Beard Club

Synopsis

Beard Club is one woman's journey into the territory of camaraderie and rebellion found in beards and mustaches; with unexpected realizations about gender, culture, identity.

Beard Club examines the social politics of facial hair.

In Beard Club, my chance encounter with some extreme beard competitors prompts a five-year journey to look into the deeper power dynamics of how gender, class, and race are linked to facial hair.  Along the way I discover a diverse set of people from around the world who passionately tell their beard stories, leading to unexpected realizations about gender and identity.

As a filmmaker, my work focuses on issues of cultural norms and the effects of living in a multi-cultural society.  Having lived and studied abroad, studying the Japanese language in Japan and receiving a Masters in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, I work to bring my sense of cultural inquiry to the work I produce. 

In winter 2003 I had set out to make a film about small town economies in rural California as an attempt to bridge my knowledge of development economics, and my new life as a filmmaker living in California. Along the way I ran into a busload of German, World Beard and Mustache competitors.  This event changed my trajectory.  I found that talking to men about their motivations for growing or not growing facial hair led to a deeper conversation concerning their underlying cares and motivations towards identity, family, culture, and community.  At the same time I realized that many men and women are quite anti-beard.

Through the lens of what is accepted and not-accepted in facial hair fashion, I turned my eye on what it means to have facial hair in America.  Do we really have the freedom to be ourselves?  What is the price of diverging from the norm?  What does one gain?  How do people coming from countries facing war and poverty navigate a culture that doesn’t accept the way they look? There is a long history that ties facial hair to allegiance, from the Pharaohs, though Peter the Great, to the US Government.  Throughout history, leaders have influenced men’s decision to shave or not to shave - exerting their control over this simple act.  In America, we are free to define our identity, yet cultural norms still have a strong role in our private decisions.

 

 

Budget:

$ 20,000.00

Project's Financial Needs

The $20,000 in completion funds will be used for the final elements need to finish the film, which currently runs 65 minutes.

To complete the film we need to find funds for the following items:

- we are working with avant guard composer Klaus Jane on an original music score

- music licensing

- title animation

- sound mix

- color correction

- image archival rights for film festivals

- and film festival application fees

 

Other financial Support

Beard Club has raised money through generous donations of time and money from individuals and film professionals as well as donations from the following organizations:

-   Fleishhacker Foundation

-   Pacific Pioneer Fund 

 

Current stage of production

Post-Production

Estimated Completion Date

05/15/2009

Production Personnel

Director/ Producer/ Writer:  Laura J. Lukitsch's multi-cultural background infuses a deep sense of cultural inquiry into her work. Once an economics student in India, she has worked as filmmaker with artistic, public television and corporate clients from Silicon Valley to Massachusetts, Johannesburg, and beyond. Beard Club, a film about the social politics of facial hair, is Laura’s first feature-length documentary. 

Off-line Finishing Editor:  Jeff Springer was born in a virtually abandoned town in the California desert, raised in Hawaii, and educated at USC Film School. After living for a winter in Russia, he returned to Los Angeles to begin directing music videos, shorts, and editing for UPN, Fox, Geffen Records, and Lucasfilm. Burned out and hung over, he eventually fled to San Francisco to start work on Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2004).  After weeks in the desert and a couple of burnt cameras, the film went on to win 33 awards for Best Documentary and premiered on the Sundance Channel. 

Composer:  Klaus Janek is a member of the improvised music scene and is well known as being a prime force playing double bass.  Klaus explores avantgarde music and works on sound research for double bass.  He has published over five CDs and composes music for cinema, theatre and dancetheatre.  In addition to his compositions, he does art direction of various concert series in Italy and Germany. His work has been performed in the EU, USA, Israel and Russia. Since 2008 he freelances for Meta Design in conception and production and lives in Berlin.

Animator:  Chelsea Walton is an animator and editor located in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a film student at the University of Iowa, she discovered animation as a means to combine her interests in drawing, photography and painting.  Since 2004, after completing an MFA in Cinema at San Francisco State University she has worked independently as an animator and editor.  Her work has screened internationally on big screens, computer screens, living room screens and driveway screens. 

Animation Character Artist:  Dave Bohn specializes in editorial caricature and portrait illustration of political and other well-known personalities. He uses watercolors and gouache, aiming to capture the likeness with humor and wit. In additional to illustrations, Dave works on storyboards for television commercials (Restoration Hardware) and film (Saltwater, Beard Club).

Graphic Novel Drawings:  Toufic El Rassi’s debut graphic novel, "Arab in America," explains what daily life has been for someone born in Lebanon and raised in the U.S. "Since it was clear that the average American couldn't distinguish Arabs & Muslims from other nationalities & faiths I soon felt both fear & anger." The 30-year-old author decided upon the format of a graphic novel because he has always loved to draw. Toufic’s drawings accompany his interview which focuses on his beard experiences.