On the set of the short film version of PRESSURE DROP, to avoid having the actors drift off into random Shakespeare soliloquies, traditional Native-American "sweet grass" (a pungent, legal, non psychoactive rope-like fiber) was used in place of real pot in all smoking scenes.

Mina Bern and Felix Fibich, stars of the short version of PRESSURE DROP, are veterans of New York's legendary Second Avenue/Lower East Side theater district, having performed there and across the world together and individually in Yiddish films and plays for over fifty years.

Ezra Soiferman's late grandfather, Beryl Pofelis, on whom PRESSURE DROP is partly based, lost his vision from glaucoma in his late eighties. After seeing the short, Ezra's grandmother told the filmmaker she regretted not having known about the marijuana treatment earlier. Whether or not he would have taken the stuff is another story.

Pressure Drop Club member, RAJNEESH, was played by Avtar Singh in the short. Avtar was cast for the role at Mughul E Azam, a traditional Indian restaurant in New York's Little India, where he would sit in the windowsill playing his shurenghi to the delight of hundreds of satisfied customers three nights a week. Recent attempts at tracking down Avtar in New York have proven fruitless and we urge anyone who knows his whereabouts to leave a message at the Feedback section.

One production company, which shall go unnamed, politely declined involvement in PRESSURE DROP saying that they found the film "too ethnic and too soft." The same has been said of the bagel, a world-famous bread-roll delicacy which has just been added to the menu at Dunkin' Donuts shops across the nation.

The short film version of PRESSURE DROP has, according to recent reports, become a cult classic in Ohio, with bootleg video dubs of the film floating around college campuses like the plague. Thank you to all PD fans in Ohio.

The title "Pressure Drop" comes from the reggae song of the same name by Toots & The Maytals, one of Jamaica's legendary reggae bands. Backstage, at a concert at Tramps in NYC, Toots was given a copy of the short film to take back to Kingston. In exchange, he offered the film's producers an autographed poster and blessed the film with "peace and many blessing."

At a senior citizens center screening of the short in Montreal, members of the audience were fascinated by the concept of marijuana as medicine and after the screening began a rather animated discussion with their group leader about the potential rewards of such a treatment. One member of the audience lamented, "I wish my husband was still around, we could have had lots of fun doing the marijuana together."

Chances are, most people you know are aware of marijuana being used as medicine in the treatment of diseases including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and many others...but do they know about PRESSURE DROP? We think it's time you told them. They'd probably want to know. If they don't know about marijuana as medicine, send them to pressuredrop.com anyhow, and please, let us know their reaction.

You can spot Mina Bern, who plays IDA POTASHNER in the short film version of PRESSURE DROP, in the following films: AVALON, LITTLE ODESSA and IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.

W. Benson Terry, who plays SLIM (the founder of the Pressure Drop Club) in the short, was featured in Paramount Pictures' FORREST GUMP in the role of the captain of the Bubba Gump Shrimp boat.

It is estimated that if frequent flyer miles were given to film prints travelling to film festivals, the short film version of PRESSURE DROP would have enough points to take a free flight anywhere in the continental United States.

PRESSURE DROP, the short, can be booked for screening at your school, office, film festival, library or community center. Please address all inquiries to Mensch Films at the Feedback section of this site.

No animals were hurt in the making of the short film version of PRESSURE DROP, or of the PRESSURE DROP Web Site. However, a small herd of unicorns will be sacrificed on the first day of principle photography of the feature. For real!? NO. Not at all. Everybody knows, people who love PRESSURE DROP also love unicorns.