Recipient of $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan Fast Track Grant named.
Film Independent has announced the 10 projects and 24 filmmakers selected for the 14th annual Fast Track film finance market.
The programme, held during the imminent Los Angeles Film Festival (June 14-22), helps producer-director teams advance their projects through meetings with industry executives, financiers, agents and managers, distributors, production companies, and granting organisations.
Participants will spend three days attending meetings with the aim of building relationships and gaining exposure for their projects.
2017 Fast Track Projects and Fellows are:
Blow The Man Down Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy (co-writers,co-directors), Drew Houpt (producer)
Cantering Hikari (writer,director,producer) Peter Maestrey (producer)
Farewell Tour Sean Hackett (writer,director), Frederick Thornton (producer)
Followers Tim Marshall (writer,director), Christina Radburn (producer)
Maybe Tomorrow Eliza Lee (writer,director), Michelle Sy (producer), Sophia Chang (executive producer)
Radiant Annika Glac (writer,director), Robyn Kershaw (producer)
Son Of A Very Important Man Najwa Najjar (writer,director), Hani...
Film Independent has announced the 10 projects and 24 filmmakers selected for the 14th annual Fast Track film finance market.
The programme, held during the imminent Los Angeles Film Festival (June 14-22), helps producer-director teams advance their projects through meetings with industry executives, financiers, agents and managers, distributors, production companies, and granting organisations.
Participants will spend three days attending meetings with the aim of building relationships and gaining exposure for their projects.
2017 Fast Track Projects and Fellows are:
Blow The Man Down Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy (co-writers,co-directors), Drew Houpt (producer)
Cantering Hikari (writer,director,producer) Peter Maestrey (producer)
Farewell Tour Sean Hackett (writer,director), Frederick Thornton (producer)
Followers Tim Marshall (writer,director), Christina Radburn (producer)
Maybe Tomorrow Eliza Lee (writer,director), Michelle Sy (producer), Sophia Chang (executive producer)
Radiant Annika Glac (writer,director), Robyn Kershaw (producer)
Son Of A Very Important Man Najwa Najjar (writer,director), Hani...
- 6/6/2017
- ScreenDaily
Coco Austin and daughter Chanel beat the winter weather by heading to Florida for a family vacation.
The mother-daughter duo hit the pool wearing matching blue and black bikinis on Monday, and shared a few photos on Instagram. "Hanging poolside with my baby girl! #familyvacation," Coco captioned an adorable photo of herself and Chanel, who appears to now be walking. "Chanel and I are sucking up this beautiful weather in Florida. It's 30 degrees back home."
Watch: Coco Austin and Ice-t Throw Baby Chanel a 1st Birthday Party With Cute Mother-Daughter Outfit Changes
Continuing to gush over her 1-year-old daughter, the 37-year-old model added: "There's too much cuteness going on with this little girl. I have so much fun with her."
Chanel's Instagram account also shared some cute pool pics. "Mom is so funny. She loves goofing around," one caption read. "Mama and I doing our thing. Maybe tomorrow dad [Ice-t] will come in the water."
Watch: [link=nm...
The mother-daughter duo hit the pool wearing matching blue and black bikinis on Monday, and shared a few photos on Instagram. "Hanging poolside with my baby girl! #familyvacation," Coco captioned an adorable photo of herself and Chanel, who appears to now be walking. "Chanel and I are sucking up this beautiful weather in Florida. It's 30 degrees back home."
Watch: Coco Austin and Ice-t Throw Baby Chanel a 1st Birthday Party With Cute Mother-Daughter Outfit Changes
Continuing to gush over her 1-year-old daughter, the 37-year-old model added: "There's too much cuteness going on with this little girl. I have so much fun with her."
Chanel's Instagram account also shared some cute pool pics. "Mom is so funny. She loves goofing around," one caption read. "Mama and I doing our thing. Maybe tomorrow dad [Ice-t] will come in the water."
Watch: [link=nm...
- 1/17/2017
- Entertainment Tonight
Charlotte Harrison Dec 16, 2016
Why in unhappy times, the power of a good book shouldn't be underestimated...
Hello and welcome to Geeks Vs Loneliness, our spot on the site where we natter about things that may be affecting some of us, and try and offer some crumbs of help and support. Thank you for clicking, and taking a look at what we're up to. This week, we're handing things over to the wonderful Charlotte Harrison, and she's got some books to talk about...
See related Justice League: new behind the scenes pics Future DC films will be "hopeful and optimistic" DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar The Crow reboot to finally shoot in January
“Books, records, films - these things matter” – Rob Gordon in ‘High Fidelity’ (2000)
When I first thought about writing this piece I thought about writing about my personal history – my struggle with high functioning anxiety...
