“We Sometimes Think of the Film as a Quirky Guide to Grieving”: Elan and Jonathan Bogarín on 306 Hollywood

At first, the notion of sibling filmmakers creating a doc about clearing out their recently deceased grandma’s house in New Jersey struck me as a potential recipe for a navel-gazing home movie. But the sister-brother team of Elan and Jonathan Bogarín, 25 New Faces alum, is not your average documentarian duo (even as their beloved Jewish grandmother is a familiar character — at least to those of us who grew up with idiosyncratic Jewish grandmas in Jersey. My physician grandmother in Teaneck likewise believed there was no wrong time for gefilte fish).

Yet it’s this transformation of a very personal story into an artistic work resonating with universal themes — the deep sense of loss that comes with death, contrasted with the jubilant celebration of a life well lived — that makes their film so emotionally powerful. And it’s the magnificent imagination of the Bogaríns themselves, who decide to treat their fashion designer grandma’s home at 306 Hollywood in Newark as an archaeological excavation site (even going so far as to visit Rome to better understand the process!) that makes this “magical realist documentary” alternately inspiring, heartbreaking and, above all, innocently enchanting.

Filmmaker caught up with the outside-the-box-thinking siblings prior to the film’s theatrical release today.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.