Thursday, January 18, 2018

"Dogged" Indiegogo Campaign Coming Up

A fund raising campaign will be run soon for the movie, "Dogged."  It's a thriller, with a comic twist. 



Gellis, a rebellious artist, visits her friend Cat, owner of a B&B.  There, Gellis falls for another guest - a sexy southern gentleman, named Cointreau.   They are hot, hot, hot, dancing the tango.
But when Cat disappears, Gellis must go in search of her.  Love turns into a trapdoor to hell, when Gellis finds herself deep in a deadly underworld, where Cointreau shows up in all the wrong places.


I wrote 4 great parts for women!  The film also has a strong, anti-animal cruelty message.

More info and pics: 

http://october7thstudio.com/Dogged3.html


Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Interview with Rick Kogan, WGN Radio

You can hear this interview here:


Rick Kogan, WGN Radio
I'd like to welcome to the show Genevieve Davis, who has made a remarkable, haunting – I don't know if it's depressing, SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH. This film, which screens at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Friday, and next Tuesday again, it's about your grandmother. And it's sort of a horrific kind of story. A beautiful and interesting figure, who winds up getting caught up in Chicago, after the turn of the century. And winds up being associated with people like Big Jim Colosimo and the raunchy, crazy times at Levee District in Chicago, that famous red light district on the near South Side, that was noted for brothels and gambling halls and opium dens. Chronicled by my father and Lloyd Wendt, in a book called “The Lords of the Levee.” I will tell you that it must have been disturbing, in many ways, to discover the secret life, and indeed the controversial secret death of her grandmother. And she traveled to this strange, strange place called the Hollywood Hotel, in a kind of no-man's-land in northern Wisconsin.

This movie, was this at all for you depressing to uncover the sordid and sad details of your grandmother's life?

GD
It was very depressing at times and I just had to just put my nose to the grindstone and slog through it.

RK
What was your initial - what was the seed of this film. What compelled you to take an 8 year long journey to get this film made?

GD
Well, you know, my Dad always talked about when he was a kid and when he was 5 years old his mom took him to Big Jim Colosimo's funeral.

RK
Yeah.

GD
And I didn't know if that was just a story that he made up –

RK
Sure. Sure.

GD
You know, to make him feel better about having a bad childhood, or if that really happened. And he didn't really talk very much about his mother, and he was dead at that point, so I didn't have anybody to ask about it. So I went to the library. This was the day before the internet. And I looked up Chicago crooks. And Big Jim Colosimo was Chapter One.

RK
Oh, I'll bet! I'll bet! And that must have peaked your interest. And then you go from Colosimo and then you delve into what Chicago was like, or what Colosimo's Chicago was like at the time. And those must have been revelations. Talk about a sordid era in Chicago History!

GD
Yes, it certainly was. You know, the Levee is kind of a forgotten part of Chicago's History. It occupied the part of Chicago that's now called “the South Loop” -

RK
Right.

GD
Or “Printer's Row.” And at the time, it was just a cesspool of misery. There was prostitution and all manner of theft and crime and opium dens and really a bad place to be.

RK
Well, almost - as you know, my father was the co-author of The Lords of the Levee, the seminal book about that area. And it chills me when I re-read it every year. It chills me. It's almost unimaginably sordid, is it not?

GD
Yes, it is. And it's difficult to contemplate, you know, somebody that came before you ending up there. But that's, that's what happened.

RK
One of the fascinating things about your grandmother's life is detailed in SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH, which again screens at the Gene Siskal Friday and next Tuesday, is that this was a woman of some – now she was flawed – but there's some fortitude there, because as you well know, Genevieve Davis, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, everything else on this film, that not many women were able to survive the kind of situation that your grandmother was plugged into, or were they?

GD
No they weren't. And you know, personally, I don't look at her as a flawed person.

RK
Yeah.

GD
I look at society as being flawed. Because she had a baby after an engagement. And the guy that she was engage to disappeared. And her father threw her out. So she really didn't have too many options. And she was living with a sister, and that was a really chaotic household and the husband was a drunk. And so she took, as her other sister said, the first opportunity that came along and that wound her up in the Levee in Chicago. But she was a tough gal.

RK
Oh, no question. In this movie she was – you know as many women were in that time, she hooked up with a guy who used her, but who, in that weird kind of sense also provided a sense of protection. And at least for the little boy, your dad, believed that was his father.

