Joe Beshenkovsky, "LaPorte, Indiana"

Director Joe Beshenkovsky and producer Jason Bitner discovered a treasure trove of old photographs in a cafe in the small north Indiana town of LaPorte, and knew they had a story on their hands.

Rather than just relate the saga of those photographs, their documentary goes deeper to paint a distinct portrait of a small town told through photographs. "LaPorte, Indiana" plays at Indy Film Fest Saturday, July 17 at noon and Thursday, July 22 at 3 p.m. Buy tickets by visiting the festival's web site.

Read The Film Yap's review of "LaPorte, Indiana" by clicking here.

Joe took time out to answer a few questions about his film:

How did you guys come to be in B&J's American Cafe and see the photographs?

Jason came across the photos several years ago when he was passing through LaPorte to visit the County Fair (more specifically, the demolition derby, which is epic) and stopped at B&J’s American Café for breakfast. It’s a classic old diner with a really good cinnamon bun, but when you sit down you also quickly take notice of the portraits that line the walls.

Jason asked about them and was then directed to the back room, and an overflowing archive of over 18,000 photographs. After compulsively digging through box after box, he was hooked. That’s when he decided to create the book. I should point out that Jason is co-creator of Found Magazine, which is dedicated to the things people lose or simply throw away (love letters, report cards, Polaroids, post-its) and has always had a keen eye for magical finds.

For me, it always seemed like he was somehow meant to discover the portraits.

After the book came out, Jason became very interested in the idea of turning it into a documentary and tried getting it made a couple of times with different folks, but for some reason or another things didn’t work out. I loved the book, and we had spoken about the project over the years, and finally there was this moment when we were having breakfast one day that we both decided to do the film ourselves. Within two weeks we were in LaPorte doing research.

Did you instantly know you had a feature documentary subject on your hands?

I think we consider the film as a companion piece to the book, but in the world of our film the book doesn’t exist.

The largest influence of the book on the film was in terms of tone. There’s nothing sensationalized or mocking in the book, it’s a very straightforward and honest collection that draws you in -- each person who goes through it has his or her own personal experience. That’s how we wanted the film to play: honest and straightforward, and different people will relate to different stories in different ways. These are essentially portraits of different characters.

But there’s a reason that the book is titled “LaPorte, Indiana” and not “The lost collection of B&J’s.” The archive is in many ways the history of the community, stuffed into boxes, and we wanted to evoke that idea as well. Gary Wedow, one of our characters, told us a story about giving the book to a friend who had lived her childhood in a war-torn South American country – she was trapped at home all the time -- and she would fantasize about an imaginary town where life was better. Not long after giving her the book she called him in tears, because she recognized all the people in the book – they were the people from her imaginary town.

Explain the relationship between the book and the film. How did you go about tracking down the individuals you interviewed?

The book itself became a great research tool. People from LaPorte would recognize themselves or friends and would e-mail Jason. Also, there’s a copy of the book at B&J’s where townspeople would write names directly next to the portraits. Using that, we were able to start tracking people down.

Your subjects seem incredibly forthright and unafraid to discuss the intimate details of their lives, even their darkest disappointments. How did you establish this rapport?

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure, but with certain characters I had several pre-interviews over the phone where we began to create a relationship and a comfort. I think people also sensed that we had honest intentions. But I tend to believe that everyone, without exception, wants to speak about their life and the things that they are passionate about. When you ask people about their life experiences, about family, about love and marriage, chances are you can get some good responses. I generally ask very short simple questions and then shut up and listen.

Gary Wedow serves almost like the film's Greek chorus -- a part of the film and yet removed enough to act as commentator, almost like his relationship with LaPorte itself.

Definitely. Gary plays a very significant role, and perhaps he’s able to express verbally some of the things we’re trying to do visually. It helps that he’s incredibly eloquent and has a wonderful authority to everything he says.

I think the fact that he’s left LaPorte and still maintains such a strong connection to it was an important idea that I was personally attached to – the idea of home and what is home? Is it the buildings and the streets, or is it the people? Is it something deeper that you carry with you? Then also the question of whether the things you remember are really the way it was, much in the way you can look at these portraits and realize that what you imagine perhaps is not the reality.

Rather than center the entire documentary around Pease's portraits, you use them as a springboard to paint a broader portrait of the town through its people -- including young folks who plan to leave. What inspired you to take this path creatively?

Springboard is exactly the term we used. I think the turning point for me, and probably what excited me about making this film, was arriving at the decision to use the photographs as a device to explore a community, open up our ability to not strictly focus the camera on the characters behind the portraits but also others.

It also helped open up the subject matter of our conversations with portrait characters beyond their past to more expressive thoughts about their lives, and consequently how they might relate to someone else’s life, as if you’re speaking to the younger version of yourself and saying "when I was your age…"

Hopefully you get a sense of that when you’re watching, for instance, the Van Schoyck wedding, intercut with wedding photos from the archive, joined with the Tonagels (featured in an engagement portrait) speaking about their challenges through over 30 years of marriage. In those moments I think that you become aware of the depth of history in this town, the cycles and generations. Also, it helped allow our DP Jeremy Gould to shoot some beautiful stuff.

Specific to the young folks about to graduate high school, I think we seized on to that as a kind of narrative thread. Leaving high school and going off to college is a huge moment for most people, especially in a town like LaPorte. It’s also a point where you’re looking towards the future, and that’s important in a film where most characters are looking into the past.

Something we heard consistently from most of our characters was that they couldn’t wait to leave LaPorte when they set off for college, and had no intention of coming back, but somehow they grew to miss it and when it came time to raise a family, they returned. Hearing modern day high school kids talk about those same things, watching them go through graduation, then making their way out of town, I think there’s now a question of whether this generation actually will come back, and what that means for the town.

You have had a successful career as an editor, including a recent Emmy win. Do you see yourself transitioning more to directing? What are your plans for the immediate and long-term future?

Well, doing this project was incredibly rewarding for me and I would love to do more films. I always viewed being an editor as the best position to learn, and certainly by working on projects like "This American Life" and others, I’ve worked with some great storytellers. My thing is that I want to work on the best and most challenging projects I can possibly find, with the best people I can, and if I can do that as an editor that’s great. If I can’t, I’ll try to create my own.

For the immediate future I’ll be looking for the next opportunity and trying to get “LaPorte” out into the world. I can’t say I have long-term plans, but I’ll be watching the Yankees in the playoffs.

The music in the film is very evocative. Tell me about the role of music in the documentary.

The music actually came from a number of composers, many of whom I came into contact with on "This American Life" and they’re all great. Doug Slawin did a majority of the music, including some original compositions. We also have contributions from Jon Autry and Laura Balke, both Indiana natives, IDA, and Michael Hearst.

Specific to this film I wanted the music to be fairly minimal, so as not to interfere with the dialogue of our characters and to not announce some kind of emotional cue or go too sentimental, which is a big danger with music, but there were also points where it had to go big for a tone shift or, as in the case with the close, a sort of epic crescendo. Other than that, it had to be a warm sound, no cheap synthetic instruments.

What are your hopes for "LaPorte, Indiana"?

It’s a small film so I don’t think we have unreasonable expectations. But I do think that there are many people who will relate to it and see a bit of themselves in these characters. You just hope to get it out into the world and have as many people see it as possible, so we’ll be working hard to make that happen.

And did you ever decide on what the correct spelling is?

Not really! I think we just prefer it without the space, maybe it looks better that way. However, I did speak with the Mayor’s Office and the official spelling has a space. Take note.

LaPorte, Indiana Trailer from Joe Beshenkovsky & Jason Bitner on Vimeo.