The Story of Furious Pete to Debut at Hot Docs

Toronto filmmaker George Tsioutsioulas teamed up with Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht to unearth an amazing local story about Pete Czerwinski, also known as "Furious Pete."

Some few years ago, Czerwinski was hospitalized for an eating disorder not commonly linked to men: anorexia. Having dropped down to a frail 120 pounds with death at his door, Czerwinski pulled through, perhaps replacing one addiction with another.

From the extreme of not eating, to becoming a record-breaking competitive eater consuming 46 latkes in eight minutes, The Story of Furious Pete delves into Czerwinski's life in the world of competitive eating.

Shalom Life chatted with the filmmakers about their project and being accepted to the Hot Docs Film Festival.

You both have quite successful careers independently. Why have you decided to join forces?

George Tsioutsioulas: In life I believe in happy accidents. Igal and I were both working for the same production company I was producing and hosting a travel series called The Hospitality Guide and he was editing a show called Nite Life (which ironically is the name of a show that I hosted on Omni TV for 8 years). I don't think we talked much during that time because our schedules were different, but afterwards when we both went on to other things I got an email from him telling me about this web-based series he was working on called Fraudcast.ca. He said they needed a host so after I got the job, that's when we got to know each other better and I realized that he is just as crazy as I am when it comes to wanting to do everything! I knew it would be a good fit, so we started discussing different projects that we could work on together and here are we are today.

Igal Hecht: Once we realized that we were both crazy and passionate about producing content, it was a natural fit. George brings so much to the table and we both started thinking about projects. Our first venture was out in LA and then a few months later came Pete. To be honest, it was a wonderful break from the intense Jewish/Israel content I've dealt with for over ten years now. It also gave me an opportunity to showcase my skills and creativity with different content.

Looking at your resumes, your projects are quite different. As partners, how do you approach each project?

George: Whatever I am working on, I need be excited about it. If the project I'm working on is not interesting or compelling to me, then how is anybody else going to get excited over it? That's always been my approach and it's a simple one: love what you do and it's not work. With regards to the types of projects that Igal and I are gravitating towards these days, I think we've rubbed off on each other. I've been lucky enough to have some very cool career highs up until this point, but I have to say that producing and directing our latest documentary The Story of Furious Pete is easily one of the greatest things I've ever done. I'm very excited to share it with everybody and I'm proud to announce that it has been selected to have its world premiere at Hot Docs 2010, the biggest documentary film festival in the world!

Igal: When it comes to projects I have to feel passionate and excited about them, as George does. I've been privileged enough over the forty plus documentaries that I have been involved with in the last ten years to work on some amazing projects. But The Story of Furious Pete is by far one of the most exciting. We both knew from the start (though George knew more than anyone else) that this is an amazing story, and by the time we were done with post and submitted the film, we knew that people are going to be amazed, grossed out and really touched by this film. That made it that much more special. In terms of my approach to films, the motto of my career is that producing is producing. The basis of all production is the same. The main thing for me is having an amazing team to work with, where creativity is shared to create a brilliant film. In that sense George and myself are not that different. We are both passionate about the project, we both have high expectations of ourselves and everyone involved and we want to continue to produce compelling work that will entertain and inform at the same time, so working on The Story of Furious Pete was very easy.

As a collective, you produced Furious Pete -- again, a topic outside of your resume. How did this project come to you?

George: When I was hosting and producing my travel series The Hospitality Guide, I was travelling all over the world. One of the 'exotic' destinations I got to visit was Buffalo NY during their Buffalo Wing Festival, which is a two day festival devoted to people who really, really love wings. While I was there I got to see my first eating competition and I was hooked. I couldn't believe that these people were eating massive amounts of food in such a short amount of time. After that I knew I wanted to shoot a documentary about this crazy world of competitive eating. The more I researched, I realized that this 'sport' has a huge following and the characters involved in it are not that far removed from the world of wrestling. The thing that sealed the deal for me was when I came across a Canadian competitive eater named Furious Pete who was destroying records around the world. What made his story truly unique (and ironic) is that not only is he one of the greatest competitive eaters in the world - he is a also a former anorexic! That's when the light bulb when off in my head and I realized I had to make this documentary.

Igal: When he realized he had to make the documentary, he contacted me and we went up to Hamilton to shoot the demo. After watching Pete eat a four-pound burrito in 38 seconds, I realized there was something here.

What type of projects do you hope to produce in the future?

George: We have quite a few interesting projects that we are discussing right now, and I have to say that they are all very different. As I said before, if I'm excited about what I'm creating then I like to think that there's got to be others out there that will be as well.

Igal: To add to that, the projects vary from unique to serious, to some that are even political. We both have different interests and it helps us to bring various topics/ideas that we want to explore.

You both have your own companies will you produce projects separately?

George: Right now, The Story of Furious Pete is taking on a life of its own and requires our full attention. In fact, I just came across an article in Toronto Life where they said our film is one of the top five documentaries to watch out for. That's pretty cool! Aside from everything that comes with promoting, marketing and selling this film, we are also actively growing our company G.I. Productions that specializes in everything from film & TV production to corporate promotional videos and special event coverage, so I think everything else is taking a backseat right now. We are realizing that there just ain’t enough hours in the day to do everything.

Igal: The main focus right now is G.I. Productions. We want to grow and create compelling content for film and television and we both hope that we continue to achieve that.

For a look at the official trailer for The Story of Furious Pete as well as G.I. Production's website:

http://www.furiouspetedocumentary.com/

http://www.giproductions.ca/

For Hot Docs info and to purchase tickets:

http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/the_story_of_furious_pete