Manchester Film Festival (March 15-24) has unveiled its industry talks line-up with Oscar-nominated director Waad Al-Kateab and executives from Curzon Film and Altitude Film Entertainment among the speakers.
Al-Kateab - a 2020 Oscar nominee, and Bafta and Bifa winner for her documentary For Sama - will close the programme with an in-conversation session before screening her latest film We Dare To Dream, which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival last year.
Discussing the current UK film landscape will be Curzon’s head of theatrical sales Jamie Mendonca; Bulldog’s head of distribution and acquisitions Philip Hoile; Altitude’s head of publicity Mark Jones...
Al-Kateab - a 2020 Oscar nominee, and Bafta and Bifa winner for her documentary For Sama - will close the programme with an in-conversation session before screening her latest film We Dare To Dream, which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival last year.
Discussing the current UK film landscape will be Curzon’s head of theatrical sales Jamie Mendonca; Bulldog’s head of distribution and acquisitions Philip Hoile; Altitude’s head of publicity Mark Jones...
- 2/23/2024
- ScreenDaily
Diana Kerew, an Emmy-winner television producer, died at her home in Glendale on Nov. 25 following a battle with cancer. She was 81.
Kerew executive produced more than 60 movies and miniseries for television, achieving success in the male-dominated entertainment industry and paving the way for other female producers as a mentor.
Kerew started off as a reader for David Susskind’s Talent Associates; she then became the first female producer at the company. Working for Talent Associates and later Time-Life Television as an executive producer, she worked on 16 films and miniseries. Some of these projects included the Emmy-nominated “Blind Ambition,” starring Martin Sheen, the Emmy-nominated and Peabody winner “The Wall,” and “The Bunker” which earned Anthony Hopkins an Emmy for acting.
Kerew briefly served as executive producer and vice president of television for Highgate Pictures before starting her own production company. Transitioning to focus on children’s programming, Kerew worked on several ABC “Afterschool Specials.
Kerew executive produced more than 60 movies and miniseries for television, achieving success in the male-dominated entertainment industry and paving the way for other female producers as a mentor.
Kerew started off as a reader for David Susskind’s Talent Associates; she then became the first female producer at the company. Working for Talent Associates and later Time-Life Television as an executive producer, she worked on 16 films and miniseries. Some of these projects included the Emmy-nominated “Blind Ambition,” starring Martin Sheen, the Emmy-nominated and Peabody winner “The Wall,” and “The Bunker” which earned Anthony Hopkins an Emmy for acting.
Kerew briefly served as executive producer and vice president of television for Highgate Pictures before starting her own production company. Transitioning to focus on children’s programming, Kerew worked on several ABC “Afterschool Specials.
- 2/14/2024
- by Jaden Thompson
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Scott Bakula will return to the New York stage this winter in an Off Broadway, world premiere production of the new musical The Connector, conceived and directed by Daisy Prince with music and lyrics by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown (Parade) and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman.
A production of the acclaimed Off Broadway non-profit company McC Theater, The Connector will begin performances at McC Theater’s Newman Mills Theater on January 12, 2024, with an opening night set for February 6. The limited engagement will run through February 18, 2024.
Set in the rapidly changing media and magazine worlds of the late 1990s (the title refers to a revered publication), The Connector also will feature choreography by Karla Puno Garcia, co-choreographer of the Broadway-found Days of Wine and Roses.
In addition to Bakula, who will play a character named Conrad, the large cast of The Connector will include Sweeney Todd‘s Joanna Carpenter,...
A production of the acclaimed Off Broadway non-profit company McC Theater, The Connector will begin performances at McC Theater’s Newman Mills Theater on January 12, 2024, with an opening night set for February 6. The limited engagement will run through February 18, 2024.
Set in the rapidly changing media and magazine worlds of the late 1990s (the title refers to a revered publication), The Connector also will feature choreography by Karla Puno Garcia, co-choreographer of the Broadway-found Days of Wine and Roses.
In addition to Bakula, who will play a character named Conrad, the large cast of The Connector will include Sweeney Todd‘s Joanna Carpenter,...
- 10/5/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
There's nothing like a good miniseries. The ability to take as much time as needed to tell a dense yet self-contained story, marrying the immediacy and formal panache of great cinema to the narrative depth of great TV, has allowed many auteurs in both mediums to create some of their finest and most vital work.
Historically, miniseries have been the province of some of television's most memorable hits, from "Roots" to "Taken" to "Band of Brothers." Series like Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" and Mike Nichols' "Angels in America" are also regularly cited in the upper tiers of master directors' filmographies. In recent years, the format has seen a kind of mainstream revival, thanks largely to the smashing success of titles like "The Queen's Gambit" and "Watchmen."
But countless miniseries from around the world remain that have yet to receive the attention they deserve. Here are 12 examples of...
Historically, miniseries have been the province of some of television's most memorable hits, from "Roots" to "Taken" to "Band of Brothers." Series like Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" and Mike Nichols' "Angels in America" are also regularly cited in the upper tiers of master directors' filmographies. In recent years, the format has seen a kind of mainstream revival, thanks largely to the smashing success of titles like "The Queen's Gambit" and "Watchmen."
But countless miniseries from around the world remain that have yet to receive the attention they deserve. Here are 12 examples of...
- 3/25/2023
- by Leo Noboru Lima
- Slash Film
Exclusive: Anonymous Content has hired longtime literary agent and former UTA partner Bec Smith as a partner and manager in their Los Angeles-based lit team. We revealed Smith’s impending exit from UTA last month.
The respected veteran has amassed a client roster including directors and writers such as Coline Abert, Levan Akin, Jane Anderson, Benedict Andrews, Emily Atef, Anthony Chen, Eva Husson, Ellen Kuras, Katrin Gebbe, Sebastian Junger, Julia Leigh, Phillip Noyce, Joshua Oppenheimer, Jennifer Peedom, Maria Schrader, Tali Shalom-Ezer, Dawn Shadforth, Kirsten Sheridan, Goran Stolevski, Warwick Thornton and Max Werner.
Related Story Shocker! Anonymous Content CEO Dawn Olmstead & COO Heather McCauley Resign; Protesting Settlement To Former Top Producer Keith Redmon? Related Story UTA Partner & Top Talent Agent Brian Swardstrom Leaving Agency For New Ventures; Will Produce With 'Nomadland's Peter Spears To Start Related Story UTA Signs Cecillia Aldarondo, Filmmaker Behind SXSW-Premiering Documentary 'You Were My First Boyfriend...
The respected veteran has amassed a client roster including directors and writers such as Coline Abert, Levan Akin, Jane Anderson, Benedict Andrews, Emily Atef, Anthony Chen, Eva Husson, Ellen Kuras, Katrin Gebbe, Sebastian Junger, Julia Leigh, Phillip Noyce, Joshua Oppenheimer, Jennifer Peedom, Maria Schrader, Tali Shalom-Ezer, Dawn Shadforth, Kirsten Sheridan, Goran Stolevski, Warwick Thornton and Max Werner.
Related Story Shocker! Anonymous Content CEO Dawn Olmstead & COO Heather McCauley Resign; Protesting Settlement To Former Top Producer Keith Redmon? Related Story UTA Partner & Top Talent Agent Brian Swardstrom Leaving Agency For New Ventures; Will Produce With 'Nomadland's Peter Spears To Start Related Story UTA Signs Cecillia Aldarondo, Filmmaker Behind SXSW-Premiering Documentary 'You Were My First Boyfriend...
- 3/22/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the North American rights to The Wife starring Glenn Close. Adapted by Jane Anderson from the Meg Wolitzer novel of the same name, the film stars Glenn Close,...
- 9/27/2017
- by Jazz Tangcay
- AwardsDaily.com
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all North American rights to Björn Runge’s The Wife, the Glenn Close starrer that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to strong reviews for the actress. Adapted by Jane Anderson from the Meg Wolitzer novel, The Wife also stars Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons, Harry Lloyd and Annie Starke. Close plays Joan Castleman, the devoted wife of charismatic literary star Joe (Pryce). Ignoring his infidelities, Joan finally reaches…...
- 9/27/2017
- Deadline
Playing Joan, the wife of a newly-announced Nobel Prize-winning novelist Joseph (Jonathan Pryce) whose career she has supported while setting her own ambitions aside, Glenn Close gives one of her finest performances in Björn Runge’s latest feature. The actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in the affecting drama, aptly titled The Wife.
Runge’s film opens as the couple first receive news that Joseph has won the prize. They jump up and down on the bed like giddy children as he chants “I won the Nobel Prize.” As the significance sinks in and the full implications bear down, Joan abruptly stops celebrating and leaves the room. Things don’t get any better once they arrive in Sweden in preparation for Stockholm ceremony. Joan is clearly deeply annoyed by something and we can only guess what.
As more and more troubling details gradually spill forth, we learn...
Runge’s film opens as the couple first receive news that Joseph has won the prize. They jump up and down on the bed like giddy children as he chants “I won the Nobel Prize.” As the significance sinks in and the full implications bear down, Joan abruptly stops celebrating and leaves the room. Things don’t get any better once they arrive in Sweden in preparation for Stockholm ceremony. Joan is clearly deeply annoyed by something and we can only guess what.
As more and more troubling details gradually spill forth, we learn...
- 9/20/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Author: Zehra Phelan
Back in mid-December filming wrapped on the forthcoming drama, The Wife. The film centres around writer Joan Castleman and the split from her Nobel Prize winning husband. In the starring role of the woman at the end of her tether is Glenn Close and below you can see the very first look image of Close in the role.
The film was adapted by Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s novel of the same name, and shot for seven weeks in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stockholm with Berlin Silver Bear winner, Björn Runge at the helm.
Related: Glen Close Interview on The Girl with All the Gifts.
Glenn Close, who has had a illustrious career to date with roles in Fatal Attraction, Damages, Albert Nobbs, Dangerous Liaisons, and the recent Guardians of the Galaxy. She stars alongside Jonathan Pryce (The Man Who Invented Christmas, Taboo, Game of Thrones, Listen Up Philip...
Back in mid-December filming wrapped on the forthcoming drama, The Wife. The film centres around writer Joan Castleman and the split from her Nobel Prize winning husband. In the starring role of the woman at the end of her tether is Glenn Close and below you can see the very first look image of Close in the role.
The film was adapted by Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s novel of the same name, and shot for seven weeks in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stockholm with Berlin Silver Bear winner, Björn Runge at the helm.
Related: Glen Close Interview on The Girl with All the Gifts.
Glenn Close, who has had a illustrious career to date with roles in Fatal Attraction, Damages, Albert Nobbs, Dangerous Liaisons, and the recent Guardians of the Galaxy. She stars alongside Jonathan Pryce (The Man Who Invented Christmas, Taboo, Game of Thrones, Listen Up Philip...
- 1/31/2017
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
by Murtada
Close at the Tonys in June
Glenn Close is not going to be ignored. Anymore. Six years after Albert Nobbs she has signed on for a new part. It’s not a supporting authority figure (Guardians of the Galaxy) or an uncredited cameo (Warcraft) -she’s playing the title character! The film is The Wife in which Close will play Joan, a woman who gave up her own literary ambitions to support her successful novelist husband. On the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature she has a crisis of faith in him and in their marriage and starts re-examining her choices.
The film was first announced last February but it seems that whatever kinks they had then, have been smoothed out and shooting stars in a couple of weeks. The film is helmed by Swedish director Björn Runge and adapted by Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge) from Meg Wolitzer’s novel.
Close at the Tonys in June
Glenn Close is not going to be ignored. Anymore. Six years after Albert Nobbs she has signed on for a new part. It’s not a supporting authority figure (Guardians of the Galaxy) or an uncredited cameo (Warcraft) -she’s playing the title character! The film is The Wife in which Close will play Joan, a woman who gave up her own literary ambitions to support her successful novelist husband. On the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature she has a crisis of faith in him and in their marriage and starts re-examining her choices.
The film was first announced last February but it seems that whatever kinks they had then, have been smoothed out and shooting stars in a couple of weeks. The film is helmed by Swedish director Björn Runge and adapted by Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge) from Meg Wolitzer’s novel.
- 10/20/2016
- by Murtada Elfadl
- FilmExperience
Shoot due to get underway on October 31; Embankment handles sales.
Principal photography on The Wife, set to star Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater, is due to get underway on 31 October, 2016, on location across Scotland and Stockholm, for seven weeks.
Annie Starke (Albert Nobbs), Max Irons (Woman in Gold) and Harry Lloyd (Anthropoid) co-star.
The long-gestating project charts the story of a writer who decides to leave her husband while traveling to receive a prestigious award.
The Wife is produced by Rosalie Swedlin, Meta Louise Foldager, Piers Tempest and Claudia Bluemhuber.
London-based Embankment Films handles international sales and brokered the financing for the film, provided by Silver Reel, Creative Scotland, Film Väst, Chimney, the Swedish Film Institute and Svensk Filmindustri. CAA and Wme co-represent the Us.
Swedish director Björn Runge (De Blaue Engel), winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear and two Swedish Academy Awards, directs from a screenplay by screenwriter Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge), adapted from Meg Wolitzer...
Principal photography on The Wife, set to star Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater, is due to get underway on 31 October, 2016, on location across Scotland and Stockholm, for seven weeks.
Annie Starke (Albert Nobbs), Max Irons (Woman in Gold) and Harry Lloyd (Anthropoid) co-star.
The long-gestating project charts the story of a writer who decides to leave her husband while traveling to receive a prestigious award.
The Wife is produced by Rosalie Swedlin, Meta Louise Foldager, Piers Tempest and Claudia Bluemhuber.
London-based Embankment Films handles international sales and brokered the financing for the film, provided by Silver Reel, Creative Scotland, Film Väst, Chimney, the Swedish Film Institute and Svensk Filmindustri. CAA and Wme co-represent the Us.
Swedish director Björn Runge (De Blaue Engel), winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear and two Swedish Academy Awards, directs from a screenplay by screenwriter Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge), adapted from Meg Wolitzer...
- 10/19/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Toronto-based Films We Like has picked up Canadian rights to Ingrid Veninger’s upcoming drama.
Veninger and her producers will begin casting on June 10 on what is described as “a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing.”
Production is set for August and Films We Like plans to release the film theatrically across Canada in the latter stages of 2017.
Melissa Leo supported Porcupine Lake in Veninger’s pUNK Films Femmes Lab launched at the Whistler Film Festival in 2014 and according to a press release issued on behalf of Films We Like said after reading the first draft: “This is a story that every women carries inside her.”
The second draft was developed at the inaugural Screenwriters Lab at Hedgebrook, where Veninger was mentored by Jenny Bicks (The Big C) and Emmy-winner Jane Anderson ([link...
Veninger and her producers will begin casting on June 10 on what is described as “a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing.”
Production is set for August and Films We Like plans to release the film theatrically across Canada in the latter stages of 2017.
Melissa Leo supported Porcupine Lake in Veninger’s pUNK Films Femmes Lab launched at the Whistler Film Festival in 2014 and according to a press release issued on behalf of Films We Like said after reading the first draft: “This is a story that every women carries inside her.”
The second draft was developed at the inaugural Screenwriters Lab at Hedgebrook, where Veninger was mentored by Jenny Bicks (The Big C) and Emmy-winner Jane Anderson ([link...
