The Director

Choreographer, dancer, director, actor, third-degree black belt and Princeton University English major; Jeffrey Kuperman ’12 is all of these things. But even more impressively, he has found himself utilizing all of these skills in his own unique niche: the short dance film. Kuperman often choreographs for, dances in, directs and creates these films. His past projects include the ominous “One Arm and a Leg,” the dream-like “Blind Date” and the dark “Film Noir.” Street catches up with Kuperman as he describes his filmmaking process and his most recent project directing the short film, “In a Moment.”

Q: When did you first realize your love for filmmaking?

A: My first realization that I enjoyed film as a medium was when I was 8. My cousins who babysat made my brother and I make films like “Jeffzilla.” This particular film involved me in a mask running around the house like a monster. My films evolved from there.

Q: You often make films in collaboration with your brother. How has it been working with him?

A: It is fantastic having someone like Ricky to bounce ideas off of and share the experience of making a film. We had a similar aesthetic just because we grew up together. Now, we’ve developed a separate aesthetic, because he’s at Harvard and I’m at Princeton. But, because we’re working together, we have had a chance to broaden our sense while still developing a collective aesthetic.

Q: What style of filmmaking is unique to you and your brother?

A: The dance film we do has a very strong narrative component and a lot of time most dance film doesn’t have that. Because we’ve grown up with different influences as dancers, as filmmakers and as actors, we have a desire to tell a story and that’s where we start off from. We know we are going to treat the contents of the story through the lens of dance, but there’s always this narrative through-line we are looking to make. Whenever you are making a short film, you have to have great economy, because you only have so much time to tell a story. When you don’t have words to tell a story, every frame matters. So, what we were going for was to show circumstances and how they play out on every character.

Q: Your films have debuted at many major festivals. Tell me about the community of filmmakers. Who was the first filmmaker you ever met?

A: The first filmmaker I ever met was Moze Mossanen, a Canadian filmmaker known specifically for his dance films. My brother and I decided we should sit down with him for coffee. The best advice he gave us was if you want to make a film, just make it. That sounds intuitive at first, but there are a lot of obstacles to making a film on a professional level. It is a challenge to get a team together and start creating original work. At one point, he said, “Pitch me a film idea.” And my brain shut off and my mouth started moving. I gave him a rough sketch of a dance film idea I had. He said, “Great! Let’s make this film.” That was pretty exciting. He served as a mentor over the next year. He would look at our grand proposals and give us some honest feedback. We would give him our draft proposals and he would say, “Guys, this is terrible. You can do better than this.” He served as a mentor for our most recent project, “In a Moment.”

Q: What are some of the larger themes you find recurring in your latest creative work, “In a Moment”?

A: In this film, the idea of identity is important. What are we if we cannot remember experiences and don’t have the ability to build upon our experiences to grow? This film is about a guy with anterograde amnesia. He cannot remember his past and can’t make new memories. He is living with his wife who takes care of him day in and day out. Essentially, it is a woman’s struggle to find her husband in a man with no memory. The situation is devastating for her. We sometimes see how he perceives the world through his eyes. He is watching television, and, all of a sudden, he blinks and he is at the dinner table. He blinks and, moments before he was eating pasta, now he is eating soup, because it is seven days in the future. He is living in his own world. And the dance sequences are the audience being brought into his interior space. Each sequence zooms in on a particular moment in his consciousness. Maybe in that consciousness he remembers his wife. Then, he slips out. On her end, she is trying to experience his consciousness and knows that she has only a millisecond with which to be with him.

Q: What was your inspiration for this piece?

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

A: Before we took on this project, we read the memoirs of Deborah Wearing, the wife of Clive Wearing. He is the man who had the worst case of amnesia recorded. He can’t remember anything; the one thing he remembers is his wife. It’s this idea: What is love and how does it manifest itself in these different situations? It seems like there is this thing tying him to her. But he doesn’t even know what it is. He’s experiencing it in this one moment. It’s so powerful for him.

Q: What do you hope your audience will take away from watching “In A Moment”?

A: Seeing another body move in a certain way has an effect on you. There is always some way that will change you, because that’s just how empathy works. There are high stakes for these characters. The way they interact is powerful. From watching this, you take away some sort of catharsis. It has affected you somehow.

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Peter Giovine.