Greetings
Hello darlings,
I’m Myra Paci, the writer, director, and camerawomxn for a feature documentary called Dandy Uncle Peter and Me. As a filmmaker, I’ve been creating media since 1989 starting with my short films Butch Patrol and Transeltown (available on the Criterion Channel), moving to my narrative feature Searching for Paradise (released on Showtime/Sundance and starring Chris Noth and Susan May Pratt) and including years of directing and shooting for commercial and non-profit clients like Atlantic Records, Kaiser Permanente, Schwab, and the San Francisco YMCA. I’ve been fortunate to have been supported by The Sundance Institute, The San Francisco Film Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the MacDowell Colony among others.
Dandy Uncle Peter and Me is both my most personal film to date and one that, judging from our test screenings, speaks to many people. Shooting and editing are done and we’re heading into the sound mix, color correction and festival portion of the film’s life. Which is why we’re looking for people like you -- our friends, fans, and folks we haven’t met yet -- to join us to bring Dandy Uncle Peter and Me into the world!
The Story
Dandy Uncle Peter and Me is a feature documentary about the bond between me and Peter Bullough, a retired British pathologist and art collector: my artistic mentor, queer uncle, and heartthrob since childhood. As Peter launches an artists' residency in his two adjacent homes in small-town Virginia, this film explores illness and mortality, love and loss, dandyism both male and female, the quest for authentic connection with others, and the healing potential of art.
Here is some of the feedback the film received in multiple screenings we conducted over the editing process:
“We all come from families but we don’t always have family. This film examines the queer chosen family that Paci fashioned with her queer “uncle” Peter, her family of origin, and the family she created with her husband and daughters and begs the question, “can we be fully ourselves, not be put in boxes?” -- Nancy Kates, Regarding Susan Sontag; Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin.
“I found the film very moving. Like making sense of an old family scrapbook with blank spaces and untitled photos. I found myself wondering about things just before the film answered them. I think that's the sign of a really good film.”-- Gary McKendry, Writer/Director, Killer Elite, Everything in this Country Must (Academy-Award nominated)
“I enjoyed it and found it always involving...Despite the apparent focus on Peter, I can’t help but feel the film is really about the filmmaker and her family. ”-- Carter Burwell, Composer, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Carol, No Country for Old Men
“Lusciously filmed. Poetically paced. The central character reminded me of Quentin Crisp and the bond between him and the filmmaker’s father has a tender, homoerotic component. I love the rawness of this film.” -- Norman Bonney, Cinematographer, Miss Representation, Speed and Angels
“Losses force you to confront yourself and know yourself. Art is an antidote to loss; it benefits the artist and anyone else who comes into contact with it. This film reminds me of Sara Polley’s Stories We Tell because it begs the question ‘Whose version is the truth?’” -- Samantha Grant, Director/Producer, A Fragile Trust, Daughters of the Forest
I am grateful that this film has drawn admirers as well as talented individuals who have joined the team and who are lending their skills and artistry to see it come to completion.
Here are some of the members of our team:
The Team
PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR/CAMERAWOMXN MYRA PACI
Myra Paci is a writer/director/camerawomxn whose work includes her award-winning debut feature Searching for Paradise, developed at the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting and Directing Labs, with “first-rate performances” (The Boston Globe) by Chris Noth, Susan May Pratt, Laila Robins, Jeremy Davies and Italian star Michele Placido, distributed by Sundance Channel Home Entertainment/ Showtime Entertainment; her short thriller Girls Night Out, starring Rosario Dawson and Daniel von Bargen, distributed on the Sundance Channel; and Transeltown, distributed on The Criterion Channel and which The Village Voice called “a sci-fi and horror–inflected hallucination, whose vision of gender dysphoria and fluidity now seems years ahead of its time.” Transeltown is in the Joanie 4 Jackie Archive at The Getty Research Institute and is distributed by Cinenova Film and Video Distribution in Europe.
Most recently, Paci was awarded residencies at San Francisco Film Society’s FilmHouse and at Middlebury Script Lab at Bread Loaf to develop her psycho-horror feature, BESTIA, and has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the MacDowell Colony for her screenwriting. Paci teaches screenwriting and directing at San Francisco State University. She received a B.A. in History, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University, and an M.F.A. in Film/Video Production from N.Y.U.
EDITOR, CO-PRODUCER AND CO-WRITER RICHARD LEVIEN
Richard Levien has been writing, directing and editing award-winning films for 11 years. Levien's short “Immersion”, about a ten-year-old boy from Mexico who struggles to fit in at his new school in the U.S., premiered at Slamdance in 2009. “Immersion” won the “No Violence” award at the Ann Arbor film festival, and Best Bay Area short at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The film received a Resolution of the California Legislature, and is used by more than 50 school districts and universities to support education about English Language Learners. In 2009 Levien won the inaugural San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant, for screenwriting on this film, Collisions. In 2013 the project won a further SFFS/KRF grant, for development.
Levien’s editing credits include “D Tour”, which won Best Bay Area documentary at SFIFF, and appeared on Independent Lens. He edited the documentary “A Fragile Trust”, which aired on Independent Lens in 2014. He is a member of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Post Script team (doing motion graphics), which was nominated for a national Emmy in 2016.
Levien is from New Zealand. He has a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University.
COLORIST CHRIS MARTIN AND MISSION FILM AND DESIGN SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco is a vibrant and diverse creative community. I’ve been blessed to have worked on commercial projects that include Levis, Chevy, NBA, Apple, Uber and Google. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for independent films with ties to the Bay Area. Some of my most fulfilling experiences have been grading films such as Fruitvale Station, Songs My Brother Taught Me and Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt.
Since 2016, I have been partnered with Mission Film and Design to continue the tradition of providing the San Francisco Bay Area with high end, locally owned color grading. Mission Film and Design features San Francisco’s only Baselight color suite. A second color suite featuring DaVinci Resolve allows us to cover any project needs. In additioN to color, Mission Film and Design offers sound and Flame finishing services.
SOLO PIANIST RUSTAM KHANMURZIN
Rustam Khanmurzin started his music education in Surgut, Russia, with Irina Bukanina, and continued his studies at Central Music School, and then at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Alexander Mndoyants. He made his concerto debut with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra at the Moscow Soloists Festival where he was awarded a title of Laureate for an outstanding performance of the 2nd Piano Concerto by Chopin. In 2012 in South Korea the First Lady of Poland presented Rustam with the Silver medal of the 2nd Asia-Pacific Chopin Piano Competition. In 2013 the Melodiya Lable launched Anthology of Piano Music by Russian and Soviet Composers CD Series with Rustam’s recordings of pieces by Tchaikovsky, as well as Rachmaninoff: Transcriptions for Flute and Piano was released in 2020 – CD album with Ekaterina Kornishina. Twice Rustam won the Presidential Award for Talented Youth; in 2015 he was awarded with the PianoForum Magazine Award and Russian Music Union Prize ‘for a brilliant performance at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory’.
