Wilmette native surfs waves of opportunity to make movie
"If you're looking for a self-help stalker musical comedy drama, this is the film for you!"
That's how one film festival viewer described Sam Kretchmar's directorial debut, a domestic drama titled "Keep in Touch."
"I've always loved movies that combined genres, like the works of the Coen brothers," said the former Wilmette resident.
"Keep in Touch" opens Friday, Nov. 11, with a one-week run at Chicago's Facets Multimedia. The movie tells the story of a young man (Ryan Patrick Bachand) who, while searching for his long-lost childhood love, discovers that she was killed in a car accident years earlier. He quickly becomes obsessed with her sister (singer/songwriter Gabi McPhee), who resembles his old flame.
Oddly enough, the film's trailer came first.
Kretchmar and his friend, Michael Angelo Covino, created a film short and a trailer for "Keep in Touch" in the hopes of one day securing the financial backing to re-create it as a feature-length movie.
"I showed them to a friend who had a lot of money and he said he'd produce it," Kretchmar said.
"And I thought: Now we have to make the movie!"
It wasn't the first time an opportunity came Kretchmar's way at just the right time.
He grew up in Chicago and Wilmette, before attending private high school in Oregon and studying at Chicago's Columbia College for a year. He moved on to New York University, where he earned a degree in film and television and met Covino.
An internship on the film set of Tamara Jenkins' domestic drama "Savages" (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) altered his life.
In 2008, filmmakers were getting used to a new computer device called the "digital intermediate," a high-tech transfer machine. Kretchmar's NYU minor had been computer science, so he could work the device and got a postproduction job on the film.
His tech expertise opened industry doors. Kretchmar moved into cinematography, working around the world alongside legendary DPs (directors of photography) such as Ed Lachman.
Strangely enough, Kretchmar never really liked using cameras.
"I never even took a camera course in college. I never wanted to be a DP. Ever. I had no interest in it," he said.
A few years later, Kretchmar was making "Keep in Touch." Initially, he had no intention of being anything but the director/writer. But he wound up as director of photography as well, although he hired a camera operator to carry out his vision.
"I understood exactly how I wanted this movie to look," he said. "I was already having so many arguments and fights with various people. If I hired a DP at this point, it would be just another person I'd be fighting with."
In the end, he got the film he envisioned.
"Mike and I were young, confident, and we've been given everything else we've wanted in our lives," Kretchmar noted, "so we might as well make a movie the way we dreamed it."
Kretchmar cites his parents, Cheryl Berman and Randy Kretchmar, as his chief inspirations for going into the movies. They both still live in Wilmette.
He noted that if someone has the inspiration to go through the turmoil and trauma to make a movie, his advice is simple.
"You should go for it. Because amazing things can happen."
- Dann Gire
Jamie Sotonoff and Dann Gire are on the lookout for suburbanites in showbiz who would make good stories. Contact them as jsotonoff@dailyherald.com and dgire@dailyherald.com.
“Keep in Touch”
When: Opening at 7 p.m. Friday for a week's run
Where: Facets Multimedia, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave., Chicago, (773) 281-9075 or
General admission: $10 (discounts for Facets members)