Latest / Next Act with Jeff Ornstein / Walter L. Krochmal – Actor, Voice Artist & Founder, Bronx World Film

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Walter L. Krochmal – Actor, Voice Artist & Founder, Bronx World Film · Next Act with Jeff Ornstein

• 0:02
  Jeff Ornstein: Today's guest is Walter L.
• 0:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Krockmo, a New York City-based actor, voice artist, translator, interpreter, and arts producer, whose career bridges performance, language, and international cinema.
• 0:14
  Jeff Ornstein: A classically trained actor and Brandeis University graduate, Walter has toured internationally in theater and arthouse film while becoming one of the industry's most respected Spanish voice artists.
• 0:25
  Jeff Ornstein: For more than 20 years, his voice has been heard on HBO Sports, where he provided Spanish voice dubbing for programs including Real Sports with Brian Gumbo, Hard Knocks, Inside the NFL, and numerous other productions.
• 0:37
  Jeff Ornstein: Alongside his performance career, he is a federally certified court interpreter, award-winning literary translator, and trusted language expert who has worked with presidents, prime ministers, major television networks, and the U.S.
• 0:51
  Jeff Ornstein: federal court system.
• 0:53
  Jeff Ornstein: Walter, welcome to the show.
• 0:56
  Walter Krochmal: Thanks, Jeff.
• 0:56
  Walter Krochmal: Thanks for having me.
• 0:57
  Walter Krochmal: That was a trip down memory lane, listening to listening through my life story.
• 1:04
  Walter Krochmal: There it is.
• 1:05
  Walter Krochmal: Thank you for the kudos.
• 1:07
  Walter Krochmal: Thank you for doing this.
• 1:09
  Walter Krochmal: I think it's really timely.
• 1:11
  Walter Krochmal: I think it's great.
• 1:12
  Walter Krochmal: I was looking at some of your past episodes and some of your guests and listening to what they have to say.
• 1:20
  Walter Krochmal: I think this is really valuable for all of us because we're all of us looking at what comes next.
• 1:27
  Walter Krochmal: Where are we?
• 1:28
  Jeff Ornstein: A lot of us, where are we?
• 1:29
  Jeff Ornstein: How did I get here and where am I going?
• 1:31
  Jeff Ornstein: And we've been really fortunate because the guests we've had on have come from lots of different backgrounds, all industry related, and they all have very different stories.
• 1:40
  Jeff Ornstein: And the stories they tell are very inspirational.
• 1:44
  Jeff Ornstein: So for full transparency to our watchers and listeners, I've known Walter for over 40 years.
• 1:50
  Jeff Ornstein: And I was privileged enough to study theater with him back at Brandeis University.
• 1:55
  Jeff Ornstein: And I have seen someone who is the most dedicated person to the theater and the arts that I've ever met.
• 2:02
  Jeff Ornstein: So with that being said, Walter, I'd like to speak with you a little bit about because I knew you primarily as an actor, although more recently in the last 10 years or so, I've learned about you and your passion and commitment to your film festival.
• 2:18
  Jeff Ornstein: So let's talk a little bit about your acting, because I know you've done the gamut.
• 2:22
  Jeff Ornstein: Share with us a little bit about the kinds of performances you gave and why they were significant to you.
• 2:28
  Walter Krochmal: I was lucky, I think, fortunate in this training that we got.
• 2:33
  Walter Krochmal: And going back, it's been a lifetime 40 years ago.
• 2:36
  Walter Krochmal: I think that we may be the last generation in this country to have that kind of training and that kind of range to be exposed to as actors.
• 2:51
  Walter Krochmal: So I graduated as an actor at a time when we were still, and we still are to a very large degree, stuck on stereotype.
• 3:03
  Walter Krochmal: And I was not trained that way.
• 3:06
  Walter Krochmal: I was trained in versatility and technical tools and range and so the mainstream basically was not very interesting to me.
• 3:19
  Walter Krochmal: And no, nor is the mainstream still interested in me.
• 3:23
  Walter Krochmal: I'm a kind of I don't work with stereotypes.
• 3:28
  Walter Krochmal: We were trained, maybe archetypes, maybe archetypes.
