Press: The Independent

All-Out Independent

By Kay Frances Scott

An excerpt of the orginal article published September 2003, by AIVF's magazine, The Independent

Little Rock, Arkansas, became a national focus during the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, but Little Rock has always been a state and regional hub, not only for politics (before Clinton, there was Fulbright, McClellan, and later, Bumpers), but also for the arts and for artful living. Its redesigned riverfront features fine dining, live music, and an upscale marketplace. The city’s Quawpaw Quarter offers living in restored antebellum homes. The Arkansas Arts Center houses a superb permanent collection in addition to its many changing exhibits. And now, a small but growing group of independent filmmakers are busy creating their community, their work, and their identity, centered in Little Rock but extending throughout the state. Like all fledglings, they are energetic, noisy, needy, and ultimately demanding—and deserving—our attention.

... Filmmaker Robert Kirkpatrick, the founder of Crowfeather Films, has taken a long road both to independent film and Little Rock. He emigrated with his parents to the US from Thailand when he was three, and they eventually settled in Little Rock. After leaving Little Rock for Oberlin College in 1989, he and several classmates formed Ominous Zygote, a sci-fi/horror and martial arts films production company. (Their 1992 student film The Undergraduates—recently remastered—can be accessed in the downloads section of the Crowfeatherfilms.com website.) After college, the Ominous Zygote founders went their separate ways, and Kirkpatrick moved to Chicago, where he spent two years “observing rather than participating” in Chicago’s art scene, most notably the Asian-American film festivals. During this two-year hiatus, two things happened: Cameras got lighter and easier to work with, and prices fell to more affordable levels.

When Kirkpatrick returned to Little Rock and resumed his film work, his interest had shifted from the set pieces and special effects that dominated his experience with Ominous Zygote to character-driven films and the actors who enliven them, as well as some serious storytelling. “[In the past] I just told the actors what to do—stand here, say this line,” he says. “There wasn’t any input [from the actors. Now] I’m trying to . . . make the filmmaking much more collaborative.” To that end, he spends time observing performers at work on his own as well as others’ projects.

Kirkpatrick describes his most recent film, a short titled Therapy that wrapped in March of this year, as “warped Twilight Zone-esque,” revolving around a female patient’s therapy session (one of many) where issues arise that the psychiatrist can’t handle.

His commitment is to unconventional stories he has to tell that do not fit the ninety-minute format. “I’m probably going to watch the million-dollar action movie because I know they’re going to give me more of the spectacle. But when it comes to more intimate storytelling, that’s the advantage of this [independent filmmaking],” Kirkpatrick says.