Greetings from Asbury Park, a documentary feature film, began shooting in Asbury Park in 2001.

Over the past five years, the filmmakers have interviewed over 40 local residents, historians, artists, musicians, community leaders as well as numerous national public policy experts and distinguished scholars. Director Christina Eliopoulos also interviews her neighbors and three generations of her family.

 

Eliopoulos, whose family immigrated to Asbury Park in 1917, was born and raised there. As a journalist and  filmmaker, her work has always been informed by her Greek-American heritage and her childhood in this storied resort.

 

In March of 2005, Ms. Eliopoulos was named Artist in Residence at the Two River Film Festival at

Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey. During her tenure as Artist in Residence, Ms. Eliopoulos was a frequent guest lecturer and trained four student interns as researchers, production coordinators, and assistant editors. The University invited the Director and her staff to the Plangere Center for Instructional Technology, donating the use of the University’s state-of-the-art editing facilities.

 

In the film, the camera is both impartial observer and provocateur. The camera captures the sen-

sibility, the history and the power dynamics of a small town. Rare archival footage, newsreels, postcards, home movies and photographs dating back to 1875 are woven throughout, becoming a leitmotif of the consolation and corruption of beautiful memories. Often, they are employed to illustrate a deeply intimate personal recollections. The story is filmed on 16mm color film, 8mm film and digital formats. The extraordinary texture of this city — life both within and beyond the postcard image — is lovingly brought forth by cinematographer Mai Iskander.

 

An orchestral score by Composers George Vahamonde and Nik Everett employs the evocative

strains of acoustic guitar, piano as well as toy instruments and music boxes to recall the mythic ideal of Asbury Park. Two rare, turn of the century piano compositions, On the Boardwalk in Asbury Park and Wear A Boardwalk Smile, long considered lost artifacts, were found and recorded for the film.  

 

Other creative collaborators are Executive Producer Ken Barrows and Producers Bill Blum and

Kerry Margaret Butch. The film was cut by award-winning Editors Sophie Scoufaras and Patrick Perrotto, with Story Editor David Meneses consulting.

 

The film is fiscally sponsored by Women Make Movies, a national non-profit media arts organizat-ion dedicated to the production and promotion of films by women directors, producers and cinematographers. The organization’s distribution division releases films in theatres and specialty art cinemas across the country. Likewise, the organization is a powerful champion of the arts in education, and has distributed over 500 of its films to universities, libraries and advocacy groups across the country and abroad.