Published April 18, 2005
Crafting a killer plot
Actors gather at Glendale home to rehearse a film that is an
alternative rendering of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
By Rima Shah, News-Press and Leader
It’s never a pretty scene when the hit man hired to kill your wife
fumbles the job, and the wife finds out.
That’s what happened Sunday afternoon in a spacious Glendale home. The
curses flying around the dining table were, therefore, no surprise.
But, thankfully, no real murder contract actually existed. The fiery
accusations and unmentionable curses were read from a script, as a
group of young filmmakers got together to rehearse for an independent
movie set to film in July.
The film, “The Machiavelli Hangman,” an alternative rendering of John
F. Kennedy’s assassination, is the brainchild of Shervin Youssefian, a
local filmmaker and the writer and director of the movie.
“The movie recreates the Kennedy assassination and connects it to one
of our characters, who is an assassin,” Youssefian said.
Youssefian wrote and made films as a child, and then moved on to
directing commercials and such short films as “Color Blind” and “Past
Present.”
“I started out getting awards as a kid for drawing and painting,” he
said.
He went on to start entertaining his teachers and classmates with his
movies and graduated from the University of Northridge’s film school.
The movie will leave the audience surprised, he said.
“We always show the story from the perspective of so many characters,”
he said. “People sit on the roller coaster; they know where it is
going, but the actual experience cannot be recreated. It is absolutely
different from what people think is going on in the world.”
The 20- to 30-member cast, which does not include the lead actors and
the crew, will start filming in June or July at local locations in the
area, said Harutiun Gendovian, the film’s producer.
Locations include the house they were rehearsing at, a mortuary, an
alley and an abandoned cabin, he said.
“It’s a combination of many films, yet it is not a repetition of these
films,” he said. “It’s very captivating. Every small character has so
much character in it.”
In the house, actors walked around holding bound copies of the script
and posed for individual and group still shots.
One of them was Bruce Nachsin, who plays George, one of the lead
characters.
“George is one of the main luckless figures in the movie,” Nachsin
said. “I have the least amount of luck in all the characters. He
starts off as relatively powerless in a situation he can’t control,
and he goes through events well beyond anything he could have hoped to
encounter.”
There is more to the film than observing how its characters
develop. It is also an attempt to bring together the Armenian
community.
Youssefian and the rest of the film’s crew launched a website,
www.armenian fimmaker.com, to ask the community to donate a dollar
each for the funding of the film.
The film is more of an attempt to generate support in the community
than a purely financial effort, he said.
“We want to see how supportive the community is of the effort,”
Youssefian said.
The website attracted Joseph Simaie, a Glendale-resident and dentist.
Simaie was so impressed with their effort that he offered his house,
where the crew rehearsed Sunday, as a location and became a
collaborator in the project.
“I think that the Armenian community has to get together from the
ground level,” Simaie said. “I’ve seen a lot of efforts, but theirs
was genuine. Art and movies are a way through which people can get
together, enjoy and have a conversation with your family.”