Alexander Jeffery
March Filmmaker of the Month
Alexander Jeffery was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada during the 1988 Winter Olympics. This somehow had no influence on his career trajectory, as he decided to pursue the arts for a living. In 2014, Alexander helped start the El Dorado Film Festival where he now serves as Executive Director. His short film, The Bespoke Tailoring of Mister Bellamy, won the 2015 Louisiana Film Prize and went on to receive other accolades on the film festival circuit. MTV called it "an acutely relevant, achingly human film." Following “Bespoke,” he co-founded the company Bespoke Works LLC with his friend and collaborator, Paul Petersen. Alexander received two bachelor's degrees from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, one in Film & New Media, the other in Theatre Performance. In 2019, Alexander set off to Sicily to direct his first feature film under the Bespoke banner, Molto Bella, which won the 2020 Heartland Film Festival audience choice award and was recently picked up by Samuel Goldwyn Films. Like his grandfather, who had a monumental impact on his life, Alexander wishes to be a lifelong student of the world.
Connect with Alexander
Facebook | Instagram | Molto Bella Instagram
FILMMAKER INTERVIEW
Tell us your backstory. How and why did you get into filmmaking?
When I was about 9, my godbrother took me to see the special edition release of Star Wars: A New Hope in theaters in Canada. I was immediately hooked. I got all of the Star Wars action figures and borrowed my parents’ home video camera and started filming scenes with said action figures. Pretty soon, I knew my way around the video camera better than they did. Then, when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out and was finally released on DVD, I was watching the behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the movie and sort of realized that it took all of these different people to make these films happen, it wasn’t just George Lucas with a video camera. I started learning everything that went into making a film (and movies have been ruined for me ever since). I taught myself via the (very slow) internet how to digitize footage from our camera to a cheap editing software, and started teaching myself how to rotoscope lightsabers and create some of the magic that I loved watching in the cinema. Then, in high school, we moved from Canada to El Dorado, Arkansas and I was no longer able to play hockey, so I got involved in the community theater and joined the drama class in high school. I had a teacher, Delaine Gates, that really fostered my love of filmmaking and put on a sci-fi production of Romeo and Juliet where I played Romeo and filmed all of the sword fights in the show as projected movies that were basically lightsaber fights. I remember my introduction to independent film was Zach Braff’s “Garden State” and I started broadening my horizons beyond sci-fi and fantasy as I was heading off to study film and theater at the University of Nebraska (UNL). There, I just started making movies with my peers, whether it was for class or not, and by shooting a tremendous amount of bad short films, I started learning what worked and what didn’t work as well.
What are the specific qualities that, in your opinion, make a film great?
My favorite movies are the ones where you can feel a real connection between the actors, whether that’s through a friendship, rivalry or a romantic relationship, I love it when those interactions pop off the screen and keep you engaged. I also love simple stories that are deeply explored, I think some films can get too convoluted or try to be too clever, and in a lot of ways it’s so much harder to keep things incredibly simple and fresh at the same time, where concise ideas are being explored and the filmmaking is cohesive and tight. I’m also a sucker for big, cinematic visuals. Give me widescreen, moody cinematography all day.
How many films have you completed? What is your favorite project you have worked on and why?
I’ve completed over 20 shorts since I started making films in college (around 2006). In 2015, my business partner/best friend Paul Petersen and I started our company Bespoke Works LLC after winning the Louisiana Film Prize with our short film, The Bespoke Tailoring of Mister Bellamy, which was really a life-changing moment for us. We’ve made about 10 short films together since then under the Bespoke banner as well as our first feature film, Molto Bella. My favorite project is a tie between The Bespoke Tailoring of Mister Bellamy and Molto Bella (both of which screened at Breckenridge). On Bellamy, I got to work with one of the most amazing humans on the planet, Stan Brown, as the lead actor and he was actually one of my acting professors at UNL. He was, and still is, such a mentor to me and even though we were battling Louisiana heat in July in tiny sheds with no air conditioning, the shoot was magical in so many ways and it was amazing watching him create that character. It was also my first collaboration with Paul, which was awesome. Molto Bella was just an insane leap of faith from everyone involved, going to Sicily with a tiny crew to film a feature in three weeks while not speaking the language… it was massive. But it was also a close group of friends who all had the best attitude about the project and we got to see some amazing views and eat the best food I’ve ever had. It was a highly personal story dedicated to my grandfather and I’m just grateful for everyone taking that journey with me.
Why did you choose to submit to the Breckenridge Film Festival? What do you look for in a festival where you hope to show your film?
I initially submitted our short film, The Bespoke Tailoring of Mister Bellamy, to Breckenridge because I had heard from other filmmakers that the festival was filmmaker-centric and really well-run. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the festival that year, but Paul went to represent Bellamy and he raved about the event and how beautiful Breckenridge was. I knew Breck had to be at the top of our list when submitting Molto Bella to festivals, but the pandemic hit while we were in post-production on the film and the entire festival scene was so uncertain and we weren’t sure what was going to happen. Luckily, Breckenridge was able to put on a safe, in-person event and I finally got to experience all of the amazingness that is Breckenridge in 2021. In the indie film community, we tend to share festival experiences with other filmmakers, the good and the bad, and I try to keep a pulse on what festivals filmmakers really love and submit to those ones. Breckenridge has incredible word-of-mouth, it’s a beautiful place to visit and the films y’all show are top notch.
What are the next project or projects you are beginning work on?
Paul and I are currently in post-production on a documentary called “You Have No Idea” about our friend Evan James and his journey with autism. We are hoping to finish it in the next few months and start submitting to film festivals this year. We are also adapting a novel called “Fixation” into a feature-length script that we hope to shoot next year and filming a short in April (this month when this comes out!) called “Addie and the Lightning Bugs.” It stars Cailey Fleming of Star Wars and The Walking Dead fame. Also, Molto Bella was picked up by Samuel Goldwyn Films, so we are working with them on the release of the film, hopefully in the coming months.
