“New Orleans Mon Amour” Director: “It seemed natural and necessary to make a movie there”

The movie isn’t a documentary, but the fundamental impulse behind it had to do with mapping the territory - giving an accurate account of the scene, the time and the place and the people moving through it. If the movie has value, I suspect it comes out of this and a related approach in the casting - how, from the first scene on, professional actors share the frame with local people playing versions of themselves, moving through territory that bears an imprint (psychological as well as physical) from the storm.

iW: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in either developing the project?

MA: An expected source of financing fell out, and so my good friends Edith le Blanc and Michael Martin valiantly put the movie on their credit cards, and I signed over a check from another job, and from week to week we didn’t know how or whether the movie could be kept afloat. I’d say that was rather challenging.

iW: How did the casting come together?

MA: The casting director, a charming fellow named Jack Doolin, recommended the two leads, Christopher Eccleston and Elisabeth Moss - who promptly read the script and agreed to jump in. Barlow Jacobs, who plays Emerson the community organizer, was living in New Orleans at the time; he auditioned for the part and was particularly impressive. I’d worked with Dayton Callie and Isabel Gillies on other things, and had them in mind early on.

Similarly, with Andre Williams, I’d loved his music and hoped he’d be willing to participate. I should also single out Marco St. John, a terrific actor who lives in Mississippi and usually plays working class stiffs. (He’s best known as the would-be rapist in “Thelma and Louise.”) Here, Marco plays an upper-class physician, and he did a remarkable job. And I repeat, local people playing local people, fill out the picture. I’d like to single out Derrick Bentley Wells, Kirsha Kaeshele, Miss Lydia and her daughter Dalandra.

iW: What is your next project?

MA: I like biopics. I’m working now on a biopic about Stanley Milgram, the social psychologist whose obedience experiments, conducted at Yale in the early ‘60s, remain incredibly resonant and relevant. Milgram also happens to be a vivid, fascinating character.

iW: Are there other aspects of filmmaking that you would still like to explore?

MA: I’d like to do more voice-over work, particularly for cartoons.

iW: What general advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?

MA: I’ve always been fond of the advice I once heard from Robert Frank, “Keep your eyes open.”

iW: What are you most proud of from your filmmaking career so far?

MA: Looking back, I can confess feeling inordinate pride from the fact that David Lynch produced my film “Nadja” by reaching into his own pocket - paid for the whole thing, very magnanimously, very generously, insisting I retain final cut. He also acted in the movie, playing a security guard at a morgue.

We were shooting in a municipal building and I remember a lot of people coming up to David and politely asking if he could direct them to the bathroom. At any rate, Mr. Lynch made his money back and now owns the film. I look forward to the day when I can help another filmmaker in this way.