arts & entertainment
Native Son
Raised in West Bloomfield, Jason Potash
is a film producer who enjoys bringing film
projects to the Great Lakes State.
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
V
acationers along the colorful beach-
es of Charlevoix, Mich., may very
well have found the setting pictur-
esque, but Jason Potash has found the setting
motion-picturesque.
Potash, whose family summered around
Charlevoix, thought of the locale as he was
reading the script for Beside Still Waters and
produced the film in the Great Lakes State.
It is being released this month, rolling out
in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on
Friday, Nov. 14, and available to the rest of
the country with On Demand viewing on
Tuesday, Nov. 18.
The local theater premiere and only the-
ater date for Michigan, with plans still in the
works and cast appearances in play, is set for
Wednesday evening, Dec. 10, at the Maple
Theater in Bloomfield Township.
Ryan Eggold, who starred in TV's The
Blacklist, plays the main character, Daniel.
Also in the cast are Beck Bennett (Saturday
Night Live) as Tom, Will Brill (Muckland) as
Martin, Brett Dalton (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
as James and Erin Darke (The Wolverine) as
Abby.
"Beside Still Waters is about a young man
who recently fell on hard times:' explains
Potash in a phone conversation from his
California office.
"Daniel lost both of his parents in a car
accident and invites his childhood friends to
spend a weekend in the summer home he has
to leave.
"It's really a beautiful film about nostalgia
and holding on to the past but also letting go
how I spent some weekends and summers
in looking to the future
until I graduated and moved to California.
Parts of the story were based on the experi-
"I soon met with the writers' strike and
ences of Chris Lowell, the writer and director
looked for opportunities to meet new people.
working with Mohit Narang on the script.
I was able to get a job with a producer
The storyline originally was set near Lowell's
after the strike and worked on a short film,
home in Atlanta but was moved after Potash
Some Boys Don't Leave (winner of a Student
showed Lowell the area around Petoskey.
Visionary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival).
As the production was being
"I left my job to create a com-
introduced to audiences, the
pany and become an independent
movie won the Jury Award for
producer partnering with Paul. In
Best Narrative Feature Film at
March, we shot the drama Dial a
the 2013 Austin Film Festival.
Prayer, starring William H. Macy
Potash, on this and other
and Brittany Snow, with settings in
projects, has worked closely
Birmingham and Troy (anticipat-
with Paul Finkel as they oper-
ing a 2015 release dater
ate Storyboard Entertainment.
Although Finkel's dream job
Finkel is based at a second office
had been movie production, he
in Novi.
built a career in real estate and
"I believe audiences will look Producer J ason
property management before
at the characters, listen to the
being introduced to Potash by
Potash
story and relate to what is on
Andrea and Harry Potash, the
screen:' says Potash, 28 and
filmmaker's parents.
single. "I come from the generation of the
Four years ago, Finkel decided to change
characters, and I see my friends and I going
careers.
through some of the same experiences:"
"I grew up spending summers at a cottage
Potash started earning money from mak-
on Union Lake so this story makes me nostal-
ing movies when he was 15, attending West
gic as it brings back memories and makes me
Bloomfield High School and going to services
appreciate the friendships I have had:' says
at Temple Israel. He filmed bar mitzvahs and
Finkel, 51, who lives in West Bloomfield.
weddings with an eye for montage.
"My daughters (ages 16 and 20) tell me
Potash chose to go to Columbia College in
they feel similar emotions as the film reminds
Chicago so that he could fly home weekends
them of going to camp. The film took us back
to work with repeat and new clients to cap-
to so many things in our lives:'
ture special events.
Finkel and his wife, Kathy, have been
"In Chicago, I started working on commer-
members of Congregation Shaarey Zedek. He
cial movies and TV shows, starting out with
also has been active with Yad Ezra, JARC and
Hillel Day School.
Prison Break for Fox," Potash says. "That was
6.
"I have to travel to California a lot as we
manage the business, negotiate contracts and
handle social media; says Finkel, who went
to Andover High School and studied building
construction and management at Michigan
State University.
Michigan film incentives helped finance
Beside Still Waters and Dial a Prayer.
"I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to
bring work back home and stay close to my
family," says Potash, who enjoys yoga, espe-
cially because he finds it the only excuse to
turn his phone off for an hour. "I love that
I can find stories that have meaning to me
and potentially others while sharing them
on a global scale. In doing so, I can evoke
thoughts, dreams or change.
"Beside Still Waters means a lot to me. I
have friends who have gone though hardships
similar to the ones in the film and have for-
gotten their fun times and great memories.
"I feel I've been given this great chance to
share their stories through fictional characters
that will let viewers think about the ways they
live their lives:'
❑
Beside Still Waters will have a
local theater premiere and show-
ing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec.
10, at the Maple Theater in West
Bloomfield. Call (248) 750-1030 or
visit themapletheater.com to find
out about premiere plans and ticket
prices. Otherwise, the film is avail-
able for On Demand viewing begin-
ning Tuesday, Nov.18.
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
At The Movies
Rosewater, opening Friday, Nov.14,
is the first film
directed and written
by Daily Show host
Jon Stewart, 51. It is
based on a memoir
by Iranian-Canadian
Newsweek reporter
Maziar Bahari about
his 107-day imprison-
Stewart
ment in solitary con-
finement by the Iranian regime in 2009.
A few days before Iran's presidential
election, Daily Show correspondent
44
November 13 • 2014
m
Jason Jones, pretending to be a "spy"
(a put-on), interviewed Bahari at a
Teheran coffee shop. The regime arrest-
ed Bahari four days after the interview
aired on the Daily Show and charged
him with spying. After his release, he
and Stewart became friends.
Tonight (Thursday, Nov.13) at 7:30
p.m., Rosewater: Jon Stewart & Stephen
Colbert Live, a preview showing of
the film followed by a live Q&A with
Jon Stewart, interviewed by Stephen
Colbert, will be broadcast from New
York City to select cinemas nationwide.
Visit www.fathomevents.com for local
theaters; tickets will be available at the
box office.
Variety reports that Seth Rogen, 32,
has been picked to play Apple co-found-
er Steven Wozniak in a biopic based
on the 2011 Walter Isaacson biography
Steve Jobs (Apple's other co-founder).
The screenplay will be penned by Aaron
Sorkin. Wozniak, who isn't Jewish "at
all," will have been a character in three
major films, and, every time, been
played by a Jew. Go figure.
Worth Watching
The History Channel of Canada made
an original dramatic film in 2012 titled
The Real Inglorious Basterds. It will be
shown on the American Heroes Channel
(AHC), formerly the Military Channel), at
9 a.m. Saturday, Nov.15; 7 p.m. Monday,
Nov.17; and 2 a.m. Tuesday, Nov.18.
It tells the true story of two young
American Jewish refugees from Europe,
German-born Frederick Mayer, 93, and
the late Dutch-born Hans Wynberg,
who joined the OSS (Office of Strategic
Services), a secret U.S. wartime intelli-
gence agency. The two men parachuted
into Austria in the last months of World
War II and met up with a German army
deserter.
Together, they gathered invaluable
intelligence and did sabotage work.
Mayer was captured and tortured.
But the Nazi head of the region was
somehow convinced that Mayer was an
important person and that all who mis-
treated him would be killed if Mayer was
shot. After surviving and meeting up
with the conquering U.S. Army, Mayer
was given the honor of accepting the
surrender of Innsbruck, Austria.
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