By Gail Folda
Lincoln
attorney Jim Hoppe and his wife Mary just returned from the 2010
Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah where they were invited to
attend the premiere of Lucky, a documentary film about lottery
winners. Directed by Jeffrey Blitz, the film features Lincoln’s own
Quang Dao, one of eight Con Agra plant workers who won the $356 Million
Powerball lottery in February 2006.
Hoppe got his own lucky break four years ago. One Sunday afternoon when
his wife needed some time alone to study for an exam, he headed down to
his law office in Lincoln’s Haymarket district. While there, Hoppe
received a phone call from Mr. Dao setting up an appointment for the
next day. He wasn’t told what the meeting was about and didn’t find out
until eight individuals filed into his office and informed him that he
would be the lawyer for the lottery winners.
Welch and Blitz told Hoppe that they were interested in making a movie about lottery winners. Hoppe, a film buff, loved the Spellbound documentary and pitched
the film idea to his clients. David Gehle, Quang Dao and Dung Tran were
all interested in becoming a part of the project.
Quang Dao is the only lottery winner from Nebraska included in the
documentary. Hoppe, an amateur photographer, shot footage during Dao’s
trip to his native Vietnam after his lottery win.
Hoppe said going to Vietnam, “Was like a homecoming, I guess. It was a great thing to see Dao’s emotional reunion with his father after not seeing him for a long time.”
Hoppe’s footage made it into the film along with a couple “talking head” sequences with the lawyer.
“I was the big, fleshy-faced dude from Nebraska the producer introduced to the audience (at the premiere),” Hoppe said.
The film has been getting positive reviews.
IFC.com’s headline reads, “Blitz hits the jackpot with Lucky.”
The Sundance website, containing an accumulation of critic’s reviews, gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
A Variety article had this to say: “On the more fortunate end of
the spectrum are Quang and Mai Dao, Nebraska-based Vietnamese
immigrants who scored $22.1 million…yet continue to uphold their basic
values and traditions—Mai still grows her own vegetables—even with a
significant lifestyle upgrade…”
Lucky features lottery winners from all over the U.S., but Dao’s
story was particularly poignant. After he won, Dao gave a large amount
of his winnings to a Buddhist temple in Lincoln. He also built homes
for his children, as well as his father and other relatives in Vietnam.
Mary Hoppe, a BryanLGH employee, said that there were many teary eyes
by the end of the film, largely due to the subject matter and hard work
the filmmakers put into it.
“We came to like these people (the filmmakers) so much. We were pulling for them,” she said.
In addition to Lucky, Blitz’s feature film Rocket Science
was shown at Sundance a few years ago. Blitz also directed several
episodes of the popular television show “The Office” and won a 2009
Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for “The Office”
episode, “Stress Relief.” After the Lucky premiere, Jim Hoppe teased the director, “You’re Mr. Entertainment. I used to think it was Joey Bishop, but now, it’s you.”
Lucky has yet to find a distributor, but as soon as it does,
producer Sean Welch is set on showing it at the Mary Riepma Ross Media
Arts Center in Lincoln.
“We want the people of Lincoln to see it!” Welch wrote in an email.
Welch spent three months in Lincoln shooting film of the lottery
winners. In his downtime, he frequented The Mill, The Oven and Grateful
Bread. Welch loved Grateful Bread’s Moroccan tomato soup so much, he
convinced the chef to give him the recipe.
Between screenings of Lucky, the Hoppes holed themselves up in
Welch’s condo along with Blitz, film editor Yana Gorskaya and their
partners, playing the board game “Battle of the Sexes.”
“The women won,” Mary Hoppe said.
The Hoppes also hit the streets of Park City and took photos of some of
the celebrities who attended the festival. But the Hoppes’ best
experience, besides seeing the film, was reuniting with Welch.
"It was great to have Mary and Jim Hoppe with us at Sundance. I
connected well with them during my nearly three month stay in Lincoln
and we enjoyed our reconnection in Park City. I hope to see them again
soon," Welch said of the couple.
As lucky as their Sundance trip was, Jim says he’s not much of a
gambler. He bought a lottery ticket once when Powerball first came to
Nebraska “to see what a lottery ticket looked like.”
He and Mary also received lottery tickets that were handed out to moviegoers at the premiere.
No one has stepped up as a lucky winner yet.
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