
the stores. I had one copy, probably they gave me
one or whatever. They send me one, and I had
to contractually they had to give me one, so Paramon
sent me one. Now I remember they send me one
copy and the copy was, as I said, poor quality.
And this always bothered me, you know, movie disappearing like
(26:15):
one month two months after it's coming out, completely disappearing
from the market, from the from the knowledge of the
knowledge based nothing that and this thing bothered me for many,
many years. What can we do? At some point I
took this v Ages cassette and I digitized it. By
the time it computers. At that time, there was no
(26:38):
home computers, and there was no Internet, of course, no YouTube.
So at some point I took it to digitize it,
and I loaded it to my YouTube channel, and I said,
let's see what happened. Let's see if anybody. Usually, when
you load the copyrighted material or material that has a
contractual distribution, immediately the complaints are coming within day. So
(27:03):
I said, let's I'm going to upload it and let's
see what happened. And no complain, nobody, nothing. And one day,
while I'm searching googling, I see somebody else. I realized
there is another copy of Riverbend in the Internet. I
follow this route and I arrived to Reel Black dot
(27:23):
com or Real Black TV. That there are a couple
of channels of Real Blake I never heard about before.
So I start to investigate. I look who they are,
a website, et cetera. I said, this is a kind
of an institute, kind of organization which are restoring and recovering,
restoring black cinema, black history cinema. So I just wanted
(27:46):
to thank them first. The first thing, I wrote a
little letter I didn't know, like Dennis, just a general
Real Black dot com thank you very much for loading
you know, doing the I did you know, I recognize
I identify myself, like Michael told you, and I did
the same thing there. Now there are two copies in
the internet. This was our meeting. That's how our path
(28:10):
merged together. And at that point we only agreed that
something has to be done about this movie. Further, I
didn't know which way to go because on my investigation
through the years didn't bear any fruits. I couldn't follow.
I knew that there was a company, the company went bankrupt,
and this is it. Michael, of course much more knowledgeable
(28:33):
and experienced than me, and he took it much much
farther than I could.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Can you tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Yeah, it's interesting. I was just checking the date. Our
upload was November twenty nineteen, and Sam he uploaded in
January twenty twenty. So within a month the Seren Deputies begins,
you know. But the scanning, you know, the first print,
you know was, like I said, it was just terrible.
It was missing scene means. But Sam and I collaborated
(29:02):
to put together the best possible version for the festival circuit.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Extuly, Mega, I must tell the story that one day
you contact me and you told me, wow, I found
a print in South Africa. Oh, that's true. Yeah, you
pursued it, you were you were actively looking for a
print one thirty five millimeter print because of the quality
of the VHS was so poor.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well, I it just was serendipity. I don't I don't
know if I was looking to buy it. I think
I was just searching eBay for Riverband and one day
a print showed up, and I didn't know what to
do with it, but I knew I should bin on
it just to preserve it, you know. So it wasn't
It wasn't like intentional, like oh I need a thirty
(29:48):
five of Riverband. It was more like, this seems like
it's a very rare item and if I don't get
on it, it's going to get lost.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
So so when we got to transfer, the had every scratch.
I mean, I could show you the original scan and
before the restoration that Craig did, and it was just
it was unfathomable how bad it was. But we were
able to clean it up digitally and remove the majority
of the scratch, isn't it It was?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It looked good.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I think we were happy with it, but we knew
it wasn't marketable, Like we couldn't just put it on
Blu Ray and have people happy with it because it
was transitioned to VHS or this that. But we were
still taking at the festivals. And I happened to be
at a screening with my students of a movie called
Naked Acts by Bridgette Daniel in Philadelphia. And I didn't
(30:40):
know when I brought the students to the screening that
it was the world premiere of the restoration, and that
the person who restored the film, Milestone Films. Dennis and
Amy were sitting literally two seats away from me the
whole night. But afterwards, you know, I was introduced to
and I told him about the premiere we had in January.
(31:02):
This is March of twenty twenty four, and you know,
Sam and I we hit all kinds of walls. You know,
we tracked down to a certain extent. We knew that
the film was an orphan film, but we didn't necessarily
know if we had the permissions to be able to
distribute it properly. Dennis has been in the business forty
(31:24):
years and I told him the story and he said,
you know, I think, I said, where's the negative. I said, well,
we've been calling labs the Labs went out of business.
