Bessie Hockheim and Tony Oswald confront their family in Doc “Newville”
In the upcoming documentary Newville, Bessie Hockheim and Tony Oswald follow ten siblings who “span the entire American political spectrum.”
“They have many different spiritual beliefs and lifestyles. We have seen over the years how they manage to ‘leave their swords at the door’ when they get together, as one aunt says,” says Hochheim, who is also part of the family.
Now, they are returning to their childhood home in Newville, New York, for the first time in 35 years. They try to fix it, but tensions arise.
“Many people in the United States feel completely at odds with their families politically, and it is understandable that they would choose to close down or isolate themselves and move on. But for Tony and I, living with difference and trying to find common ground is a belief we desperately try to hold on to.”
“Newville” won the Ji.hava New Visions Award for Most Promising American Project in partnership with AmDocs and the Jacob Burns Film Center Award.
“Europe has an appetite to support bold action,” Hochheim points out. The awards will come in handy, as resources available to American filmmakers are dwindling, and they self-funded the project, working as a two-person team.
“In the US, especially recently, government-backed funding bodies have been cut, existing grants have been reduced, and some have been shut down entirely,” says Oswald. “Private equity or streamers are looking at a familiar slate of celebrity profiles or true crime documents. Everyone has to fight over the scraps.”
Hockheim used to go to the house described in the document for family events and vacations. She later married Oswald on the premises.
“We still visit it at least once a year, but it sits empty most of the year. It’s beautiful, but it’s also 250 years old, and my family doesn’t have the money or time to address all its problems, although my mother tries.”
“Some days, we feel so connected to it that we can’t imagine a world where it doesn’t exist. My mother and I have nightmares about it catching on fire or a tree falling on it. But then we hear one of the siblings talking about it dispassionately, and we remember that we didn’t choose to go back there either. As much as we love it, the house resists us, and we begin to wonder what it wants as much as we want it from it.”
In Newville, the house becomes a “container” to display the vibrant siblings who grew up there.
“They are fun, warm and unique, and have very different worldviews. We are very interested in how these worldviews have shaped their approach to home, and why some have stayed involved while others think it is time to let go.”
This is not the first time the director duo has spoken about family.
“All of the films Tony and I have made together so far are about or feature our families,” Hockheim says. “Even our narrative fiction.” “Our goal is to see how these small stories can extend through art and playful collaboration into more cinematic and universal narratives. We won’t live long enough to make all the films that can come from our family, but that doesn’t mean they’re autobiographical.”
“We think that’s part of the reason why our body of work is so diverse,” adds Oswald, whose sister Alicia appears in the short documentary Cycles. “We try to discover films through our relationships with them. This has created a little cinematic universe in which the same faces and locations appear across our very different films.”
Although personal, “Newville” resonated with Ji.hlava’s audience.
“We were very happy when we heard how universal this story was. People came to us to share their experiences: grief over the loss of a childhood home in Sudan, a house that was sold and the discord it caused in Bosnia, or a person with an uncertain future in Finland. This very specific story about Neuville resonates with people across cultures,” he says, also recalling his experience in Dorat.
“It’s a perfect example of how we work: Alicia [who used to anonymously donate eggs] “We wanted to document the experience and we wanted to tell a story about the broader context of egg donation in America by focusing solely on it,” Oswald notes. But working with a family “is not without its challenges.”
“We can’t wait for the day when we can get together without thinking about how it fits into our movie, or actually help them fix up the house instead of just filming them doing it!”
They’ve been filming for nearly seven years and have really gotten to know the siblings, Hockheim notes.
“Since they’re spread across the country and mostly in their 70s and 80s, filming was honestly the first time I’ve had an in-depth conversation with some of them as an adult. We’re also interested in what they discover about each other. We resorted to asking them: ‘What’s one thing you wish your siblings knew about you?’
Hockheim and Oswald reside in Nashville and are also co-producing and editing Nicole Crane’s “Kinfolk,” produced by Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst.
“It’s a great pleasure and privilege, and every dinner is a write-off because we live and breathe our films,” Hochheim says of their creative partnership. “Our production company is called Same Person Productions,” Oswald adds. “The greatest gift is to have someone who can fill in your gaps, someone you trust more than anything else.”