Woodstock Film Festival Part Three: An Interview with Tom Gustafson

by Sparrow, February 24, 2009

Woodstock Film Festival Part Three: An Interview with Tom Gustafson

 

I spoke to Tom Gustafson, director of "Were the World Mine," a musical based on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."  We spoke outside the Woodstock Town Hall, where his film was showing as part of the Woodstock Film Festival (2008).

Sparrow: What is the number of film festivals you'll be in?

Gustafson: From March until December of  '08, our total will be 75.  And we're actually booked in more in 2009.

Sparrow: How many more?

Gustafson: Five or 10 more.

Sparrow: And what's the name of the film again?

Gustafson: It's "Were...

Sparrow: It's a very hard title to remember.

Gustafson: Yeah, people always say, "Where The World...", "We Are the World..."?  No, but it's "Were the World Mine."  As IF the world was mine.

Sparrow: It's a quote from Shakespeare.

Gustafson: It's a quote from Shakespeare.

Sparrow: From what?

Gustafson: From "A Midsummer Night's Dream."  Demetrius says it.

Sparrow: And you're the director.

Gustafson: Director, writer, producer.  

Sparrow: Oh, you're the producer, too?  There's just one of you?

Gustafson: No, there's three producers, and I'm the co-writer, with my partner.

Sparrow: But you're the whole director?

Gustafson: I'm the whole director.

Sparrow: Oh yes, and out of those film festivals, how many were gay and lesbian?

Gustafson: We've probably played maybe eight straight festivals.  We premiered at the Florida Film Festival.

Sparrow: The very first one you did.

Gustafson: That was the first one.  And that is not specific to gay and lesbian.

Sparrow: Where is that?

Gustafson: Orlando.

Sparrow: Oh, yeah?

Gustafson: And then we played the Nashville Film Festival, which is a mainstream, and we won!  We won the audience award in Florida, and we won Best Music in Nashville.

Sparrow: Best Music in Nashville!  Jesus!  

Gustafson: Yeah.  

Sparrow: That's a coup!

Gustafson: It was pretty great.

Sparrow: Actually, contemporary country music completely sucks.  I know, because I listen to it.  It's worthless.  So, you must have won a lot of awards...

Gustafson: So far, our total is 14.

Sparrow: Fourteen awards out of how many festivals so far?

Gustafson: Thirty-five, or something?

Sparrow: You're doing pretty good.

Gustafson: For a while, we were six for six, seven for seven, and then we...  You know, we had to lose sometime.  But it's been great.  We've won a lot of audience awards, and we won the Grand Prize at the LA Gay and Lesbian Festival.

Sparrow: The Grand Prize is the number one prize?

Gustafson: It's called the Heineken Red Star, is the Grand Jury...

Sparrow: Heineken Red Star is a gay beer?

Gustafson: Exactly!

Sparrow: So it's like a baseball team.  You're winning!

Gustafson: It is, it is.

Sparrow: Is there a downtime on the festival circuit?

Gustafson: [Shakes his head.]

Sparrow: It never stops.

Gustafson: It never stops.

Sparrow: There's not a "dead season"?

Gustafson: No.

Sparrow: So what's your next film?

Gustafson: I'm working on two things: a short film called "Revelations," modeled after a hate group that pickets gay people, and then we're working on a feature-length film called "Mariachi Gringo," which is about a guy who has a dead-end life, who decides to give it all up and run to Mexico and be a mariachi singer.

Sparrow: Oh!  Is it gay?

Gustafson: No.

Sparrow: Really!  You're crossing over!  You wrote it?

Gustafson: My partner wrote this one.

Sparrow: Your partner in life, or your partner in movies?

Gustafson: Both.

Sparrow: "Mariachi Gringo" sounds good!  And you have a music theme, in both movies!

Gustafson: Yeah, sticking with the music.

["Were the World Mine" won the James Lyons Award for Best Narrative Editing at the Woodstock Film Festival.  For more information on the film, see www.speakproductions.com.]

 

 

For more about the Woodstock Film Festival, see http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/festival2008/details.php?id=17519