Keeping true to our vision and passion for highlighting Omaha’s creative class, we are thrilled to present you a special interview by a noteworthy contributor and a film director!

It starts with Rachel Jacobson, Founder and Director of Film Streams and one of Omaha’s leading visionaries, who continually opens our city’s eyes to what is possible through the medium of film and the dynamic movies she brings to us through the theater.  This Friday is no exception as Filmstreams has a Director Screening with Alexander Olch of The Windmill Movie at 7 p.m.

In anticipation for this event, notable writer and blogger Michelle Haimoff, contacted me offering to contribute an interview with Olch. She wrote:

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I recently saw The Windmill Movie, which opens at Film Streams on August 14th. The documentary is about Richard P. Rogers, a filmmaker and Harvard film professor who spent 25 years trying to make a documentary about his life and getting nowhere. Shortly after he died of cancer in 2001, Dick’s longtime partner, photographer Susan Meiselas asked Rogers’  student Alexander Olch to go through 200 hours of footage and make a film out of it.

With Meiselas’ support, Olch created a film that is tight, humble and profound. Rogers reveals his darkest thoughts and insecurities, expressing his frustrations as an artist and confronting the paralysis that his life of privilege produced. Even though Rogers is selfish, unfaithful and unable to complete his own project, his honesty and self-deprecation make him a sympathetic and haunting character. What we don’t learn in the film is that, of all of the film students Rogers had taught over the years, Meiselas chose Olch to fulfill Rogers’ artistic legacy because Olch reminded Rogers of himself.

I’d love to do an interview with Alexander Olch for Silicon Prairie News. I know that there was a great deal of pressure on Olch to deliver (it took him six years), and I’d be interested to hear how he dealt with the class and creative issues that Rogers obsessed over, one step removed.

Michelle Haimoff is a New York-based writer and the author of “Secret New York: Exploring the City’s Hidden Neighborhoods.” She writes about a range of topics for The Huffington Post and has a regular podcast at MichelleHaimoff.Podomatic.com. [audio:https://spnewsnjt.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Alexander-Olch-Interview.mp3]

We are excited to have Michelle, who has written for the Los Angeles Times, The L Magazine and NYTimes.com as well as a regular contributor on The Huffington Post, conduct the interview with Olch for Silicon Prairie News, and we’ll be working on future collaborative efforts.