- 6/8/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
For over 30 years Sundance Institute has been an iconic organization providing opportunities and resources to independent filmmakers and those that want to support them. Their two flagship programs are the renowned Screenwriters Lab and the Directors Lab, which allow up-and-coming artists to interact and receive mentorship from successful and acclaimed members of the film industry. To say that being part of one these programs is a once in a lifetime opportunity is an understatement. The proof is in the undeniable quality of the projects that are shaped during the labs and that eventually become part of the cinematic conversation.
While fostering talent is what Sundance Institute does best, they are one of the institutions that most diligently reinforces their commitment to provide opportunities for new voices that represent an eclectic array of backgrounds and experiences. In order to cast their net of support even wider, the institute offers numerous exciting programs beyond those that are already well-known in the filmmaking community. As part of Sundance Institute's Diversity Initiative, the Screenwriters Intensive is an invaluable resource that focuses on stories outside of the homogenous fare.
The program is a 1 1/2 day workshop for writers whose work has been encountered by the institute as part of their outreach for the Labs and which they find especially promising. The writers of 10 projects take part in a program whose elements include a hands-on writing workshop led by creative advisor Joan Tewkesbury (“Nashville”), a screening of a recent Sundance film followed by a candid conversation with the filmmaker, a reception with Sundance staff and the extended Sundance community, and one-on-one meetings with two creative advisors to get feedback on their script. With the Intensive, the Sundance Institute aims to present participants with creative tools that they can take back to their own work, provide a space for dialogue and information sharing about the creative process of making a film (and all of the joys and challenges therein), and foster community among storytellers and an ongoing connection with Sundance.
The screening this year was Andrew Ahn's "Spa Night," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January and has now been picked up for U.S distribution by Strand Releasing. Centered on the conflicted son of a Korean immigrant couple in Los Angeles, Ahn's subtle yet poignant narrative deals with issues of identity both sexual and cultural. For the second day of the workshop, the fellows had one-on-one meetings with celebrated figures in independent cinema: Miranda July, Jennifer Salt, Deena Goldstone, Patricia Cardoso, Pete Sollett, Dana Stevens, Tanya Hamilton, Ligiah Villalobos, Scott Neustadter, and Kyle Patrick Alvarez
The Screenwriters Intensive fellows come from uniquely different backgrounds, and their projects bring original stories that are sure to showcase new and inventive perspectives on the world. Get to know them and their stories as they are on their way to giving us a great batch of new independent films.
The application for the 2017 January Screenwriters Lab is currently open with a deadline of May 3. Applicants for the Screenwriters Lab are also considered for the Screenwriters Intensive, Sundance Institute Asian American Fellowship, and the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Latino Fellowship, as eligibility allows. To learn more about the Sundance Institute's programs visit Here.
Khalik Allah
Project: "Kareem"
Khalik Allah is a self taught filmmaker and photographer. His work has been described as visceral, hauntingly beautiful, penetrative and profoundly personal. Photography and filmmaking are two overlapping circles that form a venn diagram in Allah’s mind; the area where they overlap is the space he inhabits as an artist. Allah’s cinematic vignettes document hardscrabble life at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem (New York City), most recently in his award-winning documentary Field Niggas, which screened at festivals worldwide.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
My project is in an incredibly early stage. I'm basically taking the last four years of my life as a photographer on 125th and Lex and adapting it into a fiction narrative.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The most important thing was the mutual inspiration we gave each other. The lab advisors helped us dig deeper into ourselves. Their faith in us was tremendous. I took away a new lease on my future.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
I met with Miranda July on day two of the lab. Wow she was incredible. She read my entire script and gave me many productive notes. I was impressed that she gave me so much time. Plenty of useful information I can implement.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I must keep writing.
Zia Anger
Project: "Despues De"
Zia Anger is a filmmaker and music video director. Her most recent short, "My Last Film," premiered at the 53rd New York Film Festival. In 2015, her short "I Remember Nothing" had its world premiere at New Directors/New Films and its international premiere at Festival del film Locarno. Other screenings include: AFI Fest, Denver Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Basilica Soundscape, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, and Vienna Independent Shorts. She has made music videos for various independent artists, including Angel Olsen, Julianna Barwick, and Jenny Hval, the latter of whom she also tours with, projecting live video and participating as a performer. Her music videos have been featured in various online publications including: Pitchfork, the Guardian, and NPR. In 2015, Anger was included in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film" issue. She was a 2015 fellow in film/video from the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2008, she was the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant for her short film "Lover Boy." She holds a BA/Bs from Ithaca College and a Mfa from The School of the Arts Institute of Chicago.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Despues De" is about a missing white woman, a mother and daughter who try to find her, and the days leading up to her disappearance on a sorority vacation. It dissects the very particular mythological figures created by our tabloid crazed culture, white women's obsessions with themselves and each other, and the people and places who are alienated in their wake. I would say the project is creatively at the point where it's similar to someone in their late twenties, when you think "wow I know a lot, but fuck there is so much more and I'm open to that," as opposed to "I just turned 21 and I literally know it all." Artistically it calls for a certain amount of precision where high and low brow filmmaking techniques kind of collapse on to each other and end up smooching.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
Joan seems to have figured out a really simple way to help even the most stubborn of (non) writers reenter their work at a time when it might seem impossible. What's cool is that once you do it it's really easy to do again. I'm thinking that having this point of access will be crucial to the continued creative development of the piece, beyond writing and moving in to those difficult creative moments onset, in the editing room, all those places you normally forget everything you've already figured out.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
Immediately it's exciting to sit the the same room with someone who speaks the same alien language as you but who has had the experience deal with people who don't. I think it was Bergman or someone who talked about how inadequate a script can be, considering it's just this middle step. I find myself so disillusioned with this middle step and constantly questioning what exactly it's supposed to function as. It's a good exercise to talk through what is important and what should be more developed and also where you can cut the fat.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Probably keep learning.
Chris Benson
Project: "Death of Innocence"
Christopher Benson, a journalist and lawyer, is an associate professor of Journalism and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has worked as a city hall reporter in Chicago for Wbmx-fm, as Washington Editor for Ebony magazine, and as a speechwriter for Washington, D.C. politicians, including former Congressman Harold Washington and Eeoc Chair Clarence Thomas. He also has written for Chicago, Savoy, Jet, and The Crisis magazines, and has contributed to the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Most recently, he has written commentary on justice, race and media for the Chicago Reporter and the Huffington Post. His Chicago Reporter series on the wrongful murder conviction of Anthony Dansberry contributed to Dansberry’s release from prison (after serving 23 years) and earned Benson a Peter Lisagor Award for exemplary journalism. Benson also was a co-writer and associate producer of the Wttw Channel 11 documentary "Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender," and was named on two of the documentary’s three regional Emmy Awards, as well as another Lisagor Award. Benson is co-author with Mamie Till-Mobley of "Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America," the account of the 1955 lynching of Mrs. Till-Mobley’s son, Emmett Till, and the winner of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Special Recognition. The feature adaptation of the book will be executive produced by Chaz Ebert and Shatterglass Films
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
Our project is titled "Death of Innocence" and it is the screen adaptation of a book I co-authored with the late Mamie Till-Mobley about the life and tragic death of her son, Emmett Till. Through this project that focuses on the brutal 1955 lynching of a 14 year-old kid, we want to help people make connections between the violent enforcement of racial segregation and the shooting deaths of young African American males by people who still are getting away with it in our contemporary moment. We also want to show how one person—in this case, Mamie Till-Mobley—can make a difference in the struggle for social and legal justice in America. This clearly is a challenge we still face and we need to learn lessons from some of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. That is what we are trying to show with this picture.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
One of the many things I have taken away from the first day of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab is that I have to take ownership of the characters who populate this story—even this story based on true events and real people. As a professional journalist, I have spent years trying to keep a distance from the issues I write about and the people who humanize those stories, who breathe life into them. Despite cynical public opinion, journalists do go after the truth. In screenwriting, we are going after the essential truth. What is the meaning of everything that appears on the screen? So, even in stories based on real events, we are not simply cataloguing a series of facts in a sequence of scenes. We are supposed to find the story that rises from all those facts. The essential truth. The true meaning. That will affect my screenwriting for some time beyond the successful completion of this project.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
I have to say that the coordinators of the Sundance Lab experience clearly put a lot of care and thought into developing a perfect match of advisors and fellows. The second day discussions with my advisors was phenomenal. As with the Sundance organizers, they had read the script very carefully and approached my sessions with a devotion to maintaining the integrity of the story, and helping fulfill the purpose we had set out to accomplish. It was amazing to listen to the comments that reflected a deep appreciation of the characters, the story and even the potential impact of this piece. I was especially struck by the connection my advisors felt with the main character, Mamie Till-Mobley, and the advice I was given to develop her and her motivation to a level that will result in quite a powerful rendering. I can't wait to get started on the notes.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
My plan is to work with the notes I was given to consider ways to perfect the script. My advisors have indicated an interest in staying in touch on this, so that ongoing conversation will be great. The first step I am taking after the Sundance Lab is to engage in discussions with the other producers on our project to ensure that we all on the same page. Next will be to coordinate with the collaborators on the script to talk about the ideas that have emerged from the lab experience. Finally, I will begin to interpret it all on the page, and I am eager to see where the story takes me.
Shakti Bhagchandani
Project: "Purdah"
Shakti Bhagchandani is a screenwriter/director born and raised in the United Arab Emirates. She grew up in Dubai, in a melting pot of religion and culture, and cultivated her writing abilities with the help of her mother. She travelled to London to pursue a BA in English Literature at King's College London and while there she was awarded the prestigious Jelf Medal for her contributions to art and charity. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she interned at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, the Gate Theatre and National Theatre Studio in London, and the Antenna Theatre in San Francisco. She directed a number of student and semi professional plays, including "Fanny & Faggot" by Jack Thorne and "Pornography" by Simon Stephens. After graduation she moved to New York to pursue an Mfa in Screenwriting & Directing at Columbia University. She is currently in her thesis years, specializing in Screenwriting under advisor Trey Ellis. While at Columbia, she has worked on a number of shorts, and as a writer her last short "Khargosh" screened at Palm Springs International ShortFest and won the Satyajit Ray Award at the London Indian Film Festival. Her first feature screenplay, "Bidoun", was shortlisted for the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab 2015, and her current feature project "Purdah" has been selected for the Sundance Screenwriter's Intensive Lab in La. She recently wrapped production on her short "LostFound" that she wrote and directed, and is currently in preproduction for her next short "Tunisian Jasmine" which is set in the UAE.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular. .
'Purdah' is a coming of age drama that follows a 16-year-old British Pakistani girl as she grapples with her burgeoning womanhood and her precarious sexuality in a world built on segregation and coercion. The project is currently in development.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The first day of the lab included one of the most invigorating writing workshops I've ever been a part of. Joan is a miracle worker! She guided us through a haze of snowploughs, dream sequences and inner monologues, and by the end of it I had somehow come up with about 20 new scene ideas. Characters I had neglected before were suddenly infused with new life and the possibilities for the story feels limitless. Andrew's film and the discussion afterwards was intensely inspiring and the perfect way to round off the day - he helped us believe that the future of our projects is entirely real and attainable.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?.
Patricia and Dana are wonderful! It was amazing to sit across from these incredible, passionate women - they were nurturing, encouraging and boundlessly generous with their advice. They talked about their own trajectories and experiences. They motivated me to dig deeper, to fine tune every detail, and to have faith in myself and the project. They came at my script from completely different angles, offering story notes, a ton of production thoughts, and advice on how to move forward with not only the script, but also my career.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Revise, revise, revise. And then revise again. The lab helped me see how much potential this story has and how much work it still needs. There is so much left to unearth and I'm excited to get started.
Reinaldo Marcus Green
Project: "Monsters and Men"
New York native Reinaldo Marcus Green is a writer, director, and producer. He is currently a thesis student at Nyu Tisch Graduate Film School and writing his first feature narrative, "Monsters and Men." Most recently, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film (2015). His latest short film "Stop," which he wrote, produced, and directed, premiered as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015. His previous short film, "Stone Cars," shot on a micro-budget in South Africa, had its international premiere as an official Cinéfondation selection at the Festival de Cannes 2014.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
At its core, "Monsters and Men" is a story about perspective.
The film consists of three interlocking stories, each told through the point-of-view of three protagonists -- Manny, a street hustler, Stacey, a female police officer, and Zyric, a high school athlete.
When Manny captures an illegal act of police violence on his cellphone, he unwittingly sets off a series of events that will alter the course of each of their lives...
"Monsters and Men's" three chapters connect narratively and thematically, painting a portrait of modern-day Brooklyn -- a community caught in the crosswinds of crime, police corruption, and social instability.
We’re in the final stage of development, planning to shoot this summer 2016 in Brooklyn, New York. We hope to cast the net wide and far in order to provide opportunities for new undiscovered talent, and new exciting voices. The ideal cast would be a mix of professional and non-professional actors. New York is full of immense diverse talent we can’t wait to work with.
As a filmmaker, my goal is to tell powerful, urgently-needed and authentic stories. I see a unique opportunity to challenge the status quo of independent cinema, to craft entertaining stories with heart and meaning - films which possess social relevance, emotional complexity and thematic resonance.
Ultimately, its my hope to create a highly-compelling narrative feature, entertaining to watch, but one which will add to the social conversation about law enforcement, violence, and justice in America. We want to share that experience with audiences in other places in the world, by giving rise to growing communities who are often marginalized and whose stories are rarely seen in film.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
First and foremost, I felt very lucky to be a part of such an amazingly talented group of filmmakers, with a broad range of diverse projects, across all genres. It was fascinating to see where my script fits in the larger spectrum, and what I realized is that each and every story at the lab was an outlier. Each writer had a singular voice, a unique take on genre, character, story, and structure.
The Lesson: “Come in from the side.”
During Day One at the lab, I felt I threw out any preconceived notions I had about my own script. It allowed me to digress and deconstruct without internally combusting. Joan Tewkesbury, a true master at her craft, went right to the core of who we were as human beings, ultimately going right into the core of who and what our scripts were all about, and what they have the potential to become. I think fear is something that holds most people back, the same fear that the world was once flat and we would sail off the edge. Joan refocused my center of gravity and provided me with tools to “access” that inner child, be playful and to keep digging.
Character is at the core of who we are and what makes us human. The digger we deep, the more we reveal about ourselves. I believe in that if I continue the excavation process, with delicate precision, and a gentle curiosity, it will serve me well in all my writing. I can’t be afraid to find out who I am underneath the surface, although sometime we bury things for a reason — because we don’t want to go there — there’s pain hidden in various forms. In writing, there’s a seemingly impenetrable darkness and then there’s light.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The opportunity to sit down with Peter Sollett and Tanya Hamilton was truly a special treat for me. Not only did are they both masters of their craft and highly-regarded writers and directors within their own right, I had been a big fan of their work before meeting them. Peter’s short film "Five Feet High and Rising," which he later turned into a feature, "Raising Victor Vargas" are two works that I admire deeply, and they have been a source for inspiration since the genius of the project.
Both Peter and Tanya are so sharp and so astute, it makes for brilliant analysis and conversation.