They became other companies. No one seems to know what
happened to any film elements. He said, well, you know,
I think I can track that down and within i'd
say less than a week by the if it was
(31:45):
Tuesday by Friday said I know where the negative is,
but you can't have it. So fortunately we had met
Valerie Vance in Denton, Texas at that time, and eventually
we worked out an arrangement where we could reclaim all
the elements. And then we went to another gentleman named
(32:06):
Austin Squatieria Real Revival, and he did an immaculate transferring
six K and did the restoration, which was basically light
dust removal. I mean, because the think about it, the
film had never been touched. It had literally been sitting
in a vault being paid for by MGM for almost
(32:27):
forty years and no one had ever touched it. So
it was minimum work needed to bring it to the
level that we have now, which is going to be restored.
It's been restored.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
We'll have.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
A debut of the DCP probably in February March of
twenty twenty six, and then the Blue Rao hit stores.
It'll hit people's hands. People have been pre ordering it
through shop dot real Black dot com. It'll be in
their hands on June teenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Tell me about the screaming that you guys just had
and what was that print that you showed.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
We found one print that had never been played and
it's premiered at the Aero Theater on October fourteenth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Five, presented by the American Cinematic.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It was amazing. Julius Tennant, who's one of the co stars,
along with Margaret Avery and Alex Morris were there and
Debbie James, the daughter of the late Steve James, were
there along with Sam to participate in the panel. And
then we had a big surprise. You know, Julius is
married to and it has a production company with Viola Davis,
(33:38):
and she does such a great gesture by coming out
and giving literally handing Margaret Avery's a bouquet of white roses,
and that surprised the whole audience and everybody's.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Like, wow, you know, this is so the spirit is great.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
The other night, what excited me most was just to
be I would say, of all the things that we've
done for Riverband, to bring it back to life. That
night was the best, and this whole experience was the
best because it's almost and Valerie Advants couldn't be there,
but just hearing the stories and seeing how much they
(34:17):
love one another everybody has been amazing for me. I mean,
that's the way I'm having right now.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's rare anyway to see a thirty five millimeter print
screening nowadays. You know, there are a few places revival
houses in many cities around the country. American Cinema tech
are trying to show movies in thirty five milimeter print,
not always. Sometimes it's a digital screening. And Mike and
we went to few screenings there were all digital screenings.
(34:47):
We didn't have a print with us. So we went
to a Denton Film festival, the Denton Black Film Festival
in Texas. We showed the movie digitally beautiful and they
were missing scenes in the digital print that we had.
There were missing scenes. And then we went to another
festival in Boston, right Roxbury Film Festival, and it was
(35:08):
but that night that you were talking about. Not only
it had the stamp of the American Cinema tach on
it that says, okay, we recognize we want to show
this movie to present it. It was from a thirty
five minimeter print in a pretty historical theater. Eero Theater
in Santa Monica is a famous revival house and four
(35:30):
hundred seats. So you see the movie running like the
way we used to see it when we were kids
or you youngsters, with the grains on the screen and
all the scenes. There were no missing scenes. So all
the scenes, all the missing link the scenes that we
didn't see before, some like six or seven scenes that
(35:51):
were missing. Everything was there and it all makes sense. Beautiful,
glorious colors from a brand new print.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
It was a very time the movie played in Los
Angeles and it was the very first time in over
thirty five years that the entire film was projected on
celluloid in front of an audience.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
It was quite Michael. One more thing that occurred to
me after we saw the movie. There was a very
important scene is a meeting of the heads of the
little town Riverbend, the segregated town mayor, etc. And the
other important people in the town and the sheriff, which
is an evil sheriff, you know, bigot sheriff. He comes
(36:33):
into the meeting and he claims that things are changing.
We are too reluctant about our black population of the town.
And some of the people in the in the meeting
tells him, you know, Sheriff, times are changing because this
is sixty six during the Civil rights movement, and he
rejected this idea. The times are changing, and maybe this
(36:56):
sprint that we found in South Africa was there during
the apartheid. They couldn't show a scene like this. There
is a white people who are rejecting apartheid, you know,
so maybe perhaps Michael, they cut out this scene because
it was censored.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
My understanding is in nineteen eighty nine. You know, this
is Chris Poggiali, who has a book I called These
Fast Break Bricks. He's also a researcher. He did a
lot of research for US and he said that in
nineteen eighty nine all American films were contraband. So it's
(37:32):
hard to know when the edit the editing was happening,
but I feel it was more to make the film
streamline so it could double feature or a triple feature.
