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Kate Nowlin & Remy Auberjonois
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Tom Lipinski (“The Knick”, “Suits”, “Orange is The New Black”) and Kate Nowlin in "Blood Stripe."
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René Auberjonois and Kate Nowlin in "Blood Stripe," shot on Lake Vermilion in Minnesota.
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Actor René Auberjonois in "Blood Stripe" has also appeared in "Boston Legal," "Madam Secretary," "Mash" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." His son, Remy, made his directing debut with "Blood Stripe."
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"Blood Stripe" lead Kate Nowlin is a Minnesota native.
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A scene from "Blood Stripe"
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Actor Chris Sullivan in "Blood Stripe" has also been in the TV series "This Is Us."
Veteran actor Remy Auberjonois makes his directorial debut with the motion picture “Blood Stripe,” filmed in Minnesota. In the film, Minnesota-born actress Kate Nowlin portrays a career marine battling PTSD upon her return home to Minnesota. Other cast members include Chris Sullivan (“This Is Us”), Rene Auberjonois (“Boston Legal,” “Madam Secretary,” “MASH”), and Tom Lipinski (“The Knick,” “Suits,” “Orange is The New Black”). Filmed with funding from Minnesota’s “Snowbate” program, “Blood Stripe” was named winner of the U.S. Fiction Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film had a special showing at Zinema 2 in Duluth on Friday, Sept. 22, with a Q&A session with the director.
Lead actress, co-writer and producer Kate Nowlin and director, co-writer and producer Remy Auberjonois communicated with Lake Superior Magazine Editor Konnie LeMay for this Q&A.
LSM: Is this the first time that you’ve been able to do a film in Minnesota – and what is it like to be in the “home” state?
Kate and Remy: It is our first time to do a film, period! As filmmakers that is. We've both been actors for a long time, but this is our first outing as a filmmaking team. We really couldn't have done it anywhere else, from a landscape perspective and from the resources we were able to muster. Our producing partners on the film turned to us one day and said, “You guys know that with all of the help we are getting, this is more like a $3 million movie than the ‘low budget’ film we are tagged as.” At the time we produced the film, there was money available from the state and the IRRRB in the form of production incentives which allowed us to make our dollars go much further than they otherwise would. We really hope that the Snowbate program gets stabilized and funded to allow for more high-quality productions utilizing the wonderful crew base and talent pool to be found in Minnesota.
LSM: It sounds, Kate, like you had the opportunity to chat with some local war veterans. Was there one or two things you took from those conversations that you might not have expected to discover?
Kate: In my conversations with veterans, I was impacted by the sense of community, camaraderie and purpose that some of them felt they lost upon returning home. As difficult as the experiences of war can be, there is a tremendous amount of unity that can be found in working towards a common goal that is hard to replicate in civilian life. Also, I was struck by how challenging it can be to reintegrate into civilian life after having served, to “pick up where you left off” before you deployed. It was my impression that war is a transformative experience, no matter your gender, religion or race. And it is my hope that we can better acknowledge, and then support as a society, that transformation that may occur for our service members.
LSM: How did the landscape become a co-actor or co-participant for you in the film? Did the location end up being an important factor in how the story could and should be told?
Kate & Remy: Absolutely. Lake Vermilion is really a character in the film. The water is almost a reflection of psyche at times, and the whole film has a water theme throughout. We really wrote the film for certain locations that we knew and loved: Camp Vermilion, The Black Forest Inn Restaurant, even MSP Humphrey Terminal! It gives the movie, we hope, a real authenticity – of place, of sound and of look. That was a priority of ours, to make the places and people feel very real.
LSM: What do you hope film viewers take away from seeing this movie? What did you take away from the making of it?
Kate & Remy: Hopefully the audience identifies with the unspecified trauma (or traumas) our character is burdened by, because we really feel that trauma is a universal experience and not always engaged within our culture. Hopefully the audience appreciates the beauty of the film and the silences of the film, along with its music, both literal and metaphorical. And hopefully, the audience walks out of the theater with a sense of the magnitude of the costs of war on the individual and the society, and the sense that something must be done to mitigate those costs.
LSM: Finally, what have you always hoped someone would be smart enough to ask you about this film (or about being “Minnesotan”) that no one yet has?
Kate & Remy: In terms of being a “Minnesotan,” I'd love to be asked, “What's Minnesota like in the other three seasons of the year?” And in terms of the film, I have been inspired and enriched by the incredibly thoughtful questions that people have asked ever since we first began to share “Blood Stripe.” I've learned that the audience is as intelligent as you ask them to be, and I am inspired to continue to generate content that feeds and challenges them on every level.