They have a slightly different approach to story, but essentially meet somewhere in the middle; Character. With both advisors, we really stepped back from the script — taking a birds eye view of what the film really means to me and how and what the best way to achieve telling it would be moving forward. We talked a lot about character, world, and theme.
Tanya and Peter both offered many ideas for “problem solving” — helping me hone in on areas in the script that could be refined and strengthened. It’s evident in their own work how much they care about the craft — both offering truly thoughtful insight and perspective into how each scene could advance the story. We discussed ways to deepen characters and how to build a compelling and complex world without compromising my voice, or the story I want to tell.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I think the simplest answer is to just keep writing. There’s still a ton of information to digest from the lab but the key is to not get bogged down in semantics, to move beyond the fear and paralysis that we create for ourselves. It’s time to problem solve, lock myself in a room and just write. More coffee please.
Jessie Kahnweiler
Project: "Meet My Rapist"
Jessie Kahnweiler has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, TMZ, People, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Elle, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, Indiewire, La Weekly, The Huffington Post, and The Independent. At the University of Redlands, Kahnweiler quickly began ditching class in order to make documentaries. For her thesis film, Little America, she hitchhiked across the country to explore the world of America’s truck drivers. After getting dumped, she wrote and co-directed the comedic short "Baby Love," co-starring alongside "Anchorman’s" David Koechner. Kahnweiler was selected for the 6 Points Artist Fellowship which inspired her comedic web series entitled "Dude, Where’s my Chutzpah?" Her short "Meet my Rapist," a dark comedy about running into her rapist at the Farmers’ Market, inspired her live show "The Rape Girl." Kahnweiler confronted her own white privilege in her viral hit "Jessie Gets Arrested." Her latest project, for which she serves as writer, director, and stars, is "The Skinny," a dark comedic series based on her 10 year relationship with bulimia. It premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and is produced by Refinery29 and Jill Soloway’s Wifey.tv Kahnweiler lives in La with her plants.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is.
Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular. My project is called "Meet My Rapist" and it is loosely based on a short film I made of the same name a few years ago. After the short had it's 15 minutes online I was moving on to other projects but I felt this gnawing at my gut. I tried to ignore it, popped some advil, and went to yoga but that gnawing just wouldn't stop. That annoying painful gnawing was the beginnings of this script. I've been working on the script on and off for about a year. I'm at the stage where I need to take out most of the flippant jokes and get to the real meat of the matter - the heart, the pain. I need to live and cry this story out. Because the project is so personal it is easy for me to get lost in it. Sometimes I forget where I end and my characters begin. So being at the Sundance lab is great timing. I feel totes blessed.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
That I can't hide behind my jokes. After writing in a feeling state all day our amazing teaching Joan looked at me and was like "Your movie is a song and you gotta hit the bass notes." I was like Mic Drop. I love the challenge of making something that is a comedy based in the tragedy of human reality. That is my north star for this movie. I'm not sure if I will get there but that's where I'll be heading.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
It was incredible to take a deep dive into the script with women who so deeply understand screenwriting from the inside out. The feedback was never like "do it My way" it was more about ripping open the guts of the script and getting to that deeper level. Okay this happens but Why? Screenwriting can be so daunting like "I need write the perfect thing so I can get an agent so I can get hired etc. " and the process can be so lonely and daunting . But in both my sessions we just talked about human behavior and what makes people tick and it reminded me that filmmaking is magic and I'm really lucky to be here. Also a woman, it was inspiring to meet with other women who are living my dream. Who are feeling for a living. In both my sessions I laughed, cried, and go to ask as many questions I wanted it. It was basically my ideal Tinder date.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I'm going to keep working on drafts of the script, keep sharing it with people I trust, keep begging Sundance to let me come over and eat bagels, keep pitching it to anyone who will listen, keep crying, keep feeling, keep making my movie.
Allison Lee
Project: "Jawbone"
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Los Angeles, Allison Lee studied English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. She received her Mfa in Film and Television Production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Upon graduation, she worked in development and production at DreamWorks and NBCUniversal. Lee has received grants from the Media Action Network and the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences. She was also named a Project Involve fellow, and her short The Grizzly was produced by Film Independent. In 2015, she was one of five screenwriters who received a residency through the inaugural Hedgebrook Screenwriters Lab, where she was mentored by Jenny Bicks and Jane Anderson.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Jawbone" is about a Korean woman who undergoes drastic plastic surgery as a means to achieve what she and her peers view as success. After she gives birth to a daughter who looks nothing like her, her life begins to unravel and she’s forced to confront her past.
I am currently grappling with rewrites while meeting with potential producers and crew.
I see "Jawbone" as a hybrid of Korean cinema and American independent film. Korean movies relish the tension in tightly wound familial and social relationships. I think my personal connection to this fabric helps me discern and explore where the similarities and differences to American culture begin and end. I also think the best American independent films underscore the universality of specific personal stories, and I aspire to follow in this tradition.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
I felt transformed by the sessions with Joan Tewkesbury. She pushed us to bare our souls and delve into our histories to deliver stories that were truthful and specific. My biggest fear about "Jawbone" is that a few extreme events in the plot would read as absurdist melodrama. Relating these events back to some of my own crises helped me re-center the emotional truth of my characters and their journeys.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
It was crucial to work with filmmakers who knew the Sundance aesthetic and had weathered the challenges before us. I knew the script needed improvement but had a hazy vision of what it required. Tanya Hamilton’s notes were both encouraging and precise about galvanizing and concretizing the protagonist’s journey. Patricia Cardoso, with her directorial and producerial expertise, reminded me that my artistic flights of fancy should still be grounded in reality and be economical and pragmatic. The breadth of their approaches made me feel like I was getting the best of all worlds.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I am hustling on a rewrite ready to be seen by producers and representatives. Ultimately, I want to direct "Jawbone," and I am also working on a short film version.
Eliza Lee
Project: "A Beautiful Lie"
Educated in Canada and the Czech Republic, Eliza Lee began in Asia as a Dp trainee before returning to her first passion: screenwriting. She takes great pride in world building for her complex women characters. Lee’s feature, Maybe Tomorrow, about rock legend Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, is being produced by Michelle Sy ("Finding Neverland") and Sophia Chang (former artist manager for Wu Tang Clan), with Academy Award nominee Steph Green ("Run & Jump") attached to direct. Lee’s screenplay, "A Beautiful Lie," about crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, was honored at the 2015 Athena Film Festival, and was also selected for the 2015 Outfest Screenwriting Lab. In addition, she was a Cape 2015 Film & Television Fellow and was mentored by various executives from Sony, Paramount, and Fox, among others. Lee has several features and television projects in development. She is the 2016 Sundance Institute Asian American Fellow.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
When Strangers on the Train was published in 1950 and with the anticipation for it to be turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Highsmith was catapulted into the literary spotlight. Here she thought was her opportunity to break free of the crime genre and finally write her Great American novel. Except, it was at the height of McCarthy’s witch hunt, and her Great American novel would become the iconic lesbian tale, The Price of Salt. In the book, Patricia defiantly gave her lesbian main characters a happy ending together, but faced with the real threat of being blacklisted, she is forced to publish it under a pseudonym. This decision would send her down a path of alcoholism, promiscuity and loneliness as she realized she would not have the happy ending she wrote.
With this story, I knew it had to come from the seminal moment in her life. And for me, it is when she braved writing The Price of Salt at a time where being who you are and believing in what you do can land you in jail, exile or financial ruin. She had to deny her nature, and coupled with a growing rage it would breed the infamous “monster” that would come to define her in her later years.
While her male peers have enjoyed forgiving, pedestal descriptors like "troubled", "complex" or the genius "l'enfant terrible", Highsmith was shown no such generosity.
On top of that, I am struck how often pictures of her old age are published displaying her alcohol and anger ravaged face. We made that. Juxtapose those with photos of Highsmith at 21, so full of hope, vitality and ready for all the wonders of love, and it is clear - she was born this way. "A Beautiful Lie" is about a woman’s quest for love when it was a crime.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
Specifically, I learned I hide behind fiction or through my characters and not have to admit the narrative comes from a personal place. Through an incredibly safe and nurturing environment on the first day, Joan Tewksbury led us through a series of spontaneous and revelatory writing exercises that at first seemed random, but without time to allow the self-censor to kick in, the writing showcased how many more complex layers we can apply to our characters through our uninhibited sharing of our personal experiences. As a result, because the stories come from us, they are inherently going to be personal. It was like sleight of hand for the imagination.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The advisors were there to help us tell the story we want to tell. And the one-on-one sessions were focused solely on the writing, and was intended to be a dialogue. It was humbling to learn the tremendous amount of time they took to burrow deep into our scripts. I was thoroughly empowered by what these writers offered me, and excited that I could challenge such seasoned pros with my perspective and approach to telling a story. Ligiah Villalobos dared me to linger longer in emotional scenes and to take my pursuit for emotional truths for my character even further. While Scott Neustadter and I discussed much about memories as structure, he also pushed me to defy a note i have received that my character is “unlikable” and to allow her to have even more anti-hero moments. i concluded my last day at the Intensive with their voices unifying in the same sentiment: they have a good feeling the film will be made.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Through the Sundance Intensive, I have a clear idea of what is my next step, and that is to apply another layer of shading to my portrait of Patricia Highsmith. I’m anxious to keep the momentum going, and then take it out to talent. I’m going to realize this film.
Jimmy Mosqueda
Project: "Valedictorian"
Jimmy Mosqueda is a lifelong California resident, the son of two Mexican migrant workers, and a graduate of Stanford University. From an early age he showed a fondness for writing, starting his first journal at the age of five, which developed into a passion for writing short stories, poetry and eventually screenplays. While attending Stanford on a full scholarship, Mosqueda saw how social class and race influenced the experiences of his fellow students, which made him realize just how much the American educational system is intimately tied to those pillars. The intersection of race, class, and education remains an ongoing theme in his works. Today, Mosqueda lives in Los Angeles and writes full-time. His screenplays have placed in numerous contests, including as a finalist in the Austin Film Festival, Script Pipeline and TrackingB competitions, and as a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowship. He’s represented by Angelina Chen and Brooklyn Weaver of Energy Entertainment, and is actively developing projects for film and television.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Valedictorian" is dark teen comedy in the vein of "Election" and "Heathers." It’s about an ambitious teenage girl who do anything to be crowned valedictorian of her high school, including a little bit of murder. So, you know, just like real high school! I started writing this project about three years ago. It was inspired by my own school experiences, where everyone on the Honors track was super competitive and had their sights set on the Ivy League. Readers respond positively to the comedy and the heightened world of the script, which is great, but one thing I felt got buried underneath the multitude of drafts is the emotional core of the main character. So during the Intensive my main goal was to rediscover who she was and, building out from that, the reason why I wanted to tell this story in the first place.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The most important thing I learned from the workshop with Joan Tewkesbury is that creative development is not about brainstorming characters or story points. All of us have unique, personal experiences and emotions that can form the building blocks of a story. You really have to look inward and tap that raw data, or else run the risk of your story ringing hollow. A lot of artists understand this intuitively, I believe, but Joan’s workshop laid it out in such clear and simple terms. For my next draft of "Valedictorian," I’m going to use these techniques as a stress test, but in all honesty I want to go back and revisit every project I ever worked on using this approach now.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
My advisors were the bee’s knees, if I can be so blunt. My first session was with Scott Neustadter, who along with his writing partner has written a lot of films with teen lead characters. He very clearly understood what the script was, and gave very specific, actionable notes on how to improve what’s already there. I love how he was able to cut through and really get at the core issues of script, which were mostly the same issues I had going in. Scott is killing the screenwriting game right now. His insights were invaluable.
My second session was with Kyle Patrick Alvarez. We spent a lot of time talking about the main character, her motivation, her relationships, and how she “earns” the big moments/twists in the script. We also spent some time talking bigger picture about the industry and how to build a career in Hollywood, which was very much appreciated. Additionally, it was great getting the perspective of another Latino in the industry.
Both men were truly gracious with their time. I left both sessions feeling inspired!
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
After stepping off Cloud 9, it’s back to the computer and working on a new draft of "Valedictorian." In addition, I will also be tackling a new draft of the pilot version. It’s the same world and characters, but with a different engine that is geared towards episodic narrative. Many of the notes I got from Scott and Kyle apply to the pilot version as well, so it’s like getting two for the price of one!
Finally, I just want to thank everyone involved with putting together the Intensive: Ilyse McKimmie, Michelle Satter, Anne Lai, Shira Rockowitz and everyone at the Sundance Institute who made this possible. I am forever grateful for the experience.
Lotfy Nathan
Project: Untitled Bouazizi Project
Lotfy Nathan’s first film, the documentary "12 O’Clock Boys," played over 50 film festivals worldwide, including SXSW, Sundance Next Fest, Lincoln Center, Viennale, Hot Docs, London, and Copenhagen in 2013. It was ranked 7 in the BFI list of top 20 documentaries of 2013, and garnered Nathan an HBO Emerging Artist award. "12 O’Clock Boys" was subsequently picked up by Oscilloscope for a North American release in theaters, acquired by Showtime for television, and was optioned for a fiction remake by Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment. Nathan is a 2015 grantee of the Creative Capital Foundation, a resident filmmaker at the Cinereach Foundation, and a previous awardee of the Garrett Scott development grant, the Peter Reed Foundation, the Grainger Marburg travel grant, and an Ifp fellowship.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
The film is about Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian fruit vendor whose act of self-immolation sparked the Arab spring. It’s a love story, apolitical (as the subject of our protagonist was); about a young man’s steady undoing, and his final bittersweet act of defiance. The film will be shot on location, with cast selected locally besides the principles, and filmed with an immersive approach.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
We were encouraged to draw from very specific personal experiences, prompted by Joan It was incredible to learn these tools, which enable you to tap into vast resources from your own life that you can then apply to the writing- and so vividly. I think the writing exercises with Joan actually stirred a very unusual dream for me that night.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The advisors were very motivating. I left with pages of notes on my writing, tangible pieces of smart advice that will help inform the next draft.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Before getting back to work on the script I plan to do some other writing on the characters.
While fostering talent is what Sundance Institute does best, they are one of the institutions that most diligently reinforces their commitment to provide opportunities for new voices that represent an eclectic array of backgrounds and experiences. In order to cast their net of support even wider, the institute offers numerous exciting programs beyond those that are already well-known in the filmmaking community. As part of Sundance Institute's Diversity Initiative, the Screenwriters Intensive is an invaluable resource that focuses on stories outside of the homogenous fare.
The program is a 1 1/2 day workshop for writers whose work has been encountered by the institute as part of their outreach for the Labs and which they find especially promising. The writers of 10 projects take part in a program whose elements include a hands-on writing workshop led by creative advisor Joan Tewkesbury (“Nashville”), a screening of a recent Sundance film followed by a candid conversation with the filmmaker, a reception with Sundance staff and the extended Sundance community, and one-on-one meetings with two creative advisors to get feedback on their script. With the Intensive, the Sundance Institute aims to present participants with creative tools that they can take back to their own work, provide a space for dialogue and information sharing about the creative process of making a film (and all of the joys and challenges therein), and foster community among storytellers and an ongoing connection with Sundance.
