FILM INDEPENDENT FELLOWS MAKING MOVES, GOING PLACES
Our Film Independent Fellows work is getting recognized across the industry by studios, festivals and journalists. Here’s the latest on what the Fellows have been up to:
2012 Spirit Award nominee and Fellow Robbie Pickering (Natural Selection) has been tapped by Sony Pictures to direct Oren Uziel’s The Kitchen Sink, a “genre collision about the unlikely alliance between a high school-aged vampire, zombie and human as they try to save their town from invading aliens.” Uziel’s script was included in the 2010 Black List. More information on the project can be found on deadline.com.
Mosquita y Mari
Fellow Aurora Guerrero (and former Spirit Awards security coordinator!) raised funds on Kickstarter for her feature Mosquita y Mari, premiered it at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the film will now be released by Wolfe Releasing. The story centers around two young Latinas in Los Angeles and the relationship that blossoms between them. You can read the press release on indieWIRE here.
Fast Track Fellow James Ponsoldt also had his film, Smashed, premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie stars Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead who plays an alcholic schoolteacher trying to get sober. Sony Pictures Classics has now picked up the film for release. Read all about it at TheWrap.com.
Congrats to Film Independent Fellow Nicholas Bruckman—his film Valley of Saints won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance, as well as the Alfred P. Sloan Prize (splitting the $20,000 prize with Robot and Frank). Nicholas was in last year’s Producers Lab with the project, where we awarded him the Alfred P. Sloan Producers Grant. We also awarded him a post-production grant last fall to cover his color correction. Watch the trailer for the film on the official site: valleyofsaints.com.
Sheldon Candis directs LUV
Deadline Hollywood Daily recently made it’s list of the ten producers to watch coming out of Sundance this year. Making the list are Film Independent Fellows Jason Berman (who produced LUV) and Steven Schardt (who produced Your Sister’s Sister). Both films are directed by Fellows as well, of course (Sheldon Candis and Lynn Shelton). View the full list here.
Producers Lab Fellow So Yong Kim not only premiered her film For Ellen at Sundance but also caught the attention of GQ Magazine who call her “one of indie film’s most underrated directors”. Read more about So Yong in the article: Reason #10.
Congrats to Film Independent Fellows Ramin Bahrani, Heather Rae, Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez, all of whom have films in the 2012 Tribeca All Access program. Each project is given a $15,000 grant and support from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. Read about all of the projects and learn more about Tribeca All Access by clicking here.
Film Independent Fellow project Arcadia
Congrats to Film Independent Fellows Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali Worrall, who have been accepted into the Berlin Film Festival with their documentary Call Me Kuchu. They were in the 2011 Documentary Lab with the project. Also playing Berlin is Arcadia, a film that was in our Directors Lab a couple years back, by writer/director Olivia Silver, and produced by Julien Favre, from our Producers Lab, and shot by Eric Lin.
Film Independent Fellows Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega‘s documentary Better This World has been seen around the world in festivals and on television and has now received a nomination from the WGA for Best Documentary Screenplay. The winner will be announced on Sunday, February 19.
Fellows Eric Escobar (Screenwriters Lab) and Chris Mason Johnson (Screenwriters Lab), were both awarded grants from the San Francisco Film Society:
• Eric Escobar: One Good Thing, $15,000 for screenwriting
A jaded and bitter locksmith spends his days locking families out of their foreclosed homes. When a morning lockout turns up the abandoned child of a long-lost friend, his cynicism is put in check as he races to find the missing parents. For more information visit kontentfilms.com
• Chris Mason Johnson: Test, $60,000 for production
The year is 1985. The youngest, skinniest and most mocked member of San Francisco’s new contemporary ballet company begins a friendship with a brilliant dancer with a bad boy reputation in the same troupe. As lurid headlines threaten a gay quarantine, the two friends navigate a world full of risk that is also full of promise. For more information visit thenewtwentymovie.com.
Ruben Fleishcer on the set of Gangster Squad
Directors Lab Fellow Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) is the director of the new film Gangster Squad, starring Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Emma Stone and Film Independent member Ryan Gosling. Entertainment Weekly had a feature on the project in December which you can read here.
View all of our Fellows bios in our FIND Talent Guide. Interested in becoming a Film Independent Fellow? Check out all of our Labs and Programs, along with application rules and deadlines.
February 8th, 2012 • 1 Comment
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Impressive!