Jeff Ornstein 0:02

Today's guest is Walter L. Krockmo, a New York City-based actor, voice artist, translator, interpreter, and arts producer, whose career bridges performance, language, and international cinema. A classically trained actor and Brandeis University graduate, Walter has toured internationally in theater and arthouse film while becoming one of the industry's most respected Spanish voice artists. For more than 20 years, his voice has been heard on HBO Sports, where he provided Spanish voice dubbing for programs including Real Sports with Brian Gumbo, Hard Knocks, Inside the NFL, and numerous other productions. Alongside his performance career, he is a federally certified court interpreter, award-winning literary translator, and trusted language expert who has worked with presidents, prime ministers, major television networks, and the U.S. federal court system. Walter, welcome to the show.

Walter Krochmal 0:56

Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me. That was a trip down memory lane, listening to listening through my life story. There it is. Thank you for the kudos. Thank you for doing this. I think it's really timely. I think it's great. I was looking at some of your past episodes and some of your guests and listening to what they have to say. I think this is really valuable for all of us because we're all of us looking at what comes next. Where are we?

Jeff Ornstein 1:28

A lot of us, where are we? How did I get here and where am I going? And we've been really fortunate because the guests we've had on have come from lots of different backgrounds, all industry related, and they all have very different stories. And the stories they tell are very inspirational. So for full transparency to our watchers and listeners, I've known Walter for over 40 years. And I was privileged enough to study theater with him back at Brandeis University. And I have seen someone who is the most dedicated person to the theater and the arts that I've ever met. So with that being said, Walter, I'd like to speak with you a little bit about because I knew you primarily as an actor, although more recently in the last 10 years or so, I've learned about you and your passion and commitment to your film festival. So let's talk a little bit about your acting, because I know you've done the gamut. Share with us a little bit about the kinds of performances you gave and why they were significant to you.

Walter Krochmal 2:28

I was lucky, I think, fortunate in this training that we got. And going back, it's been a lifetime 40 years ago. I think that we may be the last generation in this country to have that kind of training and that kind of range to be exposed to as actors. So I graduated as an actor at a time when we were still, and we still are to a very large degree, stuck on stereotype. And I was not trained that way. I was trained in versatility and technical tools and range and so the mainstream basically was not very interesting to me. And no, nor is the mainstream still interested in me. I'm a kind of I don't work with stereotypes. We were trained, maybe archetypes, maybe archetypes. That's a different, that's a different story. If we look at the Italians and Commedia dell'arte, how they break down human psychology, that's interesting to me. But I had a great career, I've had a great career, I still have a great career. I did Shakespeare, I did classics in Spanish, I did street theater, I did voiceovers, we did two years, we did a comedy show, a group of actors working out of a basement in Tribeca. Every week we would put up a one-hour blackout sketches and comedy skits, really risky and risque stuff at the time. So I've always given precedence to range and to having as many tools as possible as an actor and to explore while that was possible to just what am I? I mean, that's the most important question we can ask ourselves. And the actor, you always ask yourself that what am I? Let me explore all my dimensions. So my career doing all of that, all those different kinds of theater, just gave me an elasticity that I appreciate that has stood me in good stead. At times there have been, of course, like so many of us, rough times. And to get through those, you have to again practice versatility. So I circumstantially found myself finding other careers and ways to sustain myself, understanding that the profession is the way it is. New York City is not necessarily even a theater city anymore, the way it was when I graduated. 83, you know, 84, 85, coming into Manhattan, and there was a lot of, there were a lot of venues or places to go. You were surrounded by community, you could all live close to each other. So a lot of that has changed. And with it, your focus on but form. What is the form? How do we keep our creative spark alive so that we don't give it up? Because that's if there's anything in me that's divine or close to divine, it's I think my talent, and I think that of everybody that our talents are often much higher than maybe the rest of our frequencies. That's a it's a gift, and it's not meant to be wasted. And I didn't. It just became very difficult to continue doing that kind of theater because of the changes in the city and the changes in finances and so many things that the city has lost. It's gained other things, but it's not the same town. So, but my acting career took me places I never expected I would go. I never expected that I would land at the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-90s, playing with 20, 25 other colleagues when renting a house in Edinburgh, spending the month of August there, with Joe Chakin, the legend, who was performing for the first time after his stroke left him without the ability to speak. So we're watching Joe Chiken go on stage again. I'm playing Shylock. We have a piece for Bosnia because the war in Bosnia was going on at that time. I've had the opportunity to travel to Central America, to travel to Mexico, to tour to play in repertory where you really get to own a character, right? If you really want to own a character, they say you have to play that character at least a hundred times. And in Spanish repertory, the time I was working in repertory in Manhattan, that was one role, Dong Huang, the original Dong Fuang, that toured all over the place. I played it for about a year, two years, and so you got to that point where you really know this role and you can switch little things from one night to the next. So that all of that feeds into anything I'm doing today. What I learned as an actor, how to break down a script, how to break down a character, and to do so scientifically with attention to detail. All of that has followed me everywhere I've gone. Anything I learned as an actor has served me in good stead and all the other things that I've undertaken. And at a certain point, I realized really film is the medium. I love the theater because as far as actors go, if somebody is an actor or has developed that, 30 seconds on stage and you can tell. Right? Doesn't take a lot. For those of us who've studied, you see it, it's people say, oh no. I say, look, for those of us who've studied, it might look easy, but how many minutes would you be willing to listen to somebody sing off key? Same thing with acting. Those of us who have studied. So it is the place where you test yourself, where you know acquire these tools. It's a place of humility because it's a place really with no hierarchy. There are no hierarchies in the theater. The person who sweeps the stage is as important as the lead. The lead busts his tooth because the stage wasn't swept. You have a problem. But film really is the medium of the 21st century. And a certain point I set my focus on promoting film and knowing being a film lover all my life, art house, film as art form, and understanding how important cinema has been post-World War II Europe. Cinema was one of the vehicles that helped those nations rise up from the rubble of the war. It wasn't selling as many tickets as we can. It really was what I say frequently, it's about saving the soul of the nation. And those nations poured themselves into cinema. And that did so much for their economy and for their identity and for so many things. So I have set my sights since 2009 when I ended up as an actor at the short film corner at Cannes. And seeing all the films that were coming in from young filmmakers all over the world, I got the inspiration to start a nonprofit, Bronxworldfilm.org. And it's about really film is art form. It needs to survive, it needs to thrive, it needs to prosper. And those of us who work in film were in a form of training. It's technical, it's artistic, all of it comes together. So I spent 15 years running this organization, understanding that a time would also come for film when it would be squeezed out, where there would be less spaces, less instances. So I've spent a lot of time cultivating friends all over the world, filmmakers all over the world, and how can we now bring it back? The organization is growing, it's getting stronger, and I'm looking at how do I take my acting career back from some of the areas that I put aside because I'm getting some firm ground under my feet. And for us, that's always important. We're a lot of uncertainty.

