All About Them
The latest film from Michael and Christine Swanson tells the story of their own frustrations in finding theatrical distribution for their faith-based movies.
by Peter T. Chattaway | posted 7/29/2008
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Moviemaking is a family affair for Michael and Christine Swanson. He produces, while she, a former student of Spike Lee's, writes and directs. This month they released their second feature film since creating their company, Faith Filmworks, in 1999.
Christine and Michael Swanson
Their first film, All About You, was produced in 2001 and toured the African-American festival circuit for a few years before finally coming out on DVD in 2004. In the interim, they tried to get theatrical distribution for their film, but in those days before the big-screen arrival of Tyler Perry, studios tended to insist that there wasn't much of a market for values-based, PG-rated films aimed at black moviegoers.
The Swansons dealt with their frustrations by making another movie, called All About Us, which concerns a husband-and-wife movie-making team who can't find distribution for a film of their own (also called All About You, coincidentally enough) and who embark on a life-changing journey to Mississippi in search of Morgan Freeman, convinced that they have a script which will win him the Oscar.
All About Us—which stars Boris Kodjoe (The Gospel) and Ryan Michelle Bathe (Boston Legal) as the movie-making couple in question, with cameos by Ruby Dee and, yes, Freeman himself—bypassed theatrical distribution altogether and came out on DVD earlier this month. The Swansons spoke to CT Movies from their home in Charlotte, North Carolina, while their children played in the background.
To what degree is this film autobiographical?
Michael: I would say it's about 85 percent autobiographical, and I don't know if that's fortunately or unfortunately, but it definitely tells our personal story of going after our dreams and coping with the inevitable hurdles along the way—and then ultimately discovering, through the setbacks and disappointments you see in the film, what was most important to us.
The characters in the film juggle work and family. As filmmakers yourselves, how was it juggling family with the responsibilities of making the film?
Michael: Family is our first priority, and especially raising healthy children and giving them a healthy stable environment to grow. Christine and I have pledged to make our movies in the summertime when they're out of school, so they can always be with us. So they were with us when we made All About Us, and everyone—all of our cast and crew members—knew that we needed to finish this film that summer by August 20, so we could get back to Charlotte and get our kids back for the first day of school. When school starts, we are here in Charlotte as full-time parents.
Was there any attempt to release the new film theatrically?
Michael: After seeing how well All About You did on DVD, we altered our business model slightly for our company, and we decided to make our films with a smaller budget and then create DVD premieres. The theatrical release is very expensive, the marketing alone is very expensive, and then when it comes out on DVD, you kind of have to do those steps again.
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