Now In Production: I Forgive Swissvale

   As production continues on Precious Wheels Above, Daniel Kremer is also in the midst of shooting and editing an essay documentary entitled I Forgive Swissvale.  Started approximately 3-4 years ago, I Forgive Swissvale is a medidation on how memories of lost places, in all their fragility, harden the shell of one's identity in ways we can never escape.  In a working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood called Swissvale, Kremer grew up on Woodstock Avenue, the same street where his mother's family had lived since the 1900's. The filmmaker returns from his current city San Francisco to revisit his old neighborhood, specifically the now abandoned, boarded-up house where he spent his childhood. Between unfortunately rare visits with his last remaining grandparent (now stricken with Alzheimer's), fond reminiscences of Woodstock Avenue as it once was, and a memorably hilarious dinner table debate about the sanctity of Heinz ketchup, Kremer meditates on how his childhood neighborhood crystallized his intense cinephilia and shaped his life's work.  The film will also include the participation of Tony Buba, the Pittsburgh filmmaker renowned for his films about Braddock, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh neighborhood that borders Swissvale.