And Robert Ehrlich is joining me right now. She is the communications of public relations
coordinated from Milwaukee Film and they're all excited getting ready for the dialogues
documentary film festival. It runs the 18th of September through the 21st for four days.
More than 30 documentary films will be screened with Q&A. Some of them Q&A is before after
the movies over. And a good morning, Robin. Thanks for joining us.
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me now. I have a superpower. Everybody's got
a superpower. Mine is I can remember every single movie I've ever seen in my life and the
theater or driving that I saw that my first documentary was in the early 60s 1961. I was
a little tiny kid and my dad took us to a movie called The Sky Above, The Mud Below,
which one of the canopy award by the way. We saw that at the Johnny Old Weather Drive and
and that was my first documentary that I could remember because I was just a little kid.
But and my wife and I love documentary. If you love watching them because you're watching
a true story, you know, they're told correctly. You watch an true story and documentary. They're
documenting the story. And I love it. And who came up with the idea of a documentary film festival?
Yeah, I think the idea came from our artistic director, Kara Ogburn. She has been with Milwaukee
Film for over a decade and she noticed over many years of programming for our Spring Festival,
which is our 15-day Milwaukee Film Festival, that our audience is super hungry for documentary
films. There's always a very engaged audience for documentaries. And I think it's partially because
you don't get to see them in theaters as often as you once would have. I think the theatrical setting
for documentaries is a little bit more rare nowadays. So I think just getting to have that
communal experience with documentaries is something that's a little bit special. And once we realized
that, you know, Wisconsin is hungry for more documentary films and the chance to talk about them,
that's kind of how dialogue was born, which is the name of the festival because we want
to have our audiences watch these films and then kind of spark conversations afterwards.
Robin, when I say whose idea was it, you were supposed to say, oh, that was my idea.
That was all me. That's what you credit anybody else is supposed to take it all yourself.
You're the one on the radio. They're not there on the radio. I remember back in the 60s,
they had things called shockumentries. Now you're a younger person. Shockumentries and the films
and some of the older people might remember, Mondo Connie, Africa, blooding guts. I know they,
but they were called shockumentries and a lot of them like Mondo Connie showed you very odd things
going on in the world. And it was a huge, what's that googling this right now? I've never heard
this term before. It's spelled Mondo Cain, C-A-N-E, but the movie was pronounced Mondo Connie.
And there was actually a top song came from that movie more was the song. It made top on the
billboard charts, but the film itself was just, it was a shock and shocking things you'd see on
screen, Africa, blooding guts, which had another name, Africa, Adio, also a shocking film.
I actually have them on DVD. You look back now and you say, well, it's not so shocking,
but back in the 60s, it was scary to see some of these things. They went to Africa. They went to
New Guinea, all these places in the world that hadn't been modernized. And if you look at
Mondo C-A-N-E, Mondo Cain, Mondo Connie is the way it's pronounced. You'll see it then a whole
bunch of Mondo movies came out based on that. But yeah, so we're past that now. We're past the
shock inventories. Wow. And we're into the documentary where we learned something. To give us
some idea, give us some of the titles and what they're about. Yeah, okay, so you're still shocked
by Mondo Connie, huh? Okay, go ahead. I'm going to read more about that later, but yes, we have
over 30 films at this year's Dialogue Documentary Festival. And they span a wide range of
topics from everything, from healthcare, the healthcare industry, social justice. There's a film
called Cat Town USA, which is about a retirement home for cats, for senior cats, for anyone who's
into learning about more cat stuff. There is, you know, films about deep sea exploration. There's
a documentary called How Deep is Your Love. And it goes into the mysterious deep sea. There's a
film called It's Dorsey, which is a kind of in-depth exploration of the character Dorsey Gail,
who we know from The Wizard of Oz, from going from the original Frank Elbaum original books to
The Wiz and Now Wicked. And that one's going to be really fun because we're going to have
the director of the film as well as a local Oz historian, Ryan Jay, who's going to do a panel
discussion afterwards. And you know what, these filmmakers put years into making these movies. These
aren't just done. Well, welcome, we'll be ready in two weeks. It takes years to put this, here's
you got to get the facts together, the archival footage, and you've got to make it coherent story
out of it because it has to be entertaining as well as interesting. And they put a lot of work and
you should see some of these. They're really good. There were documentaries on TV all the time.
And when you watch the Academy Awards, when they do the documentary category, make note of the
five, usually a five documentaries up there. Even though they don't, the ones don't win,
they're still great movies or they wouldn't have been nominated. And some of them are from all
over the world and they really are good. My wife and I love watching documentaries because
they're true stories. Great. It's really special to see something, you know, a nonfiction,
the power of nonfiction filmmaking. And I love fiction, but I think there is something really
special about seeing a real true, someone's a real true story unfold on screen like that.
And when you watch channels, these true crime channels, now some of them show documentaries
like on the mob, the history of, you know, the mob in New York or the mob in Italy. And they do
these truths and these are documentaries. I mean, I don't know. People say,
ah, it's a documentary. It's boring. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, it's done right. It could be fascinating
because you know, it's true. All right. So yeah, thrilling. There's a true crime documentary
that we're showing actually at this, this year's, in this year's lineup that I'm super excited
about. It's called Stolen Kingdom. It uncovered the history of mischief, scandal, and crime
at Walt Disney World. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I know. And it culminates to the mysterious
disappearance of a beloved animatronic at Disney World named Buzzy that's valued at half a million
dollars. So the whole film kind of tries to solve the mystery of who saw who stole Buzzy.
