Milwaukee’s Movie “Give Me Liberty” premieres with UWM connection Kirill Mikhanovsky and Alice Austen have written a critically acclaimed love letter to Milwaukee. Now they need the city to show them some love in return. The pair are co-writers of “Give Me Liberty,” an independent film that took both Sundance and Cannes by storm. The film follows 24 hours in the life of Vic, a medical transport driver who is supposed to be driving his client, Tracy, a woman with ALS, to her job. Instead, he finds himself dodging roads blocked by street protests and playing chauffeur to his grandfather’s friends, a troop of Russian émigrés stranded on their way to a funeral. Mikhanovsky, who also directed the film, graduated from UWM in 1998 with triple majors in Russian, linguistics, and film. Austen, a Chicago Director Kirill Mikhanovsky. Courtesy of Music Box Films. playwright, has UWM connections too: She worked as an adjunct professor in the theater department last year. The two began collaborating after Mikhanovsky attended a reading of one of Austen’s plays and was impressed by her skill. Five years ago, they began writing the script for “Give Me Liberty.” “We would literally take turns with the draft. We would pull the computer back and forth,” Austen said. “We started off with this idea of a film we could make where contemporary Milwaukee could be a character.” 6 • IN FOCUS • September, 2019
Mikhanovsky hopes that it will put the city on the filmmaking map. Wisconsin gives no tax incentives to film makers, which makes it tough to shoot anything in the state, let alone a small feature film. If “Give Me Liberty” does well at the box office, it might begin to convince the movie industry that Milwaukee is a viable filming locale. “We wanted this film to be a catalyst for the budding, developing film industry in this city. We want more films to be made here,” Mikhanovsky said. So, Mikhanovsky and Austen need people to buy tickets – especially in Milwaukee. They have a few compelling reasons why people should see their movie. 100 percent made in Milwaukee There is nothing Hollywood about “Give Me Liberty.” Despite several setbacks, the film was made entirely in Wisconsin. “We cast it, with four exceptions, entirely with Co-writer Alice Austen. Courtesy of Give Me Liberty Productions. people from Milwaukee. It was filmed in Milwaukee,” Austen said. “We hired locally. Many of our crew went to UWM’s film school. It was great to be on the forefront of that.” The filmmakers also formed partnerships with local organizations, including the Wisconsin African American Women’s Center, which allowed the crew to hold auditions in their building and use it as a base of operations during filming. They also paired with Milwaukee’s Eisenhower Center, which provides vocational training, education, and jobs for people with disabilities.