• 3:32
  Walter Krochmal: That's a different, that's a different story.
• 3:34
  Walter Krochmal: If we look at the Italians and Commedia dell'arte, how they break down human psychology, that's interesting to me.
• 3:42
  Walter Krochmal: But I had a great career, I've had a great career, I still have a great career.
• 3:47
  Walter Krochmal: I did Shakespeare, I did classics in Spanish, I did street theater, I did voiceovers, we did two years, we did a comedy show, a group of actors working out of a basement in Tribeca.
• 4:01
  Walter Krochmal: Every week we would put up a one-hour blackout sketches and comedy skits, really risky and risque stuff at the time.
• 4:11
  Walter Krochmal: So I've always given precedence to range and to having as many tools as possible as an actor and to explore while that was possible to just what am I?
• 4:27
  Walter Krochmal: I mean, that's the most important question we can ask ourselves.
• 4:30
  Walter Krochmal: And the actor, you always ask yourself that what am I?
• 4:34
  Walter Krochmal: Let me explore all my dimensions.
• 4:37
  Walter Krochmal: So my career doing all of that, all those different kinds of theater, just gave me an elasticity that I appreciate that has stood me in good stead.
• 4:49
  Walter Krochmal: At times there have been, of course, like so many of us, rough times.
• 4:54
  Walter Krochmal: And to get through those, you have to again practice versatility.
• 5:00
  Walter Krochmal: So I circumstantially found myself finding other careers and ways to sustain myself, understanding that the profession is the way it is.
• 5:12
  Walter Krochmal: New York City is not necessarily even a theater city anymore, the way it was when I graduated.
• 5:18
  Walter Krochmal: 83, you know, 84, 85, coming into Manhattan, and there was a lot of, there were a lot of venues or places to go.
• 5:27
  Walter Krochmal: You were surrounded by community, you could all live close to each other.
• 5:31
  Walter Krochmal: So a lot of that has changed.
• 5:34
  Walter Krochmal: And with it, your focus on but form.
• 5:37
  Walter Krochmal: What is the form?
• 5:39
  Walter Krochmal: How do we keep our creative spark alive so that we don't give it up?
• 5:46
  Walter Krochmal: Because that's if there's anything in me that's divine or close to divine, it's I think my talent, and I think that of everybody that our talents are often much higher than maybe the rest of our frequencies.
• 6:02
  Walter Krochmal: That's a it's a gift, and it's not meant to be wasted.
• 6:07
  Walter Krochmal: And I didn't.
• 6:09
  Walter Krochmal: It just became very difficult to continue doing that kind of theater because of the changes in the city and the changes in finances and so many things that the city has lost.
• 6:19
  Walter Krochmal: It's gained other things, but it's not the same town.
• 6:23
  Walter Krochmal: So, but my acting career took me places I never expected I would go.
• 6:29
  Walter Krochmal: I never expected that I would land at the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-90s, playing with 20, 25 other colleagues when renting a house in Edinburgh, spending the month of August there, with Joe Chakin, the legend, who was performing for the first time after his stroke left him without the ability to speak.
• 6:52
  Walter Krochmal: So we're watching Joe Chiken go on stage again.
• 6:56
  Walter Krochmal: I'm playing Shylock.
• 6:58
  Walter Krochmal: We have a piece for Bosnia because the war in Bosnia was going on at that time.
• 7:03
  Walter Krochmal: I've had the opportunity to travel to Central America, to travel to Mexico, to tour to play in repertory where you really get to own a character, right?
• 7:16
  Walter Krochmal: If you really want to own a character, they say you have to play that character at least a hundred times.
• 7:21
  Walter Krochmal: And in Spanish repertory, the time I was working in repertory in Manhattan, that was one role, Dong Huang, the original Dong Fuang, that toured all over the place.
• 7:32
  Walter Krochmal: I played it for about a year, two years, and so you got to that point where you really know this role and you can switch little things from one night to the next.
• 7:41
  Walter Krochmal: So that all of that feeds into anything I'm doing today.
• 7:46
  Walter Krochmal: What I learned as an actor, how to break down a script, how to break down a character, and to do so scientifically with attention to detail.
