The Best Waitress in the World, trailer (1 min. 1997) Edited by Lester Alfonso for a film he wrote, directed, narrated, co-produced with Joshua Rifkin.
Archive upload Day 63. Today’s video is twenty-three years old. It was edited in New York City when I was working for Lifetime Channel’s Intimate Portrait series — I was in charge of the Christine Lahti and Gloria Steinem episodes. I was working alone doing digital grunt work in a small narrow room in a tall building in Manhattan. It was 1997. As assistant editor, they gave me two weeks to get the shows prepped for the editor but I worked fast. I gained enough time to use the editing gear to work on some of my own stuff. The director, famous actor Lee Grant (Mulholland Drive, In the Heat of the Night) only peeked in a couple of times that week. I managed to sneak this work in.
This is one of the first things I’ve ever edited digitally. At the time, Best Waitress was really the only film I had to show coming out of film school. It was screened in Montréal at a World Student Film Festival. I gave myself the exercise of putting together a trailer even if all I had with me was a VHS copy, even if the film itself is only eleven minutes.
“Wanting to make a documentary about the waitress in a restaurant he visits for the first time, a filmmaker ends up making a film about the creative process.”
Montréal World Student Film Festival Program, 1998
In the original motion picture soundtrack recording for Wings of Desire, Bruno Ganz’s performance of Peter Handke’s poem “When a child was a child…” is titled Song of Childhood. Joshua Rifkin was my best friend and creative filmmaking partner at York University film school. We called ourselves Song of Childhood Productions after that Wim Wenders reference.
I’m wondering about Sheila now (The Best Waitress in the World) and how she’s doing. I hope, wherever she is, that she is doing well and surrounded by love. I wonder what a sequel or update would look like? Would she be interested in that? Could Josh and I ever put Song of Childhood back together again to investigate? Stay tuned! —LA
P.S. If you’re liking these daily posts, perhaps you can consider becoming a monthly donor for a year or making a one-time contribution. It would seriously help a lot. Your money goes directly into supporting an artist committed to continually become the best version of himself. Thank you so much! Much love, LA