Professional Motion Picture Production and Distribution NEWS

Last week Friday Ralph Server's award winning film was screened at Briarwood College at Founders Hall in Southington, Connecticut to a full house of students and citizens. Kathy Wyler,program director of the school, introduced the film and called it a kind of "benchmark" for what possibilities exist for making serious films that matter. Discreetly warning students and guests alike that what they were about to see was a graphic film about a sexual predator whose existence in a small town set the tone there for what happened on July 10th 1981. It was a media event. "There is nudity and there is sex. It's a dark film. It's disturbing," said Wyler. "But it's a true story, and it contains many issues that people are talking about." Server's film won the Grand Jury prize this year at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. The filmmaker fielded several questions at the Hall after the screening which lasted almost as long as the film itself.(2 hrs.)

The film tells the story of the little town of Skidmore and Ken McElroy through the eyes of three different characters, allowing the audience to grapple with the complexities of human behavior. The lead character is a young woman reporter returning from LA to Washington DC where she works for a newspaper. When confronted by the menace of McElroy she desperately promotes living by the symbols of justice, but the citizens of Skidmore, hammered by years of intimidation and violence at his hands, felt compelled to form an execution squad in order to bring back a sense of justice that did not conform to society's standards, and they were willing to go to jail for it.

McElroy wielded great sexual power and the film suggests that he could perform normally only when preceded by violence. The young girls that he liked - they would masturbate in front of him. The film handles that point with fearless beauty and discretion. The fact that women enjoyed him is what makes Ken McElroy such an enigma. The fact that he was lynched by the town adds to the mystery that he was. There is a kind of strange and wondrous ambiguity to the film. Although Server concedes that his views are somewhat revolutionary, he doesn't shy away from controversy.

When program director Wyler was asked how the film got to Briarwood she said she first spotted Server in a local newspaper in East Hampton, where she lives. He was pictured in front of Lake Pocotopaug where he was directing a scene from the film. "I thought, Oh my God, they filmed this right in front of my house!" Wyler thought that Server's film would be a good opportunity for Briarwood's communications department to host a screening. She called the filmmaker on the day he found out about his film festival award. "So I was even more interested in having him come."

Wyler said that Server warned her repeatedly about the nudity and sex, and the intensity of the film, the violence. The film is gritty and highly charged. At Qinnipiac University where the film was edited, the director gave the film his own NC-17 rating. "New York audiences are very sophisticated," Server said. "Connecticut is New England. But it's the year of improbables. I win for best picture in New York, and the Boston Red Sox win the world series. It's our time," he quipped.

Before the film screened programmer Kathy Wyler went to the podium to introduce Mr. Server and to address the audience: "This film is something special. The whole world is worried about terrorism. It has happened here. It has come to us." She paused for a moment, then continued, "Such a film as you are about to see can never be followed by another of the same kind. It stands by itself." She stood down and the audience was immersed in darkness. When the film ended you could hear a pindrop.