• 7:56
  Walter Krochmal: All of that has followed me everywhere I've gone.
• 8:00
  Walter Krochmal: Anything I learned as an actor has served me in good stead and all the other things that I've undertaken.
• 8:07
  Walter Krochmal: And at a certain point, I realized really film is the medium.
• 8:14
  Walter Krochmal: I love the theater because as far as actors go, if somebody is an actor or has developed that, 30 seconds on stage and you can tell.
• 8:26
  Walter Krochmal: Right?
• 8:26
  Walter Krochmal: Doesn't take a lot.
• 8:28
  Walter Krochmal: For those of us who've studied, you see it, it's people say, oh no.
• 8:31
  Walter Krochmal: I say, look, for those of us who've studied, it might look easy, but how many minutes would you be willing to listen to somebody sing off key?
• 8:40
  Walter Krochmal: Same thing with acting.
• 8:42
  Walter Krochmal: Those of us who have studied.
• 8:44
  Walter Krochmal: So it is the place where you test yourself, where you know acquire these tools.
• 8:51
  Walter Krochmal: It's a place of humility because it's a place really with no hierarchy.
• 8:56
  Walter Krochmal: There are no hierarchies in the theater.
• 8:59
  Walter Krochmal: The person who sweeps the stage is as important as the lead.
• 9:03
  Walter Krochmal: The lead busts his tooth because the stage wasn't swept.
• 9:06
  Walter Krochmal: You have a problem.
• 9:07
  Walter Krochmal: But film really is the medium of the 21st century.
• 9:12
  Walter Krochmal: And a certain point I set my focus on promoting film and knowing being a film lover all my life, art house, film as art form, and understanding how important cinema has been post-World War II Europe.
• 9:34
  Walter Krochmal: Cinema was one of the vehicles that helped those nations rise up from the rubble of the war.
• 9:42
  Walter Krochmal: It wasn't selling as many tickets as we can.
• 9:46
  Walter Krochmal: It really was what I say frequently, it's about saving the soul of the nation.
• 9:51
  Walter Krochmal: And those nations poured themselves into cinema.
• 9:54
  Walter Krochmal: And that did so much for their economy and for their identity and for so many things.
• 10:02
  Walter Krochmal: So I have set my sights since 2009 when I ended up as an actor at the short film corner at Cannes.
• 10:11
  Walter Krochmal: And seeing all the films that were coming in from young filmmakers all over the world, I got the inspiration to start a nonprofit, Bronxworldfilm.org.
• 10:22
  Walter Krochmal: And it's about really film is art form.
• 10:26
  Walter Krochmal: It needs to survive, it needs to thrive, it needs to prosper.
• 10:30
  Walter Krochmal: And those of us who work in film were in a form of training.
• 10:36
  Walter Krochmal: It's technical, it's artistic, all of it comes together.
• 10:40
  Walter Krochmal: So I spent 15 years running this organization, understanding that a time would also come for film when it would be squeezed out, where there would be less spaces, less instances.
• 10:54
  Walter Krochmal: So I've spent a lot of time cultivating friends all over the world, filmmakers all over the world, and how can we now bring it back?
• 11:05
  Walter Krochmal: The organization is growing, it's getting stronger, and I'm looking at how do I take my acting career back from some of the areas that I put aside because I'm getting some firm ground under my feet.
• 11:22
  Walter Krochmal: And for us, that's always important.
• 11:24
  Walter Krochmal: We're a lot of uncertainty.
• 11:27
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, it's interesting that you touched on that quickly because that was on my mind to speak about that right after graduation, as I recall, you headed to New York and you were a dedicated stage actor.
• 11:40
  Jeff Ornstein: And part of that is your ability to own and occupy the character in real life on the stage with your fellow actors and in a very convincing way.
• 11:51
  Jeff Ornstein: And that's a repeat performance.
• 11:54
  Jeff Ornstein: It's grueling.
• 11:56
  Jeff Ornstein: And then you shifted, and I know, like when you founded the Bronx World Film Festival, your focus and your love for independent art films, and also having been to some of your festivals, the multicultures that are represented, which is also an inherent part of who you are.