The screening this year was Andrew Ahn's "Spa Night," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January and has now been picked up for U.S distribution by Strand Releasing. Centered on the conflicted son of a Korean immigrant couple in Los Angeles, Ahn's subtle yet poignant narrative deals with issues of identity both sexual and cultural. For the second day of the workshop, the fellows had one-on-one meetings with celebrated figures in independent cinema: Miranda July, Jennifer Salt, Deena Goldstone, Patricia Cardoso, Pete Sollett, Dana Stevens, Tanya Hamilton, Ligiah Villalobos, Scott Neustadter, and Kyle Patrick Alvarez
The Screenwriters Intensive fellows come from uniquely different backgrounds, and their projects bring original stories that are sure to showcase new and inventive perspectives on the world. Get to know them and their stories as they are on their way to giving us a great batch of new independent films.
The application for the 2017 January Screenwriters Lab is currently open with a deadline of May 3. Applicants for the Screenwriters Lab are also considered for the Screenwriters Intensive, Sundance Institute Asian American Fellowship, and the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Latino Fellowship, as eligibility allows. To learn more about the Sundance Institute's programs visit Here.
Khalik Allah
Project: "Kareem"
Khalik Allah is a self taught filmmaker and photographer. His work has been described as visceral, hauntingly beautiful, penetrative and profoundly personal. Photography and filmmaking are two overlapping circles that form a venn diagram in Allah’s mind; the area where they overlap is the space he inhabits as an artist. Allah’s cinematic vignettes document hardscrabble life at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem (New York City), most recently in his award-winning documentary Field Niggas, which screened at festivals worldwide.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
My project is in an incredibly early stage. I'm basically taking the last four years of my life as a photographer on 125th and Lex and adapting it into a fiction narrative.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The most important thing was the mutual inspiration we gave each other. The lab advisors helped us dig deeper into ourselves. Their faith in us was tremendous. I took away a new lease on my future.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
I met with Miranda July on day two of the lab. Wow she was incredible. She read my entire script and gave me many productive notes. I was impressed that she gave me so much time. Plenty of useful information I can implement.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I must keep writing.
Zia Anger
Project: "Despues De"
Zia Anger is a filmmaker and music video director. Her most recent short, "My Last Film," premiered at the 53rd New York Film Festival. In 2015, her short "I Remember Nothing" had its world premiere at New Directors/New Films and its international premiere at Festival del film Locarno. Other screenings include: AFI Fest, Denver Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Basilica Soundscape, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, and Vienna Independent Shorts. She has made music videos for various independent artists, including Angel Olsen, Julianna Barwick, and Jenny Hval, the latter of whom she also tours with, projecting live video and participating as a performer. Her music videos have been featured in various online publications including: Pitchfork, the Guardian, and NPR. In 2015, Anger was included in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film" issue. She was a 2015 fellow in film/video from the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2008, she was the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant for her short film "Lover Boy." She holds a BA/Bs from Ithaca College and a Mfa from The School of the Arts Institute of Chicago.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Despues De" is about a missing white woman, a mother and daughter who try to find her, and the days leading up to her disappearance on a sorority vacation. It dissects the very particular mythological figures created by our tabloid crazed culture, white women's obsessions with themselves and each other, and the people and places who are alienated in their wake. I would say the project is creatively at the point where it's similar to someone in their late twenties, when you think "wow I know a lot, but fuck there is so much more and I'm open to that," as opposed to "I just turned 21 and I literally know it all." Artistically it calls for a certain amount of precision where high and low brow filmmaking techniques kind of collapse on to each other and end up smooching.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
Joan seems to have figured out a really simple way to help even the most stubborn of (non) writers reenter their work at a time when it might seem impossible. What's cool is that once you do it it's really easy to do again. I'm thinking that having this point of access will be crucial to the continued creative development of the piece, beyond writing and moving in to those difficult creative moments onset, in the editing room, all those places you normally forget everything you've already figured out.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
Immediately it's exciting to sit the the same room with someone who speaks the same alien language as you but who has had the experience deal with people who don't. I think it was Bergman or someone who talked about how inadequate a script can be, considering it's just this middle step. I find myself so disillusioned with this middle step and constantly questioning what exactly it's supposed to function as. It's a good exercise to talk through what is important and what should be more developed and also where you can cut the fat.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Probably keep learning.
Chris Benson
Project: "Death of Innocence"
Christopher Benson, a journalist and lawyer, is an associate professor of Journalism and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has worked as a city hall reporter in Chicago for Wbmx-fm, as Washington Editor for Ebony magazine, and as a speechwriter for Washington, D.C. politicians, including former Congressman Harold Washington and Eeoc Chair Clarence Thomas. He also has written for Chicago, Savoy, Jet, and The Crisis magazines, and has contributed to the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Most recently, he has written commentary on justice, race and media for the Chicago Reporter and the Huffington Post. His Chicago Reporter series on the wrongful murder conviction of Anthony Dansberry contributed to Dansberry’s release from prison (after serving 23 years) and earned Benson a Peter Lisagor Award for exemplary journalism. Benson also was a co-writer and associate producer of the Wttw Channel 11 documentary "Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender," and was named on two of the documentary’s three regional Emmy Awards, as well as another Lisagor Award. Benson is co-author with Mamie Till-Mobley of "Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America," the account of the 1955 lynching of Mrs. Till-Mobley’s son, Emmett Till, and the winner of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Special Recognition. The feature adaptation of the book will be executive produced by Chaz Ebert and Shatterglass Films
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
Our project is titled "Death of Innocence" and it is the screen adaptation of a book I co-authored with the late Mamie Till-Mobley about the life and tragic death of her son, Emmett Till. Through this project that focuses on the brutal 1955 lynching of a 14 year-old kid, we want to help people make connections between the violent enforcement of racial segregation and the shooting deaths of young African American males by people who still are getting away with it in our contemporary moment. We also want to show how one person—in this case, Mamie Till-Mobley—can make a difference in the struggle for social and legal justice in America. This clearly is a challenge we still face and we need to learn lessons from some of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. That is what we are trying to show with this picture.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
One of the many things I have taken away from the first day of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab is that I have to take ownership of the characters who populate this story—even this story based on true events and real people. As a professional journalist, I have spent years trying to keep a distance from the issues I write about and the people who humanize those stories, who breathe life into them. Despite cynical public opinion, journalists do go after the truth. In screenwriting, we are going after the essential truth. What is the meaning of everything that appears on the screen? So, even in stories based on real events, we are not simply cataloguing a series of facts in a sequence of scenes. We are supposed to find the story that rises from all those facts. The essential truth. The true meaning. That will affect my screenwriting for some time beyond the successful completion of this project.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
I have to say that the coordinators of the Sundance Lab experience clearly put a lot of care and thought into developing a perfect match of advisors and fellows. The second day discussions with my advisors was phenomenal. As with the Sundance organizers, they had read the script very carefully and approached my sessions with a devotion to maintaining the integrity of the story, and helping fulfill the purpose we had set out to accomplish. It was amazing to listen to the comments that reflected a deep appreciation of the characters, the story and even the potential impact of this piece. I was especially struck by the connection my advisors felt with the main character, Mamie Till-Mobley, and the advice I was given to develop her and her motivation to a level that will result in quite a powerful rendering. I can't wait to get started on the notes.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
My plan is to work with the notes I was given to consider ways to perfect the script. My advisors have indicated an interest in staying in touch on this, so that ongoing conversation will be great. The first step I am taking after the Sundance Lab is to engage in discussions with the other producers on our project to ensure that we all on the same page. Next will be to coordinate with the collaborators on the script to talk about the ideas that have emerged from the lab experience. Finally, I will begin to interpret it all on the page, and I am eager to see where the story takes me.
Shakti Bhagchandani
Project: "Purdah"
Shakti Bhagchandani is a screenwriter/director born and raised in the United Arab Emirates. She grew up in Dubai, in a melting pot of religion and culture, and cultivated her writing abilities with the help of her mother. She travelled to London to pursue a BA in English Literature at King's College London and while there she was awarded the prestigious Jelf Medal for her contributions to art and charity. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she interned at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, the Gate Theatre and National Theatre Studio in London, and the Antenna Theatre in San Francisco. She directed a number of student and semi professional plays, including "Fanny & Faggot" by Jack Thorne and "Pornography" by Simon Stephens. After graduation she moved to New York to pursue an Mfa in Screenwriting & Directing at Columbia University. She is currently in her thesis years, specializing in Screenwriting under advisor Trey Ellis. While at Columbia, she has worked on a number of shorts, and as a writer her last short "Khargosh" screened at Palm Springs International ShortFest and won the Satyajit Ray Award at the London Indian Film Festival. Her first feature screenplay, "Bidoun", was shortlisted for the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab 2015, and her current feature project "Purdah" has been selected for the Sundance Screenwriter's Intensive Lab in La. She recently wrapped production on her short "LostFound" that she wrote and directed, and is currently in preproduction for her next short "Tunisian Jasmine" which is set in the UAE.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular. .
'Purdah' is a coming of age drama that follows a 16-year-old British Pakistani girl as she grapples with her burgeoning womanhood and her precarious sexuality in a world built on segregation and coercion. The project is currently in development.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The first day of the lab included one of the most invigorating writing workshops I've ever been a part of. Joan is a miracle worker! She guided us through a haze of snowploughs, dream sequences and inner monologues, and by the end of it I had somehow come up with about 20 new scene ideas. Characters I had neglected before were suddenly infused with new life and the possibilities for the story feels limitless. Andrew's film and the discussion afterwards was intensely inspiring and the perfect way to round off the day - he helped us believe that the future of our projects is entirely real and attainable.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?.
Patricia and Dana are wonderful! It was amazing to sit across from these incredible, passionate women - they were nurturing, encouraging and boundlessly generous with their advice. They talked about their own trajectories and experiences. They motivated me to dig deeper, to fine tune every detail, and to have faith in myself and the project. They came at my script from completely different angles, offering story notes, a ton of production thoughts, and advice on how to move forward with not only the script, but also my career.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Revise, revise, revise. And then revise again. The lab helped me see how much potential this story has and how much work it still needs. There is so much left to unearth and I'm excited to get started.
Reinaldo Marcus Green
Project: "Monsters and Men"
New York native Reinaldo Marcus Green is a writer, director, and producer. He is currently a thesis student at Nyu Tisch Graduate Film School and writing his first feature narrative, "Monsters and Men." Most recently, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film (2015). His latest short film "Stop," which he wrote, produced, and directed, premiered as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015. His previous short film, "Stone Cars," shot on a micro-budget in South Africa, had its international premiere as an official Cinéfondation selection at the Festival de Cannes 2014.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
At its core, "Monsters and Men" is a story about perspective.
The film consists of three interlocking stories, each told through the point-of-view of three protagonists -- Manny, a street hustler, Stacey, a female police officer, and Zyric, a high school athlete.
When Manny captures an illegal act of police violence on his cellphone, he unwittingly sets off a series of events that will alter the course of each of their lives...
"Monsters and Men's" three chapters connect narratively and thematically, painting a portrait of modern-day Brooklyn -- a community caught in the crosswinds of crime, police corruption, and social instability.
We’re in the final stage of development, planning to shoot this summer 2016 in Brooklyn, New York. We hope to cast the net wide and far in order to provide opportunities for new undiscovered talent, and new exciting voices. The ideal cast would be a mix of professional and non-professional actors. New York is full of immense diverse talent we can’t wait to work with.
As a filmmaker, my goal is to tell powerful, urgently-needed and authentic stories. I see a unique opportunity to challenge the status quo of independent cinema, to craft entertaining stories with heart and meaning - films which possess social relevance, emotional complexity and thematic resonance.
Ultimately, its my hope to create a highly-compelling narrative feature, entertaining to watch, but one which will add to the social conversation about law enforcement, violence, and justice in America. We want to share that experience with audiences in other places in the world, by giving rise to growing communities who are often marginalized and whose stories are rarely seen in film.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
First and foremost, I felt very lucky to be a part of such an amazingly talented group of filmmakers, with a broad range of diverse projects, across all genres. It was fascinating to see where my script fits in the larger spectrum, and what I realized is that each and every story at the lab was an outlier. Each writer had a singular voice, a unique take on genre, character, story, and structure.
The Lesson: “Come in from the side.”
During Day One at the lab, I felt I threw out any preconceived notions I had about my own script. It allowed me to digress and deconstruct without internally combusting. Joan Tewkesbury, a true master at her craft, went right to the core of who we were as human beings, ultimately going right into the core of who and what our scripts were all about, and what they have the potential to become. I think fear is something that holds most people back, the same fear that the world was once flat and we would sail off the edge. Joan refocused my center of gravity and provided me with tools to “access” that inner child, be playful and to keep digging.
Character is at the core of who we are and what makes us human. The digger we deep, the more we reveal about ourselves. I believe in that if I continue the excavation process, with delicate precision, and a gentle curiosity, it will serve me well in all my writing. I can’t be afraid to find out who I am underneath the surface, although sometime we bury things for a reason — because we don’t want to go there — there’s pain hidden in various forms. In writing, there’s a seemingly impenetrable darkness and then there’s light.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The opportunity to sit down with Peter Sollett and Tanya Hamilton was truly a special treat for me. Not only did are they both masters of their craft and highly-regarded writers and directors within their own right, I had been a big fan of their work before meeting them. Peter’s short film "Five Feet High and Rising," which he later turned into a feature, "Raising Victor Vargas" are two works that I admire deeply, and they have been a source for inspiration since the genius of the project.
Both Peter and Tanya are so sharp and so astute, it makes for brilliant analysis and conversation.
They have a slightly different approach to story, but essentially meet somewhere in the middle; Character. With both advisors, we really stepped back from the script — taking a birds eye view of what the film really means to me and how and what the best way to achieve telling it would be moving forward. We talked a lot about character, world, and theme.
Tanya and Peter both offered many ideas for “problem solving” — helping me hone in on areas in the script that could be refined and strengthened. It’s evident in their own work how much they care about the craft — both offering truly thoughtful insight and perspective into how each scene could advance the story. We discussed ways to deepen characters and how to build a compelling and complex world without compromising my voice, or the story I want to tell.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I think the simplest answer is to just keep writing. There’s still a ton of information to digest from the lab but the key is to not get bogged down in semantics, to move beyond the fear and paralysis that we create for ourselves. It’s time to problem solve, lock myself in a room and just write. More coffee please.
Jessie Kahnweiler
Project: "Meet My Rapist"
Jessie Kahnweiler has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, TMZ, People, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Elle, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, Indiewire, La Weekly, The Huffington Post, and The Independent. At the University of Redlands, Kahnweiler quickly began ditching class in order to make documentaries. For her thesis film, Little America, she hitchhiked across the country to explore the world of America’s truck drivers. After getting dumped, she wrote and co-directed the comedic short "Baby Love," co-starring alongside "Anchorman’s" David Koechner. Kahnweiler was selected for the 6 Points Artist Fellowship which inspired her comedic web series entitled "Dude, Where’s my Chutzpah?" Her short "Meet my Rapist," a dark comedy about running into her rapist at the Farmers’ Market, inspired her live show "The Rape Girl." Kahnweiler confronted her own white privilege in her viral hit "Jessie Gets Arrested." Her latest project, for which she serves as writer, director, and stars, is "The Skinny," a dark comedic series based on her 10 year relationship with bulimia. It premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and is produced by Refinery29 and Jill Soloway’s Wifey.tv Kahnweiler lives in La with her plants.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is.
Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular. My project is called "Meet My Rapist" and it is loosely based on a short film I made of the same name a few years ago. After the short had it's 15 minutes online I was moving on to other projects but I felt this gnawing at my gut. I tried to ignore it, popped some advil, and went to yoga but that gnawing just wouldn't stop. That annoying painful gnawing was the beginnings of this script. I've been working on the script on and off for about a year. I'm at the stage where I need to take out most of the flippant jokes and get to the real meat of the matter - the heart, the pain. I need to live and cry this story out. Because the project is so personal it is easy for me to get lost in it. Sometimes I forget where I end and my characters begin. So being at the Sundance lab is great timing. I feel totes blessed.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
That I can't hide behind my jokes. After writing in a feeling state all day our amazing teaching Joan looked at me and was like "Your movie is a song and you gotta hit the bass notes." I was like Mic Drop. I love the challenge of making something that is a comedy based in the tragedy of human reality. That is my north star for this movie. I'm not sure if I will get there but that's where I'll be heading.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
It was incredible to take a deep dive into the script with women who so deeply understand screenwriting from the inside out. The feedback was never like "do it My way" it was more about ripping open the guts of the script and getting to that deeper level. Okay this happens but Why? Screenwriting can be so daunting like "I need write the perfect thing so I can get an agent so I can get hired etc. " and the process can be so lonely and daunting . But in both my sessions we just talked about human behavior and what makes people tick and it reminded me that filmmaking is magic and I'm really lucky to be here. Also a woman, it was inspiring to meet with other women who are living my dream. Who are feeling for a living. In both my sessions I laughed, cried, and go to ask as many questions I wanted it. It was basically my ideal Tinder date.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I'm going to keep working on drafts of the script, keep sharing it with people I trust, keep begging Sundance to let me come over and eat bagels, keep pitching it to anyone who will listen, keep crying, keep feeling, keep making my movie.
Allison Lee
Project: "Jawbone"
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Los Angeles, Allison Lee studied English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. She received her Mfa in Film and Television Production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Upon graduation, she worked in development and production at DreamWorks and NBCUniversal. Lee has received grants from the Media Action Network and the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences. She was also named a Project Involve fellow, and her short The Grizzly was produced by Film Independent. In 2015, she was one of five screenwriters who received a residency through the inaugural Hedgebrook Screenwriters Lab, where she was mentored by Jenny Bicks and Jane Anderson.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Jawbone" is about a Korean woman who undergoes drastic plastic surgery as a means to achieve what she and her peers view as success. After she gives birth to a daughter who looks nothing like her, her life begins to unravel and she’s forced to confront her past.
I am currently grappling with rewrites while meeting with potential producers and crew.
I see "Jawbone" as a hybrid of Korean cinema and American independent film. Korean movies relish the tension in tightly wound familial and social relationships. I think my personal connection to this fabric helps me discern and explore where the similarities and differences to American culture begin and end. I also think the best American independent films underscore the universality of specific personal stories, and I aspire to follow in this tradition.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
I felt transformed by the sessions with Joan Tewkesbury. She pushed us to bare our souls and delve into our histories to deliver stories that were truthful and specific. My biggest fear about "Jawbone" is that a few extreme events in the plot would read as absurdist melodrama. Relating these events back to some of my own crises helped me re-center the emotional truth of my characters and their journeys.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
It was crucial to work with filmmakers who knew the Sundance aesthetic and had weathered the challenges before us. I knew the script needed improvement but had a hazy vision of what it required. Tanya Hamilton’s notes were both encouraging and precise about galvanizing and concretizing the protagonist’s journey. Patricia Cardoso, with her directorial and producerial expertise, reminded me that my artistic flights of fancy should still be grounded in reality and be economical and pragmatic. The breadth of their approaches made me feel like I was getting the best of all worlds.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
I am hustling on a rewrite ready to be seen by producers and representatives. Ultimately, I want to direct "Jawbone," and I am also working on a short film version.
Eliza Lee
Project: "A Beautiful Lie"
Educated in Canada and the Czech Republic, Eliza Lee began in Asia as a Dp trainee before returning to her first passion: screenwriting. She takes great pride in world building for her complex women characters. Lee’s feature, Maybe Tomorrow, about rock legend Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, is being produced by Michelle Sy ("Finding Neverland") and Sophia Chang (former artist manager for Wu Tang Clan), with Academy Award nominee Steph Green ("Run & Jump") attached to direct. Lee’s screenplay, "A Beautiful Lie," about crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, was honored at the 2015 Athena Film Festival, and was also selected for the 2015 Outfest Screenwriting Lab. In addition, she was a Cape 2015 Film & Television Fellow and was mentored by various executives from Sony, Paramount, and Fox, among others. Lee has several features and television projects in development. She is the 2016 Sundance Institute Asian American Fellow.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
When Strangers on the Train was published in 1950 and with the anticipation for it to be turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Highsmith was catapulted into the literary spotlight. Here she thought was her opportunity to break free of the crime genre and finally write her Great American novel. Except, it was at the height of McCarthy’s witch hunt, and her Great American novel would become the iconic lesbian tale, The Price of Salt. In the book, Patricia defiantly gave her lesbian main characters a happy ending together, but faced with the real threat of being blacklisted, she is forced to publish it under a pseudonym. This decision would send her down a path of alcoholism, promiscuity and loneliness as she realized she would not have the happy ending she wrote.
With this story, I knew it had to come from the seminal moment in her life. And for me, it is when she braved writing The Price of Salt at a time where being who you are and believing in what you do can land you in jail, exile or financial ruin. She had to deny her nature, and coupled with a growing rage it would breed the infamous “monster” that would come to define her in her later years.
While her male peers have enjoyed forgiving, pedestal descriptors like "troubled", "complex" or the genius "l'enfant terrible", Highsmith was shown no such generosity.
On top of that, I am struck how often pictures of her old age are published displaying her alcohol and anger ravaged face. We made that. Juxtapose those with photos of Highsmith at 21, so full of hope, vitality and ready for all the wonders of love, and it is clear - she was born this way. "A Beautiful Lie" is about a woman’s quest for love when it was a crime.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
Specifically, I learned I hide behind fiction or through my characters and not have to admit the narrative comes from a personal place. Through an incredibly safe and nurturing environment on the first day, Joan Tewksbury led us through a series of spontaneous and revelatory writing exercises that at first seemed random, but without time to allow the self-censor to kick in, the writing showcased how many more complex layers we can apply to our characters through our uninhibited sharing of our personal experiences. As a result, because the stories come from us, they are inherently going to be personal. It was like sleight of hand for the imagination.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The advisors were there to help us tell the story we want to tell. And the one-on-one sessions were focused solely on the writing, and was intended to be a dialogue. It was humbling to learn the tremendous amount of time they took to burrow deep into our scripts. I was thoroughly empowered by what these writers offered me, and excited that I could challenge such seasoned pros with my perspective and approach to telling a story. Ligiah Villalobos dared me to linger longer in emotional scenes and to take my pursuit for emotional truths for my character even further. While Scott Neustadter and I discussed much about memories as structure, he also pushed me to defy a note i have received that my character is “unlikable” and to allow her to have even more anti-hero moments. i concluded my last day at the Intensive with their voices unifying in the same sentiment: they have a good feeling the film will be made.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Through the Sundance Intensive, I have a clear idea of what is my next step, and that is to apply another layer of shading to my portrait of Patricia Highsmith. I’m anxious to keep the momentum going, and then take it out to talent. I’m going to realize this film.
Jimmy Mosqueda
Project: "Valedictorian"
Jimmy Mosqueda is a lifelong California resident, the son of two Mexican migrant workers, and a graduate of Stanford University. From an early age he showed a fondness for writing, starting his first journal at the age of five, which developed into a passion for writing short stories, poetry and eventually screenplays. While attending Stanford on a full scholarship, Mosqueda saw how social class and race influenced the experiences of his fellow students, which made him realize just how much the American educational system is intimately tied to those pillars. The intersection of race, class, and education remains an ongoing theme in his works. Today, Mosqueda lives in Los Angeles and writes full-time. His screenplays have placed in numerous contests, including as a finalist in the Austin Film Festival, Script Pipeline and TrackingB competitions, and as a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowship. He’s represented by Angelina Chen and Brooklyn Weaver of Energy Entertainment, and is actively developing projects for film and television.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
"Valedictorian" is dark teen comedy in the vein of "Election" and "Heathers." It’s about an ambitious teenage girl who do anything to be crowned valedictorian of her high school, including a little bit of murder. So, you know, just like real high school! I started writing this project about three years ago. It was inspired by my own school experiences, where everyone on the Honors track was super competitive and had their sights set on the Ivy League. Readers respond positively to the comedy and the heightened world of the script, which is great, but one thing I felt got buried underneath the multitude of drafts is the emotional core of the main character. So during the Intensive my main goal was to rediscover who she was and, building out from that, the reason why I wanted to tell this story in the first place.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
The most important thing I learned from the workshop with Joan Tewkesbury is that creative development is not about brainstorming characters or story points. All of us have unique, personal experiences and emotions that can form the building blocks of a story. You really have to look inward and tap that raw data, or else run the risk of your story ringing hollow. A lot of artists understand this intuitively, I believe, but Joan’s workshop laid it out in such clear and simple terms. For my next draft of "Valedictorian," I’m going to use these techniques as a stress test, but in all honesty I want to go back and revisit every project I ever worked on using this approach now.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
My advisors were the bee’s knees, if I can be so blunt. My first session was with Scott Neustadter, who along with his writing partner has written a lot of films with teen lead characters. He very clearly understood what the script was, and gave very specific, actionable notes on how to improve what’s already there. I love how he was able to cut through and really get at the core issues of script, which were mostly the same issues I had going in. Scott is killing the screenwriting game right now. His insights were invaluable.
My second session was with Kyle Patrick Alvarez. We spent a lot of time talking about the main character, her motivation, her relationships, and how she “earns” the big moments/twists in the script. We also spent some time talking bigger picture about the industry and how to build a career in Hollywood, which was very much appreciated. Additionally, it was great getting the perspective of another Latino in the industry.
Both men were truly gracious with their time. I left both sessions feeling inspired!
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
After stepping off Cloud 9, it’s back to the computer and working on a new draft of "Valedictorian." In addition, I will also be tackling a new draft of the pilot version. It’s the same world and characters, but with a different engine that is geared towards episodic narrative. Many of the notes I got from Scott and Kyle apply to the pilot version as well, so it’s like getting two for the price of one!
Finally, I just want to thank everyone involved with putting together the Intensive: Ilyse McKimmie, Michelle Satter, Anne Lai, Shira Rockowitz and everyone at the Sundance Institute who made this possible. I am forever grateful for the experience.
Lotfy Nathan
Project: Untitled Bouazizi Project
Lotfy Nathan’s first film, the documentary "12 O’Clock Boys," played over 50 film festivals worldwide, including SXSW, Sundance Next Fest, Lincoln Center, Viennale, Hot Docs, London, and Copenhagen in 2013. It was ranked 7 in the BFI list of top 20 documentaries of 2013, and garnered Nathan an HBO Emerging Artist award. "12 O’Clock Boys" was subsequently picked up by Oscilloscope for a North American release in theaters, acquired by Showtime for television, and was optioned for a fiction remake by Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment. Nathan is a 2015 grantee of the Creative Capital Foundation, a resident filmmaker at the Cinereach Foundation, and a previous awardee of the Garrett Scott development grant, the Peter Reed Foundation, the Grainger Marburg travel grant, and an Ifp fellowship.
Describe your project briefly and at what stage in the creative process it is. Include details about your artistic vision for this project in particular.
The film is about Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian fruit vendor whose act of self-immolation sparked the Arab spring. It’s a love story, apolitical (as the subject of our protagonist was); about a young man’s steady undoing, and his final bittersweet act of defiance. The film will be shot on location, with cast selected locally besides the principles, and filmed with an immersive approach.
Briefly tell us about the most important or rewarding lesson you took from the first day of the Screenwriters Intensive Lab. How will this impact the future development of your project?
We were encouraged to draw from very specific personal experiences, prompted by Joan It was incredible to learn these tools, which enable you to tap into vast resources from your own life that you can then apply to the writing- and so vividly. I think the writing exercises with Joan actually stirred a very unusual dream for me that night.
Tell me about your experience during day two and your interaction with the advisors. How important was it for you to get feedback from a professional in the field that has gone through some of the same creative challenges as you?
The advisors were very motivating. I left with pages of notes on my writing, tangible pieces of smart advice that will help inform the next draft.
Now that you've gone through this learning experience, what are some of the next steps you will be taking as you continue to develop your project?
Before getting back to work on the script I plan to do some other writing on the characters.
- 3/28/2016
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Manuel is working his way through all the Lgbt-themed HBO productions.
Last week we played a fun game of Oscar What If… imagining how Roger Spottiswoode’s And the Band Played On might have shifted the supporting actor and actress categories at the 1993 Academy Awards had it been released theatrically. This week we’re jumping ten years ahead and looking at the 2003 Oscar acting races and trying to suss out whether Jane Anderson’s Normal (which we discussed in depth a while back) could have made waves in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.
Given that it was released the same year as the towering Angels in America it’s not surprising that Anderson’s Normal (based on her own play) went home empty-handed from all the end of year awards handed out despite featuring two dazzling performances that are usually awards-bait gold: Tom Wilkinson plays Roy Applewood...
Last week we played a fun game of Oscar What If… imagining how Roger Spottiswoode’s And the Band Played On might have shifted the supporting actor and actress categories at the 1993 Academy Awards had it been released theatrically. This week we’re jumping ten years ahead and looking at the 2003 Oscar acting races and trying to suss out whether Jane Anderson’s Normal (which we discussed in depth a while back) could have made waves in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.
Given that it was released the same year as the towering Angels in America it’s not surprising that Anderson’s Normal (based on her own play) went home empty-handed from all the end of year awards handed out despite featuring two dazzling performances that are usually awards-bait gold: Tom Wilkinson plays Roy Applewood...
- 2/24/2016
- by Manuel Betancourt
- FilmExperience
Sneak Peek the complete winner's list from the 67th "Primetime Emmy Awards":
Outstanding Drama Series
"Game Of Thrones" (HBO)
Outstanding Comedy Series
"Veep" (HBO)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Viola Davis, "How to Get Away With Murder"
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Jeffrey Tambor, "Transparent"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "Veep"
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones"
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Uzo Aduba, "Orange Is the New Black"
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Allison Janney, "Mom"
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Tony Hale, "Veep"
Outstanding Miniseries
"Olive Kitteridge" (HBO)
Outstanding Television Movie
"Bessie" (HBO)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
Richard Jenkins, "Olive Kitteridge"
Mark Rylance, "Wolf Hall"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Frances McDormand,...
