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In a decade of making documentary films, Bob Leff thought he had seen it all. He was wrong. The Cottage Grove filmmaker had never before run up against both a New York agent and a Hollywood producer who saw him as a competitor.

Leff, whose new documentary, "Frank Lloyd Wright and his Inner Circle: A Grandson's View," is just out on DVD, spent many hours in 2006 interviewing Wright's grandson, Brandoch Peters, for the film.

The interviews went well and Leff was pleased. But Peters had a literary agent in Manhattan who on hearing about the film, angrily told Leff the movie would compete with the book manuscript, a memoir, that Peters had written.

"That scared me," Leff was saying Monday.

Leff had also received permission from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to use some still photographs from its collection. Some time later, the Foundation said that as a courtesy, Leff should call a producer in Hollywood who was working on a Wright project herself, a dramatized version of the famed architect's life.

"Who do you see in the lead role?" Leff asked, when they connected.

"Tom Hanks," the producer said.

Leff explained that he was making a documentary based largely on interviews with Wright's grandson. The producer then shocked him by insisting she had exclusive film rights to the Foundation's photos and that Leff could not use them.

"I believed her," Leff said.

In the end, both the agent and the producer were appeased -- the Foundation photos are in the documentary -- but Leff can tick off any number of reasons why this film, his sixth, was the hardest and most expensive of his career. Photos outside the Foundation were hard to find; permission to film at Taliesin was slow in coming; and nearing the finish line, the video storage drive in his computer crashed.

It's a good thing Leff, 67, is a retired clinical psychologist. He could counsel himself to take a deep breath.

Leff was born in New York City and retains a bit of an East Coast accent even though he moved here in 1967 to work at the Wisconsin Children's Treatment Center on Lake Mendota's north shore.

"I had never been west of New Jersey," he said.

A projected short stay has now become four decades. Leff had always had an artistic streak. His father, Sam Leff, was a staff cartoonist for the United Feature Syndicate and drew the comic strip "Joe Jinks," eventually changing the strip's title to the name of another character, "Curly Kayoe."

As a psychologist, Bob had been involved in making training films and enjoyed the experience. When he retired in 1996, he thought he might try his hand at documentaries. Leff was blessed in not knowing how much he didn't know. He had passion, an artistic eye, and good advice from a friend to choose a subject that was close to his heart. Leff, who loved fishing, bought a digital camcorder and headed north.

The result, which surfaced in 1998, was "The Old Masters of Musky Hunting," distilled from 39 hours of interviews with colorful northern Wisconsin fishing guides. It was a modest hit, airing on Wisconsin Public Television and spawning a sequel.

For the fishing film, Leff had interviewed former Chicago Tribune reporter Tom Hallatz, who had written a book, "Gangster Holidays," based on John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson's adventures in northern Wisconsin. In 2001, Leff produced a documentary based on Hallatz's book. He interviewed Emil Wanatka, whose father owned the Little Bohemia Resort in Manitowish Waters where the Dillinger gang narrowly escaped capture by the FBI. As an 8-year-old, Emil had played cards with Nelson.

This week, Leff said the forthcoming Johnny Depp-as-Dillinger movie, "Public Enemies," has sparked interest in Leff 's documentary, enough that he recently transferred it from video to DVD. He 's sold 200 in the past couple of months and orders keep coming in. (For more information on Leff's films, write Video Art Productions, P.O. Box 44, McFarland, WI 53558 or e-mail vapbob@juno.com.)

The idea for the Wright film came after reading a Wisconsin State Journal interview with Brandoch Peters in 2003. Leff was struck by the grandson 's unique perspective and arranged a lunch. Peters shared his book manuscript (still unpublished) with the filmmaker and agreed to a series of wide-ranging interviews. Peters talks about why he thinks Wright has been misunderstood by critics and biographers; he speaks of his parents, William Wesley Peters and Svetlana Wright Peters; of Taliesin, the apprentices and much more.

Meanwhile, Bob Leff, for the first time in a decade, does not have an idea for a new film. Some sort of Dillinger sequel might not be a bad idea. A resort owner told him recently: "Gangsters are going to be hot in Wisconsin for at least a couple of years."