• 12:13
  Jeff Ornstein: So it's interesting to say that you were so fully committed to the stage and so well suited to a stage performance.
• 12:20
  Jeff Ornstein: And then films caught your eye, and the value of film, other than just the presentation, but what it meant to the performers, what it meant to the countries producing them and the cultures.
• 12:31
  Jeff Ornstein: And now it seems like you're saying you're coming full circle a little bit more again, more dabbling in performance again.
• 12:40
  Walter Krochmal: I I never really left performance because I was doing a lot of voiceover work and audiobook narration for some years there.
• 12:47
  Walter Krochmal: And I have done an occasional film over the years, but to say, okay, now how do I take this back in a way that doesn't bring dysfunctionality to me?
• 13:03
  Walter Krochmal: And as a certainly as an actor, yeah, I want to get in front of cameras again, absolutely.
• 13:09
  Walter Krochmal: But I want to do so on my own terms.
• 13:12
  Walter Krochmal: I'm not going to be out there looking for in the dark fishing expedition how to take this network of community that has built around Bronx World film and to create possibilities for people like myself to work, even if it's on a smaller scale, to work as actors, to make it feasible somehow to create the kind of works we want to see and to come in.
• 13:40
  Walter Krochmal: So absolutely, once an actor, always an actor.
• 13:42
  Walter Krochmal: I mean, I'm never going to say, you know, it's no longer a part of me, and it is, it's very much a part of me.
• 13:49
  Walter Krochmal: I had to resort to delayed gratification for some of the dire circumstances that I faced in my life.
• 13:59
  Walter Krochmal: I can't do this.
• 14:01
  Walter Krochmal: I gotta find, I have to find a way to ensure that one can keep it up, that it's not going to be something occasional.
• 14:10
  Walter Krochmal: That how do you do that?
• 14:11
  Walter Krochmal: So the structure of Bronx World film is made in such a way that my friends, myself, that people I know, people that we can say, hey, look, let's go shoot a two, three-minute film.
• 14:24
  Walter Krochmal: Let's work together, let's figure out what we have to say and how can we turn that into opportunities for ourselves?
• 14:32
  Walter Krochmal: Because we need to be doing that.
• 14:33
  Walter Krochmal: We need to be creating our own opportunities.
• 14:37
  Walter Krochmal: The opportunities I think are dwindling in general.
• 14:41
  Walter Krochmal: So we need to look at that.
• 14:43
  Walter Krochmal: How does an actor create possibilities with all of this stuff that's basically, you know, it's upside down?
• 14:52
  Walter Krochmal: It's completely, completely the paradigm has shifted.
• 14:56
  Jeff Ornstein: Tell me this: the art house cinema and specifically the the films that you feature are all very, they're very emotional.
• 15:06
  Jeff Ornstein: They're very tender, personal stories.
• 15:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Is that something?
• 15:10
  Jeff Ornstein: Is that a an inherent thread that's part of the fabric of who Walter is?
• 15:15
  Jeff Ornstein: Are those the stories that really get you motivated?
• 15:19
  Walter Krochmal: Oh yes, absolutely.
• 15:21
  Walter Krochmal: I have a weakness for it's what we were taught again.
• 15:26
  Walter Krochmal: What we were taught as actors is to give a piece of your soul, whatever it is you're doing.
• 15:34
  Walter Krochmal: And because there's no juries, there's no competitions, this is curated events.
• 15:42
  Walter Krochmal: I look at these films and they have to speak to me and they have to touch me.
• 15:47
  Walter Krochmal: It's not a festival, it doesn't have those structures.
• 15:51
  Walter Krochmal: It's basically me.
• 15:52
  Walter Krochmal: I'm looking at every single film, every frame from beginning to end, before I say I issue an invitation.
• 15:58
  Walter Krochmal: And sometimes I watch them several times.
• 16:02
  Walter Krochmal: If I'm resubtitling, which often has to be done, I'm watching them the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time.
• 16:08
  Walter Krochmal: So these films have to have some kind of staying power.
