He was as much a father as a grandfather to me," he continued. "But I took for granted that he would be around forever. Life got in the way of visits, phone calls and letters... until it was too late." Ball and Vase" is "Oscar-qualified," and has already been screened for Academy Award voters in Los Angeles and New York, according to Baram, who noted that his film is less than 40 minutes long, which qualifies it in the Academy' Best Short Film category. Ed, the character partly inspired by Baram's grandfather, is a 92-year-old former magician. The film tells the story of two days in what has become his simple and rather lonely life. Also, he was best man at the wedding of magician and illusionist Criss Angel, a Las Vegas headliner who has starred in several television specials.

Baram described "Ball and Vase" as "a very small story, but one that organically touches upon the universal themes of aging, loss and abandonment that we are all sometimes hesitant to face head on. I really wanted the viewer to spend longer moments with Ed and feel the emotional state that he was going through," said Baram.In our culture, the elderly, especially those without means, are often marginalized," he added. "A significant percentage of Americans over 80 live in nursing homes, alone and often forgotten.

Sadly, our (film) industry often reflects this marginalization," Baram said. "Casting this film highlighted a poignant example."And Baram knows a lot about magic. He is a magician whose recent show is based on accounts about a high society woman in who hosted parlor magic shows in 1895. Baram said that "a very well-known actor in his 80s expressed a strong desire to play Ed, but only if the part could be rewritten as 70 years old." Apparently, playing his real age would only further reinforce the perception he was now too old for the industry to which he devoted over 60 years.

It is so easy for many of us to forget that they still share the same longings for connection, love, curiosity for life, desires for growth as any young adult, but the opportunities afforded the younger are often nonexistent for the elderly. Baram wanted Pendleton to play Ed after seeing him in "Starring Austin Pendelton," a short film billed as a documentary film about "the most famous actor you've never heard of." Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Olympia Dukakis, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ethan Hawke are also featured in the film. I've been wanting to tell this story ever since my grandfather passed away," explained David Baram, the writer and director of "Ball and Vase." "Like Ed in this film, my grandfather, a sometimes magician, immigrated to Paterson, New Jersey, worked in the mills and did his best to provide for those he loved. Austin Pendleton, whose movie credits include "What's Up Doc?," "My Cousin Vinny," "Catch-22" and "Guarding Tess," stars as Ed in the film. Like anything I write, there is a group of influences," he said. "My grandfather definitely was one of them. He was a relatively quiet and humble guy, but in his own way was the strength of our extended family."We get so busy and absorbed in our own challenges and difficult lives that it becomes easy to forget they were important in our lives," said Baram. Ball and Vase" was named after the classic illusion where a ball vanishes and then magically reappears. In the movie, it plays a symbolic role when Ed decides to "reappear" at one of the places he used to frequent.