NEW ORLEANS — It’s just a quick hop east from the LSU purple-and-gold of Baton Rouge to the Saints’ black-and-gold New Orleans, about 80 miles on Interstate 10 until you see the Superdome.
I arrived not long ago in the Crescent City on a bright Sunday afternoon, after Mass at St. George Catholic Church near the bast bank of the Mississippi River not far from Port Allen.
In New Orleans, I met the Golden Gloves boxer-turned-actor Doug Olear at the Desire Oyster Bar on Bourbon Street for lunch and talk of his independent film, “Hold On!”
[Columnist Michael Olesker wrote in detail about the short movie in the June 12, 2007, edition of The Examiner.]
The uber-affable Olear, who played FBI Agent Fitzhugh on HBO’s “The Wire,” and fellow producer, Baltimore native Jackie Julio, were in party town for the New Orleans Film Festival, wrapping up a tour of some two dozen competitions around the world for their debut film.
There were no wins for the duo in New Orleans, but the overall learning curve — “We did everything from A to Z ourselves,” said Olear — was invaluable for their next project, tentatively set to address the problems of Iraqi war veterans returning home.
In “Hold On!,” a short, poignant film about yearning, Julio stars both in and out of the wheelchair that has moved her about all her life; Olear plays a supporting role, and Dominic West — “Wire” detective Jimmy McNulty — makes a cameo as a delivery man who fails to bring Julio what she wants.
Munching a fried shrimp Po’ Boy after polishing off a plate of barbecue oysters, Olear said he was beat after months of flying hither and yon to sit in the dark with strangers, trying to gauge reaction to the film by oohs and aahs and dead spots of silence.
The results from the 2008 circuit have been solid: Best Short Film at the Garden State Film Festival in Olear’s native New Jersey; Audience Choice Award at the Rhode Island Film Festival; and an honorable mention at the Athens International Film Festival.
Olear and Julio grabbed “Best Short Film” at the Lake Arrowhead fest, where the award was presented by Joe “Put the Fuhrer on the phone” Mantegna. Olear said that Joe accidentally knocked the award to the floor during a photo shoot. It broke, and Mantegna acted as though nothing had happened.
That’s how the stars live, baby: Not my fault!
Rafael Alvarez can be reached at [email protected]
