The Koch Documentary

RIP, Ed Koch, 105th Mayor of NYC. From Indiewire:

Neil Barsky's first feature-length film as a director is a documentary on one of the most enigmatic politicians in New York history: Mayor Ed Koch, who is remembered as both plucky and cowardly, a man willing to fight for what he believed in but unsure how to have a conversation about his disagreements. Yesterday, as "Koch" was set to debut in New York, news came that the former mayor died at 88 of heart failure. In their obituary for the mayor, The New York Times describes him by saying the late mayor is "as opinionated as a Flatbush cabby, as loud as the scrums on 42nd Street, as pugnacious as a West Side reform Democrat mother.

Indiewire chatted with Barsky yesterday, as he was headed to do Q&A's at the film's opening night screenings in New York, about his experience making the film and dealing with the man.
The film is in New York now at the Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas; the film will play at several Jewish festivals in the near future and opens in Los Angeles, Portland, DC, and Miami in the coming weeks.

What brought you to telling the story of Ed Koch?

I was a New Yorker. I was a reporter in my twenties. I think the 1980's was a critical turning point for New York. This is the fall and rise of New York. Ed Koch himself was a great character. He was funny, he was mean. His personal life was always speculated about. When we started filming him in 2010 and 2011, he had a lot more going on than I could have ever imagined. It ended up being a much more personal look at him than I ever could have expected. He had an interesting life a very full life and a lonely life.
 

More here.