When writer/director Victor Fanucchi was thinking about what kind of movie to make next, having made short films about dramatic structure, fairy tales, doll metaphysics and post-apocalypse relationships, it made sense to turn to the subject of academia for two reasons. As a lecturer in the screenwriting program at the University of Michigan, Fanucchi is surrounded by academics and gets to experience certain aspects of the life without actually being an academic himself. And second, academic friends constantly urged him to make a film that realistically captured what it's like to be a college professor. Realizing how boring that would be, Fanucchi decided instead to make Beyond the Pale, a comedy feature about "la vida loca," "the lifestyle," or "this thing"-all commonly used terms for the academic way of life.