Why in unhappy times, the power of a good book shouldn't be underestimated...
Hello and welcome to Geeks Vs Loneliness, our spot on the site where we natter about things that may be affecting some of us, and try and offer some crumbs of help and support. Thank you for clicking, and taking a look at what we're up to. This week, we're handing things over to the wonderful Charlotte Harrison, and she's got some books to talk about...
See related Justice League: new behind the scenes pics Future DC films will be "hopeful and optimistic" DC Comics movies: upcoming UK release dates calendar The Crow reboot to finally shoot in January
“Books, records, films - these things matter” – Rob Gordon in ‘High Fidelity’ (2000)
When I first thought about writing this piece I thought about writing about my personal history – my struggle with high functioning anxiety...
- 12/15/2016
- Den of Geek
Well “Miss Sloane” certainly picked an interesting weekend to make its world premiere. A barnstorming political thriller about a fiercely intelligent woman who breaks men over her knee and brings Washington D.C. to heel, the latest film from “Shakespeare in Love” director John Madden may have been conceived as a story of empowerment, but in the wake of President-Elect Donald J. Trump. it can’t help but feel like a feminist fantasy from a more hopeful time when the glass ceiling seemed ready to shatter into 160 million tiny pieces — a time that I like to call “last Monday.”
But maybe that will change. Maybe tomorrow — after the smoke clears and our anger coalesces into action — this fierce, over the top, and wholly entertaining saga of lobbyists run amok won’t be seen as a nostalgic throwback so much as a cautionary tale about what’s to come.
Read More:...
But maybe that will change. Maybe tomorrow — after the smoke clears and our anger coalesces into action — this fierce, over the top, and wholly entertaining saga of lobbyists run amok won’t be seen as a nostalgic throwback so much as a cautionary tale about what’s to come.
Read More:...
- 11/12/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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
The late Garry Shandling's The Larry Sanders Show is returning to HBO, the network that first aired six seasons of the influential comedy series. According to the Wrap, Shandling was putting the finishing touches on a deal to bring his beloved series exclusively back to HBO at the time of his death at the age of 66. "I loved Garry. We were fulfilling his wishes to see the show move to HBO,” Sony Pictures Television chairman Steve Mosko told The Wrap.
The series hadn't appeared on HBO or its on-demand...
The series hadn't appeared on HBO or its on-demand...
- 3/25/2016
- Rollingstone.com
Garry Shandling's sudden passing at the age of 66 has left many in the entertainment world in shock. Fellow actors and comedians along with fans took to social media to pay tribute to the Larry Sanders Show and It's Garry Shandling's Show star, many noting the influential mark he made on the medium and they also shared the impact of his friendship on their lives.
“I'm crushed. That man made me laugh. Spoke to me as a peer. Even though I've known him since the Nineties, it's in the...
“I'm crushed. That man made me laugh. Spoke to me as a peer. Even though I've known him since the Nineties, it's in the...
- 3/25/2016
- Rollingstone.com
Judd Apatow has issued a statement on the unexpected death of comedian Garry Shandling, who was one of his mentors in Hollywood. “Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. I can imagine how Hank would handle it but I just don’t know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me. I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better,” Apatow wrote.
- 3/24/2016
- by Jeff Sneider
- The Wrap
As True Detective season two reaches its finale, will everything be answered? Here's Michael's review of Omega Station...
Warning: this review contains spoilers.
2.8 Omega Station
The extended running time of this final episode of True Detective seemed, at first glance, to offer the possibility of unpicking the untidy web of conspiracies and connections that the preceding seven episodes had revealed. That is the traditional purpose of mystery finales, from Agatha Christie to Scooby Doo, with every variation of crime, noir and whodunnit in between. That it would not do so became clear very early on in Omega Station, when we spent an apparent age with two couples reflecting grouchily on where they’d come from and what their futures held for them. It signalled the problem not because such musings are inherently uninteresting but because they promised more of the same circuitous navel gazing that has plagued this season since episode one.
Warning: this review contains spoilers.
2.8 Omega Station
The extended running time of this final episode of True Detective seemed, at first glance, to offer the possibility of unpicking the untidy web of conspiracies and connections that the preceding seven episodes had revealed. That is the traditional purpose of mystery finales, from Agatha Christie to Scooby Doo, with every variation of crime, noir and whodunnit in between. That it would not do so became clear very early on in Omega Station, when we spent an apparent age with two couples reflecting grouchily on where they’d come from and what their futures held for them. It signalled the problem not because such musings are inherently uninteresting but because they promised more of the same circuitous navel gazing that has plagued this season since episode one.
