Lisa Lewenz

I had the chance to meet Lisa Lewenz only once. It was in June 2000 in New York, at a screening with the Family Secret of Pola Rapaport. The event was at the Romanian Cultural Center, on the 38th Street corner with First Avenue.

The audience was composed by two distinct groups: Romanians living in New York, who were the usual attendants at the events there, and filmmakers who knew Pola Rapaport or her husband, cinematographer Wolfgang Held. I knew already some of these artists: a group of young independent filmmakers, loosely grouped around the famous documentarist Albert Maysles, who was more or less their mentor.

There were also family and friends: Marjorie and Jill of course, then Jack and Ellen, Lilly, Steve and Yoko, Merril, Eve.

I met there a friend I hadn't seen for fifteen years or more. We used to work in the same place in Bucharest in the seventies and in the first half of the eighties. He had left Romania for a good number of years, setting firstly to Canada, and then moving to the States. He was renting a small apartment in Queens and was working at an insurance company close to the Grand Central. I visited him often after that. We loved to go to a small bar there and have a chat over a coffee or a glass of bourbon, or both.

The screening went well, followed by a short session of questions and answers. All questions were coming in English and each time I was wondering whether the person was an American or a Romanian.

After that a reception was offered. It was then when I was presented to Lisa Lewenz. She was a very nice person, very direct, with a cool manner, and an irresistible sense of humor. She told me about the movie she was working on. I told her that I was leaving New York the following day and she promised to send me a copy of the movie, once finished. She kept her promise.

That was the only time I saw her. I will talk later about this movie, it is very interesting. She did not make other movies, as she switched to other artistic interests.

She moved at a certain point to Baltimore, where she was working at Walters, as a Manager of Adult Programs at the Education Center, then she came back to New York.

I want now to transfer the video cassette on a DVD, to watch her movie again, then I'll talk about it here on the blog. I think it is a shame she did not go on with making movies.

• Start to Finish: In Memory of Hobart Brown
• Lisa Lewenz Recommends a Film in the Making: River is Remembering

(Filmofilia)

(German and Nordic Cinema)

(Baltimore)