Montclair's Dennis Connors Catches His Dream and Makes an Award-Winning Film

While sitting on the deck in his flower-filled backyard on an early July afternoon, still photographer Dennis Connors, a Montclair resident for thirty years, recounted how he made his long-desired leap from photography to filmmaking. To his delight, he landed three awards for his first short documentary "Breaking Boundaries: The Art of Alex Masket."

The film is about then 22-year-old Alex, an extraordinarily talented artist who is severely autistic and functionally non-verbal. It received the Director's Choice Award at the 29th Black Maria Film Festival in February 2010. "Breaking Boundaries" was screened this May at the New York City Downtown Short Film Festival, having been selected by audience vote. And then Connors won Next Great Filmmaker Award  at the Berkshire International Film Festival in June. Three wins were more than beginner's luck.

A series of incidents spurred Connors to delve into film. In 2006, he attended an  Emerging Filmmaker's Festival in Montclair that strongly impressed him. All the films were short, under an hour in length. At a panel discussion, he ran into film editor friends with whom he ended up having dinner with the next week.

Shortly after that, he unexpectedly crossed paths with an acquaintance, a photography director for documentaries, who was supportive of his interest in filmmaking. Connors took this sequence of events as signs of encouragement for him to fulfill his wish to make movies. "This planted a seed in my head. It coincided with a period in my life when I was getting in my own way," said Connors, 57. "I wanted to do this in college and never did ... thought it was getting too late. Then I realized, so what if I'm older, and I decided to do it."

He had just two years of college behind him, from 1970-1972, as a photography major at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Originally from Argentina, he returned there after his sophomore year, prompted by his interest in photography. His family had left Buenos Aires when he was a toddler for the South Shore of Massachusetts, where he was raised.

Anne Marie Heinrich, Connors' aunt, was a very well known celebrity portrait photographer in his birth country: her work appeared on the covers of South American movie magazines the equivalent of America's People Magazine. She specialized, among other things, in photographing the American Ballet Theater dancers each time they performed in Argentina. From the 1930s to the 1960s, she was popular throughout Europe. 

Connors went back to  Buenos Aires in 1973 to work in his aunt's studio. She gave him a chance to study with her, a master of the trade, which was an experience that two more years of college couldn't equal for him at that time in his life. Not long after the death of Juan Peron, he returned to the United States in 1975.

Connors spent the first ten years in his field as a photographer's assistant. Until the mid-1980s, he worked in that capacity in various industries such as fashion, food, and cars. "I probably assisted more fashion photographers than anything else. I liked the hours but wasn't interested in clothes," he explained. He didn't like the social druggie party aspect that came with that world, either. 

Of wedding photography, Connors says, "I don't do windows and I don't do weddings." He knows there's money to be made photographing matrimonial occasions, but it's not his labor of love. Still life and portrait photography are what he enjoys most. In the fall of 2007, he enrolled in the filmmaking program at Montclair State University to finish his degree.

The unique opportunity to make the film about Alex Masket came from a graphic artist client of Connors. She was enthralled by Alex's work and told Connors that it had to be documented. She wanted him to catalogue Alex's creations just when Connors was starting film school. He began talking with Alex's parents who are part of a community of families with autistic young adults. Connors became interested in the difficult issues they were confronted with, but realized that making a film that heavily embraced their concerns would be about autism. He wanted to focus on Alex as an artist. "I didn't want to make it a pity party," he said. I decided to make it about a kid who makes incredible art work and who happens to be autistic." 

Watching Alex create his abstract art, using Peel 'N' Stick letters and numbers and color pens on large canvasses, and seeing him craft compositions with Lego blocks, was fascinating for Connors. He was struck by how free and spontaneous Alex was in the way he worked on each piece he produced. 

Alex is fortunate to have parents with the ability and insight to provide him with the kinds of materials and help that he needs. He is unable to care for himself and requires round-the-clock supervision. Even so, Connors feels Alex is giving back to society because of the quality of his art work. One Gallery, in Newark, showcased Alex's art from October 2009 through June 2010. "I would think that people in the art community would have a lot of interest in his work. Artists like Jackson Pollack and DeKooning worked so hard ... and this is what he breathes," Connors said.

Alex's art is bold and colorful. If one looks closely, he can see that the Peel 'N' Stick numbers and letters and the colors are often arranged in patterns that reappear in different places on a particular piece. Alex works with intention and is fully concentrating as he places his materials where he wants them or uses his color pens to cover the canvasses. It's worth going to his Web site at www.alexmasket.com to view his amazing images.

With a limited vocabulary of only 20-30 words, it's apparent that Alex communicates through his art and that it gives him immense satisfaction. The evolution of his work, the positive relationships he has with family members, and commentary about his designs from art connaisseurs are chronicled throughout the 18- minute film which was made from the summer of 2008 to the fall of 2009.

Making a film about someone with a disability has readjusted Connors' idea of what it means to be a human being: "It's so easy to avoid interacting with people who are disabled. People shouldn't be afraid .. it's not like they are contagious," he said.

Diane Moser of Montclair, band leader of Diane Moser's Composers Big Band  and Connors' friend for many years, composed the jazz music for Breaking Boundaries. Four local musicians from the band volunteered to play the score for the film, sans pay. Connors plans to make his next documentary about Moser.

Breaking Boundaries is not currently available on DVD. If an organization wishes to arrange a screening, Connors may be contacted through his Web site at www.dennisconnors.com 

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