|
Tawake Evans writes from Fiji:
"We have been watching the DVD of Reel Paradise of Taveuni. Steve and Luisa brought the
CD and it was enjoyed by most audience. People are so fond of watching it lately that
they would ask to watch the movie over and over."
Read More...
Director's Statement
By Steve James
I'll never forget when John first called me about his adventure in Fiji after he'd returned from shooting that Split Screen episode at the 180 Meridian Cinema. He seemed almost as animated then as (I would later learn) he had been the night of the Three Stooges showing that spurred his epiphany. John told me of his plans to return for an extended period of time. He said he wanted to show the movies for free and that his family was going along. As he talked, each revelation seemed more fantastic than the previous one.
Then John hit me up for a donation to the cause. He did so gently, because he knew I was living
(mostly) on a documentary filmmaker's income. He said he was asking filmmakers he had known or been
involved with over the years. Some had leaped in with support (Kevin Smith, South Park's Matt
Stone, the Haxan Films/Blair Witch team), some had been bewildered (Michael Moore's six word email
response had been, "Ugh, tell me this isn't happening.") and others had pleaded poverty.
I pleaded poverty. I wished I could have helped. I'd met John while completing Hoop Dreams in
1993. He didn't represent the film but he became an advisor who really beat the drum for it when
we went to Sundance.
After the phone call, the next time I heard from John was at Sundance 2003 when my film Stevie was
at the festival. I was checking my emails and got one from him wishing me luck with the film.
He then asked if I had any interest in directing a documentary on their experiences in Fiji.
Like many others, I had sporadically followed the family's exploits in Fiji via their website,
so I knew the broad strokes of the story. John told me in the email that Kevin Smith and partner
Scott Mosier would be the executive producers and they'd secured the money to fund the film. I
said to myself, "Let's see, a funded film where I get to go to Fiji and document a unique family's
experience abroad showing free movies on a remote island?" It took me about three seconds to say yes.
Despite my ready enthusiasm, I had no interest in doing a vanity piece. Thank-fully, John and
Janet made it clear from the start that this would be my film, and they expected it to be as
candid and honest as I could make it. That's not an easy thing to commit to for any subject
of a documentary, let alone ones who are as media-savvy and self-aware as the Piersons.
But that is exactly what happened. Certainly one of the defining characteristics of Reel
Paradise is the honest - sometimes joyous sometimes painful - depiction of their lives in
Fiji. The film is neither a Pollyanna portrait of the Piersons nor, for that matter, of
the Fijians. The film shows that life is hard there in differing ways for both the family
and locals.
Though we filmed for only the last month, it was a full one. In addition to the ten-movie
marathon, there's the delinquent projectionist, the robbery, dengue fever, and those family
conflicts. The film also presented me with an opportunity to get to know some of the Fijian
people in the Piersons' lives. Then there were the audiences at the movies. Nowhere in the
world have I seen such visceral and passionate responses to a movie. In Reel Paradise, we
really tried to capture the experience inside that theater. Being there, I realized why
John had been so affected by his first visit to the 180 Meridian Theater, and why he wanted
so badly to come back.
Yet despite the richness of that month of shooting, it's true that no film can fully capture
a subject's experience. My modus operandi on my previous films (including the recent miniseries
on immigrants in America, The New Americans) is to shoot for years at a time. Indeed, for this
film, I could have easily imagined myself shooting periodically over the entire year of their
stay. But that wasn't possible because funding came later. And in fact, it wasn't desirable
either for the Piersons. They needed to spend the bulk of their time in Fiji just living their
lives, without the camera.
Read More...
|
 |
 |
I'm seated, with my mother, on a palace veranda, cooled by a breeze from the royal garden. Before us, on a dais, is an empty throne, its arms and legs embossed with polished brass, the back and seat covered in black-and-gold silk. In front of the steps to the dais, there are two columns of people, mostly men, facing one another, seated on carved wooden stools, the cloths they wear wrapped around their chests, leaving their shoulders bare.
Read More...
|
Then there's Hollywood's interpretation of the island...
To see that, check out Reel Paradise, a movie about the saga of American film maker maker John Pierson who in 2002 relocated his family
to Taveuni for a year to show free movies at the venerable Meridian Cinema near Waiyevo.
