Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine: Making Documentaries Worth Paying For
By Maria Belilovskaya

Documentary filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine like to remember a conversation overheard at the San Francisco International Film Festival ten years ago. They were sitting in the audience and two people behind them were chatting. “I really want to see this film,” one complained, “but can you believe you have to pay money to see a documentary?” “Really, that was what they said,” smiles Dayna.

Dan and Dayna met in Stanford more than 20 years ago. A friend set them on a date, and, as Dayna puts it, “We have been together ever since.” At that time Dan was a documentary filmmaker, and Dayna did financial consulting. “And after about three months of working with Dan I was like: Oh, I don’t want to be in financial consulting, I want to be a filmmaker!” she recalls.

Their first film together was Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul (1989), the story of the legendary dancer, San Francisco–born, who created the art of modern dance and was the great inspiration for European artists in the beginning of the 20th century. The film received a Golden Gate Award at the 1989 Festival.

Next came Frosh: Nine Months in a Freshman Dorm (1994), a documentary that presented campus life in its full reality. From move-in day to final exams, Dan and Dayna actually lived among their characters, the freshman students of Stanford University. And sure enough, their camera was there, too. The filmmakers followed their subjects in two other documentaries about college life, Now and Then: From Frosh to Seniors (1999) and Seniors: Four Years in Retrospect (1999). Their feature-length documentary about a South Bronx art group, Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins + K.O.S. (1996) won news and documentary Emmy Awards and a Bronze Apple from the National Educational Media Network.

Dan and Dayna were close to the Festival all those years, participating in juries and committees. Every year they come to the Festival to see new films and meet colleagues and other film lovers. “We used to watch one new documentary after another, and I think they are fabulous,” marvels Dayna. Another of her favorites are the Alloy Orchestra screenings. “It is always an extraordinary experience. You cannot see it anywhere else,” she says. Dayna fondly recalls seeing Super Size Me at a Festival screening. “There was a totally ecstatic house,” she says.

Dan recalls another captivating Festival experience, Trilogy by Belgian director Lucas Belvaux. He and Dayna spent the entire day watching this complex film, which consists of three separate films with the same story, made from different perspectives.

Dan considers the Festival a great chance to see movies that otherwise are almost unavailable in United States. “Films from different countries, different styles of filmmaking, different aesthetic performances—all of them can find their audience at the Festival,” he says. “This journey to the audience helps many filmmakers to find recognition and share their work.”

This year Dan and Dayna had to miss Festival jury duty. They were working to finish their new film, called Ballets Russes. It tells a story of the extraordinary blend of Russian, American, European and Latin American dancers who, in collaboration with the greatest choreographers, composers and designers of the first half of the 20th century, transformed ballet from mere music hall divertissement to an accepted art form.

When Dan and Dayna started considering this film, they knew almost nothing about the ballet. “We had made documentaries about younger people, and now we tried to understand what it is to work with older people,” says Dayna. They started reading books and going to see the ballet several nights a week. Choreographer Christopher Stowell introduced the filmmakers to all his friends in the San Francisco Ballet company, and it really helped to approach the subject “in a much more intimate way,” says Dan.

They shot part of the footage during the reunion in 2000 in New Orleans, which brought together almost 80 dancers of old Ballets Russes fame. “They have not met together in 40 years, and they probably will never get together again,” says Dayna. Their personalities were never so captivating, the filmmakers recall. They were people “in all their glory and with all the complications,” says Dan. “Even in their 90s they still cannot forget anything. And these moments are wonderful, there’s so much laughter.” Geller and Goldfine did some interviews before the reunion really started, and then did followups, using the rest of their frequent flyer miles to travel around the world. One of those who couldn’t make it to the reunion was 92-year-old Alicia Markova. Cofounder of the English National Ballet, she started her career with Sergei Diaghilev himself, the legendary impressario who created the original Ballet Russe company.

After taping 135 hours of interviews and discovering more than 30 hours of archival footage, Dayna and Dan put together the story of Ballets Russes, from its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris to the 1930s and 40s, the years of its successful tour over America. Ballets Russes is planned for October theatrical release, and will premiere locally at the Film Arts Festival. Zeitgeist Films is the U.S. distributor.

Life for documentary filmmakers has really changed in the last few years. The audience now is much stronger, and documentaries are getting their well-deserved place in theaters. As for the Goldfine-Geller family team, they would never trade places with those who make feature films. “Documentary is my true love and passion”, says Dan. “You want to fall in love with different subjects for all kinds of reasons,” seconds Dayna. “I never regretted being a documentary filmmaker—even ten years ago when people were complaining about paying money to see those films,” she adds.