Asian American Film: Features

Sundance 2002 interview with Bertha Pan, director of "Face"

01.11 - Posted by Editor

"Face"	A Sundance 2002 interview with Bertha Pan, the director of "Face" Interview by Konrad Aderer

1.11.02 – First-time feature director Bertha Pan hits the Sundance Dramatic Competition with "Face," a New York City-based drama spanning three generations of Chinese-American women as their lives and relationships are shaped by devastating choices. The superb ensemble cast includes Bai Ling ("Anna and the King"), Kristy Wu ("What's Cooking") and Treach (of Naughty by Nature).

AAF "Face" started as a short?

BP That was my thesis film at Columbia, also to get interest for my feature script.

Links

Screening at the Sundance Film Festival

AAF   Were you already getting support for the idea of the feature?

BP  The thing is, that short ended up winning a bunch of awards - it won the DGA award, Polo Ralph Lauren Best Screenplay award, People's Choice award at the Black Film Festival in Memphis. Because of the awards and because it went to about 24 film festivals, I ended up getting a lot of interest, but my feature wasn't done yet. I just had the idea written, about 32 pages. So I ended up kinda missing out on the momentum. By the time I finished my first draft it was over a year, and you know everyone likes to get involved at the heat of the moment. The draft wasn't that good, and now in hindsight I know you should never, ever send out your first draft of your first completed feature script.

And I think it was also tough because of the subject matter, and that's a challenge for "Face" now with marketing, distribution, selling. It's not very easily categorized... it's not like a "Joy Luck Club" because it's very urban, it's very inner city, it has a lot of rap music in it. It's like a music video attitude. So I think the marketing will be interesting for the film. Because it's a very universal film. It's about relationships, its about family, it's about the concept of keeping face rather than communicating what it is that you really want or expressing your true feelings, and the consequences of the choices that people make, which can affect generations. And those things are very universal, regardless of what race or what cultural educational background you have.

AAF   How much of the film is from your own experience?

BP   As an artist, if you're honest, there's inevitably something of your own life in there. But as far as the plot - no. It started from my friend's story, but 6 years and 15 drafts later it's gone pretty far from that point.

AAF   How long was the writing process, including the time you did the short?

BP   I first started writing the script in screenwriting class at Columbia in...1994? I wasn't very disciplined in working on the script then. I was working in film distribution, going to school at the same time and traveling for my job, not very focused. I wrote 10 drafts on my own, and probably around the 8th draft I hooked up with my current producers and they really helped me shape and mold the script.

AAF   That was Alexa Fogel and…

BP   Joe Infantolino, Beech Hill Films.

AAF   ... what was the other film they did?

BP   They were co-producers on "Our Song," which I loved. With Melissa Martinez, who's also in "Face." Alexa's a really good, creative producer, really helped me shape the script, but then I found that after 10 or 11 drafts we all got too close to the script. It's hard when you're dealing with time span and different generations, so we kinda felt stuck and that's when Alexa brought on Oren Moverman ("Jesus' Son") as a co-writer. He was such a godsend, so great to work with.

AAF   How did you collaborate with him on the script?

BP   He came on really fresh and objective, able to filter and streamline it. I'd been living with it for so many years and going on 10 different tangents, all this stuff in my head. He was able to take out all the fluff - "this is what the story's about." His writing style is very complementary to mine, he's more cynical while I'm more sentimental. I tend to underwrite, afraid of expressing things directly, whereas he's very clear-cut and "this is what it is." In that sense he balanced me out too, he was able to bring out stuff that I'd repressed, and it was like, "damn, how did you know?" I had a lot more holding me back.

AAF   Did your contacts from working in distribution help in getting "Face" made?

BP   A lot of film school students don't realize - myself included, I made a lot of mistakes from being really naive - you can have a lot of talent, but you need good business sense and really good business knowledge. That takes a lot of experience just working in the industry and learning to work with people and creating situations.

AAF   When you submitted to Sundance, did you try to cultivate relationships with the people there?

BP   No, I'm very surprised that we got in (laughs). None of us have any specific relationships with anyone from the Sundance clique and I just, from my limited knowledge of Sundance I didn't think this was their cup of tea. But I'm glad I was wrong (laughs).

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