New Radtke film, ‘The Speed Of Life,’ to open at Little Art

Local filmmaker Ed Radtke, right, will show his award-winning film ‘The Speed of Life’ in a sneak preview benefit for the Little Art Theatre Oct. 27–29. With him are co-editor Jim Klein and Little Art owner Jenny Cowperthwaite-Ruka.

By Virgil Hervey

According to local filmmaker Ed Radtke, it takes him about eight years from a film’s initial conception to its final print. Perhaps that was in the back of his mind when he conceived the title for his latest offering, The Speed of Life, which will be screened in a sneak preview to benefit the Little Art Theatre this weekend. The movie, which won a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival last month, will be shown on Friday and Saturday at 7 and 9:15 p.m., and on Sunday afternoon at 3:30. Radtke will be present at each showing.

The Speed of Life, which is about fathers, sons and street kids in New York City, was shot in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Radtke’s previous film, Dream Catcher, was shot in Yellow Springs and was “as close to a communal collaboration” as making a movie can get, he said in a recent interview. Local filmmakers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert produced it and filmmaker Jim Klein edited. Radtke described the process as awe inspiring.

“The process in Brooklyn was very different — disappointing,” Radtke said. “I moved to New York City for three years, trying to make a movie without any money. I assumed that, because people wore black leather, they knew what they were doing.”

According to Radtke, the film ran out of money just as they were ready to edit. His crew disappeared and he and his primary producer were left with hundreds of hours of raw footage and stacks of bills. After cleaning up the mess, Radtke left New York for Pittsburgh with all the footage stored on a hard drive. He tried editing the film by himself on borrowed equipment for nine months while living in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

“It was hard to maintain momentum and excitement — hard to be objective editing my own work,” he said. “I was exhausted.”

Radtke had sent a copy of the movie to Bognar and Reichert, who were vacationing in Michigan. Klein happened to be visiting when it arrived in the mail. According to Klein, the group that watched that cut of the film had a largely critical response, but he and Bognar saw -possibilities.

Bognar told Radtke he could give him a week of his time to edit the film, if Radtke returned to Yellow Springs. After that, Klein took over.

“Jim (Klein) believed in it as a diamond in the rough,” Radtke said. “He ran with it. I would not have finished it without him.”

As Klein worked his editing magic, Radtke began to regain his objectivity about the film. The Yellow Springs collaborative process was revived. With each new edit, the two would screen the film privately at the Little Art to get input from their friends. It was shown progressively six times for audiences of about 20 people, mostly local residents and some Wright State film students. Afterward, the viewers filled out questionnaires, and Bognar and Reichert frequently offered suggestions. According to Klein, who also teaches filmmaking at Wright State University, he did about two to three months of editing work over a six-month period.

“Ed is an extraordinarily talented and gifted director and writer who will stick by his work,” Klein said. “Editing takes a different set of talents from directing and writing.”

Radtke and “local musician, mixer, arranger, composer Tim Berger” wrote the original music for the soundtrack and Berger mixed and mastered the score. Another local man, John Mays, refined the movie’s sound in Yellow Springs.

“Making a film is a very collaborative process,” Radtke said. “You have to have trust in your collaborators.”

According to Radtke, the movie has no stars. The three leads are two 11-year-old boys and a 13-year-old. The story is based loosely on his own life and his work with at-risk youth and prisoners through the Ohio Arts Council Arts and Education Program. Radtke, who became a father as a teenager, makes movies about the relationships between fathers and their sons, he said, and the films are basically about him becoming a father and also recognizing his own father.

The Speed of Life is about three kids, “a juvenile probation officer who doesn’t like kids,” an ex-con and a couple of fathers grappling with family, Radtke said. The 13-year-old secretly keeps the video tapes he has removed from purloined cameras and uses them to create a fantasy life of world travel.

Radtke grew up in Bellbrook where, he said, he once had a juvenile probation officer of his own, but he turned his life around by attending Sinclair Community College and Wright State for a year each, before moving on to film school as an undergraduate at New York University. His first film, Bottomland, was shot in nearby Spring Valley “right after film school.” When he is not making movies, he writes screenplays and television commercials. He has also taught media making and created a media making workshop for underserved teens in New York City. He sought input for The Speed of Life from some of those kids and actually had them shoot some video for the film.

The idea for a benefit showing for the Little Art came about when Radtke realized what a struggle it is for owner Jenny Cowperthwaite-Ruka to keep the theater going, he said. He said he could not envision the village without the theater.

“Returning to Yellow Springs was the most inspiring part of the process,” Radtke said. “I had returned home. I was welcome here. This was the place to give rebirth to the film — in this community.”

Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com