"Finishing Heaven" HBO Documentary 
  Starring Ruby Lynn Reyner

 




See review.

Finishing Heaven
Documentary Competition
(USA, 2008, 76 mins)
HDCAM (25fps)
World Premiere
Directed By: Mark Mann
Producers: David Shapiro, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Ian Rosenberg
Executive Producer: Alan Oxman
Cinematographers: Maryse Alberti, Boaz Freund
Editor: Amy Foote
Music: The Eels, Dreadful Yawns, Rob Wagner Trio
Featuring: Robert Feinberg, Ruby Lynn Reyner
 



In 1970, at the height of New York's Warhol Factory scene, ambitious NYU
student Robert Feinberg began shooting his debut film. Armed with a youthful
cast and crew, his then professor Martin Scorsese as producer, and the guerilla
filmmaking spontaneity of the era, the production was poised to launch Feinberg's
directing career. Cut to 2007, when the cans of 16mm footage sit languishing in
storage. When ex-girlfriend and firecracker actress Ruby Lynn Reyner convinces
Feinberg to finally finish his magnum opus, he re-encounters the fears and
self-imposed roadblocks that paralyzed him three decades ago.

In this fascinating collision of past and present, Feinberg and Reyner's explosive
romantic history intertwines with their ongoing artistic collaboration, and their
viewing of the frozen-in-time celluloid in the editing room stirs up long-lost yet
lingering dreams. Part nostalgia trip, part cautionary tale, Mark Mann's documentary
sympathetically relates the timeless plight of struggling with the pressure and
weight of one's own lofty expectations.

-- Christine Davila