rebecca LANDO

Kings of Pastry, Chris Hegedus & D A Pennebaker, 2009

Tonight was a night to remember. Kings of Pastry was the last film I produced with Hegedus & Pennebaker - my bosses for 3 years and my in-laws, effectively, for 4. Tonight was the Kings of Pastry premiere at Film Forum, and the first time I’d actually seen the full final edit.

It is an absolutely powerful and mesmerizing film. Scenes I’d seen nearly 100 times before, scenes I’d actually edited together, were as intense tonight as if I was watching the film for the first time. The audience gasped, sighed, and cried in every right place.

If you haven’t yet seen Kings of Pastry, by all means, GO NOW. Here’s a list of where and when you can see it. New Yorkers: it’s playing Film Forum through Oct. 23rd. You really have no excuse.

The after party at Jacques Torres’s West Village location was no less fun. It was strange meeting Jacquy and his wife Rachel for the first time, since I worked with over 100 hours of recorded video of them over the past 3 years. Before working for Chris and Penny, I’d never been a documentarian. Tonight I really learned that the true privilege of a documentary filmmaker is being able to actually meet your characters - who, at least in this case, are far more interesting, human, and compelling than any written person.

Not to be discounted, of course, is sharing champagne, cream puffs, and chocolate with your characters. But that’s a different thing entirely.

I am so proud to have been a part of the making of this film. Not that it wouldn’t have gotten made without me, or wouldn’t have been wonderful without me. Not that I necessarily contributed much, or even anything, in other words. But I can’t thank Chris and Penny and Frazer Pennebaker enough for giving me the chance to work with them, to learn from them, and, now, the generosity - undeserved hyperbole though it may be - of calling me their partner on this film.