These days, Leonard Yakir’s best claim to fame as a filmmaker may be as the writer and producer of the cult film , the Dennis Hopper-directed slice-of-grungy-life from 1980. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * These days, Leonard Yakir’s best claim to fame as a filmmaker may be as the writer and producer of the cult film , the Dennis Hopper-directed slice-of-grungy-life from 1980. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? These days, Leonard Yakir’s best claim to fame as a filmmaker may be as the writer and producer of the cult film , the Dennis Hopper-directed slice-of-grungy-life from 1980.
But six years before making that film, Yakir himself directed a comparatively gentle drama titled under the auspices of the fledgling Winnipeg Film Group (of which Yakir was a founding member). As the WFG is on the cusp of its 50th anniversary, , billed as the first homegrown Winnipeg feature film, is having its own restoration and revival. Norman Taviss, as Kramer (right), finishes tailoring a suit for Herschel (Allan Moyle) in The Mourning Suit.
(Supplied) Made on a shoestring budget of $125,000, the drama will be featured at both the Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. (In Winnipeg, it screens Thursday at 7 p.m.
at the Berney Theatre on the Asper Jewish Community Campus.) On the phone from his home in rural Massachusetts, Yakir, “77 and still kicking,�.