• 16:12
  Walter Krochmal: And I figure if they touch me, there's a good possibility that they will touch other people, but they do so in a way that I hope is artful, that is culturally true as well, that opens up other worlds to us.
• 16:27
  Walter Krochmal: That's important, very personal, but again, can be feeling culturally distant, but you understand it because it's a human thing that is coming through all of that.
• 16:38
  Walter Krochmal: So it's part of me, it's who I am.
• 16:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Tell me this, because the Bronx World Festivals that I've attended, you have entrants from all over the world.
• 16:47
  Jeff Ornstein: So how do you find them or how they find you?
• 16:51
  Jeff Ornstein: How does everybody get on the same page to say, hey, here I am, and here's my craft?
• 16:56
  Walter Krochmal: Well, it started when I came back from Cannes with the short film corner in 2009, when I had access to all those computers in the basement that were screening all the short films.
• 17:07
  Walter Krochmal: So I sat down and I started watching short films, one after the other, after the other, after the other, and you could sort them by categories, by country, by genre.
• 17:16
  Walter Krochmal: And I came back with an armful of DVDs and catalogs and people's emails, and I stayed in touch, and I've been going back every year, not every year, but frequently since 2009, I go back to the short film corner to look for films.
• 17:35
  Walter Krochmal: And I have built a human network that way because I establish relationships with the filmmakers.
• 17:43
  Walter Krochmal: This work is very personal.
• 17:46
  Walter Krochmal: So once I have a group, a network, a lot of these are filmmakers I trust, I know their work already.
• 17:54
  Walter Krochmal: Some of them I will take their work blindly because I know they produce incredible quality.
• 17:59
  Walter Krochmal: So I keep in touch and I get recommendations.
• 18:02
  Walter Krochmal: And I also I travel, I've been fortunate.
• 18:06
  Walter Krochmal: I go to France, I go to Cannes, I go to Croatia.
• 18:09
  Walter Krochmal: I've been going to Croatia in recent years.
• 18:11
  Walter Krochmal: Friend of mine runs a film festival over there, and I bring films back.
• 18:15
  Walter Krochmal: And it's just multiplying the human network because that's how this all works.
• 18:20
  Walter Krochmal: And that's how we all need to be working.
• 18:22
  Walter Krochmal: We all need to be working through human networks, small human networks.
• 18:27
  Jeff Ornstein: To that point, you're running a film festival is not an inexpensive proposition.
• 18:31
  Jeff Ornstein: In particular, when you're talking about that you may be traveling to these far-off lands and meeting the producers and directors and stars.
• 18:39
  Jeff Ornstein: How does a Bronx World Festival, how do you find funding?
• 18:43
  Jeff Ornstein: And has that been a challenge since, let's say, the pandemic?
• 18:48
  Walter Krochmal: It's been a challenge because we came out of the gate without our 501c3 status as a nonprofit.
• 18:57
  Walter Krochmal: That was a problem that we could not solve at the time.
• 19:02
  Walter Krochmal: So basically, I had the choice of either continuing or not continuing, but I knew I wouldn't be able to work on nonprofit paperwork.
• 19:12
  Walter Krochmal: I had other things going in my life.
• 19:14
  Walter Krochmal: So it had to be put off until recently.
• 19:18
  Walter Krochmal: And basically, the organization has sustained itself out of pocket out of my earnings.
• 19:26
  Walter Krochmal: I have been able to keep it alive.
• 19:28
  Walter Krochmal: I believe in it very much.
• 19:30
  Walter Krochmal: And this year I promised myself that we would take it to the next level where we can start aggressively seeking funding.
• 19:39
  Walter Krochmal: So that's where we are now.
• 19:41
  Walter Krochmal: It's not going to be immediate, but you know, it coincides with also visibility.
• 19:46
  Walter Krochmal: It's getting known.
• 19:48
  Walter Krochmal: There is an international profile because we have programs in Manhattan and the Bronx.
• 19:52
  Walter Krochmal: So that is the next step is to get nonprofit status.
• 19:57
  Walter Krochmal: And the work of the last 15 years has been documented.
• 20:01
  Walter Krochmal: I've been writing grant proposals so that there is a plan of at least for the first three years, what it would cost, what's the budget, what's the staff, what's the personnel.