But yeah, we don't know when it was cut or
who cut it or why.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
What kind of reactions are you guys getting at these screenings.
I'm so curious.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
The beauty of Riverband is that it's a period piece,
right even though you know the music is very nineties,
It's set in the sixties, and it's dealing with an
issue that's still relevant to today, and it was relevant
in nineteen eighty nine. So when people have the distance
of time and perspective, they say, wow, this is still
going on, you know, the racial aspects, the fact that
(38:20):
police are still terrorizing us. There's very few movies offer
a solution. So this I think gets people thinking in
terms of how can we empower one another to face
some of these issues that continue to this day, the
racial oppression, the suppression of all voices right now. But yeah,
(38:46):
I mean it's been tremendous. I've not heard. I mean,
when people have a chance to see it, they kind
of expect like Rambo with black people, and what they
get is a little bit more. And I think it
turns on a switch in the udience's mind that they
weren't expecting they have to turn on. But Sam does
it in such a way it was entertaining and you
(39:08):
get a little bit of a message, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
The movie came out was finished nineteen ninety, let's say
nineteen ninety, and it was out there. Nineteen ninety were
kind of quiet time in racial tension the way I
remember it. So the movie was, you know, okay, we're
telling us a story about the civil rights movement time
nineteen sixty six. You know that's fine. Yeah, it still
(39:31):
exists today. But the restoration our first screening was already
after all the few things that happened in the last
three or four years, George Floyd, the other killings, and
Blake's like matter. So suddenly the subject became much more
intense than it was in nineteen ninety, much more intense.
(39:52):
And we showed it to young people. We went to
a college and we showed it to the leg Cinema
Club of the university. So those young people you're talking
know about nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty, they were shocked when
they saw the movie. Am I right, Michael? Those young films.
(40:14):
And in another screening in Roxbury, there was a bunch
of teachers in the crowd and they came to us.
They said, wow, you know, we must have a copy
and show it in schools, etc. How come we never
heard about this movie?
Speaker 4 (40:27):
That's to the credit of Sam and val Evans. I
think they spent ten years trying to get this movie made,
and then the opportunity presented itself when they met the Dales.
They could have easily made some pablem you know, but
they chose to do something that was direct from their
experiences and had something to say, you know. And I
(40:49):
think that's that's why the film stands attest the time,
because they were very brave and in terms of wanting
to say something. You know, it could have been if
it was just disposal entertainment. Yeah, what, I'm gonna straight
the video and yeah, nice that it's cleaned up. But
you know, especially after George Floyd, people see this and
they're like, why don't I know this already? How come
(41:12):
I don't know this movie? You know, Do the Right
Thing came out in nineteen eighty nine. This movie came
out a year after a few months after and it
just went away. Whereas Do the Right Thing is Champion,
it's in the National Registry and all that other stuff.
It deals with the same issues in a way. Yeah,
I mean, everybody's been super positive about it. I think
(41:33):
it's about the rediscovery of something that was lost and
I think it's very important that people understand that we're
not done yet. We still need help, and the way
to help is to go to shop that Real Black
dot com and support us financially by either pre ordering
the Blu ray or buying some cool merch, you know.
(41:54):
And it's it's it's a limited edition a lot of
this stuff, So they got to act.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Now, Pin, there is a beautiful pin.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Mister Dennis, do you now have a flavor for this?
Are you going to start looking for other films to restore?
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Being in Los Angeles for this premiere, I've had a
couple of meetings with people that have orphan films and
or films that are rare, i should say, And we're
looking to create an opportunity to build the label Real
Black Renaissance around this this idea. You know that there's
work that needs to be seen, that needs to be
(42:29):
resurrected and restored. And Riverband is just the tip of
the iceberg. You know, there's a lot of black cinema
that's in danger being lost if we don't take care
of it now, you know. So, you know, but that's
that's that's another step or two away, you know, But
right now, Riverband June nineteenth, twenty twenty six. That's what
we're trying to get to.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Mister Furstenberg, What are you working on these days?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I'm not working. I'm not in the movie anymore. But
my main effort, my main is preserving the legacy of
those movies that I was involved in and other directors,
because in the eighties there is now we recognize a
chunk of movies or pie or slice of a pie,
which is called the independent law budget genre movies of
(43:18):
the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, and it
kind of it became a group by itself, Toby Hooper
movies of Toby Hooper, Josito, Sam Fursenberg, Sheldon Laditch, et
cetera group of directors who made law budget independent movies
for those companies like Kennon Shapiro, Gligans, all the other companies.
