Friends

Ever wonder what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing hanging around Austin, Texas last April?

Jake at the San Jose Motel , Austin, TX, on April 22, 2007
Photo by Keith Eby

Seems he was catching the new play, Wireless-less by friend David Modigliani, and checking up on his investment.*

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Next month starts the week-long South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, being held as it is every year since 1944 in Austin, Texas.

According to Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer, among the films most likely to be jam-packed at next month's South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in Austin: David Modigliani's doc Crawford, which purports to answer the question: "What happens to the 705 residents of Crawford, Texas, when George W. Bush moves to town?" The trailer, posted yesterday, should give you some idea.



Also, this is no small-time affair: Sitting on the moviemakers' "advisory board" are such folks as Jake Gyllenhaal, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and director Brad Silberling.

Could this Jake's first foray into film producing? According to the film's official site:

*Join Jake Gyllenhaal, Ted Danson and a committed group of patrons and investors who are funding Crawford's push to completion.

The film's advisory board's Martha's Vineyard connection is no fluke. Nor is this David Modigliani's first documentary. In 2006 David produced a tribute piece to the Chilmark (MA) Community Center. According to the Martha's Vineyard Times David Modigliani, started at the Center as a camper as a three-year-old, became a counselor when he was 11, and stayed at it until he was 18 - a typical track for many Center kids. Modigliani wrote poetry as an undergraduate at Harvard, but now he is focusing on playwriting and screenwriting as part of a three-year fellowship at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. How fitting that his first completed film was a 30-minute tribute to the Chilmark Community Center, called "Barefoot at Beetlebung: The Center Through Fifty."

To capture the Center's essence, Modigliani interviewed dozens of people who have been directly connected to it - campers, parents, directors, board members, teachers, neighbors, and friends. They all spoke with open affection for the Center. Some saw the organized chaos of mornings at the center as an invitation to experiment, which helped them develop self-reliance. Others praised the ease with which people mixed at the Center - people from different backgrounds, different generations, different everything.

While the Chilmark Community Center has been around 50 years, some of us only recently became aware of it this past summer.



The Chilmark Community Center is a vital part of local life. Profits from the annual Chilmark Road Race go to support the Center.

To read more about David Modigliani's movie, Crawford, see below.

Crawford Official Site

David Modigliani's Blog


Photo courtesy of The Vineyard Gazette

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Quick note on one of Jake's acting jobs: IGN has a DVD review for Rendition. Not a lot of info - no real details on the deleted scenes, just that there are five of them.