Florida Premiere / USA / 2024 / English / 90 min / Historical Drama
Director: Leon Joosen; Writer , Producer; Rutanya Alda; Editor: David Ray; Composer: Charles Bernstein; Animation: Candy Kugel;
Contact: rutanyaalda@gmail.com
Key Cast: Rutanya Alda.
For the children and women of all wars, it never leaves.
Land of the Mustaches is an autobiographical story of a young girl growing up in the Displaced Persons refugee camps with her mother and grandmother after World War Two left them starving and stateless, and her father’s disappearance into Stalin’s notorious Gulag labor camps in Siberia with only what he was wearing the day he was abducted—two hard paths that parallel each other until they finally merge into one story: The ultimate celebration of resilience and the human spirit.
Noted film critic Rex Reed said, “I found your film to be so tender and truthful and honest … It is constantly mesmerizing.”
Our film is a visual memoir told through rich and real vignettes, heightened by archival footage and animation, illuminating how inter-generational, female family life persists and humans persevere even in the most extreme circumstances: In 1947, there were still about a million refugees in the Displaced Persons camps of occupied Europe; there are over a hundred million globally today. The mind struggles to comprehend such numbers, but the story of one family is recognizable. In our seemingly endless wars, the plight of their voiceless victims–families stripped of everything, women and children left on their own with no support, left bereft–is just as true today as it was 80 years ago when I grew up in the rubble and converted concentration camps.
It was shot in two back-to-back 18-hour days. We chose to film minimalistically and theatrically, using the early style and approach of Brian de Palma, with whom Rutanya had worked in his films Greetings (’68) and Hi, Mom! (’70). At the end of the second day of shooting my D.P. handed me the 3 1/2 hours of film. I held the film in my hands and thought: What now? May this film be an inspiration to all the first time filmmakers.
Six Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members came together to make this unique, truly independent, and micro-budget film: Actress Rutanya Alda (The Deer Hunter, Mommie Dearest, Amityville II, among 110+ film and TV credits), writer, producer, and performer of Land of the Mustaches; acclaimed Emmy-nominated editor, David Ray (Scarface, Reds, All That Jazz, the Bronx Tale); brilliant Emmy-winning composer, Charles Bernstein (ASCAP Deems Taylor award, 140+ films); director and award-winning filmmaker, Leon Joosen (Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Scooby-Doo, Muppet Babies); Emmy-winning animator, Candy Kugel (owner Buzzco Associates, award-winning animation studio whose films acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Film Archive including over two dozen indie films and the original MTV ads and IDs, www.buzzco.nyc), and producer Donna Dickman (who publicized Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, and The Motorcycle Diaries.)
SPECIAL GUEST: Rutanya Alda
Director Biography – Leon Joosen
Leon Joosen is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a long and distinguished career in animation and directing. Credits include Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Scooby Doo, and The Muppet Babies
Director Statement
Rutanya, who is a longtime friend of mine through the Academy, called me in the middle of the Covid pandemic to ask if I wanted to make a movie about her childhood in refugee camps. I’d been inspired by her biography almost as long as I’ve known her and I immediately said yes: I totally wanted to help her tell it, and after brainstorming how to best do that within a micro-budget (under $100k), we decided to consciously adopt conventions from theatre, filming the feature in two 18-hour days (!) in an ever-changing blackbox, using archival historical footage and animation to enhance her writing and storytelling, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team’s collective achievements with this project. It’s said in dark times the stars don’t go out; I don’t want to write any spoilers here, but Land of the Mustaches not only illustrates the how’s and whys of this saying perfectly, it artistically transmutes lived pains of intergenerational women’s issues and dire humanitarian issues into something beautiful.