• 20:12
  Walter Krochmal: And that's going to be the challenge because these things do require funding.
• 20:18
  Walter Krochmal: And they're also what I tell people is when you invest in film as an art form, you're losing money.
• 20:25
  Walter Krochmal: You're losing money in the short term.
• 20:27
  Walter Krochmal: You're gaining in the mid and long term.
• 20:31
  Walter Krochmal: You're gaining a society that is acquiring all these technical tools and all this exploration of cultural identity.
• 20:40
  Walter Krochmal: So that is the trade-off.
• 20:43
  Walter Krochmal: And some of the best films that we know of have never won awards.
• 20:49
  Walter Krochmal: So it is an investment, a midterm investment, a long-term investment, and that how is how I've seen it.
• 20:56
  Walter Krochmal: And I'm also tremendously inspired.
• 20:58
  Walter Krochmal: That's what's helped me going, if helped me keep going.
• 21:01
  Walter Krochmal: If I weren't personally inspired, I would have quit a long time ago.
• 21:05
  Jeff Ornstein: Tell me this, because you've been pretty candid about sharing, you had to find other ways to finance your life while you pursued the creation and the promotion of art, which included all of your voiceovers and your translation services and all the other ways that you've used your multi-talents linguistically and your voice, which is so distinctive.
• 21:25
  Jeff Ornstein: But you've also, at the same time, when you pursued the film part of your career, you've kind of really gone out of your way to create opportunities for young filmmakers.
• 21:37
  Jeff Ornstein: So what do you think it is about mentorship that it's become such an important role of your career while you're still facing your own challenges?
• 21:49
  Walter Krochmal: It's a two way street.
• 21:50
  Walter Krochmal: With this generation, mentorship must be a two way street because you can't talk to this generation as if they don't know anything.
• 21:59
  Walter Krochmal: Because they're born with all this information at their fingertips.
• 22:03
  Walter Krochmal: So you have to be on parity and you have to listen intensely.
• 22:09
  Walter Krochmal: And we both need to listen intensely and take what we have from each other.
• 22:15
  Walter Krochmal: So for me, creating opportunity, it goes all around.
• 22:22
  Walter Krochmal: If I create opportunity, I don't know how that's going to come back to me.
• 22:25
  Walter Krochmal: And it's not, that's not the reason why I do it.
• 22:28
  Walter Krochmal: I just know that it does, and that I know that oftentimes many problems can be solved with the face-to-face conversation or a one-on-one conversation.
• 22:40
  Walter Krochmal: So for me, mentorship is it's a two-way street.
• 22:44
  Walter Krochmal: I'm learning as much as I'm teaching, and there's a lot of things I don't know.
• 22:47
  Walter Krochmal: I'm not a filmmaker.
• 22:49
  Walter Krochmal: People call me a filmmaker, but I'm not a filmmaker.
• 22:52
  Walter Krochmal: I'm an actor, I'm a writer, I'm other things.
• 22:55
  Walter Krochmal: I'm not going to call myself a filmmaker, but I'm certainly an organizer.
• 22:58
  Walter Krochmal: I'm certainly a promoter.
• 23:00
  Walter Krochmal: But ultimately, for me, what I receive is my finger on the pulse of that zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.
• 23:11
  Walter Krochmal: I'm privileged to work with these young filmmakers who are often shut out.
• 23:17
  Walter Krochmal: And I'm privileged from them to garner where the world is right now, where their generation is, thought-wise, and how that can make me better and more flexible because ultimately this is all about flexibility.
• 23:32
  Walter Krochmal: Survival of the fittest is not about brute strength, it's about being supple.
• 23:37
  Jeff Ornstein: So tell me this.
• 23:38
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you think that there's a challenge?
• 23:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Because of like what you just said, that young people are changing.
• 23:45
  Jeff Ornstein: They're changing the way the world feels about film as a craft.
• 23:49
  Jeff Ornstein: They've changed the way you feel about film as a craft.
• 23:52
  Jeff Ornstein: You're learning from them.
• 23:53
  Jeff Ornstein: What is the audience?