Jeff Ornstein 11:27

Yeah, it's interesting that you touched on that quickly because that was on my mind to speak about that right after graduation, as I recall, you headed to New York and you were a dedicated stage actor. And part of that is your ability to own and occupy the character in real life on the stage with your fellow actors and in a very convincing way. And that's a repeat performance. It's grueling. And then you shifted, and I know, like when you founded the Bronx World Film Festival, your focus and your love for independent art films, and also having been to some of your festivals, the multicultures that are represented, which is also an inherent part of who you are. So it's interesting to say that you were so fully committed to the stage and so well suited to a stage performance. And then films caught your eye, and the value of film, other than just the presentation, but what it meant to the performers, what it meant to the countries producing them and the cultures. And now it seems like you're saying you're coming full circle a little bit more again, more dabbling in performance again.

Walter Krochmal 12:40

I I never really left performance because I was doing a lot of voiceover work and audiobook narration for some years there. And I have done an occasional film over the years, but to say, okay, now how do I take this back in a way that doesn't bring dysfunctionality to me? And as a certainly as an actor, yeah, I want to get in front of cameras again, absolutely. But I want to do so on my own terms. I'm not going to be out there looking for in the dark fishing expedition how to take this network of community that has built around Bronx World film and to create possibilities for people like myself to work, even if it's on a smaller scale, to work as actors, to make it feasible somehow to create the kind of works we want to see and to come in. So absolutely, once an actor, always an actor. I mean, I'm never going to say, you know, it's no longer a part of me, and it is, it's very much a part of me. I had to resort to delayed gratification for some of the dire circumstances that I faced in my life. I can't do this. I gotta find, I have to find a way to ensure that one can keep it up, that it's not going to be something occasional. That how do you do that? So the structure of Bronx World film is made in such a way that my friends, myself, that people I know, people that we can say, hey, look, let's go shoot a two, three-minute film. Let's work together, let's figure out what we have to say and how can we turn that into opportunities for ourselves? Because we need to be doing that. We need to be creating our own opportunities. The opportunities I think are dwindling in general. So we need to look at that. How does an actor create possibilities with all of this stuff that's basically, you know, it's upside down? It's completely, completely the paradigm has shifted.

