They shot their film in 7 days for $ 7,000. What is the next step?

When filmmaker Joe Burke talks about his independent microbudgous film “Burt”, he cannot stop saying the word “magic”. He seems to hunt this magic, perhaps rooted in his days as a teenage magician working at Outback Steakhouse in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio.

“I want to make people laugh, I want to make people cry,” explains Burke, 41, who used to make cards by the table. “I love entertainment, and if I don't do it, I don't feel satisfied.”

“Burt”, his second feature film, was killed over seven days for $ 7,000, although the project has gesture for seven years when the cameras rolled up. The film, which he made with a longtime friend and collaborator, Oliver Cooper, was born from a lot of heart and ingenuity of DIY, but they like to work in this way.

“Everything is so alive,” says Burke about their non-budget process, “the electricity of entering and finding these magical moments”, those who remind them of their origins, making films in the backyard.

“Burt” has his first in Los Angeles Saturday at the fine arts theater in Beverly Hills. For the moment, it is the only projection of the “Burt” could have – it has no distribution yet. But Burke and Cooper realized that it's up to them to forge the path.

Burke is jovial and talkative, passionately delivering the story of “Burt” on coffee at West Hollywood, while Cooper, 35, is a little more relaxed, although the duo has an easy relationship thanks to their decades of friendship and collaboration. They became creative partners when Cooper's mother hired Burke to direct a video for her son Mitzvah's bar. Years later, Burke left for the American Film Institute while Cooper, continuing his acting dream, moved to Los Angeles at 19, quickly clicking a role in the 2012 party film “Project X” during his first hearing. Since then, he has played in the main video series “Red Oaks” and he played David Berkowitz in David Fincher “Mindhunter.”

But despite the continuation of their own career path, Burke and Cooper are always the other's favorite collaborators. In 2011, they shot their first feature film, “Four Dogs”, directed by Burke, with Cooper as an Oliver (yes, we are in the field of self -fiction), a goalless actor who lives with his aunt and spent his days with an older friend of the actor class (Dan Bakkedahl, later “Veep”). Always the independent filmmakers ingenious inspired by real life, they threw the aunt of Cooper, Rebecca Goldstein, who had never played before, as an aunt of Oliver, and shot the film in his house in Encino, where Cooper, a young actor in difficulty himself, lived at the time.

Burke and Cooper are inspired by real people – their lives, their dramas, their houses – and seek to capture this authenticity in their films.

“I love the characters,” says Cooper. “All the characters we have explored are people who are a little forgotten, on the outskirts.”

Burke thinks that his own interest in these people, often played by non -professional actors in his work, can result in an audience. “If they are on the screen, people will be entertained by this person,” he insists.

It was more than a decade for “Four Dogs”, and Burke was looking forward to making a second film, supporting himself by teaching at the New York Film Academy campus in Burbank and making Instagram sketches and short films with Cooper.

There was a person who had attracted Burke's attention: Burt Berger, a musician at the end of the 60s Restaurant of the old place in Malibu. Burke was a brunch used to it, and he was taken with folk shepherd tunes and a warm and original presence. By coincidence, Cooper had also met shepherd separately at a microphone open to the general store in Cahuenga.

It became clear that they had occurred on a real character from Los Angeles to Berger, and they wanted to launch him in something. While drawing a short term in 2016, the duo thought of Berger to play a small role. They went to the old place the next day, asked him if he had an actor experience (some commercial hearings) and threw it. He was an off competition, and they even used one of his songs, “Impriminch 'on”, for the end of the film (he also interpreted the song in “Burt”).

Burke and Shepherd remained in contact. They frequently dragged for hours, speaking of Berger's life and family, their Hollywood dreams and their means of thinking about making a narrative film that could present the open heart of Berger and the big dreams. “I wanted it to be on the essence of Burt – his soul, his mind and his music,” says Burke. “It was so important to me.”

When Burke spoke of the idea of ​​an entire film about him, Berger says he was amazed.

“I started to cry a little,” said Berger, 71, by phone, “because I am here, my dreams take place slowly in front of me after all years to continue them.”

“You really don't need a lot to do something great,” said Oliver Cooper, on the right, of the DIY approach to the duo. “If you have the story, if you have the characters, that's all that matters.”