Outstanding Drama Series
"Game Of Thrones" (HBO)
Outstanding Comedy Series
"Veep" (HBO)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Viola Davis, "How to Get Away With Murder"
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Jeffrey Tambor, "Transparent"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "Veep"
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones"
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Uzo Aduba, "Orange Is the New Black"
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Allison Janney, "Mom"
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Tony Hale, "Veep"
Outstanding Miniseries
"Olive Kitteridge" (HBO)
Outstanding Television Movie
"Bessie" (HBO)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
Richard Jenkins, "Olive Kitteridge"
Mark Rylance, "Wolf Hall"
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Frances McDormand,...
- 9/22/2015
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
The Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles was replete with celebrities as the 2015 Emmy Awards got underway on Sunday night (September 20).
Hosted by Andy Samberg, this year’s shindig featured a host of hot shows and hotter stars, including Jon Hamm, Tracy Morgan, Viola Davis, Lady Gaga, Mindy Kaling, January Jones and Sofia Vergara.
The complete list of winners for the 2015 Emmy Awards is:
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Writing, Comedy
Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche, “Veep”
Supporting Actor, Comedy
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Guest Actor, Comedy
Bradley Whitford, “Transparent”
Guest Actress, Comedy
Joan Cusack, “Shameless”
Director, Comedy
Jill Soloway, “Transparent”
Lead Actor, Comedy
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Lead Actress, Comedy
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Reality Competition
“The Voice”
Writing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Jane Anderson, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actress, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Regina King, “American Crime”
Directing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Lisa Cholodenko, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actor,...
Hosted by Andy Samberg, this year’s shindig featured a host of hot shows and hotter stars, including Jon Hamm, Tracy Morgan, Viola Davis, Lady Gaga, Mindy Kaling, January Jones and Sofia Vergara.
The complete list of winners for the 2015 Emmy Awards is:
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Writing, Comedy
Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche, “Veep”
Supporting Actor, Comedy
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Guest Actor, Comedy
Bradley Whitford, “Transparent”
Guest Actress, Comedy
Joan Cusack, “Shameless”
Director, Comedy
Jill Soloway, “Transparent”
Lead Actor, Comedy
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Lead Actress, Comedy
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Reality Competition
“The Voice”
Writing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Jane Anderson, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actress, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Regina King, “American Crime”
Directing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Lisa Cholodenko, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actor,...
- 9/21/2015
- GossipCenter
The Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles was replete with celebrities as the 2015 Emmy Awards got underway on Sunday night (September 20).
Hosted by Andy Samberg, this year’s shindig featured a host of hot shows and hotter stars, including Jon Hamm, Tracy Morgan, Viola Davis, Lady Gaga, Mindy Kaling, January Jones and Sofia Vergara.
The complete list of winners for the 2015 Emmy Awards is:
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Writing, Comedy
Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche, “Veep”
Supporting Actor, Comedy
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Guest Actor, Comedy
Bradley Whitford, “Transparent”
Guest Actress, Comedy
Joan Cusack, “Shameless”
Director, Comedy
Jill Soloway, “Transparent”
Lead Actor, Comedy
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Lead Actress, Comedy
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Reality Competition
“The Voice”
Writing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Jane Anderson, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actress, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Regina King, “American Crime”
Directing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Lisa Cholodenko, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actor,...
Hosted by Andy Samberg, this year’s shindig featured a host of hot shows and hotter stars, including Jon Hamm, Tracy Morgan, Viola Davis, Lady Gaga, Mindy Kaling, January Jones and Sofia Vergara.
The complete list of winners for the 2015 Emmy Awards is:
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Writing, Comedy
Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche, “Veep”
Supporting Actor, Comedy
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Guest Actor, Comedy
Bradley Whitford, “Transparent”
Guest Actress, Comedy
Joan Cusack, “Shameless”
Director, Comedy
Jill Soloway, “Transparent”
Lead Actor, Comedy
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Lead Actress, Comedy
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Reality Competition
“The Voice”
Writing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Jane Anderson, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actress, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Regina King, “American Crime”
Directing, Limited Series, Movie Or Special
Lisa Cholodenko, “Olive Kitteridge”
Supporting Actor,...
- 9/21/2015
- GossipCenter
With Olive Kitteridge doing so well at the Emmys, Frances McDormand wants to do more. The Oscar-winning actress, who had been the driving force behind the four-hour HBO miniseries, won her first Emmys tonight for starring in and executive producing. When McDormand optioned Elizabeth Strout's book, on which the mini was based, and brought in writer Jane Anderson to adapt it, Anderson wrote a six-hour script. HBO and the film’s production company, Tom Hanks and Gary…...
- 9/21/2015
- Deadline TV
One of the biggest names to dominate the Emmy awards on Sunday wasn't necessarily a famous one.
HBO miniseries "Olive Kitteridge" nabbed six statuettes on TV's biggest night, including three acting honors for stars Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray.
While smash hits like "Game of Thrones" won big, many viewers at home may not be familiar with the cabler's quiet drama that also scored wins for director Lisa Cholodenko and writer Jane Anderson.
Photos: Emmys 2015: Inside The Show
So what is "Olive Kitteridge"?
The Emmy darling – also nominated for three 2015 ...
Copyright 2015 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
HBO miniseries "Olive Kitteridge" nabbed six statuettes on TV's biggest night, including three acting honors for stars Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray.
While smash hits like "Game of Thrones" won big, many viewers at home may not be familiar with the cabler's quiet drama that also scored wins for director Lisa Cholodenko and writer Jane Anderson.
Photos: Emmys 2015: Inside The Show
So what is "Olive Kitteridge"?
The Emmy darling – also nominated for three 2015 ...
Copyright 2015 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
- 9/21/2015
- by access.hollywood@nbcuni.com (Access Hollywood)
- Access Hollywood
"Olive Kitteridge" won Best Limited Series at Sunday night's Emmy telecast after leading our predictions with odds of 1/4. It had 13 nominations total this year and also claimed Best Movie/Mini Actor (Richard Jenkins), Best Movie/Mini Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Movie/Mini Supporting Actor (Bill Murray), Best Movie/Mini Writing (Jane Anderson) and Best Movie/Mini Directing (Lisa Cholodenko). -Break- Emmy Awards: Complete list of winners At the Creative Arts Awards last weekend, "Olive" won another two prizes -- Best Movie/Mini Casting and Best Movie/Mini Editing -- giving it an impressive eight victories total, making it the most honored movie or miniseries of the year. Ranked second in our predictions was "American Crime" with 9/1 odds. The racially charged crime drama had 10 total nominations, but only prevailed in one race: Best Movie/Mini Supporting Actress (Regina King). "American Horror S..."'...
- 9/21/2015
- Gold Derby
The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards were handed out Sunday in Los Angeles, and HBO came away from this year’s telecast with 43 total wins, buoyed by Game of Thrones (which amassed 12 Emmys), Olive Kitteridge (eight) and Veep (five).
RelatedEmmys 2015: Americans, House of Cards and Shameless Stars, Freak Show, Thrones Among Winners
Rounding out the Top 5 winningest programs were FX’s American Horror Story: Freak Show and Amazon’s Transparent, which netted five apiece.
TVLine has denoted the major winners below. Your role, of course, in this annual rigmarole is to rave… or rant!
Outstanding Drama
Better Call Saul
Downton Abbey...
RelatedEmmys 2015: Americans, House of Cards and Shameless Stars, Freak Show, Thrones Among Winners
Rounding out the Top 5 winningest programs were FX’s American Horror Story: Freak Show and Amazon’s Transparent, which netted five apiece.
TVLine has denoted the major winners below. Your role, of course, in this annual rigmarole is to rave… or rant!
Outstanding Drama
Better Call Saul
Downton Abbey...
- 9/21/2015
- TVLine.com
HitFix is live-updating all the winners from tonight's 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards. Here's the list as it stands now: Allison Janney, “Mom” **Winner** Mayim Bialik, “The Big Bang Theory” Niecy Nash, “Getting On” Julie Bowen, “Modern Family” Kate McKinnon “Saturday Night Live” Gaby Hoffmann, “Transparent” Jane Krakowski, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” Anna Chlumsky, “Veep” Supporting Actor, Comedy Tony Hale, “Veep” **Winner** Andre Braugher, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” Adam Driver, “Girls” Keegan-Michael Key, “Key & Peele” Ty Burrell, “Modern Family” Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” Directing For A Comedy Series Jill Soloway for Transparent, “Best New Girl” from Amazon Instant Video and Amazon Studios **Winner** Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for The Last Man On Earth, “Alive In Tucson” (Pilot) from Fox and 20th Century Fox Television Louis C.K. for Louie, “Sleepover” from FX Networks, Pig Newton, Inc. and FX Productions Mike Judge for Silicon Valley, “Sand Hill Shuffle” from HBO, HBO Entertainment in association with Judgemental Films,...
- 9/21/2015
- by Chris Eggertsen
- Hitfix
Shakespeare amp Company has announced its lineup for the 2015 summer season, which includes three Shakespeare plays, Henry V, The Comedy of Errors and Hamlet, plus the Regional Premiere of Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti, and the World Premiere of Jane Anderson's Mother of the Maid, starring Tina Packer. In addition, the summer season includes The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza, and opens with the provocative new play by Sarah Treem, The How and the Why.
- 5/22/2015
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Shakespeare amp Company has announced its lineup for the 2015 summer season, which includes three Shakespeare plays, Henry V, The Comedy of Errors and Hamlet, plus the Regional Premiere of Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti, and the World Premiere of Jane Anderson's Mother of the Maid, starring Tina Packer. In addition, the summer season includes The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza, and opens with the provocative new play by Sarah Treem, The How and the Why.
- 2/16/2015
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" won the Original Screenplay honor at the recently concluded Writers Guild Awards while Morten Tyldum's "The Imitation Game" took home the Adapted Screenplay trophy. "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swarts" written by Brian Knappenberger won Documentary Screenplay award. The film is not nominated for an Academy award.
In TV land, HBO's "True Detective" won the Drama Series award and FX's "Louie" received the Comedy Series trophy.
Here's the complete list of winners (highlighted) and nominees of the 2015 Writers Guild Awards:
Feature Film
Original Screenplay
Boyhood, Written by Richard Linklater; IFC Films
Foxcatcher, Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; Sony Pictures Classics
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness; Fox Searchlight Winner
Nightcrawler, Written by Dan Gilroy; Open Road Films
Whiplash, Written by Damien Chazelle; Sony Pictures Classics
Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper,...
In TV land, HBO's "True Detective" won the Drama Series award and FX's "Louie" received the Comedy Series trophy.
Here's the complete list of winners (highlighted) and nominees of the 2015 Writers Guild Awards:
Feature Film
Original Screenplay
Boyhood, Written by Richard Linklater; IFC Films
Foxcatcher, Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; Sony Pictures Classics
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness; Fox Searchlight Winner
Nightcrawler, Written by Dan Gilroy; Open Road Films
Whiplash, Written by Damien Chazelle; Sony Pictures Classics
Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper,...
- 2/16/2015
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
2015 Writers Guild Awards – Winners Announced The Writers Guild of America, West (Wgaw) and the Writers Guild of America, East (Wgae) tonight announced the winners of the 2015 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for film, television, new media, videogames, news, radio, promotional, and graphic animation categories at simultaneous ceremonies at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles and the Edison Ballroom in New York City. Film Winners Original Screenplay The Grand Budapest Hotel, Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness; Fox Searchlight Adapted Screenplay The Imitation Game, Written by Graham Moore; Based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges; The Weinstein Company Documentary Screenplay The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, Written by Brian Knappenberger; FilmBuff Television And New Media Winners Drama Series True Detective, Written by Nic Pizzolatto; HBO Comedy Series Louie, Written by Pamela Adlon, Louis C.K.; FX New Series True Detective,...
- 2/15/2015
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) handed out top film honors to the screenplays of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "The Imitation Game" Saturday night. On the television side, "Louie" and "True Detective" were favorites, winning two prizes each. Damien Chazelle's "Whiplash" competed in the original category at the WGA Awards, while the Academy's Writers Branch, in a rare move outside of guild designation, deemed it adapted due to the fact that a scene from the feature script was the basis of a short film that screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. So if "The Imitation Game" is to go on to Oscar glory, it will have to compete with Chazelle's popular film for the first time this season at the Feb. 22 Academy Awards ceremony. Additionally, presumed Best Picture frontrunner "Birdman" was not eligible for WGA (making it still significant competition with "Grand Budapest" in the original category), nor was "The Theory of Everything,...
- 2/15/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
Film Best Original Screenplay: Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel Best Adapted Screenplay: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game Best Documentary: Brian Knappenberger, The Internet’s Own Boy TV Best Longform Adapted: Jane Anderson,...
- 2/15/2015
- by Ryan Adams
- AwardsDaily.com
Tonight, the Writers Guild of America handed out their awards for achievements in writing for 2014, with The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game winning top honors, as was fully expected.
As I’ve already mentioned, the win here for The Grand Budapest Hotel doesn’t mean a thing, as it didn’t have to go up against its main competition, Birdman, which, if it had been eligible, would have easily taken the category this evening (the last six eligible screenplays to win both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards have gone on to win here). This category actually means a lot more for Boyhood, which has now had the last nail driven into its coffin with its loss here tonight. The least a film has won Best Picture with in the last 25 years (since the inception of the PGA awards) has been a WGA award (Braveheart), meaning Boyhood...
As I’ve already mentioned, the win here for The Grand Budapest Hotel doesn’t mean a thing, as it didn’t have to go up against its main competition, Birdman, which, if it had been eligible, would have easily taken the category this evening (the last six eligible screenplays to win both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards have gone on to win here). This category actually means a lot more for Boyhood, which has now had the last nail driven into its coffin with its loss here tonight. The least a film has won Best Picture with in the last 25 years (since the inception of the PGA awards) has been a WGA award (Braveheart), meaning Boyhood...
- 2/15/2015
- by Jeff Beck
- We Got This Covered
Logan Lerman, Oscar-winner Frances McDormand and Christian Slater have joined the cast of Anonymous Content and Meta Film’s drama “The Wife.”
Also rounding out the cast are Brit Marling and Jonathan Pryce.
Glenn Close, who was already previously signed on for the project, will star as Joan Castleman, a wife who decides to leave her husband Joe (Pryce) on the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature.
Also read: ‘A Delicate Balance’ Theater Review: Glenn Close Revisits More Than One Diva
Slater will play a determined biographer who becomes the catalyst prompting Joan’s decision to leave...
Also rounding out the cast are Brit Marling and Jonathan Pryce.
Glenn Close, who was already previously signed on for the project, will star as Joan Castleman, a wife who decides to leave her husband Joe (Pryce) on the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature.
Also read: ‘A Delicate Balance’ Theater Review: Glenn Close Revisits More Than One Diva
Slater will play a determined biographer who becomes the catalyst prompting Joan’s decision to leave...
- 1/30/2015
- by Alicia Banks
- The Wrap
Exclusve: Cast rounds on Us-Swedish drama set to star Glenn Close.
Frances McDormand (Fargo), Logan Lerman (Fury), Brit Marling (Arbitrage), Christian Slater (Nymphomaniac) and Jonathan Pryce (Woman in Gold) have joined Glenn Close in Us-Swedish drama The Wife.
Ahead of the Efm, Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s Embankment Films has boarded the intriguing package produced by Anonymous Content and Sweden’s Meta Film.
CAA and Wme Global are co-representing the U.S sale.
