Photo credit: Wout Folmer

“Karate Film Café” (Rated PG)
Where: Mission Viejo City Hall, 200 Civic Center, Mission Viejo
When: 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009
How much: $6
Information: 949-470-3062 (Course #1760) or www.BrightBlueGorilla.com

Although Michael Glover and Robyn Rosenkrantz have shown their film “Karate Film Café” throughout Europe since its completion in January 2009 and plan to attend its Los Angeles premiere on Oct. 10, the couple is thrilled that the comedy will be screened in their hometown of Mission Viejo this weekend.
Glover and Rosenkrantz – whose musical alter ego Bright Blue Gorilla has been impressing audiences since 1990 – will perform a short set of their groundbreaking eclectic folk and exhibit their full-length film at Mission Viejo Civic Center on Saturday night, Oct. 3, 2009.

“Karate Film Café” is the follow-up to the filmmakers’ wonderful “The Mind of Henry Lime” (2007), which picked up “Best Comedy Feature” honors at the SMTV Film Festival in Bombay, India.

“We have been traveling for 20 years throughout Europe and all these years, we have met so many talented friends,” Rosenkrantz explained. “We set out to film the move in Los Angeles and asked people to come be in our movie. Nine people from Europe said ‘yes.’ “

The cast of “Karate Film Café” features actors from Denmark, Holland, Italy, France, Germany and the U.S. And although the indie filmmakers didn’t have a budget to pay participants, they did provide lodging and meals for the cast and crew who worked on the film.
The film was shot in Koreatown, Los Angeles in February and March 2008, with Bright Blue Gorilla than heading to Berlin, Germany to edit the film and complete post production.

“We shot it in HD (high definition) and make it look like film in post production,” Glover said of the professional look of ““Karate Film Café.”
“The set-up (building the sets and securing a window where everybody is available for the shoot) is the longest thing.”

Glover wrote the script over a two-month period while Bright Blue Gorilla was on tour in 2007. Glover’s film is set in Hollywood, where viewers “find a karate school with a weird type of karate, a DVD store with movies that nobody wants and a café with the world’s worst cook,” according to the production notes for the film. “Add to the story a crazy Italian with a deadly secret; a musician with terrible allergies; a computer nerd who thinks everyone is in love with her.”
The comedic mix adds up to “90 minutes of love, death, bad food and good music.”
Both Glover and Rosenkrantz also appear in the film.

“We were having such a good time, everybody put their energy into this,” Glover said.
“More than 100 people worked on this film, all for the love of it.”

In addition to their three full-length films (including 2005’s “Sister Sarah’s Sky”), Bright Blue Gorilla has also released 11 commercial CDs that have won fans across the globe. This writer considers Bright Blue Gorilla’s 1998 album “Mantra for the American Jungle” to be one of that decade’s best musical releases.
“You should be learning new stuff all the time,” Glover said. “We’re in a routine all our own, but it’s always changing.”

For more information, visit www.BrightBlueGorilla.com.