5 Questions for Documentary Filmmaker Lana Wilson

A few years ago, Ditmas Park’s Lana Wilson (pictured above, right), approached filmmaker friend Martha Shane (left) about making a documentary on the implications of a very tough topic — the assassination of third-term abortion Doctor George Tiller, and the four remaining U.S. doctors who perform the procedure.

The result, After Tiller, is co-directed and co-produced by the two women, and it’s now making the rounds in the festival circuit. During the Sundance Film Festival, the LA Times said that the film “brings an emotional sensitivity to an issue in which every nuanced turn of phrase has been made politically complicated.” The doc was also just picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope.

We recently spoke with Lana about some less controversial subjects — unless, that is, you feel very strongly about tacos and local bars.

1. Why did you move to the neighborhood?
I fell in love with Ditmas Park as soon as I set foot in it. I think the feeling I had then was later perfectly captured in Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, when the book’s narrator stumbles into Ditmas Park:

We turned off Church, and in an instant that raucous Caribbean boulevard, with its ninety-nine-cent stores and discount clothing outlets… had given way to a neighborhood unlike any other I’d seen in New York. Huge old houses–Victorians, I learned to call them—rose on both sides of a grassy mall, each building of a unique character. There was a plantation house… a Germanic place… a Japanese-style mansion… But most striking of all was the quiet.

For me, Ditmas Park felt like the calm and beauty of nineteenth-century Milwaukee meeting the diversity and pounding night-life (on some stretches of Coney Island Ave, anyway) of the greatest megalopolis. I like how there are fancy high-brow restaurants AND dirt-cheap hole-in-the-wall spots. I like its incredible mix of ethnicities — I read somewhere that about 25% of people in the neighborhood have origins in Europe, 25% in Latin America, 25% in Asia, and 25% in Africa — where else, other than on Sesame Street, would you be in that kind of idyllic melting pot?

I love going to the Kent Theater and telling myself that it’s where Woody Allen went to see movies going up, even though that might not be true. I love being able to drive to the beach in less than 20 minutes, when someone will loan me their car. And I love being able to run past trees and flowers, in the middle of the road because there’s hardly any traffic, to the lake in Prospect Park, where I can visit my pet swans almost every morning.

2. Did you work on the film in the neighborhood?
Unfortunately I didn’t become a Ditmas Workspace member until recently, so for me, the bulk of my work on the film was done at home, or at various Starbucks and Cosis across the city. Now, however, I am very excited to be here — I am so much more focused when I’m working amidst other people. Plus, I don’t have to beg Martha to print out my Zappos return labels for me anymore!

3. Making the film took you across the United States, and now showing it is taking you to festivals as well. What’s the one thing you look most forward to about returning to Brooklyn after a trip?
Having a drink and singing a few songs at Shenanigans. I basically chose my current apartment because of its proximity to Nans.

4. If you were to make a documentary about this neighborhood, what would your subject be?
The mysterious banya on Coney Island Avenue. Rumors abound, and this documentary would do its best to heighten ALL of them. Is it a front for a Russian prostitution ring? Is it a hipster haven, where cool bands play secret 2am shows? Or is it just a medicore, slightly dingy bath house?

5. What’s the best kept secret about Ditmas Park?
The best Mexican food in Ditmas Park is not Cinco de Mayo, or even Don Burrito — it’s La Guadalupana, at the corner of Coney Island Ave and Turner Place. No, they don’t have everything on the menu all the time, and yes, they are open, even if they appear to be closed. But just put some courage together and ask if they have a menu anywhere, and if so, if you can see it. Because their food is delicious, cheap, and not to be missed.

After Tiller will be at the Ashland Independent Film Festival in Oregon in April. You can keep up to date on where else you can see it on their Facebook page and on Twitter.