Meet Frederick Keeve | Filmmaker and Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Frederick Keeve and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Frederick, putting aside the decision to work for yourself, what other decisions were critical to your success?
I was supporting a family as a teacher and high school counselor. This was my day job. But my mission in life, and my “sacred path,” was that of an artist and a creative–primarily through working in film. When I started as an actor in my 30s, although I loved acting and actors, I found that it was so competitive that I had to find a way to distinguish myself from all the other white, male actors in my age range. Also, the roles that I would go out for or be cast in were not leading roles, which I wanted, and they were sometimes not a good fit for particular “essence” qualities as a human being and as an actor. So, through intention and a series of circumstances with some good timing and luck involved I became an award-winning filmmaker. I knew that I could be a storyteller, and that would get me a lot further in my career, as I could write the stories, cast them, produce them and have more control over the creative process, rather than waiting for the phone to ring or find myself as just a “cog” in the machine and imagination of some else’s vision. I took control of my career, and it has changed my life. I have been working as a producer, writer, director, actor, composer on various film and theatre projects over the last 30 years and have won many awards for the creation of beautiful, artistic award-winning films (both short and feature films).

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I truly believe that what I have to offer as a filmmaker and a creative is truly unique, and what I do in synthesizing and creating original material and producing this for the screen (and in television and theatre) is something that I can do at a very high artistic level not only winning many awards (actor, director, producer, writer, composer, and so on), but have the ambition to win at least two Oscars–my aim is high and I am on my way to achieving that goal. I should clarify that my overriding goal is to do “good work” whatever form that takes–either in films, television or theatre. Thirty years ago I began filming my first feature film–a feature documentary that took me a total of seven years to finish (released in 2002) with many Academy award-winning and nominated actors and directors. The doc was entitled “From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff” and it not only was favorably reviewed in “Variety,” but through my association with great artists and storytellers like Gregory Peck, it changed not only the trajectory of my career, but also changed and developed me as a human being.
My life’s mission is to develop and produce highly conscious films, plays, screenplays, and music albums that reflect not only the diversity in society today, but also the need to evolve “Hollywood” into more of a conscious conduit for great storytelling that entertains but can also enlighten and uplift audiences. My recent award-winning feature film, The Accompanist, released through Dark Star Pictures, shines a spotlight on the “healing power of art to unite and celebrate who we are.” As an artistic visionary, I deliver music, screenplays, plays and films that enlighten audiences as exemplified in The Accompanist–the story addresses themes of gay romance, family tragedy, ageism, sexism, domestic abuse, loss, redemption, magic, and healing all within the backdrop of classical ballet and music, and my own original piano score.
For me personally, I endeavor to shine my own inner awakening through the music, films, screenplays, plays and stories that I write, direct, produce, create and disseminate into the world. I’m a “way shower” and “speaker” breaking down old paradigms and constructs in the world to create a visceral experience in film much like the shamans or Greek tragedians did in past eras. My goal is to “re-write” the “Old Hollywood,” and bring it up to speed with the changes in global consciousness that are occurring on our planet as we speak. There is a new “golden age” of cinema, television, and theatre, and I want to be at the forefront of it with original stories that not only entertain but show the way to a more conscious planet.
I have been performing music, writing, acting, and making films for most of his adult life. I produced, wrote, directed and composed the score for my first feature length film, From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff, featuring many legendary Hollywood stars such as Gregory Peck, Jack Palance, Anthony Quinn, Leslie Caron, Beatrice Straight, Robert Stack, Patricia Neal and many more. I wrote the book, music and lyrics for the original musical Three: Songs from the Heart, produced under the auspices of the Festival of New American Musicals, directed by Broadway favorite Lance Roberts, and starring Broadway veterans Marcus Choi (Hamilton) and Eileen Graf (She Loves Me, Bye Bye Birdie).
One recently completed feature film that I am very proud of, The Godfather Buck, an adventure family drama, was released in 2022 by Gravitas Ventures. Previously I completed a feature film, The Accompanist, a fantasy/drama gay love story, that garnered over 35 international film festival awards. I am also a producer and writer on a six-episode mini-series event The Girl from Hollywood as well as the stand-alone sequel to The Accompanist, The Accompanist Awakening, to be filmed in 2025.
