In Jay Rosenblatt and Stephanie Rapp’s Heartbeat, the married couple assembles footage from twenty-five years ago when they first learn that they’re expecting a baby and have to deal with unexpected developments as they prepare to start a family.
Awards Buzz spoke with Rosenblatt, a past nominee in the Best Documentary Short race for When We Were Bullies and How Do You Measure a Year?, about once again turning the camera on himself in perhaps his most vulnerable film yet:
“We shot this twenty-five years ago. I don’t want to do too many spoiler alerts, but if you see the film, it turned out to be a pretty painful experience. I put the tapes in my closet, in the corner, and forgot about them, to be totally honest. I was looking through where I keep all those old home videotapes, mini DV tapes, and I saw those tapes in the corner of the closet last year. And then it all came back to me, what that experience was. And I thought, ‘I should look at those tapes and just see what we did, what we shot.’ And when I watched it, I realized, there’s a film here, for sure. I think we both felt enough distance that it almost felt like other people. Even though it is very personal and it’s hard to show it in some ways, there was enough distance where we felt like we could. And it also felt like there’d be other people that could relate to that experience. So we made that decision. It was not an easy one, especially for Stephanie, because she’s, I think, much more in the film onscreen, and in a much more vulnerable position. But when she was on board, we went ahead and released it.”
Watch the video above to hear about looking back at the footage he captured and how this fits very much into the way he makes films – and will continue to do so, barring the true appeal of a feature.
Heartbeat is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Short.
