Professor Regan's second documentary debuts this weekend in Portland
By Clare Shreve
By day Kathleen Regan is a Spanish professor at the University of Portland, but by night, during breaks and any other free time she can scrounge up, she is a filmmaker. Already on her second documentary, Regan is still able to balance being a professor while also editing and filming.
"The audience lives the experience I had with this woman," Regan said about her most recent film, "Fiestaremos: Judy Frankel and the Sephardic Music Tradition." The documentary takes its viewers on a journey through the life of Sephardic singer Judy Frankel. Her film will debut at the Clinton Street Theater at 6:45 p.m. on Sunday.
Regan began casually filming her friends with her father's 8-mm camera as a junior in high school. Since then her interests have broadened, her skills have expanded and her camera of choice has been updated, allowing her to create two documentaries so far in her cinematographic career.
"Digital film making makes it possible and affordable," Regan said.
In fall of 2004, Regan began work on her first documentary titled, "The Sephardic Legacy of Segovia, Spain: Pentimento of the Past," which discusses the restoration of the old Jewish quarter in Segovia, Spain. She knew that it would need music and based upon a recommendation made by Herman Asarnow, English professor at UP, Regan was able to find a corresponding sound to the images she was shooting: the voice of Judy Frankel.
"Her voice is angelic," Regan said.
Frankel was a folk singer in the 1960s who sang medieval Renaissance consorts. In the '80s Frankel began working with Sephardic Jews to preserve their musical traditions.
According to dictionary.com, the term Sephardic is used to describe Jews of Spain and Portugal or their descendants distinguished from other Jewish communities by their religious customs and Hebrew dialect.
Regan and Frankel became fast friends during the making of the first documentary, when Frankel's music and background was first introduced to her. Regan, inspired by Frankel's story, began to think of creating a second documentary based on Frankel's life and work.
Throughout the years that Regan was working on this film, she would preview it to her students, gathering feedback to help modify the film. This fall semester is no exception; Regan had all of her students watch the documentary in its close to finished phase.
"This film confirms the general transcendence of music," sophomore Andrew Lyon said. He found Judy Frankel amazing and inspiring. His whole Spanish 303 class viewed the film.
With teaching and filming taking up a lot of her time, Regan took advantage of any free time she could afford.
"I used breaks to jettison ahead," Regan said.
Regan recalled three poignant pieces in the process of creating this film. "The first was Judy. She was amazing and great in front of the camera," Regan said.
The second part was Frankel's music. The third and final touch was the deadline of Frankel's life that pushed Regan to finish this film.
When the filming started Frankel wasn't ill. It was only later in the filming that she disclosed to Regan about her illness, but the severity remained unknown to Regan.
In January 2007, Regan flew out to San Francisco to shoot remaining scenes. While she was shooting she realized that Frankel did not have the energy it would have taken to film beyond that date.
Regan compared her situation to that of the classic Greek symbol of the sword of Damocles, which not only puts someone in another's pair of shoes, but also teaches about the anxieties of chance - the chance that the sword could fall or the chance that Judy Frankel could die before filming was complete.
"It was tough getting the film done by a deadline I didn't even know I had," Regan said. But she used this as motivation to finish the film.
Along with the help of her cameramen John Albert and Chris Covel, and her coeditor Phil Incorvia, Regan was able to show an almost finished and almost entirely self-produced film to Frankel before she died.
Judy Frankel died March 2008 in her San Francisco home. Frankel and her family loved the film and, as she lay dying, she played the film for guests and would even harmonize with herself. She was 65.
"I give the dates of her life at the end of the film and that really affects people," Regan said.
It is through this heartfelt and creative film that Regan was able to capture the life of this talented woman.
"Be present in life, in living," Regan said, recalling some of the things this film taught her.
Regan is already planning ahead for her third film about Don Quixote de La Mancha, which will be a look at the 21st century through the lens of Don Quixote. According to Regan, the question driving her third film is whether there is a place for the classics to understand a culture. It looks as if Regan will never stop investigating the world around her, the world that moves her to question, struggle and create films that both inform and inspire others.