Jeff Ornstein 14:56

Tell me this: the art house cinema and specifically the the films that you feature are all very, they're very emotional. They're very tender, personal stories. Is that something? Is that a an inherent thread that's part of the fabric of who Walter is? Are those the stories that really get you motivated?

Walter Krochmal 15:19

Oh yes, absolutely. I have a weakness for it's what we were taught again. What we were taught as actors is to give a piece of your soul, whatever it is you're doing. And because there's no juries, there's no competitions, this is curated events. I look at these films and they have to speak to me and they have to touch me. It's not a festival, it doesn't have those structures. It's basically me. I'm looking at every single film, every frame from beginning to end, before I say I issue an invitation. And sometimes I watch them several times. If I'm resubtitling, which often has to be done, I'm watching them the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time. So these films have to have some kind of staying power. And I figure if they touch me, there's a good possibility that they will touch other people, but they do so in a way that I hope is artful, that is culturally true as well, that opens up other worlds to us. That's important, very personal, but again, can be feeling culturally distant, but you understand it because it's a human thing that is coming through all of that. So it's part of me, it's who I am.

Jeff Ornstein 16:41

Tell me this, because the Bronx World Festivals that I've attended, you have entrants from all over the world. So how do you find them or how they find you? How does everybody get on the same page to say, hey, here I am, and here's my craft?

Walter Krochmal 16:56

Well, it started when I came back from Cannes with the short film corner in 2009, when I had access to all those computers in the basement that were screening all the short films. So I sat down and I started watching short films, one after the other, after the other, after the other, and you could sort them by categories, by country, by genre. And I came back with an armful of DVDs and catalogs and people's emails, and I stayed in touch, and I've been going back every year, not every year, but frequently since 2009, I go back to the short film corner to look for films. And I have built a human network that way because I establish relationships with the filmmakers. This work is very personal. So once I have a group, a network, a lot of these are filmmakers I trust, I know their work already. Some of them I will take their work blindly because I know they produce incredible quality. So I keep in touch and I get recommendations. And I also I travel, I've been fortunate. I go to France, I go to Cannes, I go to Croatia. I've been going to Croatia in recent years. Friend of mine runs a film festival over there, and I bring films back. And it's just multiplying the human network because that's how this all works. And that's how we all need to be working. We all need to be working through human networks, small human networks.

Jeff Ornstein 18:27

To that point, you're running a film festival is not an inexpensive proposition. In particular, when you're talking about that you may be traveling to these far-off lands and meeting the producers and directors and stars. How does a Bronx World Festival, how do you find funding? And has that been a challenge since, let's say, the pandemic?

Walter Krochmal 18:48

It's been a challenge because we came out of the gate without our 501c3 status as a nonprofit. That was a problem that we could not solve at the time. So basically, I had the choice of either continuing or not continuing, but I knew I wouldn't be able to work on nonprofit paperwork. I had other things going in my life. So it had to be put off until recently. And basically, the organization has sustained itself out of pocket out of my earnings. I have been able to keep it alive. I believe in it very much. And this year I promised myself that we would take it to the next level where we can start aggressively seeking funding. So that's where we are now. It's not going to be immediate, but you know, it coincides with also visibility. It's getting known. There is an international profile because we have programs in Manhattan and the Bronx. So that is the next step is to get nonprofit status. And the work of the last 15 years has been documented. I've been writing grant proposals so that there is a plan of at least for the first three years, what it would cost, what's the budget, what's the staff, what's the personnel. And that's going to be the challenge because these things do require funding. And they're also what I tell people is when you invest in film as an art form, you're losing money. You're losing money in the short term. You're gaining in the mid and long term. You're gaining a society that is acquiring all these technical tools and all this exploration of cultural identity. So that is the trade-off. And some of the best films that we know of have never won awards. So it is an investment, a midterm investment, a long-term investment, and that how is how I've seen it. And I'm also tremendously inspired. That's what's helped me going, if helped me keep going. If I weren't personally inspired, I would have quit a long time ago.

