Films by Daniel Kremer

A Trip to Swadades is an award-winning feature film drama that tells the story of Schweitzer Haas (Robert Swenson), a 74-year-old retired professor who returns to Philadelphia, the city of his youth, for the first time in twenty years to visit his hermit brother Ezra (Glenn Walsh). The two have never quite seen eye-to-eye, but it seems that Ezra has developed a freakish steel-trap memory, and has been keeping complex memory logs to document their past. As a result, however, Ezra's apartment is a den of bad smells and filthy living conditions. When Schweitzer goes out to get his brother cleaning supplies and gets lost in the city he once knew like the back of his hand, he is found by old friend Claude Schoonover (Stephen Hatzai), a world-class cut-up with a wisecracking but nonetheless laconic "chauffeur" Doobie (Kenneth John McGregor). Claude and Schweitzer visit a place of importance from their past: an old shvitz bath-house. It is there that Schweitzer realizes that he must reconcile with his brother before it is too late and time ultimately runs out for him.

"This film represents a brave and fearlessly creative new voice in American cinema."
-Henry Jaglom, Filmmaker (Eating, Festival in Cannes, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?)

"Films like this just are not made anymore, which makes A Trip to Swadades among of the most intriguing films of the last few years."
-Indiewire

2008 / 65 minutes / Black-and-White / Super-16mm / 1.85:1
Written and Directed by Daniel Kremer; Produced by Colin Malone; Executive Producers Kevin Eldridge, Yvonne Yao and Phillip Schneider; Associate Producer Ephraim Asili; Director of Photography Aaron Hollander; Production Designer Paul Sylbert; Art Director Jeffrey Heinbach
Starring Robert Swenson (Schweitzer Haas), Glenn Walsh (Ezra Haas), Stephen Hatzai (Claude Schoonover), Kenneth John McGregor (Doobie), William Cully Allen (Joe the Grocer), Katya Quinn-Judge (Woman in Dream), Naoko Masuda (Strange Minstrel), Gregory Lytle (Young Ezra), Matthew Savoca (Young Schweitzer)

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About the Filmmaker

Daniel Kremer grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He lives in San Francisco and attended Temple University's film program in Philadelphia. In 2007, he completed his first feature Sophisticated Acquaintance (2007) and was presented with four Best Documentary prizes for Yarns To Be Spun on the Way to the Happy Home (2007), a personal essay film about having grown up with a severe stutter. His second feature A Trip to Swadades (2008), which was shot on black-and-white super-16mm film, won three Best Feature Film awards at international festivals. He then moved to New York City, where he lived for over six years.

He completed his acclaimed follow-up feature, The Idiotmaker's Gravity Tour, in 2011. The film was lensed predominantly in India and is distributed on Fandor. Subsequent to that, he directed Raise Your Kids on Seltzer (2015) and Ezer Kenegdo (2016) in the San Francisco Bay Area, using independent filmmaking icon Rob Nilsson's regular cast and crew. These films respectively feature Sundance Film Festival winner Joshua Safdie (Daddy Longlegs, Heaven Knows What) and cult-favorite actor Barry Newman (Vanishing Point, Petrocelli). Raise Your Kids on Seltzer is scheduled to premiere in New York and Los Angeles theaters in June 2016.

His first book, about the life and career of filmmaker Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys in Company C, The Entity), was published by University Press of Kentucky's Screen Classics Series in November 2015. The book was written with Furie's collaboration, under esteemed editor Patrick McGilligan. In conjunction with this book, he is also directing a full-length biographical documentary about Furie, entitled Sidney J. Furie: Fire Up the Carousel!. He is also in pre-production on a new feature drama called Precious Wheels Above, and is developing another, a musical based on the songs of departed Bay Area artist David Schickele.

His second book, currently being researched, developed and written, is the first to cover filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver (Hester Street, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Crossing Delancey). With David Thomson and Tom Luddy, he is assisting in the editing of an anthology of Susan Sontag's writings on cinema.

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About the Filmmaker