- 8/10/2015
- by michaeln
- Den of Geek
The action steps up a gear this week, but at what cost? Here's Michael's review of the latest True Detective episode...
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.7 Black Maps and Motel Rooms
Appropriately for a character in a show that likes to mine despair, it took the prospect of losing everything to make Frank Semyon snap out of his mental fugue and start getting his act together. It’s rather late in the day to save him completely, but this penultimate episode did an awful lot to demonstrate what he had going for him before his world started to crumble. Acting with the rejuvenated elan of a tragic hero given an unexpected extra act, Frank uncovered the truth of the situation and responded to it with a confidence and decisiveness that has been missing since he started to unravel the Caspare mystery all those weeks ago. In doing so, he helped to regenerate the season too,...
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.7 Black Maps and Motel Rooms
Appropriately for a character in a show that likes to mine despair, it took the prospect of losing everything to make Frank Semyon snap out of his mental fugue and start getting his act together. It’s rather late in the day to save him completely, but this penultimate episode did an awful lot to demonstrate what he had going for him before his world started to crumble. Acting with the rejuvenated elan of a tragic hero given an unexpected extra act, Frank uncovered the truth of the situation and responded to it with a confidence and decisiveness that has been missing since he started to unravel the Caspare mystery all those weeks ago. In doing so, he helped to regenerate the season too,...
- 8/3/2015
- by michaeln
- Den of Geek
Further horrors emerge in True Detective, from the past and the present. Here's Michael's review of Church In Ruins...
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.6 Church in Ruins
Just a couple of weeks ago, True Detective offered us Down Will Come, a relatively strong episode that benefited from a dramatic climactic scene and an extended focus on one of the less examined of the four leading characters. Church in Ruins repeated the trick, albeit with some subtle differences. Where episode 4 ended with an explosion of violence, 6 finished with a deep burn of intensity. 4 let us peer into the soul of Paul Woodrugh, 6 uncovered more about Ani Bezzerides.
Indeed, that entire hideous sex party scene worked because the focus was so closely on Bezzerides’ experience there. The presentation could have been exploitative or gratuitous, but by tracking so closely to her point of view, it avoided either trap while offering a more intense feeling of unease.
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.6 Church in Ruins
Just a couple of weeks ago, True Detective offered us Down Will Come, a relatively strong episode that benefited from a dramatic climactic scene and an extended focus on one of the less examined of the four leading characters. Church in Ruins repeated the trick, albeit with some subtle differences. Where episode 4 ended with an explosion of violence, 6 finished with a deep burn of intensity. 4 let us peer into the soul of Paul Woodrugh, 6 uncovered more about Ani Bezzerides.
Indeed, that entire hideous sex party scene worked because the focus was so closely on Bezzerides’ experience there. The presentation could have been exploitative or gratuitous, but by tracking so closely to her point of view, it avoided either trap while offering a more intense feeling of unease.
- 7/27/2015
- by michaeln
- Den of Geek
Does your past make you or break you? Perhaps both. Here's Michael's review of the latest True Detective episode...
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.4 Down Will Come
It seems a little bit unfair to assess the second season of True Detective purely in terms of the first. Not simply because the opening season was so well received and so surprisingly (given the relative inexperience of the two primary behind-the-camera creative talents) good. It’s not even that the deck had been all but cleared with Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Cary Fukunaga all stepping away from their roles. It’s more that if the anthology format offers a fresh story, location and battery of characters each season then it makes sense for each season to be treated separately. Still, we cannot ignore Round One completely, not when so many ideas from one season (the hidden usefulness of ‘bad men’, the...
Warning: this review contains spoilers
2.4 Down Will Come
It seems a little bit unfair to assess the second season of True Detective purely in terms of the first. Not simply because the opening season was so well received and so surprisingly (given the relative inexperience of the two primary behind-the-camera creative talents) good. It’s not even that the deck had been all but cleared with Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Cary Fukunaga all stepping away from their roles. It’s more that if the anthology format offers a fresh story, location and battery of characters each season then it makes sense for each season to be treated separately. Still, we cannot ignore Round One completely, not when so many ideas from one season (the hidden usefulness of ‘bad men’, the...
- 7/13/2015
- by michaeln
- Den of Geek
True Detective season 2 may have taken a moment or two to get the ball rolling, but this week’s episode, “Maybe Tomorrow” proves that this isn’t quite the disappointing sophomore slump that we were expecting.
