Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Frederick Keeve. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Frederick , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

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).

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.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

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, agism, 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).
I also organized and implemented two road shows for 100 actors in Salt Lake City with noted Hollywood Talent Agents and Casting Directors through my company HollywoodPresents! I also completed a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology in 2016. The published dissertation entitled A Phenomenological Study of the Experience of Humanist, Spiritual and Transpersonal Films on Positive Organizational Behaviors in the Workplace was lauded as masterful phenomenological, qualitative research.
One recently completed feature film that I am very proud of, The Godfather Buck, an adventure family drama, making the Fall awards season rounds, and 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 upcoming is the faith-based feature film Letters from Heaven that has been in development for over two decades and at one time had an A-list actor and director attached to the project. This project pitched as Ghost meets The Notebook is slated to be filmed in the Fall of 2025 in Louisiana. Also on the docket 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.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was making a movie entitled The Accompanist. It was entirely funded by myself, and at one point, I sold my Rolex for $10,000 to help finish the film. It began as a short film, because although I had an award-winning feature screenplay, we did not have the money to make a feature. However, once we finished filming the short, the Director of Photography, Jesse, and the Editor, Daniel, said, “Look, Frederick, you have some beautiful footage here, and you have a fantastic feature script. There’s 65 minutes already filmed, so why don’t you just continue next month, find that extra money, and finish up the film and make a feature. You’re almost there.”

So, based on the encouragement from my creative collaborators, I believe we finished the short in August, then I went back with my lead actors in October, and we filmed the rest of the screenplay that I had left out to film the short–all the “juicy” emotional scenes, intimate scenes, the drama and conflict that fleshed out the gay love story and the story of a pianist (myself), who was able to send people back in time through my piano music to where they needed to be healed the most. When those scenes were completed I went back to my editor and we incorporated these into the short film and somehow through alchemy, just a bit of luck, timing and fortitude and determination–we were able to complete a beautiful feature film (96 minutes in length) that sold at Cannes, sold all across Europe, that was picked up Domestic distribution and English-speaking countries through Dark Star Pictures, and then went on to win many, many awards at prestigious film festivals as well.

This film, five years later, is still available on all the digital viewing platforms for audiences to enjoy.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

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.

It’s not about being rich or famous, but about as award-winning actress Jessica Lange says, “Doing good work. That has been the goal of my career from the beginning.” And my mentor, Gregory Peck, who starred (the Narrator) in my first feature length film From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff, would always say when asked what we do as Creatives: “We are storytellers.” That’s what we do–whether through dance, music, acting, performance art, or as screenwriters, directors, producers–through whatever medium–TV, Film, Theatre, etc. our goal is storytelling. And doing it in a way that enlightens and also entertains audiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: N/A (in process)
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fkeeve/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frederick.keeve
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickkeeve/
• Other: I have three solo piano CDs on Apple Music and other platforms.

Image Credits

Christopher Marino