• 23:55
  Jeff Ornstein: What are the challenges about the audience?
• 23:57
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you think the audience has changed over time too?
• 24:00
  Jeff Ornstein: Their expectations?
• 24:02
  Walter Krochmal: That's an interesting question.
• 24:03
  Walter Krochmal: I mean, in the United States, one could certainly say over the arc of our lifetime, audiences have changed, standards have lowered on many levels, and certain narratives have taken roots and have become the formula.
• 24:22
  Walter Krochmal: I can only say that we need to find new ways.
• 24:26
  Walter Krochmal: We need to understand that the way it was is not even necessarily going to work anymore.
• 24:33
  Walter Krochmal: There's so much decentralization, there's so much that we cannot possibly compete with.
• 24:40
  Walter Krochmal: We're going to have to compete with handmade.
• 24:43
  Walter Krochmal: We're going to have to compete with soulfulness and resourcefulness and a sense of what are the unconventional spaces that we can create where we can where we can still give each other that freedom and where possibly we can find ways to make it work financially.
• 25:04
  Walter Krochmal: Although if you're betting on it, it's kind of a scary thing to bet on.
• 25:08
  Walter Krochmal: You have to play a lot of different cards and have all your what I say, all your tools shiny and sharp and on display at all times.
• 25:18
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 25:19
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, Walter, as I knew, we've gone grossly over time.
• 25:23
  Jeff Ornstein: So because I love talking to you, I always have loved talking to you.
• 25:27
  Jeff Ornstein: But I want to ask you, because the Bronx World Film Festival is in fact the crucible for all of your talents and skills and passions and desires right now at this point in your life, it sounds like it.
• 25:43
  Jeff Ornstein: And all the hard work you're doing to get the um 501c status so that you can, you know, be more successful and take on other, you know, ventures that may not have been accessible to you without it.
• 25:56
  Jeff Ornstein: What would you hope for guests coming to the festival for the first time?
• 26:01
  Jeff Ornstein: What would you want their takeaway to be about the festival in summary?
• 26:07
  Walter Krochmal: It would be the same thing as to your previous question.
• 26:11
  Walter Krochmal: When I watch these films and I choose them, they touch me deeply.
• 26:18
  Walter Krochmal: I go to the cinema or I go to the stage or I go to a concert.
• 26:24
  Walter Krochmal: I do not want to emerge the same person that walked in.
• 26:29
  Walter Krochmal: So, above all, what is really important is that when people leave an event, they're not the same person who walked in.
• 26:38
  Walter Krochmal: If we can achieve that, then I think a lot of other things will come as a result of that, because people don't forget that sort of thing.
• 26:48
  Walter Krochmal: That can be a life-altering experience.
• 26:50
  Walter Krochmal: So that is what I'm hoping for.
• 26:52
  Walter Krochmal: And I think a lot of what's coming to us is because that has been at the forefront of our programming, is that you don't walk out the same person.
• 27:02
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, Walter, I got to wrap this up, but I want to say part of the mission statement for Next Act is persons on the brink of a legacy-defining moment.
• 27:14
  Jeff Ornstein: And I really think that's where we've caught you.
• 27:16
  Jeff Ornstein: I think where you're going to take your festival, where are you going to take all of the tidbits that you've collected throughout your career and your life, knowing how focused you've been on the theater are really going to pay off.
• 27:28
  Jeff Ornstein: And I wish you all the best.
• 27:29
  Jeff Ornstein: And if you've got the next before your film festival heirs, come back on the show, tell the audience what's going on, what they can expect to see, whether it's a Slovenia or Iranian or Peruvian or all the cavalcade of all the different cultures that you you feature.
• 27:46
  Jeff Ornstein: I'm sure the audience would love to hear about it.
• 27:48
  Walter Krochmal: I'll make sure because we do have some interesting things coming up.
• 27:51
  Walter Krochmal: All right.
• 27:52
  Walter Krochmal: You have my number.
• 27:53
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks a lot, Walter.
• 27:54
  Jeff Ornstein: Take it easy.
• 27:55
  Jeff Ornstein: Hope to see you soon.