The Cast Beyond Carcosa returns to talk about all of this week’s big developments with Vinci and the Caspere murder case. Last week’s cliffhanger had us all on edge, but we were happy to see that Colin Farrell’s Ray was able to live to fight another day. His Lynchian dream sequence served as a nice throwback to a different era of TV while also giving us some crucial character development related to his own paternal issues. Thanks to the near death experience, it looks like Velcoro is back in the game, which means that we’re in for even more great character dynamics with Ani and Paul.
Vince Vaughn’s performance...
The Cast Beyond Carcosa returns to talk about all of this week’s big developments with Vinci and the Caspere murder case. Last week’s cliffhanger had us all on edge, but we were happy to see that Colin Farrell’s Ray was able to live to fight another day. His Lynchian dream sequence served as a nice throwback to a different era of TV while also giving us some crucial character development related to his own paternal issues. Thanks to the near death experience, it looks like Velcoro is back in the game, which means that we’re in for even more great character dynamics with Ani and Paul.
Vince Vaughn’s performance...
- 7/9/2015
- by Caleb Masters
- We Got This Covered
Hello! On the latest episode of “The Vulture TV Podcast,” Margaret, Matt, and Gazelle discuss what defines a hate-watch, whether True Detective’s latest season qualifies, and why saying “People don’t talk that way” is not a good criticism of a TV show. Plus, catch our final thoughts on Orange Is the New Black’s excellent third season.This episode contains spoilers in the following discussions: Halt and Catch Fire, "10Broad36," 1:33–3:08The second episode of AMC's Humans, 3:08–6:34True Detective, "Maybe Tomorrow," 16:52–29:32The second half of Orange Is the New Black's third season, 30:46–44:04 Further reading: "Maybe Tomorrow" recap; the story behind "The Rose" on True Detective; the Lynchian overtones on Td; Margaret's take on Humans; our Orange Is the New Black fanfiction. Tune in to "The Vulture TV Podcast," produced by the Slate Group’s Panoply, every Tuesday, on iTunes or SoundCloud.
- 7/7/2015
- by Gazelle Emami,Margaret Lyons,Matt Zoller Seitz
- Vulture
“Pissed myself.”
True Detective lifted the lid on the mystery of Ray’s maybe death after an entire week of ferocious speculation to reveal Colin Farrell’s suicidally droopy mustache, a sight which avoids occasioning disappointment only in the respect that at least you’re not seeing it in the mirror. It’s not a worse show for having chickened out on pursuing the exciting byroad it might have gone down by killing its top-billed actor two hours into its run, but it is exactly as bad as it’s always been. Even the opening sequence, what amounts to an extended Twin Peaks reference, can’t hide the fact that there’s precious little going on in season 2.
‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is a dull, ungainly hour that blows its best jokes early and does its best to shed season 1′s reputation for dazzling action. Vince Vaughn beating on a chubby guy with gold teeth,...
True Detective lifted the lid on the mystery of Ray’s maybe death after an entire week of ferocious speculation to reveal Colin Farrell’s suicidally droopy mustache, a sight which avoids occasioning disappointment only in the respect that at least you’re not seeing it in the mirror. It’s not a worse show for having chickened out on pursuing the exciting byroad it might have gone down by killing its top-billed actor two hours into its run, but it is exactly as bad as it’s always been. Even the opening sequence, what amounts to an extended Twin Peaks reference, can’t hide the fact that there’s precious little going on in season 2.
‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is a dull, ungainly hour that blows its best jokes early and does its best to shed season 1′s reputation for dazzling action. Vince Vaughn beating on a chubby guy with gold teeth,...
- 7/7/2015
- by Gretchen Felker-Martin
- Nerdly
The detectives continue to wade through a world dripping with corruption, but is it worth it? Here's Michael's review...
This review contains spoilers
2.3 Maybe Tomorrow
First things first. Ray Velcoro is still walking around. It’s not convenient for everyone that he survived the shooting, his ex-wife wants rid of him (to the tune of ten thousand dollars), he’s an embarrassment-in-waiting for his department, particularly if Bezzerides can be persuaded to dig up enough dirt on him and even Frank, a man who may still find some use in him, can glibly say of Ray ‘somebody murdered him’. He’s a man who looks like he’s lived longer than he’d hoped, the sort of guy who can emerge from a near-death experience disappointed that it wasn’t quite near enough.
It’s not all that surprising. The appearance of his father in his unconscious reverie seemed at...
