Private Project

Helfer and Speed

An intimate vignette exploring the relationship between a 92 year old man and his 66 year old step-son, who is also the filmmaker. The film includes the younger man interviewing his step-father about the older man’s thoughts on what should be said at the inevitable memorial service to be held upon the elder's passing. The heart of the film, made four years later, is a Cinéma Vérité view of the elder’s life in Florida and some of the time the two men spend together. The poignant and humorous narration that drives the main part of the film is an alternating mix of conversations from their time together and voice messages exchanged when they are apart. The film ends with the elder delivering his last thoughts and wishes, ideas he had been working to define earlier in the film.

  • David Helfer Wells
    Director
  • David Helfer Wells
    Editor
  • David Helfer Wells
    Cinematographer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 1 second
  • Completion Date:
    July 1, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16 x 9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - David Helfer Wells

David Helfer Wells is an award winning visual storyteller who has worked as a newspaper photographer, a freelance magazine photographer, and most recently as a filmmaker. His short films, among them Trap Fishing and Blending into the American Dream, have been screened at festivals in Ankara, Bangalore, Jaipur, Lahore, Lisbon, Mumbai, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Rome, Sacramento and San Francisco. Wells has been honored with the Necati Celik Prize from the Hak-Is International Short Film Festival, the award for Best Short Film from the Melrose Film Festival, and the Best New England Documentary Short from the South East New England Film Festival. Born in Albany, N.Y., raised and educated in Los Angeles, he earned a B.A.from Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges. He worked as a magazine photojournalist for publications such as Fortune, Life, National Geographic, Newsweek, The Sunday New York Times, and Time magazine, among others.

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