GD
Yeah, Dad thought that Tony Coglioni was Dad, until he was in Philadelphia – his mom had sent him back when he was 11. And a relative took him aside and explained that his name wasn't – [Laughs]

RK
Coglioni. [Laughs]

GD
I changed their family's name.

RK
I have to, as a historian of modest note, so applaud the research that is involved in this thing. You're quite a talented filmmaker. The film is visually stunning. Tell me about the film making itself. You use music brilliantly, you use old newspaper clippings, old photographs and all sorts of other cinematography elements to tell this story. How did you conceptualize that?

GD
I am a professional artist so the way that I make a film is different from the way somebody who is steeped in film would do it. So I told the story through a lot of images. Sometimes you'll see a music video where the actors doing the reenactments will act out a story and the lyrics of the songs, for example Alberta Hunter singing about the Hollywood – tell what's going on in the scene. That's how I made the movie. I just do it differently.

RK
For example, there's a lengthy dance number near the beginning of the film -

GD
The tango!

RK
The tango, that is just brilliantly done. Is that your artwork that's involved in that, too?

GD
Well, actually those are some vintage tango pictures

RK
Wow!

GD
I found those tango dancers on the Library of Congress website before I had even thought about making a movie. And when I saw them, I was like, you know these would make a wonderful animation. And I was fascinated with them and I was studying tango at the time. So when it came to making a movie, I said, “This is a great way to show the thrill of falling in love, you know, at a dance hall.” I took the pictures and I processed them, using Photoshop, you know, made them look more like paintings, and then I animated them, along with this beautiful music that came from the Orchestra Tipica Budpest, a beautiful live version of “La Cachila” which means “the sexy woman.”

RK
Secret Life, Secret Death, a docudrama mystery. Well, your grandmother, and also the actress who plays in this thing is absolutely stunning. And it's a silent film in many ways. There's no spoken dialog by the actors and there are many of them in this. Your grandmother has a rough time in Chicago, unquestionably. And your Dad kind of too - I don't want to spoil the movie - that shadowed him for the rest of his life. She winds up in northern Wisconsin, running a brothel. Spread Eagle is the name of the town. When you came upon that information – that's one of the strangest little towns I've ever encountered in real life, or fiction – did you know what to make of that place when you first encountered it?

GD
Have you been up there?

RK
I have never been up there. It's a long drive. I mean it's north of Green Bay.

GD
Yeah.

RK
It's way up there. But it seems to have been a kind of hangout for mobsters like John Dillinger. One of the fascinating things is you have the guy talking about how the hunters up there, the locals, would go out a kill a bunch of deer, so that the mobsters could then stick a deer on their car and then drive back and say, “Hey, I shot that! I killed a deer!” When all they really did was whore around and play poker. That place, is – in it's way – it's kind of a rural “Levee,” isn't it?

GD
It really was. You know, when I went up there, it was 5 bars and restaurants on a curve in the road [Kogan laughs] and back in my grandmother's day, it was 5 brothels on a curve in the road. And there really is no town. [Laughs] You know, I try and show that in the movie. It's really just those 5 -

RK
Yeah, yeah.

GD
You know, that's just the kind of place it was. It was quid pro quo there, just like in Chicago, where they would take care of the sheriff and the judge and the DA. You know--

RK
Sure.

GD
They would wine and dine them at the Hollywood Hotel and give them freebies -

RK
Wine and dine AND. Yes.

GD
Right.

RK
The film is called “SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH,” and Genevieve Davis is the producer and director and cinematographer and art director and everything else in this film. It features actors doing the docudrama part, but also features stunning photographs, some of which even I have never seen, that the great Tim Samuelson, the Cultural Historian of the City of Chicago, was of unbelievable help to you, was he not?

GD
He was a great resource. He gave me a couple of those pictures of panoramics of Chicago that hadn't been published before. And he also pointed out a number of places that I could shoot. So I went down to Clark Street where the pawn shops are -

RK
Sure.

GD
And I shot the second stories there. And I used that for a green screen background where these crazed brothel madams throw an inmate -

RK
Yeah

GD
--out of a third story window of a brothel.

RK
Before I let you go, Genevieve, and you'll be in town, I'd love to, I'm going to try to meet you. You'll be here Friday and next Tuesday, screening SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH at the Gene Siskel Film Center on State Street, right across from the Chicago Theater. You'll meet John Dillinger, Big Jim Colosimo, Chicago Blues, antique cars, Al Capone – all make appearances. It must be a great load to have finished it.