This review contains spoilers
2.3 Maybe Tomorrow
First things first. Ray Velcoro is still walking around. It’s not convenient for everyone that he survived the shooting, his ex-wife wants rid of him (to the tune of ten thousand dollars), he’s an embarrassment-in-waiting for his department, particularly if Bezzerides can be persuaded to dig up enough dirt on him and even Frank, a man who may still find some use in him, can glibly say of Ray ‘somebody murdered him’. He’s a man who looks like he’s lived longer than he’d hoped, the sort of guy who can emerge from a near-death experience disappointed that it wasn’t quite near enough.
It’s not all that surprising. The appearance of his father in his unconscious reverie seemed at...
- 7/6/2015
- by michaeln
- Den of Geek
In an effort to get all my ducks in a row for our "True Detective" podcast I decided to sit down and rewatch the first three episodes, taking notes on each character, situation and the fictional city of Vinci. Before getting to the dirty details, the nuts and bolts of the series begin with the murder of Vinci City Manager Benjamin Caspere, a murder that brings together Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), Detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell), Officer Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) and career criminal attempting to go legit, Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn). Ray Velcoro is a drunk, troubled detective with an ex-wife looking for sole custody of their child and the misfortune of working the Caspere murder case while also having to answer to the corrupt Vinci police department, mayor and Frank Semyon. Semyon finds himself in a financial fix as a result of Caspere's death as Caspere was...
- 7/6/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
We're continuing to serve up our coverage of the second season of "True Detective" in two flavors — you can read Katie Walsh's entertaining recap of "Maybe Tomorrow" right here, or you can continue to join myself and Brad Brevet from Rope Of Silicon as we chat each week about the show, with our latest podcast down below. Read More: 'True Detective' Podcast: Season 2, Episode 2 'Night Finds You' "Maybe Tomorrow" didn't keep audiences waiting long to find out the fate of Colin Farrell's Ray Velcoro. Meanwhile, the investigation into the death of Ben Caspere continues to go down a murky path. Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) is sliding back into the life he thought he left behind, while more complicated layers about Taylor Kitsch's Paul Woodrugh are revealed. Are you hooked yet? You can listen directly below, download here or subscribe at iTunes and check out the preview for episode 4, "Down Will Come.
- 7/6/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Riot shells... "True Detective" wastes no time resolving the cliffhanger set up at the end of its last episode. That decision, as well as the decision to keep Det. Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) alive at all, set up "Maybe Tomorrow" as a worthy follow up to "Night Finds You" and keeps this season's momentum firing. The opening dream sequence falls squarely in the disorienting category. Velcoro has visions of his father and this scene assuaged any fears I may have had when faced with the possibility of exactly the type of "cop out" we ended up getting. The character of Ray Velcoro and Colin Farrell's performance are an integral part of what gives this story it's vitality and spark. In a television landscape where shows like "Game of Thrones" kill off a main character seemingly every week, the audience could be considered numb to a twist dependent on a major casualty.
- 7/6/2015
- by Michael Hindle
- Rope of Silicon
True Detective, Season 2, Episode 3, “Maybe Tomorrow”
Written by Nic Pizzolatto
Directed by Janus Metz Pedersen
Airs Sundays at 9pm (Et) on HBO
By far the worst thing about this week’s third episode of True Detective’s second season is that it feels mostly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Not that it is entirely clear at this point what “the grand scheme of things” even is, but there is a massive difference between world-building and complete pointlessness. After Ray’s survival quickly resolves last week’s cliffhanger, the rest of the episode consists mainly of the team pursuing leads in various places around Vinci and Los Angeles. It may be representative of good police work, not to mention how readily it presents opportunities for the leads to interact with each other at length on car rides and strolls, but it doesn’t make for very compelling television. A...
Written by Nic Pizzolatto
Directed by Janus Metz Pedersen
Airs Sundays at 9pm (Et) on HBO
By far the worst thing about this week’s third episode of True Detective’s second season is that it feels mostly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Not that it is entirely clear at this point what “the grand scheme of things” even is, but there is a massive difference between world-building and complete pointlessness. After Ray’s survival quickly resolves last week’s cliffhanger, the rest of the episode consists mainly of the team pursuing leads in various places around Vinci and Los Angeles. It may be representative of good police work, not to mention how readily it presents opportunities for the leads to interact with each other at length on car rides and strolls, but it doesn’t make for very compelling television. A...
- 7/6/2015
- by Whitney McIntosh
- SoundOnSight
Season 2, Episode 3: Maybe Tomorrow Summary: Frank (Vince Vaughn) finds himself drawn back into the violent underworld he left behind, while Paul (Taylor Kitsch) is confronted by some long-suppressed urges. Review: Hopefully, all of you who are reading this review have heeded my Spoiler warning in the headline and have waited until after seeing this week’s episode before reading this review. If... Read More...