(43:42):
Nowadays it's a body of work, mostly mostly action, some
of them sci fi. Of course, there was horror. Horror
was a big deal by itself, so that belongs to
another group. So I'm I'm I'm kind of busy, and
I see so much interest in it. I'm getting so
(44:03):
so much attention and question and podcasts like you and
interviews dealing with this subject. A couple of books already
came out, the book about the History of My Movies,
a book about Sheldon Ledite history, and et cetera. There
are more and more interest in this group, and and
(44:25):
nowadays it's recognized that those movies they have the look,
you know, the early Van dam movies, the early Schwarzenegger movies,
the early you know do the Michael Luddikov movies, and
they have a look. It's called the look of those eighties.
And and this look comes out of the fact that
all the action that we have done this group. Certainly,
(44:45):
I can tell you my movies never used any optical effects. Never.
Every piece of action that you see in those action
movies were actually performed, physically performed. And this is nowadays.
This is rarity when we see the today's action which
obviously everything is blue screen and AI could never generated
(45:06):
the CITYI or whatever. So it has a group. So
that's what occupies me most of the time, the preservation
of this legacy of this group of movies, including the
movies that I've directed. And I'm busy with this. I'm
not about to direct any other movie from this genre
(45:26):
that any way disappeared. There is no filmmaking of this
type of mid budget movie. We were privileged because it
was the time of the beginning of the video video
cassette business, the home viewing, so there was enough money
to make movies which did not have the budget of studios.
(45:48):
Obviously we didn't have budget of James Bond, but we
had good enough money, good enough budget that we could
film for eight weeks, six days a week, all whatever
we needed. And the and the movies have been there,
they look good enough. So this was this group. So
that's what where I put my energy.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Sam literally is the pied piper for American genre action movies.
At the screening, he had people coming with I don't
even know where they found that revenge in the ninja poster.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And America ninja posters, Ninja posters, I.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Mean, they come, they come from miles around and uh
To to experience this, you know, and we want to
bring this one to to people's homes, you know, in
the best possible way. So if you're watching, send it,
send an email to Real Black Ink R E E
L B L A C K I n C at
live dot com. You know, let us know that you
(46:50):
watch Mike White and the first person to do so,
I'll send one of those enamel pins.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
This is not your only gig restoring incredible film films
and taking them around the country. Can you tell me
a little bit more about your organization and what you're
doing for the community there in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Well, I'm just starting to get back.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
We just did.
Speaker 4 (47:09):
We just started to do some screenings again. But for
about sixteen seasons, I hosted a monthly screening series. Then
the pandemic hit. Right before the pandemic, we stopped the
series because of you know, just aging out of the
audience and more people were wanting to see things at home.
And then eventually, you know, and then during the pandemic,
(47:32):
the YouTube blew up and then blew back down.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Michael is trying to be modest. He has one and
a half million followers.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Yeah, on the YouTube channel, and you know, but right
now it's it's real Black Renaissance and teaching adjunct film
studies classes at Temple University. So you know, everything I
do is about film, you know, and I love it
that way.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time today.
This was so great talking with you.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Thank you, and thank you listeners and the viewers, and hopefully,
and I'm sure it will happen that this movie Riverband
will be viewed and seen by many many movie lovers
all over Steve James fans. There are so many Steve
James fans around the world that want to see what
(48:21):
he has done. Sam Furstenberg followers movies, but in general,
I really I'm confident that this dream is about to
be materialized. Once the Blu ray comes out and streaming,
eventually this movie will be seen the way it deserves
to be seen by many, many people around the world.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Well, thank you, gentlemen, this was so great.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Okay, thank you for having.
Speaker 6 (48:47):
Us stram.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Look at leave the Trample. Thank god miss our family.
I know that place down away.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Some found rout, you know.
Speaker 6 (49:17):
Then I want antiway singing Amy my song, someone that
m down the way, down at the ribble, be down
(49:39):
at the ribble, my thirty, someone at the down at
(50:18):
beginning of the highway, down at the river beds, down
at the river beds. I'm all down at the way.
Wake more than na stay.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Sit me in jute can make them.
Speaker 6 (50:40):
Not to be by face. I know that thing away
to do before then, all everywhere, seeing that.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
My son.
Speaker 6 (51:01):
Someone else rods down again of a highway, down at
the Nporby, down at the Neponby, down at the Nemonby,
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