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[jt196]

'All About Steve' is a film project about EFL teachers, poisoning and Poland that Jonathan Walsh and I (James Torr) were working on in Warsaw, Poland between 2005-6. I'm posting it here for some exposure of course, but think it could be of interest to all of the teachers on the forum. The film is as much about the main character (Steve) as it is about teachers, teaching and living abroad.

Plot Summary

The conception of the film began when the 'Steve' of the title, a fellow English teacher at International House School in Warsaw, took me outside the school for a cigarette one frosty Autumn morning. He told me that he suspected he was being poisoned by a group of Jewish friends of his. Two days later, he'd left the school, and was on his way out of the country. A month or two later, Jon heard from a friend of his that Steve had died. By coincidence, it turned out that this contact was one of the group of people that Steve had thought had poisoned him. According to this contact, Steve had died in a hospital in Krakow a few weeks previously. The story was too intriguing for us to pass, and thus the 'All About Steve' documentary project was born. Interviewing his co-workers, and people from this group of friends, we aimed to piece together a portrait of a man, a profession, and what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land.


Release?

When Jon and I started the film, all we had between us was a love of film, an eye for a good image, some digital editing software experience on my part, and a little cash for equipment. We had little to no experience making film documentaries, interviewing, camerawork, and almost no idea about how to get the film distributed once it was completed. We're still a little shaky on the last part, but hope the former were addressed during the making of the film, and are evident in the clips attached.



The Youtube Links

Intro: The first 7 minutes of the film. This should give you a basic idea of the plot of the film and an introduction montage of the main characters and the school he worked in.

The remaining clips are all 3-5 minute segments with all of the main teacher characters:

Fraser

Piers

Patrick

Colm

The edit we have now is around 50 minutes long. It needs some work by a professional editor, as well as some mastering work. I hope the clips included are enough to whet your collective appetites for some more. If you are interested in watching the current unfinished edit of the documentary, and may be able to help with editing, distribution - completion etc, I'd be happy to send you a copy of the film.

Once again, if the clips are interesting to you, pass them on to your teacher friends. We'd really appreciate it. And you'd be doing your bit for independent film making - of course.

I'd be happy and interested to know if anyone has any interesting stories about teachers they've worked with in the past - colourful characters and so on. If anyone's had any contact with EFL Steve I'd be most interested to hear.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the clips.

James.

[anospi]

Hey this is interesting, I just watched the clips. I spent two years in Poland, working at an IH, and am heading back over there next year. I must admit you paint a pretty bleak picture of the place, but I guess that's how it is come Autumn. Dating his boss for two years. I couldn't imagine...

By the way you should post this in the Poland forum as you'd definitely get a few more comments about it.

[jt196]

Thanks for that anospi. Maybe Poland isn't so bleak, but in Warsaw it can get a bit grey and depressing during the Autumn/Winter months.

Will definitely post the video in the Poland forums though, thanks for the tip!

James.

[jillford64]

Did Steve actually die?

[jt196]

Er, I suppose that the ending of the doc shouldn't be given away too much. But on the other hand it's unlikely that we'll ever get the damn thing out.

Steve actually fled to Slovakia in fear for his life (whether this was paranoia or real, justified fear we don't know). He then asked his ex-wife to call the group of friends and tell them that he had died in a hospital in Krakow. He finally returned to Warsaw, but never explained to us or his friends why he had done this.

The real story is a little more convoluted than this but that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Steve didn't want to appear in the doc, and didn't want to talk to us - in fact he made several threats towards us. So we'll never really know his motivation for doing what he did.