- 7/6/2015
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
The third episode of the second season of "True Detective" peels even more layers away and we're back with the "True Detective" podcast, "The Podcast You Deserve", featuring myself, Brad Brevet, and Kevin Jagernauth from The Playlist as we continue our recaps and reviews of each episode of this new season. It didn't take long to get the answer to what happened to Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell), but the answer only results in more questions. The big takeaway for this third episode, however, isn't Ray's fate, but the increased intrigue surrounding Taylor Kitsch's character, Officer Paul Woodrugh. You can listen directly below, download here or subscribe at iTunes. Episode: Season Two, Episode 3 - "Maybe Tomorrow" Synopsis: Paul (Taylor Kitsch) works the prostitute angle, while Frank (Vince Vaughn) receives the first casualty in a secret war, and steps back into a world he'd left behind. readmore postid="181941"...
- 7/6/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
A review of tonight's "True Detective" coming up just as soon as I'm running a yogurt stand... "Is Ray hurt? What happened?" -Felicia "Somebody murdered him." -Frank At the end of the first season of "True Detective," Nic Pizzolatto expressed some frustration that his audience had spent so much time fixating on the show's oblique references to the supernatural. "I'm interested in the atmosphere of cosmic horror, but that's about all I have to say about weird fiction," he told me. "I did feel the perception was tilted more towards weird fiction than perhaps it should have been." The viewers who latched onto that part of Rust and Marty's story weren't imagining it. Those references to "The Yellow King" and Cthulu were there in the show, even if they weren't intended to be viewed as the larger point of the piece. Those viewers were disappointed when the solution to the...
- 7/6/2015
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Hitfix
Time must be a flat circle, because this week’s episode of True Detective feels like it spins on and on and on yet is about as productive as Frank in the donation room at the fertility doctor’s office. (Too soon?)
On at least one front, however, we get resolution: Despite being shot twice in the chest in the previous episode, Ray Velcoro is very much alive. (In a moment, we’ll get to how that’s even remotely possible.) And we also get a little intel on Paul’s military time and a wealth of intel on Paul...
On at least one front, however, we get resolution: Despite being shot twice in the chest in the previous episode, Ray Velcoro is very much alive. (In a moment, we’ll get to how that’s even remotely possible.) And we also get a little intel on Paul’s military time and a wealth of intel on Paul...
- 7/6/2015
- TVLine.com
Immediate Reaction: While the final scene felt more like a whimper, "Maybe Tomorrow" delivered the bang we've been waiting for through three episodes of Season 2. Why? Nic Pizzolatto finally made choices. From the bold, blue-lit rendition of "Rose" by a spot-on Conway Twitty impersonator to kick things off, "Maybe Tomorrow" featured more memorable moments than the last two episodes combined. Whether or not Ray (Colin Farrell) actually dies at the end of this story — like his father predicted in his "dream" — isn't as important as the stylistic choice of the setting and the heavy but effective foreshadowing given in their dialogue, Both served as eery mood enhancers for a season in desperate need of some flair. The same goes for Ray's actual visit to his father, played by Fred Ward (who, it must be pointed out, is simply the perfect choice for Ray's dad in looks, tone and attitude). Expanding...
- 7/6/2015
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
Based on the consensus thus far, the second season of “True Detective” has gotten off to a rocky start — some love it, some hate it, some are giving it the benefit of the doubt. Trying to replicate the mystical bayou phenomenon that gripped audiences last year hasn’t been quite as easy in this La noir world, and at times, the Herculean efforts of writer/showrunner Nic Pizzolatto and directors to make it dark and edgy are plainly apparent. But for some damned reason, Episode 3, “Maybe Tomorrow,” directed by Danish documentary and TV director Janus Metz Pedersen, is more compelling than the other two episodes, possibly because it’s clear the show is drifting squarely into High Camp territory. I mean… that opening?? Another struggle for the show is that the four leads are all acting in different registers — they haven’t disappeared into their hard-bitten roles, particularly Vince Vaughan,...
- 7/6/2015
- by Katie Walsh
- The Playlist
Note: This post contains spoilers for the second season of "True Detective" for anyone that hasn't seen the third episode. Yesterday I rewatched the first three episodes of this second season of "True Detective" in an effort to put together an "everything we know" post I'll be releasing on Monday and to compile notes on each individual character for the purposes of our podcast. It was a rather enlightening look at the season so far, to the point even that first episode improves with a second glance and a few things that previously alluded my knowledge have now come to light. That said, Taylor Kitsch recently spoke with The Daily Beast about his role as Officer Paul Woodrugh and the secrets he's hiding. Secrets such as Kitsch confirms he's popping Viagra in that opening episode and mere allusions to what went down with his work as a mercenary for Black Mountain...
