12-7-07
Two Chicago Films Premier at Sundance in January
Two Chicago-tied features are debuting in the non-competitive premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival, still the top launching pad for American independent film. The Merry Gentleman and Diminished Capacity premiere at the fest, which runs Jan. 17-27 in Park City, Utah.
The only fully local film is The Merry Gentlemen, Michael Keaton’s directorial bow, which shot entirely in Chicago in March and April, with a local writer, producers, and financing.
Kelly MacDonald stars as a woman who flees an abusive marriage, witnesses a murder, and stumbles into a budding friendship with depressed hitman Keaton. With Darlene Hunt, Guy Van Swearingen, and executive producer Tom Bastounes.
DraftFCB creative development director Ron Lazzeretti wrote the script. Lazzeretti developed the project with Bastounes, owner of the produce outlet The Auster Company. Lazzeretti directed Bastounes in the 2002 indie feature The Opera Lover, which they co-wrote and Bastounes produced.
Bastounes financed the reported $5 million budget for The Merry Gentleman with fellow executive producer Paul J. Duggan of Jackson Income Fund. Steven A. Jones and Christina Varotsis produced, their fifth collaboration after Steve Conrad’s Quebec and Lawrence Melm, Drunkboat and Flying.
Also in Sundance is Steppenwolf company member Terry Kinney’s feature directorial debut for Plum Pictures, Diminished Capacity, produced by former Steppenwolf Films head Tim Evans. Diminished Capacity shot here for just one day last summer, spending most of its time in New York, where Kinney lives. Evans is still local. He left Steppenwolf in April to become executive director of the Northlight Theatre in Skokie. Matthew Broderick plays a man traveling across country with his high school sweetheart (Virginia Madsen) and his uncle with Alzheimer’s (Alan Alda) to sell a baseball card.
The Slamdance Film Festival, which runs concurrently with Sundance as the biggest of several alternative venues, hadn’t announced its schedule at press time. But unofficial word was that Alexander Rojas is returning with the short “Tripp,” which he’s developing into the semiautobiographical feature Cex Boy, about a teenage skateboarder growing up in Little Village. Rojas’ regular DP Armando Ballesteros shot on HD. Gary Michael Schultz of Higher Tribe Productions is producer. Executive producer is Fernando Espejel. Rojas’ short “Cushion” was a selection of the Slamdance 2005.
Along with Cex Boy, Schultz will be hustling two other features in Park City. One is the zombie movie Dead Reign, to which Schultz recently attached lead Ken Fore. The other feature Schultz is pitching is the women-in-prison exploitationer Murder Girls.
“Even though Alex and Armando and I often work together, all of our styles are pretty diverse,” Schultz said. “I think that’s why we don’t get bored. Alex tends to write gripping drama and I tend to dig on ridiculous genre films.”
When he returns from Slamdance, Schultz will shoot the short “Hellcat & Tala,” a demo for TV series he’s developing, a Bonnie & Clyde monster story about a reluctant male vampire and a neophyte female werewolf. Frank Zieger plays the vampire Hellcat. Schultz is still casting for Tala.
Tripp screens Jan. 20 at 11 a.m. and Jan. 23 at 2:30 p.m. at Slamdance. E-mail Schultz at highertribe@yahoo.com.