GD
Well, you know I'm still trying to wrap up the book. And I did use your Dad's book as part of my research. It was kind of a central -

RK
Yeah, that is one of the definitive books, because he was able to interview the living Hinky Dink Kenna, for goodness sake!

Genevieve, I cannot tell you how much I admire this film and how much I think people – anybody – interested in the history of Chicago, and just interested in a fascinating story – your grandmother and her story and actually your whole family will haunt me for some time. It's a remarkable piece of work and it's 8 years well spent, Genevieve Davis.

GD
Thank you.

RK
Call me when you're here and let's get together and talk further for maybe something in the newspaper.

GD
Will do. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

RK
It's my pleasure. 8 years devoted to this and I understand exactly why you did it and why you could not not do it again. SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH screening Friday and next Tuesday at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Go to www.secretlifesecretdeath.com
Genevieve, a pleasure to meet you over the phone. I hope to meet you in person.

GD
Likewise.

RK
Take care.






Friday, January 10, 2014

Secret Life, Secret Death - How I got the Antique Cars & Trains


How I Produced SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH as a No-Budget Feature

I produced, directed, wrote, designed and edited SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH.  The film tells the true story of a young mother who fell into bootlegging and prostitution in Gangland Chicago in the Roaring 20's.  And the story of her granddaughter hunting down the family secret in the present.  The film has played in London, Rome, LA, New Orleans, Mobile, Chicago and Wisconsin.  It won Best Art Film at the Indie Fest USA film festival last fall. 
You can see the trailer, clips, reviews and awards at www.secretlifesecretdeath.com  You can contact me at info[at]ctober7thstudio.com or @GenevieveDavis3 on Twitter.  You also can buy the book, which I also wrote, and the movie in the store there.
The antique cars in the movie came through the generosity of the owners.  The Model T, which is in the date scene and then redressed for the train scene in Philadelphia, came from a friend of a friend.  I had this friend named Keith, who was in his 80's at the time and I knew he had an old Willis Knight that wasn't in running condition at the moment, but I knew he knew other people with cars.  So I asked him and he said there was a guy out by the lake who had a Model T.  I prodded Keith to figure out what else he remembered about the guy, so I could find him and ask him to bring his car to the set.  Keith remembered that the guy's wife ran a day care.  So I looked in the yellow pages and found Bunny Hill Day Care out by the lake and called up the gal and asked her if her husband had an old car.  She was very friendly and said yes and she would have him call me.  So then he called me and not only was he willing to come with his car, but he also wanted to know if he and his wife should come in costume and if they could bring a couple of girls with them who would be visiting that weekend.  So basically, with one week's notice, this guy, Dennis, came out in 1920's costume, along with his wife and 2 girls in costume, the vintage Model T, and a camper that the girls could relax in when they weren't on set.  He wouldn't take any money for gas and he was just fantastic.  I cast them all as background actors.
            It's a crazy story, but that's how things work around here in Wisconsin and that's how I got all the cars and locations and vintage clothes and costumes and props.  I just asked people who had the resources I needed.  When people heard I was making a movie, they all wanted to help!  People at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum were great.  They let us shoot there twice, let us use their station and film on the train when it was moving, just for the asking.  Some of their guys in uniform were background actors in the shots.  Even the executive director at the time, suited up and played a ticket agent.  A volunteer restorer at the museum lent me some vintage props, including a telephone, alarm clock and a bulldog ashtray that were exactly like ones in a 30's Humphrey Bogart movie.   One of the engineers showed me some footage a guy in Milwaukee had taken of the vintage steam engine.  I was able get permission use that from the guy who shot it.
           

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Stories, stories, stories.  Everyone has a story.  Has many stories.  I came to love all the stories about my Grandmother, my Dad and all the people they associated with in SECRET LIFE, SECRET DEATH, the good, bad and the ugly.  How is this possible?  Bringing the stories to light.  Brian Miracle, one of my actors in the movie, was working with me on a voice over of one of the VA psyciatrists, when he said to me, "How can you do this?  It's so personal?  So horrible?"  I said, "Either we work on this together in this sound booth or I'm going to explode."  That's how it works.  Bring the story into the light.  More about the film and book at www.secretlifesecretdeath.com