12-8-06
Ran$um Games to Premiere Dec. 14
Parris Reaves (The Evil One) of Hawkfilmz premieres his latest feature, the suspense thriller Ran$um Games, Dec. 14. Devin Wesley stars as a reformed drug dealer whose sister-in-law (Khadijah Muhammad) has him kidnapped by Wood Harris. Elise Neal plays Wesley’s wife. Eric Lane plays his best friend.
Pierce and Wesley wrote the script from an idea by Randrea Payne. The $100,000 picture is a co-production of Pierce’s new CLASS Productions, and Wesley’s Wesvizion Entertainment.
The Pierce-produced comedy The Engagement: My Phamily BBQ 2, directed by Ytasha Womack, will be released by Maverick Entertainment on DVD next year, Pierce said.
The film stars Andy Gershenzon, Tenique Mathieu, BernNadette Stanis, Freeman Coffey, Nancy Baird, Dan Flannery and Clifton Davis.
Pierce is also entering into a three-picture deal with Maverick to release two comedies and an action movie that he’ll produce.
He’s working on the script for his next film, No Remorse, about an assassin confessing his crimes to a priest. “I’m reaching out to Larenz Tate for that one,” Pierce said.
Reaves next returns to his own script with the religious thriller Heartz of Man, which he’s producing himself and financing through private investors. After that he’s planning Break It Down, about a disgraced high school drama teacher putting on an ambitious musical at an inner city high school.
Ran$um Games premieres Dec. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at I.C.E. Lawndale Theatre, 3330 W. Roosevelt. The filmmakers will attend, along with cast, including Neal and Harris.
E-mail Pierce at darkhollywood@mail.com.
Tom Beach was co-writer on the multi-million-dollar The Funeral Party, now in post-production from Kaviar Kino and Ovie Entertainment. It’s an adaptation of Ludmila Ulitskaya’s acclaimed Russian novel The Funeral Party, about the final days of an immigrant artist in New York.
The international cast features Natasha Gregson Wagner, daughter of Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.
British director Simon Rumley is developing another Beach script, Dues, which he plans to shoot in Chicago and across the Midwest on a $1.5 million budget.
It’s a drama about a 15-year-old runaway girl whose mom has just died, Beach said. She seeks out her father, who’s a burned-out bluesman in Chicago. He rejects her and is forced to return her to her aunt and uncle’s farm in North Dakota. It’s about the journey of the heart.
Beach said they’ve approached actors including Tom Waits and Ron Pearlman to play the father. Rumley and Beach are producing, along with Matt Corrado and Charles Leslie of the new, local .306 Films. UK-based Phantom Pictures has made a tentative commitment to finance half the budget.
Producer David J. Miller of Mindlight Films is developing another Beach script, the thriller Council Hill, about a string of serial murders of young men that leads an investigative team to a small town on the Mississippi in Northwest Illinois, Beach said. He said John Doe is considering a role in the film, and production is slated for spring ‘07.
In January Beach will direct scenes from his own feature script Neon Blue, starring Ben Viccellio in an offbeat, harsh look at the life of an abused woman and her inability to escape life on the road with her abuser.
Kuba Zelazek is shooting on 16mm black and white reversal. Beach said the minimal production of Neon Blue will continue intermittently on weekends.
Beach is also under consideration to write for the pilot of an IFC original series, and to adapt two more books for Kaviar and Ovie: A Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary, and The Man Who Was Thursday by Gilbert K. Chesterton.
He’s also finishing up an original feature screenplay, the 1968-set The Twelfth Summer about a 12-year-old boy trying to start a little league team in the South, who befriends a Vietnam vet who had a short-lived pro baseball career.
E-mail tbeach@wi.rr.com.
Chris Nichols of Wishbox Media is in post-production on Diacritical, a feature about identity theft starring Ben Dubash, Kris Desautels, Amena White, Sam Duthoy, Rob Ramos, Hugh Fritz, Yens Luecke, Cyn Dulay and Alison Butkus. Nichols wrote and directed, and is producing with Dulay. DP is Marcin Marzick.
Nichols is gearing up to direct Exit, written and produced by Dubash. Nichols is also in production on the documentary Mediasian: The Asian Presence in Hollywood.
See www.wishboxmedia.com.
137 Films host “Lost Sounds and Found Films,” featuring clips from their in-progress documentary The Atom Smashers, about researchers at Fermi National Accelerator searching for the elusive Higgs Principle.
“Lost Sounds and Found Films” will also include a vintage film mash-up, and performances by Experimental Instrument Orchestra, Paulina Hollers and I Ching Quartet.
137 director Clayton Brown, producer Andrew Suprenant and DP Stefani Foster also collaborated on the 2006 IFP/Chicago Production Fund-winning narrative short “Galileo’s Grave.” The three are principals on The Atom Smashers, along with co-director Monica Long-Ross.
The event is Dec. 9 at Caro D’Offay Gallery, 2204 W. North Ave. $12 donation goes to post-production costs on The Atom Smashers.
See www.137films.org.
Ryan Koscielniak edited L.A. director John Burgess’ comedy short “The Powder Puff Principal,” starring Linda Blair, Clint Howard and Art LeFleur.
“The Powder Puff Principal,” screened at the California Independent and Hayden film festivals as well as at veryshortmovies.com, and will play in March at the Golden Star Shorts Fest.
Koscielniak is on board to edit Burgess’ feature debut, the romantic comedy One Small Hitch, which is planned for a late 2007 Chicago production.
See www.29point97fps.com.
Ed M. Koziarski is in post-production on the feature film Okinawa Project. Email edk@homesickblues.com.