- 7/1/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
True Detective Trailer. HBO’s True Detective: Season 2, Episode 3: Maybe Tomorrow TV Show Trailer stars Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Vince Vaughn and Ritchie Coster The trailer begins with Bezzerides arriving at the scene of Velcoro’s shooting. We then learn that Bezzerides is catching heat for following up on sensitive leads in Caspar’s murder investigation. The […]...
- 6/30/2015
- by Victor Stiff
- Film-Book
*Spoilers ahead from last night's "True Detective" Season 2*
Only two episodes of "True Detective" Season 2 have aired on HBO, and we're still trying to figure out the characters' names and motivations (beyond a lot of scowling). At this point, we're still following them as Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, and Taylor Kitsch. And after Episode 2, "Night Finds You," maybe there's no Colin Farrell anymore?
Farrell plays Detective Ray Velcoro, opposite McAdams as Detective Ani Bezzerides, Kitsch as Officer Paul Woodrugh and Vaughn as criminal entrepreneur Frank Semyon. "Night Finds You" ended with Farrell's Ray Velcoro shot multiple times by someone wearing a mask -- a black bird mask. And it's HBO. And a main character may or may not be dead. This is too close to "Game of Thrones" to ignore. Jon Snow just got stabbed by his fellow "crows" in the Season 5 finale and may or may not ever return.
Only two episodes of "True Detective" Season 2 have aired on HBO, and we're still trying to figure out the characters' names and motivations (beyond a lot of scowling). At this point, we're still following them as Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, and Taylor Kitsch. And after Episode 2, "Night Finds You," maybe there's no Colin Farrell anymore?
Farrell plays Detective Ray Velcoro, opposite McAdams as Detective Ani Bezzerides, Kitsch as Officer Paul Woodrugh and Vaughn as criminal entrepreneur Frank Semyon. "Night Finds You" ended with Farrell's Ray Velcoro shot multiple times by someone wearing a mask -- a black bird mask. And it's HBO. And a main character may or may not be dead. This is too close to "Game of Thrones" to ignore. Jon Snow just got stabbed by his fellow "crows" in the Season 5 finale and may or may not ever return.
- 6/29/2015
- by Gina Carbone
- Moviefone
Disney
The first poster for Tomorrowland was definitely a ‘teaser,’ showing us just the T pin-badge that had such a key role in the teaser trailer. With a new, fuller trailer on the way on Monday, a new, fuller poster was in order.
Here’s that poster now, with several interesting new details.
First of all, it’s worth noting that the film’s protagonist is missing. Casey, as played by Britt Robertson is Tomorrowland’s lead character but she’s nowhere to be seen. And neither is Athena, the other young female character with a key part to play.
Instead, we have George Clooney as Frank and… well, we don’t know. But I’d bet on that being Thomas Robinson, also as Frank. This would mean that the same character, at two different points on his timeline, is standing in the same field, at the same point in the continuum.
The first poster for Tomorrowland was definitely a ‘teaser,’ showing us just the T pin-badge that had such a key role in the teaser trailer. With a new, fuller trailer on the way on Monday, a new, fuller poster was in order.
Here’s that poster now, with several interesting new details.
First of all, it’s worth noting that the film’s protagonist is missing. Casey, as played by Britt Robertson is Tomorrowland’s lead character but she’s nowhere to be seen. And neither is Athena, the other young female character with a key part to play.
Instead, we have George Clooney as Frank and… well, we don’t know. But I’d bet on that being Thomas Robinson, also as Frank. This would mean that the same character, at two different points on his timeline, is standing in the same field, at the same point in the continuum.
- 3/7/2015
- by Brendon Connelly
- Obsessed with Film
Review Laura Akers 21 Oct 2013 - 06:24
Castle's sixth season delivers a classic episode. Here's Laura's review of Number One Fan...
This review contains spoilers.
6.4 Number One Fan
That sound you heard at the end of this week’s Castle? That was a shared sigh of relief when we found out that Andrew Marlowe was done torturing us, at least for a while. Because this week was classic Castle.
Beckett may be out of work and out of sorts, but it seems to have had no effect on her relationship with Castle. “I don’t know what to do,” she laments. “ ”I’ve got some ideas,” Castle quips. Cute. But the conversation is a serious one and sets up a potential point of conflict between the two: Beckett has always made her own way in the world and found herself in and through her work. Unemployed, she’s adrift. But as Castle begins to intimate,...
Castle's sixth season delivers a classic episode. Here's Laura's review of Number One Fan...
This review contains spoilers.
