About the Film
In 2002, Kennedy was visiting Harper College, just outside Chicago (Illinois), to give a reading from Kerrigan’s Copenhagen, A Love Story. His host, Professor Greg Herriges, a novelist and award-winning documentary film-maker, contacted Tom Knoff, a producer and award-winning documentary cinematographer, to film Kennedy’s reading.
On the basis of that experience, Herriges and Knoff proposed a documentary DVD about Kennedy, focusing on his then-in-progress Copenhagen Quartet, four independent novels about the souls and seasons of the Danish capital.
Over the next 18 months, Kennedy included Harper College on his regular book tours; and Herriges and Knoff continued filming and gathering background material, interviewing editors and fellow writers who knew Kennedy’s work — Walter Cummins of The Literary Review, award-winning novelist Duff Brenna, and Robert Stewart, Editor of New Letters magazine. They also filmed Kennedy himself, whom Herriges interviewed outside Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace, on stage, and elsewhere.
Also included are readings by Kennedy from each of the four Copenhagen novels, with jazz or blues background music and collage scenes from the city in which the books are set. The result is a 29-minute documentary film which was completed on the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday: 16 June 2004. The film has since been shown at a number of universities and select art cinemas throughout the US.
For the whole story, please see “The Making of Thomas E. Kennedy: Copenhagen Quartet,” the essay by Greg Herriges, in which he writes:
The important thing is for people to discover Kennedy’s works and, through them, the heart and talent of a remarkable man and a fine literary artist.
—From South Carolina Review, Vol. 38.1, Fall 2005
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Teachers, educators, publishers, media representatives, and others who are interested in examining this film for possible educational use, for television broadcast, or for presentation in a theater are welcome to request on institutional letterhead a complimentary copy of the DVD from:
Kennedy Consultancy
Strandboulevarden 118
DK 2100
Copenhagen , Denmark
If your request is urgent, please send e-mail to Kennedy.
Plans are underway to organize a system whereby anyone who purchases all four volumes of The Copenhagen Quartet may request a complimentary copy of the film in CD-ROM format.
In the meantime, anyone who has purchased all four volumes already is certainly welcome to contact Kennedy via this website. He would also be pleased to hear from anyone interested in purchasing books and/or copies of the DVD — and naturally, comments and questions about the books, the film, and this website are most welcome.
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