http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/as-constant-as-the-northern-star#story
As Constant as the Northern Star SYNOPSIS:
A lost little boy. An old soul nursing old wounds. One life wanders into a nursing home and finds the other, a long-retired actress who enlists her fellow residents in a grand, kaleidoscopic symphony of sprawling Shakespearean performance, resulting in an explosive, life-affirming exchange of past and present joys ... the lasting effect of which will undoubtedly, for both, prove as bright and constant as the Northern Star.
DIRECTOR’S ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Oscar Wilde once wrote that he regarded “theatre as the greatest of all art forms,” and went on to further explain that it was the most “immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” I believe this sentiment also holds true for the cinematic arts, and so I set out to accomplish it with my film, a tale of magical realism set in a New York City nursing home.
My story of Edna, a once highly skilled Shakespearean actress now
abandoned by her family at a nursing home is a dark tale without any
hope, until she meets a child, Mateo, who has mysteriously appeared in
her room. It is only when Edna gives in to the child’s innocence that
she is able to find herself again, out of the darkness, as the
non-verbal child, clearly autistic, forms a bond with her, the elderly
woman. In my film, I explore what it means to be human, complicated
and messy, yet pure and powerful, with the ability to move mountains and
forever change one another. With the use of classical music, opera,
Shakespeare’s own text, costumes from the Elizabethan era, puppetry, and
dramatic lighting I intend to create for the audience a visceral,
transformative, thrilling sensory experience. I’ve been committed to the art of storytelling since my early days as a child, and ever since my son Mateo was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), I’ve been compelled to make art that is deeply personal and accessible to a larger audience. My crew and I were part of a magical day on set, one that will forever stay with me as a filmmaker, an artist and a father. With the use of my screenplay and improvisation for the scenes involving Edna and Mateo, the two actors, one a theatre, film and television veteran and the other a first-timer, my son, a 7-year-old boy on the autistic spectrum, we witnessed the truth behind Wilde’s statement as the two souls formed a bond as if they were the only two souls left on earth. Mateo has very rarely, if ever, connected with another adult with as sharp a focus as he did that day with Lynn Cohen as Edna.