6.4 Number One Fan
That sound you heard at the end of this week’s Castle? That was a shared sigh of relief when we found out that Andrew Marlowe was done torturing us, at least for a while. Because this week was classic Castle.
Beckett may be out of work and out of sorts, but it seems to have had no effect on her relationship with Castle. “I don’t know what to do,” she laments. “ ”I’ve got some ideas,” Castle quips. Cute. But the conversation is a serious one and sets up a potential point of conflict between the two: Beckett has always made her own way in the world and found herself in and through her work. Unemployed, she’s adrift. But as Castle begins to intimate,...
- 10/21/2013
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
With all the hype surrounding Breaking Bad, the final episode had to be one of the most hotly anticipated series finales of all-time. It’s a great episode, although perhaps not in the highest tier for Breaking Bad standards. Anyone tuning in tonight just to see what all the fuss was about might not even have thought too much of it at all, but Felina isn’t for them. For all the fans who have stuck with the show since the beginning and withstood its heartbreaking emotional unpredictability, Felina is a welcome, satisfying conclusion.
At the end of the episode, a title card even thanks the fans for helping make the show what it was. The show’s been good since long before it had a big fan base, but in later seasons especially it really did grow into a juggernaut partly due to the eager recommendations of its fans.
With all the hype surrounding Breaking Bad, the final episode had to be one of the most hotly anticipated series finales of all-time. It’s a great episode, although perhaps not in the highest tier for Breaking Bad standards. Anyone tuning in tonight just to see what all the fuss was about might not even have thought too much of it at all, but Felina isn’t for them. For all the fans who have stuck with the show since the beginning and withstood its heartbreaking emotional unpredictability, Felina is a welcome, satisfying conclusion.
At the end of the episode, a title card even thanks the fans for helping make the show what it was. The show’s been good since long before it had a big fan base, but in later seasons especially it really did grow into a juggernaut partly due to the eager recommendations of its fans.
- 9/30/2013
- by Kyle Schmidlin
- Obsessed with Film
If you're wondering what it takes to look like The Rock (aside from ridiculous genetics) the new "Hercules" star just revealed the diet he maintains to play the son of Zeus -- and it's unbelievable.Rock just posted the breakdown on Twitter -- and it includes 7 full meals with ridiculous quantities of food, including rice, 14 egg whites, all kinds of vegetables, and more than 3 Pounds of meat. It's been working too ... Rock's been posting pics...
- 6/24/2013
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Alberto Del Rio Vs Jack Swagger was actually one of Del Rio’s better matches since joining WWE. Swagger provided the right level of heelish behaviour to keep Del Rio on his toes and gave him a mountain to climb in his bid to get over with WWE’s fans.
I’m about as surprised by Del Rio’s victory as I am WWE’s decision to keep Swagger in the match at all given his conduct outside the ring since returning to WWE at Elimination Chamber. Going forward with The Jack Swagger Project was obviously more important to Vince than making an example of one of it’s stars and showing the world that the Wellness Policy actually means something. Hey, I’m a massive Swagger fan but there’s no way he deserved a Wrestlemania title match.
That being said Swagger showed us all why given the right...
I’m about as surprised by Del Rio’s victory as I am WWE’s decision to keep Swagger in the match at all given his conduct outside the ring since returning to WWE at Elimination Chamber. Going forward with The Jack Swagger Project was obviously more important to Vince than making an example of one of it’s stars and showing the world that the Wellness Policy actually means something. Hey, I’m a massive Swagger fan but there’s no way he deserved a Wrestlemania title match.
That being said Swagger showed us all why given the right...
- 4/8/2013
- by Matt Aspin
- Obsessed with Film
I should've gone to a movie today because it's the most instantaneous cure I know for the blues. But I'm too backed up with work. Maybe tomorrow if I'm a good boy for President's Day? Bruce Willis & Jai Courtney's father/son tough guy act for A Good Day To Die Hard topped the Valentine's Weekend as the only "manly" option with several softer options competing for similar demographics. Safe Haven came in third just behind last week's champ Identity Thief. The romzomcom Warm Bodies somehow fended off the other supernatural romance Beautiful Creatures which was surely aiming for the same crowd. Was it the simplicity of the Warm Bodies concept or just its strong word of mouth in a 3rd week?
Or maybe it's those totally chaotic Beautiful Creatures commercials. What the hell is it? And can we talk about how much the posters for Beautiful Creatures looks like perfume ads!
Or maybe it's those totally chaotic Beautiful Creatures commercials. What the hell is it? And can we talk about how much the posters for Beautiful Creatures looks like perfume ads!
- 2/17/2013
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
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