The Accompanist garnered acclaim at film festivals around the world, and my upcoming film, the stand-alone sequel, The Accompanist Awakening, continues the story of lovers Jason and Brandon, two years later. The theme of the second film is about “karma,” and the tag line reflects this: “Sometimes doing the right thing means giving up what you love most.” I not only wrote, directed, produced and starred in the original film, but used much of my own original piano music for the score. We filmed the dance sequences at Westside Ballet in Santa Monica where my daughters grew up dancing and where I worked as a piano accompanist. My love of classical ballet and classical music and wanting to bring these art forms back into the mass cinematic consciousness is reflected in The Accompanist.
I am a doer–I get things done, like any good producer. If I need to work 18-plus hour days for 18 months like I did to make The Accompanist, then I give myself fully to that responsibility. My purpose is to raise the consciousness of the planet and film is my “light saber”… bringing darkness to the light and shifting paradigms that will allow cinema to bridge where our world is now, to what I envision as “enlightened cinema and theatre.” I also wanted to portray gay relationships more realistically, not the “Hollywood” version, and address themes of love and loss, and show a family dealing with tragedy and grief.
I am so grateful that audiences have embraced my film, The Accompanist. Through my stellar sales agents and distributor, The Accompanist is available to audiences in every corner of the globe. In my upcoming film, The Accompanist Awakening, music again is a magic tool, a way to not only send people back in time to heal them “where they need to be healed the most,” but also to open the heart chakra of humanity using “key signatures” of my original piano music and through the stories, dance and visual images in this upcoming film.
Among my latest projects is The Godfather Buck, a completed feature film, released in 2022, the upcoming The Accompanist Awakening, the prestige short film, Jimmy Comes Marching Home, the classic feature film Salome: A Love Story, and Back to the Heart, a documentary about a live performance of my improvised piano music, where I am not only actor, but pianist and performer creating music for three ballet pieces with six exquisite dancers. Also coming up for me is the 6-episode mini-series event, The Girl from Hollywood, adapted from a classic Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp fiction novel, where I endeavor to break down boundaries and stereotypes and bring to the big and small screen characters larger-than-life mythical attributes that are also very vulnerable and real as well.
The Girl from Hollywood is very much in the vein of the decadent 1920s era classic American novel The Great Gatsby transported to 1925 Hollywood coming head-to-head with a revisionist western on Colonel Pennington’s estate in the northwest end of the Valley. In The Godfather Buck, I endeavor as producer, writer, and lead actor, to not only explore “men and masculinity” in this modern age, but deal with difficult subjects such as sexual abuse, homophobia, racism, misogyny, and other relevant social and cultural issues.
I try as an artist and spiritual being, to unplug from the “mass consciousness,” and put myself into a spiritual space of expanded light. A good friend said to me recently, “better than a prophet is a good screenwriter.” Let’s “rewrite” Hollywood, like any good screenwriter could, to be that conduit for the enlightenment of the audiences that seek entertainment and deliver a “conscious” story through producers, writers, directors, actors, musicians, dancers and composers such as ourselves will embrace fully.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I grew up in Santa Monica, and now live in the Hollywood Hills, but I’m definitely a child of the “Westside” of Los Angeles. My mom and stepdad worked with the Sierra Club and other local and state environmental organizations, so the outdoors, trail work, and the environment were very important to my family and to myself. One little know fact is that Los Angeles is the only major city in the world that has a contiguous mountain range “attached” to the city–the Santa Monica Mountains. Although there have been some recent severe fires in the Los Angeles area, I would definitely find some nature spots to go hiking–maybe Solstice Canyon, Leo Carrillo State Beach, for good food and great smoothies, the Malibu Village, and for environmental restoration, a walk across the street to Malibu State Beach and then a two-mile work along the ocean past the storied homes in the “Malibu Colony” enjoying a “semi-private” beach and some beautiful ocean environs. Favorite restaurants are (also duly noted as the most romantic restaurant in Los Angeles) the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga, and then in the Palisades the spiritual center that we brought our four young children to when they were young and a beacon of guidance and natural beauty–the Self-Realization Fellowship in the Palisades with a beautiful lake, waterfall, swans, and a memorial with some of Gandhi’s ashes interned there–Gandhi was an admirer of the great Paramahansa Yogananda who in the 1920s, 100 years ago, founded the Self-Relationship Fellowship, passing on the sacred Kriya Yoga for those that wanted to follow along that spiritual path. This is just a small sample of what our guest for a week would experience–and much, much more!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would like to dedicate my success and my story to my four children (now successful adults in their own lives): Alexander, Natalie, Anna, and Lilli. They are my inspiration and have helped shape me into the man that I am today.

Website: N/A (under revision)

Instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fkeeve/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickkeeve/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frederick.keeve

Other: I use Instagram mostly, and my Insta account rolls over to my Facebook.

Image Credits
Christopher Marino