Close will star as the elegant Joan Castleman, a flawlessly gracious wife who gladly gave up her writing ambitions to play the role of helpmate to her husband, the philandering literary giant Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for Literature Joan decides to leave him.
Slater is the determined, unauthorized biographer who unwittingly becomes the catalyst that prompts Joan’s decision.
Marling will play the younger Joan, a product of her class and time, and McDormand...
Frances McDormand (Fargo), Logan Lerman (Fury), Brit Marling (Arbitrage), Christian Slater (Nymphomaniac) and Jonathan Pryce (Woman in Gold) have joined Glenn Close in Us-Swedish drama The Wife.
Ahead of the Efm, Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s Embankment Films has boarded the intriguing package produced by Anonymous Content and Sweden’s Meta Film.
CAA and Wme Global are co-representing the U.S sale.
Close will star as the elegant Joan Castleman, a flawlessly gracious wife who gladly gave up her writing ambitions to play the role of helpmate to her husband, the philandering literary giant Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for Literature Joan decides to leave him.
Slater is the determined, unauthorized biographer who unwittingly becomes the catalyst that prompts Joan’s decision.
Marling will play the younger Joan, a product of her class and time, and McDormand...
- 1/30/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Palm Springs International Film Festival is the most accommodating to the industry, the easiest to get around with a frequent shuttle, the easiest to see great films, the best environment, the best audiences (all the shows are sold out) of festivals.
However, it is strange being surrounded by old people who are all my age. My prejudices against “old people” remains the same as when I considered them to be a part of my mother’s generation. However, some of these “old people” know so much more about the films, and their educated way of making choices of what to see are so much better than mine. I thought I knew everything...what a laugh. They know every director, all their past films, and they painstakingly plan with handwritten schedules and lots of discussion which films they will see.
I have been coming to the festival, almost “dropping in” on it since it is a mere 2 hour drive from L.A. for many years and everyone is always so helpful. It is totally familiar to me; it’s leisurely, very few restaurants (if any) are really great, there is a certain tackiness to the shops And there are always new film adventures and new folks to see.
This year I was happily hanging out the first weekend with Nancy Gerstman from Zeitgeist, and on the second weekend with Fortissimo’s Michael Werner and Tom Davia whose new company CineMaven (www.Cinemaven.com) sounds like a great company for festivals, filmmakers and companies needing acquisition help. We had a great dinner at Spencer’s where the Awards Luncheon was held.
On the recommendation of Mattijs Wouter Knol, the new head of the European Film Market at Berlin – on Facebook as he is now preparing the Efm and was not here – I watched “Clouds of Sils Maria” by Olivier Assayas. Opinions on this film as with most films by Assayas, vary, but mine is that this languid study on acting and real life and how aging and death fit into the mix was a major treat. Like Polanski’s “Venus in Fur”, the alternating currents of acting and real life flow electrically with shocks and illumination included. Rather than aging, let’s call ourselves “ageless” and have an end to confusion about the inevitable life processes.
Like “Winters Sleep," another of my favorite “intellectual cinema” choices, in “Sils Maria”, the interior processes of the protagonists are revealed only in the unfolding of the story.
Kirsten Stewart played an amazing role as the actress’s young assistant in this deeply felt, intellectually worked out study of aging vs. ageless.
By biting off what seems like more than she can chew in consenting to play opposite the great Juliette Binoche who is at the height of her career, a young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) gives Juliette Binoche the resolution to the unhappiness that has been nagging at her throughout the film.
Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. But back then, she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She doesn’t want to play this role but is coaxed by circumstances into playing it and when she discusses it with the young actress who blithely tells her it’s time to move on, she becomes the Eve of “All About Eve” and Juliette “gets” it.
Cinematography is by Yorick Le Saux (“Only Lovers Left Alive," “Potiche," “Carlos”). IFC has North American rights.
Moving on, I can’t wait to see Juliette Binoche in her next role, the Opening Night film of the Berlinale, Isabel Croixet's “Nobody Wants the Night ”. The film co-stars Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”) and Gabriel Byrne (as explorer Robert Peary) and takes place in 1908 in the Arctic and Greenland. (Isa: Elle Driver
The other film I saw that first weekend was “Dancing Arabs” (Isa: The Match Factory) by Eran Riklis who was there to discuss the film as well. He had been a soldier in Israel’s worst war. He witnessed Sadat making peace with Israel. However, when Perez was assassinated, he saw Israel declining into a violent nation as peace became more and more elusive.
Dancing Arabs is a very popular novel in Israel. It is an odd title for this film, but it derives from a saying, “you can't dance at two weddings at the same time”. The film is also loosely based on another novel...Second Person Singular. But after filming a while, the characters took on lives of their own and the novels were more or less forgotten in the process of making the movie.
Lots of questions are left open in this film because there are no answers. In a way, the film is experimental. It opens as a charming family film, but changes and actually becomes almost morbid. People however do change, and the young “genius” living in a small Arab town in Israel/ Palestine becomes a mature man living in Berlin at the end of the story.
This is the first film of the male lead, Tawfeek Barhom. Who plays Eyad. While casting, Riklis said that the young actor told him he had known him since he was ten when he saw him making the movie “The Syrian Bride” in his village. He went to set every day for three weeks, and he knew he wanted to be an actor. On screen he is playing himself, and a lot of the story was true...he lived too long with the Jews, his Arab was no longer good. This he said at a screening held in the north of Israel to an audience of mostly Arabs who do not go to many movies, but were invited by Israel to see the film.
In the film he gives up his education for love of girl and she gives up her love for him for the love of her country. This is how minority relationships often turn out.
Eyad’s father’s reaction to the relationship of his university student son with an Israeli Jewish student is unexpected, but he too is buried by tradition whereas the mother with her small smile gives a ray of hope.
The scriptwriter-novelist, Sayed Kashua is brilliant, and this is a part of his real life. Kashua and Riklis have a love-hate relationship: when Kashua, who based the novel on his own life, saw the fine cut...he fainted. His wife said, “What are you complaining about, did your mother look like that?”
Sayed said complained that his own kids don't speak Arabic anymore, and so he took a sabbatical and is now in Champaign-Urbana at the University of Illinois.
The audience in Israel, judging by the 20 to 30 Facebook comments, they get daily consists of 20% Arabs which is great because they don't normally go to movies. Even a right wing Israeli said he liked the movie. The goes beyond right and left.
It is not a blockbuster, but it doing well. The word “Arab” might keep some people away.
On the second weekend I went to see “Salt of the Earth” (Isa: Ndm), now nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Academy Awards, and “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” by her grandniece Michelle Boyaner.
Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are linked by his son and director Wim Wenders to his life. With his own voice and that of his son, Juliano, they discover the undiscovered in photography and in their own lives.
“Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” is the story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, committed to an asylum in 1925 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Finding Vivian Maier"
In many ways this is similar to “Finding Vivian Maier," which also nominated for an Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category, in that both recover long lost and never acknowledged art which is astoundingly good art. This one goes further into the lesbian relationships of artists Edith and Jane and takes another unexpected step into the psychic world of a medium who actually solves the mystery of why Edith was committed and then forgotten. This is a must-see for art lovers and would make a great fiction film as well.
Another notable aspect of Psiff that is how, just before the Awards begin for Golden Globe and for the Academy, all the big name stars are here for two awards events. One, the opening night gala raises millions for the festival. The other, Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch brunch, brings more stars and that funny speech by Chris Rock (See Video Here).
Read More: Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev on his Oscar-Nominated "Leviathan"
Also remarkable is that, aside from the above Awards and then the final festival awards bestowed, the Golden Globes mirrored the Palm Springs Fest’s awards:
Actress in a drama: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (Isa: Memento) won Psiff’s Achievement Award
Actor in a drama: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything” (Uip) also received the Psiff Desert Palm Achievement Award.
Supporting actor, drama: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Isa: Sierra/ Affinity) received the Psiff Spotlight Award.
Director Richard Linklater, “Boyhood” (Uip/ Paramount) received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.
Foreign Language Film: "Leviathan” (Isa: Pyramide) received the PSiFF Best Foreign Language Film.
Screenplay: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo, “Birdman” (Fox Searchlight), Inarritu received Psiff Director of the Year Award which was bestowed by “Birdman” star Michael Keaton. And the Golden Globe Award for Actor, musical or comedy, went to Michael Keaton for “Birdman”...
However, it is strange being surrounded by old people who are all my age. My prejudices against “old people” remains the same as when I considered them to be a part of my mother’s generation. However, some of these “old people” know so much more about the films, and their educated way of making choices of what to see are so much better than mine. I thought I knew everything...what a laugh. They know every director, all their past films, and they painstakingly plan with handwritten schedules and lots of discussion which films they will see.
I have been coming to the festival, almost “dropping in” on it since it is a mere 2 hour drive from L.A. for many years and everyone is always so helpful. It is totally familiar to me; it’s leisurely, very few restaurants (if any) are really great, there is a certain tackiness to the shops And there are always new film adventures and new folks to see.
This year I was happily hanging out the first weekend with Nancy Gerstman from Zeitgeist, and on the second weekend with Fortissimo’s Michael Werner and Tom Davia whose new company CineMaven (www.Cinemaven.com) sounds like a great company for festivals, filmmakers and companies needing acquisition help. We had a great dinner at Spencer’s where the Awards Luncheon was held.
On the recommendation of Mattijs Wouter Knol, the new head of the European Film Market at Berlin – on Facebook as he is now preparing the Efm and was not here – I watched “Clouds of Sils Maria” by Olivier Assayas. Opinions on this film as with most films by Assayas, vary, but mine is that this languid study on acting and real life and how aging and death fit into the mix was a major treat. Like Polanski’s “Venus in Fur”, the alternating currents of acting and real life flow electrically with shocks and illumination included. Rather than aging, let’s call ourselves “ageless” and have an end to confusion about the inevitable life processes.
Like “Winters Sleep," another of my favorite “intellectual cinema” choices, in “Sils Maria”, the interior processes of the protagonists are revealed only in the unfolding of the story.
Kirsten Stewart played an amazing role as the actress’s young assistant in this deeply felt, intellectually worked out study of aging vs. ageless.
By biting off what seems like more than she can chew in consenting to play opposite the great Juliette Binoche who is at the height of her career, a young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) gives Juliette Binoche the resolution to the unhappiness that has been nagging at her throughout the film.
Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. But back then, she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She doesn’t want to play this role but is coaxed by circumstances into playing it and when she discusses it with the young actress who blithely tells her it’s time to move on, she becomes the Eve of “All About Eve” and Juliette “gets” it.
Cinematography is by Yorick Le Saux (“Only Lovers Left Alive," “Potiche," “Carlos”). IFC has North American rights.
Moving on, I can’t wait to see Juliette Binoche in her next role, the Opening Night film of the Berlinale, Isabel Croixet's “Nobody Wants the Night ”. The film co-stars Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”) and Gabriel Byrne (as explorer Robert Peary) and takes place in 1908 in the Arctic and Greenland. (Isa: Elle Driver
The other film I saw that first weekend was “Dancing Arabs” (Isa: The Match Factory) by Eran Riklis who was there to discuss the film as well. He had been a soldier in Israel’s worst war. He witnessed Sadat making peace with Israel. However, when Perez was assassinated, he saw Israel declining into a violent nation as peace became more and more elusive.
Dancing Arabs is a very popular novel in Israel. It is an odd title for this film, but it derives from a saying, “you can't dance at two weddings at the same time”. The film is also loosely based on another novel...Second Person Singular. But after filming a while, the characters took on lives of their own and the novels were more or less forgotten in the process of making the movie.
Lots of questions are left open in this film because there are no answers. In a way, the film is experimental. It opens as a charming family film, but changes and actually becomes almost morbid. People however do change, and the young “genius” living in a small Arab town in Israel/ Palestine becomes a mature man living in Berlin at the end of the story.
This is the first film of the male lead, Tawfeek Barhom. Who plays Eyad. While casting, Riklis said that the young actor told him he had known him since he was ten when he saw him making the movie “The Syrian Bride” in his village. He went to set every day for three weeks, and he knew he wanted to be an actor. On screen he is playing himself, and a lot of the story was true...he lived too long with the Jews, his Arab was no longer good. This he said at a screening held in the north of Israel to an audience of mostly Arabs who do not go to many movies, but were invited by Israel to see the film.
In the film he gives up his education for love of girl and she gives up her love for him for the love of her country. This is how minority relationships often turn out.
Eyad’s father’s reaction to the relationship of his university student son with an Israeli Jewish student is unexpected, but he too is buried by tradition whereas the mother with her small smile gives a ray of hope.
The scriptwriter-novelist, Sayed Kashua is brilliant, and this is a part of his real life. Kashua and Riklis have a love-hate relationship: when Kashua, who based the novel on his own life, saw the fine cut...he fainted. His wife said, “What are you complaining about, did your mother look like that?”
Sayed said complained that his own kids don't speak Arabic anymore, and so he took a sabbatical and is now in Champaign-Urbana at the University of Illinois.
The audience in Israel, judging by the 20 to 30 Facebook comments, they get daily consists of 20% Arabs which is great because they don't normally go to movies. Even a right wing Israeli said he liked the movie. The goes beyond right and left.
It is not a blockbuster, but it doing well. The word “Arab” might keep some people away.
On the second weekend I went to see “Salt of the Earth” (Isa: Ndm), now nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Academy Awards, and “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” by her grandniece Michelle Boyaner.
Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are linked by his son and director Wim Wenders to his life. With his own voice and that of his son, Juliano, they discover the undiscovered in photography and in their own lives.
“Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” is the story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, committed to an asylum in 1925 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Finding Vivian Maier"
In many ways this is similar to “Finding Vivian Maier," which also nominated for an Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category, in that both recover long lost and never acknowledged art which is astoundingly good art. This one goes further into the lesbian relationships of artists Edith and Jane and takes another unexpected step into the psychic world of a medium who actually solves the mystery of why Edith was committed and then forgotten. This is a must-see for art lovers and would make a great fiction film as well.
Another notable aspect of Psiff that is how, just before the Awards begin for Golden Globe and for the Academy, all the big name stars are here for two awards events. One, the opening night gala raises millions for the festival. The other, Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch brunch, brings more stars and that funny speech by Chris Rock (See Video Here).
Read More: Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev on his Oscar-Nominated "Leviathan"
Also remarkable is that, aside from the above Awards and then the final festival awards bestowed, the Golden Globes mirrored the Palm Springs Fest’s awards:
Actress in a drama: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (Isa: Memento) won Psiff’s Achievement Award
Actor in a drama: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything” (Uip) also received the Psiff Desert Palm Achievement Award.
Supporting actor, drama: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Isa: Sierra/ Affinity) received the Psiff Spotlight Award.
Director Richard Linklater, “Boyhood” (Uip/ Paramount) received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.
Foreign Language Film: "Leviathan” (Isa: Pyramide) received the PSiFF Best Foreign Language Film.
Screenplay: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo, “Birdman” (Fox Searchlight), Inarritu received Psiff Director of the Year Award which was bestowed by “Birdman” star Michael Keaton. And the Golden Globe Award for Actor, musical or comedy, went to Michael Keaton for “Birdman”...
