“Magical.” That is how Acton’s Michael Bergmann described the first week of filming Pointing Fingers, the movie his son Dan Bergmann wrote and stars in. Michael, an experienced film maker, is directing the movie, and his wife, sculptor Meredith Bergmann, is director of photography. The first shoot happened this month right here in Acton, at the Bergmann’s 206-year-old house on Piper Rd. Twenty-nine-year old Dan has minimally speaking autism, and the murder mystery/love story he wrote in 2022 features a man and a woman, Francis and Claire, who are both minimal speakers.
Francis is played by Dan, and Claire is played by Emily Grodin, a 33-year old California university student majoring in creative writing who in real life also is a person with minimally speaking autism. A casting director found Emily, who took the part with enthusiasm.
About fifteen cast and crew, most paid workers, some of them in unions, some volunteers, and a few supportive family members, descended upon the house for four long work days in a row. I was there to help out – my primary role was to deliver meals from Blackbird Cafe – and I decided to “embed” myself and cover the event for the Acton Exchange.
An idea takes root and begins to grow
Interviewed by email after the shoot, Dan said he came up with the idea for the movie in the summer of 2022 and asked his father to help him write the script. Over many subsequent revisions during the next two years, Dan gradually made the script his alone. They had a reading with actors at a Boston University theater. One of the actors from that reading, Joshua Wolf Coleman, who read the role of August, Francis’ father, has that role in the movie. The Bergmanns started working with Emily Grodin in 2023, including a week of test shooting and shooting a trailer, in part to see how Emily and Dan handled working with a professional crew.
Dan said, “For me the biggest surprise was that we actually did it. I was afraid something would happen to prevent us right up to the first slate. Once we started, I loved it. I loved how real everything felt even though I knew I had made it all up. For me, autism is a very distracting and disorganizing condition, so of course I was frustrated with my flickering ability to participate fully. Some of the things my body made me do help the story and some belong on the cutting room floor.”
Meredith said, “It was thrilling and challenging for me to be the director of photography (as well as production designer). I loved shooting in our house, transforming it to look and feel like the characters’ home. It was great to work with this small, very skilled crew of very nice people. Watching Dan’s words come to life was even more thrilling! I was surprised by the way the cast and crew got more and more excited about the project and its possibilities for making new ‘voices’ heard as we worked on it. We intend the finished film to be inspiring, but I didn’t expect the project to be, as well.”
And Michael wrote, “This is the 8th feature film I’ve directed, and I’ve never directed anything remotely like it. It was remarkable in so many ways. Emily and Dan give the audience so much, but to do it justice I had to move into the rhythms of their world. Dan wrote wonderful dialogue, for him and Emily to spell out and for the neurotypical actors to say, but some of the most remarkable moments come when they are sitting near each other, not speaking but connecting in ways we don’t usually notice.”
“The whole experience was fun for me,” Emily wrote in an email. “I got to meet a lot of lovely people in the process. The other positive thing would be that I got to act, something I enjoy doing.” In April 2021, Emily co-authored a memoir with her mother, Valerie Gilpeer, entitled “I Have Been Buried Under Years Of Dust, A Memoir of Autism and Hope” about her childhood and the “pivotal moment when I found my voice at the age of 25 through typing.”
“Emily was very excited about the opportunity to act, and I think she’s fallen into it…it’s another notch in her belt in terms of artistic endeavors,” Gilpeer said during the filming.
Emily said, “I want the world to see the beauty and strength in our differences, and I am committed to sharing that message through my art.” On acting as a person with non-speaking autism, she said, “I think that everyone is different and has different accommodations needed. But, speaking for myself, I do really well following instructions. This is the perfect opportunity to break the stereotype of what the world thinks of us as autistic. Yes, we have limits to our abilities but with the right tools we can navigate the world. As a typer I do need my communication partner to communicate deeper thoughts; unfortunately sometimes they are not always around, but I make it work.”
That difficulty showing emotions was evident during the filming of a scene in which the young actors were supposed to be happy about making a podcast together. Both main actors were not looking very happy. “Is Claire happy to be doing this podcast?” the director asked Emily. She nodded. “Then, show it!” Then, Dan stood up and communicated through tapping on his letter card, “I am upset because I see how autistic I am.” When I asked him about this moment, Michael said, “I learned that Francis and Claire are not unequivocally happy about the podcast. It’s more complicated. Emily wasn’t looking happy because her partner wasn’t happy. They are right and I was wrong.”
Seasoned actors, a new type of role
Several of the cast and crew were attracted to the project because of the aspect of autism or disability. Some had heard about the film through posts on facebook, in theatre or disability sites. Others had been recruited by casting director Michele Ortlip.
Lifelong actor and Provincetown resident Patrick Riviere had seen an online casting notice. “It really struck me because my brother had Down Syndrome and I recently learned that he was likely also autistic. I have worked with children with special needs a lot in my life, and the script itself is interesting and drew me to it and this role. I knew it was something I would like to be involved with.” So, he auditioned. “The team said they really liked my work, and especially Dan liked my work, so that made me really happy that the writer and star was happy with my work.”