Read More...
|
Interview with John and Janet Pierson - Reel Paradise
On the latest episode of DVD Talk Radio, DVD Talk Editor Geoffrey Kleinman speaks with John and Janet Pierson about the DVD release for Reel Paradise.
Read More...
|
No Family Is an Island
BY SPENCER PARSONS
The Piersons on 'Reel Paradise'
Read More...
|
|
Reel Paradise: Review
BY Marc Savlov
When it comes to mid-life crises, some guys buy Porsches, some nail hot blondes,
and some just muddle through. Freshly minted Austinite and famed producer's rep/author/gadabout John Pierson chose to relocate his entire family.
Read More...
|
'Reel Paradise': Moving Theater Experience in Fiji
by Alex Chadwick
American movie buff and independent filmmaker John Pierson moved his family to Fiji in 2002 in search of "the world's most remote theater."
Read More...
|
Reel Paradise: Review
By Roger Ebert
Steve James' new documentary, "Reel Paradise," is about a couple with similar idealism, who also move to a small town and buy the movie theater.
Read More...
|
Reel Paradise: Review
By Kevin Crust
MOVIE REVIEW: A family, a film house and Fiji.
Read More...
|
|
Taking popcorn fare to paradise
By Merrill Balassone
It's like moviegoing is new again when a producer shows free films in Fiji.
Read More...
|
How an American family moved to Fiji and brought Hollywood along for the ride
By Edward Guthmann
After 25 years of making top-notch indie films, John Pierson needed to escape. So off to Fiji he went, bringing
his family to begin a new life. He documented the experience in "Reel Paradise."
Read More...
|
Keeping It 'Reel' in Paradise
By ANDY KLEIN
In 2002, well known indie film figure John Pierson - producer's rep for She's Gotta Have It, Clerks, and Roger & Me, host of IFC's Split Screen series, and author of Spike, Mike, Slackers
& Dykes - picked up his family and moved to Fiji for a year to show free movies.
Read More...
|
LA Weekly: Film
By Scott Foundas
The final month of Pierson's quixotic quest is chronicled by documentary filmmaker Steve James in Reel Paradise and the result is an enormously warm, comic travelogue about how you can go to the ends of the earth and still not escape from temperamental
teenagers, absentee landlords and the universal language of moving pictures.
Read More...
|
Creating a Free Cinema Off Beaten Track in Fiji
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Steve James's absorbing documentary follows a family to the rural Fijian island of Taveuni, where they showed free
movies in the world's most remote movie theater.
Read More...
|
'Paradise' found in Fiji
By LILY OEI
Indiewood came out in droves Monday to celebrate the Gotham preem of Wellspring's "Reel Paradise."
Read More...
|
|
A Cinema So Indie It's 5,000 Miles Away
By David Hochman
The Pierson's experiences running a cinema in Fiji are the subject of the documentary "Reel Paradise."
Read More...
|
On Screen and In a New City, Austin Embraces The Pierson Family
By Eugene Hernandez
These days, aside from traveling to a few film festivals to talk about Steve James' Miramax doc about their time in Fiji, "Reel Paradise,"
the Pierson's have become key figures within the Austin film scene.
Read More...
|
|
Variety - Reel Paradise
By Todd McCarthy
Indie film guru John Pierson goes native, sort of, in "Reel Paradise," an engaging docu about his year-long
stint showing free movies to the locals at what's purportedly
the world's most remote cinema, the 180 Meridian in Taveuni, Fiji.
Read More...
|
|
Sundance #3: Of heart and humor
By Roger Ebert
Another Sundance doc is also a wonderful portrait of an unexpected lifetime. Steve James, who directed
"Hoop Dreams," is here with "Reel Paradise," the story of a New Yorker named John Pierson, who distributed
and represented the films of Spike Lee, Kevin Smith and many other indie directors,
and hosted "Split Screen," an IFC program on independent films.
Read More...
|
Paradise Found
By Bill Chambers
Hoop-dream master Steve James on his latest film, REEL PARADISE
Read More...
|
Isle of Forgotten Fans
By John Pierson
I recently became the proud owner of the world's most remote movie theater. A year from now, you could be wearing a T-shirt that says, "I saw it at the 180 Meridian Cinema." At least that's how I see it.
Read More...
|
Fiji Favorites: Guys in Dresses
By Dave Kehr
The Piersons are back, and the New York independent film community is happy to see them home.
Read More...
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