- 1/17/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Boardwalk Empire, “Devil You Know”
Written by Howard Korder
Directed by Jeremy Podeswa
Aired October 12, 2014
After four seasons of deliberately paced, character-based storytelling, Boardwalk Empire wasn’t going to change its approach in its final truncated season. Instead of introducing new intrigues or foes, the series used much of its time to reflect on the paths that brought Nucky and the other main characters to this point and to say an extended goodbye to the people and world of the show. With Nucky facing off against well known historical figures, an air of doom pervades much of the final episodes before they reach their poetic, but inevitable conclusion. More intriguing is the antepenultimate episode, “Devil You Know”, which says goodbye to two of the series’ most colorful characters and powerful actors, Michael Shannon’s George Mueller/Nelson Van Alden and Michael K. Williams’ Chalky White. Shannon’s intense and frequently...
Written by Howard Korder
Directed by Jeremy Podeswa
Aired October 12, 2014
After four seasons of deliberately paced, character-based storytelling, Boardwalk Empire wasn’t going to change its approach in its final truncated season. Instead of introducing new intrigues or foes, the series used much of its time to reflect on the paths that brought Nucky and the other main characters to this point and to say an extended goodbye to the people and world of the show. With Nucky facing off against well known historical figures, an air of doom pervades much of the final episodes before they reach their poetic, but inevitable conclusion. More intriguing is the antepenultimate episode, “Devil You Know”, which says goodbye to two of the series’ most colorful characters and powerful actors, Michael Shannon’s George Mueller/Nelson Van Alden and Michael K. Williams’ Chalky White. Shannon’s intense and frequently...
- 12/26/2014
- by Staff
- SoundOnSight
The Writers Guild of America announced the TV nominees for the 2015 WGA Awards on Thursday (December 4) morning and several new shows broke into the fields in a big way. And, of course, there were a number of big WGA Award nomination head-scratchers. Specifically, where the heck was FX's "Fargo"? The answer is below. Making perhaps the biggest splash was "Transparent," which earned three nominations and, since "Orange Is The New Black" earned two nods and "House of Cards" pick up one, that meant that Amazon Prime and Netflix are, at least for one award-giving organization, on equal footing as creators of original programming. The Jill Soloway-created "Transparent" is nominated for New Series, where it will go against "The Affair," "The Knick," "Silicon Valley" and "True Detective." "Transparent" and "Silicon Valley" are also up for Comedy Series, going against "Louie," "Veep" and "Orange Is The New Black." Lest you panic...
- 12/5/2014
- by Daniel Fienberg
- Hitfix
Olive Kitteridge, airing Sunday and Monday on HBO, follows stern Maine schoolteacher Olive Kitteridge (Frances McDormand) and her relationships with her husband, Henry (Richard Jenkins); son, Chris (John Gallagher Jr.); and other members of their New England community. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko, the four-episode HBO miniseries was adapted by Jane Anderson from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Elizabeth Strout, and also stars Bill Murray and Zoe Kazan. Read more 'Olive Kitteridge' Cast Dishes on the HBO Miniseries' Brave Portraits of Marriage and Mental Illness Read what top critics are saying about Olive Kitteridge: The Hollywood Reporter’s David
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- 11/2/2014
- by Rebecca Doyle
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Olive Kitteridge, HBO's four-part miniseries directed by Lisa Cholodenko from playwright Jane Anderson’s script, is adapted from Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of 13 stories and was set in motion by Frances McDormand as, as Frank Bruni puts it in the New York Times, "her answer to an industry and a society that she finds perverse in their fixation on youth." The magnificent cast features Richard Jenkins, Bill Murray, Zoe Kazan, Martha Wainwright, Peter Mullan and John Gallagher Jr. We're collecting reviews (raves, mostly) and we've posted the trailer and a clip. » - David Hudson...
- 11/2/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Olive Kitteridge, HBO's four-part miniseries directed by Lisa Cholodenko from playwright Jane Anderson’s script, is adapted from Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of 13 stories and was set in motion by Frances McDormand as, as Frank Bruni puts it in the New York Times, "her answer to an industry and a society that she finds perverse in their fixation on youth." The magnificent cast features Richard Jenkins, Bill Murray, Zoe Kazan, Martha Wainwright, Peter Mullan and John Gallagher Jr. We're collecting reviews (raves, mostly) and we've posted the trailer and a clip. » - David Hudson...
- 11/2/2014
- Keyframe
This is a reprint of our review from the 2014 Venice Film Festival. "Olive Kitteridge" debuts on HBO on November 2nd. So that’s that then—the best film at the Venice Film Festival, in terms of providing a great central female role (which have been in shocking short supply, at least in the selection we’ve seen so far), is not a film at all. It’s the subtle, sublime, Lisa Cholodenko-directed, 4-hour HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge,” and the performance in question come from Frances McDormand, who achieves such a perfect, uncompromised synthesis with the title character that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else ever answering to the name. Quite apart from the show itself, which is sensitively directed by Cholodenko, cleverly written by Jane Anderson, beautifully shot by Dp Frederick Elmes, and immaculately performed by its large ensemble, especially the incredible Richard Jenkins, the meta narrative of...
- 10/30/2014
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
The last time HBO turned a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in Maine into a miniseries, it was 2005's "Empire Falls," which boasted a star-studded cast but was exactly the wrong length at four hours: too short to properly tell all of the books' stories and give the audience the necessary feeling of living among these characters, and much too long for the thin slice the filmmakers were able to carve out of the book. HBO's new miniseries "Olive Kitteridge" (it debuts Sunday night at 9) is also adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in Maine, and also clocks in at four hours. And though I haven't read the Elizabeth Strout book on which it's based, it certainly feels like the same mistake has been made about its length. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right") and written by HBO movie veteran Jane Anderson ("Normal," "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom...
- 10/29/2014
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Hitfix
Save us from shotguns & fathers' suicides. This pleading scrap of verse, from John Berryman's elegy for Ernest Hemingway, "Dream Song 235," appears in HBO's "Olive Kitteridge" scrawled on a cocktail napkin, yet another of the miniseries' many reminders that in the midst of life we are in death. Adapted by Jane Anderson from Elizabeth Strout's 2008 novel and directed by Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right"), "Olive Kitteridge" abounds with death -- sudden, slow, natural, accidental, suicidal -- much as this summer's "The Leftovers" (HBO) bristles with absence, and both thoroughly earn the adjective "bleak." But the latter succeeds in traversing such rough terrain while the former falls short, a difference that comes down, I think, to their uses of disenchantment. Read More: "Lisa Cholodenko & Frances McDormand's 'Olive Kitteridge' Impresses in Venice" As "Olive Kitteridge" opens, the...
- 10/28/2014
- by Matt Brennan
- Thompson on Hollywood
TV Picks: HBO’s poignant ‘Olive Kitteridge’ comes to the smallscreen November 2nd and 3rd.Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins star in the four-part HBO Miniseries drama Olive Kitteridge, a film by director Lisa Cholodenko, based on Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name with a teleplay by Jane Anderson. The miniseries also stars Bill Murray, John Gallagher, Jr., Peter Mullan, Rosemarie DeWitt and Zoe Kazan.Olive Kitteridge tells the poignantly sweet, acerbically funny and devastatingly tragic story of a seemingly placid New England town wrought with illicit affairs, crime and tragedy, told through the lens of Olive (Frances McDormand), whose […]...
- 10/26/2014
- by April Neale
- Monsters and Critics
HBO’s mini-series fever continues after the grand success of “True Detective” with “Olive Kitteridge”, based on the best-selling novel by Elizabeth Strout and starring an impressive line-up that includes Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray, whose continued presence soon after the Toronto International Film Festival's Bill Murray Day is more than welcome. The mini-series spans the 25-year relationship between a middle school teacher named Olive (McDormand) and her husband Henry (Jenkins) who live in the small town of Crosby, Maine. In true HBO fashion, the first teaser for the show gives very little information about its content and lets the images speak for themselves. But if you're keen to know more, the series premiered at Venice a week or so ago, where our correspondent Jessica Kiang raved about it —you can read that review right here. The show is written by Jane Anderson (“How to Make an American Quilt...
- 9/9/2014
- by Oktay Ege Kozak
- The Playlist
So that’s that then — the best film at the Venice Film Festival in terms of providing a great central female role (which have been in shocking short supply, at least in the selection we’ve seen so far) is not a film at all. It’s the subtle, sublime Lisa Cholodenko-directed 4-hour HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge,” and the performance in question come from Frances McDormand, who achieves such a perfect, uncompromised synthesis with the title character that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else ever answering to the name. Quite apart from the show itself, which is sensitively directed by Cholodenko, cleverly written by Jane Anderson, beautifully shot by Dp Frederick Elmes and immaculately performed across its large ensemble, especially the incredible Richard Jenkins, the meta narrative of seeing one of our greatest working actresses unite with such an unusual and worthwhile role is immensely satisfying all by itself.
- 9/3/2014
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
Venice - My goodness, but "Olive Kitteridge" makes creating great TV look as simple as following a recipe. Let's say you want to create a truly wonderful miniseries. A good place to start would be picking great source material that nevertheless comes without too much cultural baggage or a mouthy fandom. An excellent and recent Pulitzer winning novel by Elizabeth Strout would seem to fit the bill. You want great performances? Easy, let's employ some great leads. Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Bill Murray and Zoe Kazan should do for starters. Oh, you want great support too? Fine, simply round out the cast with the likes of Peter Mullan, John Gallagher Jr. and Brady Corbet. Of course you'll need a director. Apparently Lisa Cholodenko of "The Kids Are All Right" fame is free. Perfect. Jeffrey M. Werner, the editor Cholodenko worked with on that self same film, is available too. And for your cinematographer,...
- 9/2/2014
- by Catherine Bray
- Hitfix
Hollywood studios are no longer in the business of making minor-key contemplations of life, death, marriage and family like Olive Kitteridge, which turns out to be an excellent thing for Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 novel. While not all the book’s 13 interconnected stories and throng of characters are covered, the tone is captured and the essential elements given ample breathing space in this emotionally satisfying, funny-sad four-part HBO miniseries. Produced by Tom Hanks’ Playtone banner, it’s directed with an impeccable balance of sensitivity and humor by Lisa Cholodenko and expertly adapted by Jane Anderson. Airing
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- 9/1/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
HBO has announced the star-studded supporting cast for its upcoming mini-series adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Olive Kitteridge". Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right") will helm the four-part mini-series which debuts on the network in November.
Set over a 25 year period in a seemingly placid New England town wrought with illicit affairs, crime and tragedy, the story follows a middle-school math teacher named Olive (Frances McDormand) who uses a wicked wit and harsh demeanor to mask a warm but troubled heart .
Richard Jenkins ("Burn After Reading") portrays Olive’s kind-hearted pharmacist husband, Henry. John Gallagher, Jr. ("The Newsroom") is their son Christopher, Peter Mullan ("Top of the Lake") plays fellow teacher Jim O’Casey, Rosemarie DeWitt ("Mad Men") as a shut-in named Rachel Coulson, Zoe Kazan ("Ruby Sparks") as the pharmacist worker Denise Thibodeau, Ann Dowd ("Side Effects") as a family friend.
Also onboard are Cory Michael Smith...
Set over a 25 year period in a seemingly placid New England town wrought with illicit affairs, crime and tragedy, the story follows a middle-school math teacher named Olive (Frances McDormand) who uses a wicked wit and harsh demeanor to mask a warm but troubled heart .
Richard Jenkins ("Burn After Reading") portrays Olive’s kind-hearted pharmacist husband, Henry. John Gallagher, Jr. ("The Newsroom") is their son Christopher, Peter Mullan ("Top of the Lake") plays fellow teacher Jim O’Casey, Rosemarie DeWitt ("Mad Men") as a shut-in named Rachel Coulson, Zoe Kazan ("Ruby Sparks") as the pharmacist worker Denise Thibodeau, Ann Dowd ("Side Effects") as a family friend.
Also onboard are Cory Michael Smith...
- 7/10/2014
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Academy Award winner Frances McDormand ( Fargo , North Country ) and Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins ( The Visitor , The Cabin in the Woods ) are set to star in the HBO Miniseries drama "Olive Kitteridge," a film by Academy Award-nominated director Lisa Cholodenko ( The Kids Are All Right , Laurel Canyon ). Based on Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name and written by Emmy-winner Jane Anderson ("The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom," "Normal"), the miniseries recently completed production in Massachusetts for debut later this year on HBO. An HBO Miniseries presentation of a Playtone production in association with As Is, "Olive Kitteridge" is executive produced by...
- 1/9/2014
- Comingsoon.net
Breaking: Rosalie Swedlin has left an 11-year run at Industry Entertainment to join Anonymous Content as manager and producer. Current clients making the move with Swedlin include David Frankel, Richard Shepard, Lynn Shelton, Nigel Cole, Kirsten Sheridan, Gary Winick, Michael Engler, Tommy Schlamme, Jane Anderson and John Riggi. Swedlin will also bring several of her film and TV projects with her. Swedlin left Icm to join Industry in 1999, and produced Clockers, Red Corner and the HBO film Live from Baghdad. Swedlin started at CAA.
- 10/11/2010
- by MIKE FLEMING
- Deadline
Academy Award winner Frances McDormand (Fargo, Burn After Reading) has lined up two projects, according to Deadline, in which she will assume the role of producer.
McDormand looks set to produce a small screen adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, a project currently set up at HBO.
The deal, which is still being negotiated, will also see McDormand cast as the town’s titular maths teacher providing the pilot goes to series. An ensemble drama being shaped by Jane Anderson (HBO’s “Normal”), the project will allow McDormand to honour her other acting obligations.
McDormand is also attatched to produce a big screen adaptation of Laura Lippman’s crime novel Every Secret Thing, which has already been written and submitted by Nicole Holofcener. With Academy Award nominee Diane Lane (Untraceable) set to star as a detective tasked with investigating the disappearance of numerous children, Every Secret Thing...
McDormand looks set to produce a small screen adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, a project currently set up at HBO.
The deal, which is still being negotiated, will also see McDormand cast as the town’s titular maths teacher providing the pilot goes to series. An ensemble drama being shaped by Jane Anderson (HBO’s “Normal”), the project will allow McDormand to honour her other acting obligations.
McDormand is also attatched to produce a big screen adaptation of Laura Lippman’s crime novel Every Secret Thing, which has already been written and submitted by Nicole Holofcener. With Academy Award nominee Diane Lane (Untraceable) set to star as a detective tasked with investigating the disappearance of numerous children, Every Secret Thing...
- 8/11/2010
- by Steven Neish
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Exclusive: Appearing in a new role--producer--Frances McDormand has set at HBO a potential series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Elizabeth Strout novel Olive Kitteridge. Separately, she has attached Diane Lane to star in a Nicole Holofcener-scripted feature adaptation of Laura Lippman's crime novel Every Secret Thing. McDormand got both projects off the ground and while she will play the town's seventh grade math teacher Olive Kitteridge if the pilot script Jane Anderson's writing becomes an HBO series, McDormand doesn't plan to appear on camera in Every Secret Thing. Perhaps it's being in the creative orbit of her writer/director husband Joel Coen, or a way to creatively fill the gaps between acting jobs while raising their family, but McDormand has self-started a producing venture that has no staff or company name. She has made two promising projects happen and has others percolating, including a stage musical. McDormand...
- 8/10/2010
- by MIKE FLEMING
- Deadline
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