Jeff Ornstein 21:05

Tell me this, because you've been pretty candid about sharing, you had to find other ways to finance your life while you pursued the creation and the promotion of art, which included all of your voiceovers and your translation services and all the other ways that you've used your multi-talents linguistically and your voice, which is so distinctive. But you've also, at the same time, when you pursued the film part of your career, you've kind of really gone out of your way to create opportunities for young filmmakers. So what do you think it is about mentorship that it's become such an important role of your career while you're still facing your own challenges?

Walter Krochmal 21:49

It's a two way street. With this generation, mentorship must be a two way street because you can't talk to this generation as if they don't know anything. Because they're born with all this information at their fingertips. So you have to be on parity and you have to listen intensely. And we both need to listen intensely and take what we have from each other. So for me, creating opportunity, it goes all around. If I create opportunity, I don't know how that's going to come back to me. And it's not, that's not the reason why I do it. I just know that it does, and that I know that oftentimes many problems can be solved with the face-to-face conversation or a one-on-one conversation. So for me, mentorship is it's a two-way street. I'm learning as much as I'm teaching, and there's a lot of things I don't know. I'm not a filmmaker. People call me a filmmaker, but I'm not a filmmaker. I'm an actor, I'm a writer, I'm other things. I'm not going to call myself a filmmaker, but I'm certainly an organizer. I'm certainly a promoter. But ultimately, for me, what I receive is my finger on the pulse of that zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. I'm privileged to work with these young filmmakers who are often shut out. And I'm privileged from them to garner where the world is right now, where their generation is, thought-wise, and how that can make me better and more flexible because ultimately this is all about flexibility. Survival of the fittest is not about brute strength, it's about being supple.

Jeff Ornstein 23:37

So tell me this. Do you think that there's a challenge? Because of like what you just said, that young people are changing. They're changing the way the world feels about film as a craft. They've changed the way you feel about film as a craft. You're learning from them. What is the audience? What are the challenges about the audience? Do you think the audience has changed over time too? Their expectations?

Walter Krochmal 24:02

That's an interesting question. I mean, in the United States, one could certainly say over the arc of our lifetime, audiences have changed, standards have lowered on many levels, and certain narratives have taken roots and have become the formula. I can only say that we need to find new ways. We need to understand that the way it was is not even necessarily going to work anymore. There's so much decentralization, there's so much that we cannot possibly compete with. We're going to have to compete with handmade. We're going to have to compete with soulfulness and resourcefulness and a sense of what are the unconventional spaces that we can create where we can where we can still give each other that freedom and where possibly we can find ways to make it work financially. Although if you're betting on it, it's kind of a scary thing to bet on. You have to play a lot of different cards and have all your what I say, all your tools shiny and sharp and on display at all times.

Jeff Ornstein 25:18

Right. Well, Walter, as I knew, we've gone grossly over time. So because I love talking to you, I always have loved talking to you. But I want to ask you, because the Bronx World Film Festival is in fact the crucible for all of your talents and skills and passions and desires right now at this point in your life, it sounds like it. And all the hard work you're doing to get the um 501c status so that you can, you know, be more successful and take on other, you know, ventures that may not have been accessible to you without it. What would you hope for guests coming to the festival for the first time? What would you want their takeaway to be about the festival in summary?

Walter Krochmal 26:07

It would be the same thing as to your previous question. When I watch these films and I choose them, they touch me deeply. I go to the cinema or I go to the stage or I go to a concert. I do not want to emerge the same person that walked in. So, above all, what is really important is that when people leave an event, they're not the same person who walked in. If we can achieve that, then I think a lot of other things will come as a result of that, because people don't forget that sort of thing. That can be a life-altering experience. So that is what I'm hoping for. And I think a lot of what's coming to us is because that has been at the forefront of our programming, is that you don't walk out the same person.

Jeff Ornstein 27:02

Well, Walter, I got to wrap this up, but I want to say part of the mission statement for Next Act is persons on the brink of a legacy-defining moment. And I really think that's where we've caught you. I think where you're going to take your festival, where are you going to take all of the tidbits that you've collected throughout your career and your life, knowing how focused you've been on the theater are really going to pay off. And I wish you all the best. And if you've got the next before your film festival heirs, come back on the show, tell the audience what's going on, what they can expect to see, whether it's a Slovenia or Iranian or Peruvian or all the cavalcade of all the different cultures that you you feature. I'm sure the audience would love to hear about it.

Walter Krochmal 27:48

I'll make sure because we do have some interesting things coming up. All right. You have my number.

Jeff Ornstein 27:53

Thanks a lot, Walter. Take it easy. Hope to see you soon.