Monday night, in a major departure from history, The English Patient, an independent film made by Miramax, captured nine Oscar Awards. This year, the only one picture nominated for best picture was produced by a major film company. This lent many criticics inside and outside of Hollywood to call this year “The year of the independents”

If this is indeed the year of the independents, the words of Jessica Yu, an independent filmaker with Inscrutiable Films and winner of Best Documentary - Short Form accurately summed up what many independent productions have to deal with.

“I don’t know which cost more, the dress to wear to the awards or the film”, Yu laughed to a estimated television audience of one billion. Yu’s winning film Breathing Lessons: The life and times of Mark O’Brien.

The film received much of it’s budget from grants Yu wrote. Additional money was provided by Pacific News. “A great deal of the money was pocket money” Yu stated. The film took almost a year to complete and was premiered in December 1995.

One of those watching Monday night was O’Brien himself. “It was terrific that Jessica won,” stated Mark, in an interview on Tuesday afternoon.

And Monday night, while many winners and losers from the awards were going to sheik Hollywood parties, O’Brien was hosting a small party with eight to ten people in his apartment. O’Brien stated that one of the high points was when Jessica called after she won.

“I went to sleep quite late” O’Brien laughed.

Asked if there was any truth to the comments Yu stated about the production cost, O’Brien laughed, “It was just a joke, Jessica made her money back from Cinemax.”

Breathing Lessons is a half hour documentary of the life of Mark O’Brien, a journalist for Pacific News Service and poet who now lives in Berkeley, CA. O’Brien writings are works that are worthy of attention by themselves. But the source of O’Brien’s work take on a story of it’s own.

The film does cover many subjects with an offbeat view. O’Brien’s own writing is described as brutally honest, funny and from a refreshing point of view. Some of his stories, such as one that he wrote about seeing a sexual surrogate, which he candidly descibes in one of his stories. “I guess it’s an occupational hazard.” O’Brien joked when asked about his frank style of writing.

Breathing Lessons will be making it’s debut in Maine next Thursday. As part of Disability Awareness Days, the film will be shown at 7 pm at 100 Neville Hall.

One unique aspect of this showing is that there will be a phone connection established to talk with Mark, as he is unable to travel due to his dependence on an iron lung. This will be the first time any audience will be able to interact with Mr. O’Brien directly after a showing of a the documentary. “I feel like it’s an honor” O’Brien stated.

This article originally ran in the Maine Campus on 3/28/97.