Becoming Family strengthens bonds

His first film, the documentary Becoming Family, which he wrote and directed, will be released on DVD by Cinevolve Dec. 16 (prebook Nov. 18; $14.95).

For Becoming Family, a documentary about a relief trip by doctors to Sri Lanka six months after the 2004 tsunami, Strecker filled a variety of roles, including the camera work and editing, in addition to producing, writing and directing.

Strecker went to Sri Lanka with Dr. Rahmi Mowjood, a friend from college in Southern California. Mowjood, a Muslim American, was taking a team of doctors and other helpers on a relief trip to the country where he lived until he was 1 year old.

As it turned out, Becoming Family had a surprise subplot. During the trip, Mowjood announced he was bringing a woman he had met earlier in Sri Lanka into his actual family by marrying her.

The film was a family affair in other ways as well. The camera used to shoot the documentary was loaned by another member of the extended Video Business family—Bob Elliott, husband of VB account executive Andi Elliott.

It took Strecker a year and a half to make the film. He had 40 hours of footage, which took two weeks just to log in. When he finally had a rough cut, Strecker screened the film for a focus group, which gave him some good ideas to improve the film.

When he had a final cut, he took it to film festivals. It won the Top Applause award at the International Family Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Having met his goal of winning an award, Strecker took the film to distributors, making a deal with Arik Treston, co-founder and CEO of Cinevolve Studios, to release the film on DVD. Strecker believes Cinevolve will do what’s needed to be a good home for the film.

Strecker says that although he believes Becoming Family will at least break even, making money with it was never the ultimate goal.

“It’s nice to know the movie will be out there,” he says. “That’s important to me.”