(Jsquared / Times photography)

In 1977, after university, Berger went to Los Angeles in a van with his best friend to drive out the celebrity of music. “I'm stupid because I think I'm going to do things big and stubborn because I never give up,” he said.

Burke's recognition was rewarding. “At the beginning, I could not believe that Joe sees that in me,” says Berger, “but I realized that I had to trust this guy. He knows what he is talking about. “

While Burke worked to take off other film projects, he continued to work with Cooper and Berger on what was to become “Burt”, the fictitious story of Sammy (Cooper), who comes to Los Angeles in search of his distant father, Burt (Berger), delighted to finally live paternity. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Sammy's intentions are not entirely virtuous, because Burt shares that he has money from a hidden heritage.

The latest piece in the “Burt” puzzle was Steve Levy, a decade shepherd's roommate. They had planned to shoot the film at home, from Levy's childhood house to Sun Valley, and a shoot revealed Levy and the shepherd's screen chemistry, with Levy providing singular delivery and a lively comic edge of the blunt skepticism which provides aluminum paper to the burt of confidence.

While Cooper gathered the small budget of your own money, with the help of the family and the cooperation of Finessed Levy, Burke promised to him that they could shoot the film in a week. He brought his college boyfriend Daniel Kenji Levin as director of photography and called for their network of friends to fill support roles, including the acting coach of Cooper “Mindhunter” Catlin Adams, a former studio of actors who plays the intriguing aunt of Sammy Sylvia.

It was not only the financial constraints of the production of independent films leading Burke's urgency to advance the film, but also the Berger disease of Parkinson. He had been diagnosed during their years of friendship, and Burke noticed the tremor of his friend while they dragged. The disease strikes near her house for Burke, whose father also has parkinson; He took care of him during the shooting. As he directed his father-son film, Burke himself lived a parallel version of the story.

The black and white “Burt” is a serious and stripped dramatic, filled with devious humor and surprising twists and turns that houses classic independent films from the early 90s in its raw and discreet elegance. Burt is simply a living character with Parkinson. The film does not concern its illness, which is only part of its reality.

However, during the two years that followed the shot, Berger returned to the east coast to live with his family as his illness has progressed. Burke knew that he had to capture his star exactly at the right time, when he was always able to play and sing and continue a dream. “I can't play the guitar as well as before,” explains Berger, “but I still don't give up.” (“Burt and I are both exactly the same in this way,” says Burke. “We never give up dreams.”)

It is a challenge to make a film like “Burt” – and another to bring such a film made by hand to the public. In 2024, Burke went 0 for 28 in the acceptance of the Film Festival, which made him wonder if “Burt” could be the last chapter of his career instead of a launch ramp. He even considered his mother's offer to return to Ohio.

But a word of encouragement (and a crucial co-signer) of one of Cooper's mentors, filmmaker David Gordon Greenhelped them to continue. They sent the independent veteran of the “All The Real Girls” a screen, and he wrote a few hours later, in the middle of the night, expressing his love for the film. When they asked him by email to come on board as an executive producer, he replied with a word: “Duh”. (Green will also moderate a Q&R with the filmmakers during the projection of Saturday.)

This year, the fortune of the film has changed on the festival circuit, winning jury prizes at Cinequest, the Phoenix Film Festival and the Florida Film Festival.

“You really don't need much to do something great,” said Cooper of their DIY approach, now starting to produce dividends if not an agreement. “If you have the story, if you have the characters, that's all that matters. We had nothing for that and we were able to do something that moves.”

After their success in Cinequest, the duo also decided to adopt self-distribution. “We realized that this is a theater film – Les Ries ensemble, Les Péurs ensemble,” explains Burke. Inspired by “hundreds of beavers” as well as See movies in theatersThey decided to continue a theatrical race, to reserve projections in Los Angeles, Toledo, Cincinnati and, hopefully, Denver and New York, renting theaters and selling tickets themselves.

In an industry that seems in terrible straits, is there room for a sincere little film with a classic character like Burt? For dreamers who always cling to hope in the city of Angels, there must be.

“I don't know why I felt so forced to make sure that this guy was seen before it's too late,” said Burke. “I don't know why the universe brought me to the life of this guy, but it's done. Maybe the film is why.”

Cooper adds: “We did something good for this guy, and I have the impression that my heart is more full as a interpreter.”