Will Hansen of Framingham is another young person with non-speaking autism who is acting in the movie. Will comes on Mondays to study Shakespeare with Michael, along with Dan and a few other non-speakers. Will’s mother communicated what he tapped out on an alphabet board. “Time to try to be an actor,” he spelled. When I asked how he spends his time when he is not learning about Shakespeare, he replied, “I practice the piano and I talk to friends over zoom.”
Several of the actors are many-year professional actors on stage and film. I asked Kurt Zischke, who plays Claire’s father, Tony, about roles he has been especially proud of. There were many, but he mentioned playing Brutus in Julius Caesar. After a forty-year acting career in New York, Zischke just moved to Peterborough, New Hampshire, where his wife took the job of general manager of a theatre.
Zischke exchanged funny anecdotes with the actress Lisa Bostnar who plays his movie-wife Renata, as they had worked together on Law and Order. “I am a stage actor out of New York and on TV and film,” Lisa told me. “Law and Order, The Blacklist, Blindspot, and more Law and Order!” I imitated the distinctive buzzing music between scenes of Law and Order and Lisa laughed. “K’ching, k’ching, k’ching. For me it just sounds like a coin machine, because every time I get played, I get a little residual check.” Lisa said it was her first time on a set with nonverbal autistic people. “I think it’s fascinating … [Dan and Emily] are so lovely and so marvelous to work with, and – [she summarizes the plot line] – I mean, it’s got everything!”
Lisa wrote to the Bergmanns after the shoot. “I am probably writing this note too soon as my head is still reeling, but I feel the need to thank you for this most profound experience. I have been at this craft for decades. I have worked on very worthy projects, both artistically and critically. I have never had the great fortune to work on such a script as we just wrapped (for now). Probably because it’s never been done before.”
A magical production experience
Production Assistant Ashlee Dell’Arciprete, the lucky crew member who got to “3-2-1 snap” the clapperboard to start the action for each scene, said she was recently diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. “It’s eye opening to be able to work with people who you feel will understand you.”
Assistant Director Chris Lang, who works on Lifetime movies and independent features, and has directed a lot of true crime shows, said, “You get to watch it on one level – which is this great murder mystery semi-detective thriller and that works on an entertainment level – but at the same time you’re getting educated about a whole swath of the population that most people don’t understand, so it is really valuable.”
Costume Designer Katie Touart said she didn’t have much to do during the shoot. “To be honest, Meredith had already done pretty much almost everything; she is chief cook, bottle washer, cinematographer, blah blah blah.” But Touart wouldn’t have wanted to miss the opportunity. “This felt like a story that needed to be told, that touched me. I was bowled over by the fact that the script was written by Dan and that his parents had done this amazing thing to put this together; it’s just remarkable. It’s a remarkable family, why would I not want to do this? As I told Dan, why wouldn’t I want to work on this and meet new people and do something new in a new year?”
Touart, who was nominated for a Helen Hayes award for her costumes for a play about the Lincolns – she lost out to a production of Peter Pan – had never worked on a film. “When you are doing live theatre, the only time anything looks this stop-and-go is in technical rehearsals which is at the end of the process of all the design. It’s a different beast than this.”
This local movie is providing all sorts of new opportunities for adventuresome Acton residents. Thomas Nicol lives right nearby in Acton and his mother had spotted the call for assistants on social media. Despite this being his first job on a professional set, Thomas was a steady production assistant and attentive script supervisor, following the action line by line and taking notes for the director. Neighbors Jin and Feng Yang were approached by Meredith about filming a scene in their house. They, like I, had never been on a film set before.
Carol Ortlip, sister of the casting director, plays Francis and Claire’s assistant. Carol was an actor long ago (she was in the first Burger King commercial) but in the time since, she ran a school for people on the autism spectrum and had a storytelling business. Carol found filming tedious. “I find it really challenging to stop constantly and have to start from a certain place and get into the mood…it seems kind of choppy to me.” But she has faith in the final outcome. “I know Michael will put together a beautiful film. He’s got some gorgeous footage that I’ve witnessed. There were some beautiful shots of Dan and Emily, one where they were holding hands, sort of, tracing a painting on a book. There is another one where they were sitting on the couch, and she looked at him and he told her to smile, and she smiled, and he wasn’t coached to do it, but he looked at her in a way that I had not seen him look, like, it was more of a connected look. There were moments where I said, ‘Wow.’”
This shoot, while swimmingly successful, was only 4 out of the 22 days needed to make the film. The next shoot will be in July, for 11 days. The remaining 7 shooting days will happen in the late summer or fall. Dan wrote that “the most logistically complicated (and most revolutionary) scene will involve many non-speakers who spell, playing non-speaking characters with autism. They stage a (very quiet) demonstration outside a police station when the main characters are arrested for a murder they did not commit.”
Support the film
The Bergmanns said that a fiscal sponsor is available so people can make tax-deductible contributions. A fundraiser is being planned at the Park Theater in Jaffrey, NH on April 26th.
Two short films about Pointing Fingers give a feel for the project: a teaser and an introduction.
Franny Osman is Editor-in-Chief of the Acton Exchange and occasionally falls into writing.