Whoa, you know what? I found that about Disney World too. You know, Walt Disney,
this is Disneyland in California. He actually had an apartment right inside Disney World,
where Disney Land, where he lived. Really? He had an apartment there and he lived there.
I don't know if he lived there a year round, but he had an apartment there. Here's something
else. When Disneyland first opened in California, they had a lingerie shop for women. And they close
it down. They closed it down six months later because who came up with that idea and thought it
would be a great idea. So they closed it. Yeah, they said this didn't go with the theme of
Disney Land. What do they think? And when they put that together, I'm looking at a list of
documentaries here. There was actually one called, I remember this one, 911, The Falling Man.
And it's the documentary about this guy who fell from the World Trade Center when it was attacked.
And I've seen bits and pieces I haven't seen the whole one. But these documentaries are fascinating.
There was also one on catfish. I actually saw that one.
Yeah, so give us some of the titles, some more titles of the 30 films you'll be showing.
Yeah, well, there's this really interesting film called Malignant Practice. It's kind of a short
documentary, but longer short. It's like 35 minutes. It's by a local Milwaukee filmmaker,
Kristen Catalano. And it's special for a lot of reasons, but one is that it's entirely animated,
which I think is kind of rare for a documentary film. And it is based on the medical
misfortune of a young woman whose breast cancer diagnosis was missed by a doctor and a mammogram.
And it's I think based on the director's cousin's true story. So it's super personal. And I
love that it's all animated. No, wow. Okay, let's get the stats on this now. The dialogues,
documentary, film festival starts on September 18th and runs through the 21st. And
it's at the Downer and Oriental theaters, two of the most historic movie theaters in Southeast
Wisconsin. You said the downers over a hundred years old and the Oriental is not that far behind.
I think it might be over a hundred of the Oriental, right? The Oriental is almost a hundred
years old, 98. It was built in 1927. So we're getting we're getting close to the 100th birthday.
And WR Jan born in 1926. So around that same time. And when you go in there, the Oriental is just
the lobby is just you walk it's somewhat that's why they called it movie palace because you're
walking into a palace when you walk into the Oriental theater on far as a far well, not not far
well. It's what's in the street. It's on. Oh, I'm so bad. Okay, I'm not going to ask you to be
ran McNally. People can find it. Now if they want to get tickets, how do you get tickets?
Yeah, so you can get tickets in person at the box office that either the Downer theater or the
Oriental theater or you can go online. Our website is mkefilm.org slash ddf but also just mkefilm.org.
It'll be right on the homepage and tickets are available right now for every single film in
the lineup where there's a pass available. If you want an all access pass and you don't have to
worry about individual tickets and you can just show your pass and go to anything. Oh, that's kind of
like you're special. Yeah, the VIP experience. Wow. Okay, and the fun about the I think I may have
told you the story before my son was in a movie and I played at the Oriental theater. So he went
down for the opening of the movie and it's a it's a divided into three theaters. They were in
the big auditorium for his movie. And I think Mama me I'm trying to move with some of the other
films playing. So there was a Batman movie playing whatever. But anyway, his film was playing
there and we went there for the premiere and he felt really special because he really had a good
role in the movie too. So it felt really special about it. And after the movie was over his mother
or my wife said, uh, don't forget to take out the garbage tonight. It goes out tonight. Can you
let this poor man have a moment in the sun? He had to bring up the guy. He had to be humbled a little
bit. Yeah, these guys enjoying it. People are coming up to him and you have to take out the garbage
tonight. And I'm sure Bob is right. Sam takes out her own garbage too. I mean, I'm sure she does.
Of course. Everybody takes her on. And then when the the night was over, they brought out the
ladder and they were taking the letters off the marquee. And he looks at it. He says up one day
down the next that show business. So yeah, it was like that. Okay, we've got tickets to give
you a week to the dialogues documentary film festival playing at the downer at Oriental.
Hey, congratulations. I hope you get packed houses and I hope the documentary filmmakers do
real well with their movies because they put a lot of effort, a lot of time and a lot of love
into these movies, a lot of sweat too. And probably a lot of money too. Films are expensive to make.
So super expensive. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I'll tell them all you said that.
Oh, give them my love. Robin Erlich. And don't forget if I see one, I remember for the rest of my
life, where I've seen the movie and what the movie was because that's my superpower. Robin
Erlich, who's communications and public relations coordinated from Milwaukee film. Again, go to
M-I-L-W film dot org M-I-W film dot org for all the information. Thank you, Robin.
Thank you. Have a good one. And thanks for getting up this morning. I know a lot of people say,
Hey, there we go. Who am I talking to? It wasn't easy, but I made it happen. Thank you, Robin.
Good luck. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Have a good rest of your day. You too, Robin. Robin
Erlich, everybody, from dialogue. Dialogs, some boys, I'm not tongue twister dialogues,
documentary film festival at the Oriental and downer theaters. Thank you, Robin.
