5-26-06
Existential Collaboration Debuts
at Filmmakers
Rob Belushi (top and bottom) in Scott Smith's chapter from Realization
In each of seven chapters, a different actor plays Murray, a tour guide at a research lab where his father was a renowned physicist, trying to win the heart of his coworker by finishing his father’s precarious quantum experiments, to catastrophic results.
Eight filmmakers worked independently of each other on the project with their own cast and crew, telling the chapters in succession without seeing one another’s work. The only assurance of continuity among the seven productions came from dramaturg Aprill Winney and the DVX100 camera.
Realization directors are Kenneth Yoder, Samir Salem, Chris Tzoubris and Dave Belden, Juan Castaneda, Scott Smith, Michael T. Vollman and Sean Jourdan. Writers are Timothy Cooper, Salem, Eric Anderson, Susan Hubbard, Michael Fry, Alexander Rojas and Jourdan.
The rotating cast includes Chris Meister, Rendel Leatherman, Chip Davis, Brian Kavanaugh, Katy Colloton, Bobby Zaman, James Jolly, Julie Partyka, David Dieterich
Gray, Holly Montgomery-Webb, Tom Herman, Donna Osowski, Frank Pendleton, Kristen Totten, Kathleen Lawlor, Joe Mazza, Rob Belushi, Katie Nahnsen, Lynette Gaza, Molly Glynn, Rebecca Friese, Joshua Parkes, Mary E. Morales, Erez Shek, Melissa Pond, Julia Morgantini, Lauren Sharpe and Anita Chandwaney.
Realization screens May 12, 19, and 21 at 7:30p.m. at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St., 2nd Floor. $8; students $7; members $6.
See www.splitpillow.com.
Two Days in Limbo
UPressplay, the online entertainment network, hosts a release party for their DVD “UPressplay V.2” May 18 at O’Malley’s West, 2249 N. Lincoln Ave. UPressplay is selling “V.2” along with “UPressplay V.1” in a 2-disk package for $10. Reception at 7p.m., screening at 8. No cover; cash bar.
“V.2” features the first episode of UPressplay’s sitcom “Roscoe Village,” featuring Brandon Tesar, Mark Verne and Sabrina Eve Panariella. Upressplay will release a three-episode DVD this year.
“V.2” also includes Daniel J. Pico’s spoken-word performance video “Soldier,” starring slam poet David Bianchi; Pico’s award-winning WWII short “Two Days in Limbo,” starring Jeremy Zeman and David Devaux; Pico’s anti-romantic comedy Back to Reality, a top five finalist on Kevin Smith’s moviesaskew.com, starring Lisa Sabo and Gerardo Cardenas; Anthony Vasquez’ Orwellian reality TV satire Terrorvision featuring Keith Compton and Cliff Sieloff; the Brookens Brothers’ Roni vs. Lincoln; and Joseph Elsey’s music video “Execute” for local metal band Marazene.
See www.upressplay.com.
Diane Eberhardt is in pre-production on the short “Notes From the Laundromat,” to shoot this summer. It’s a demo for a Lakeview-set feature, “a pseudo-intellectual comedy about friendship, conversation, romance, creativity, and Dostoevsky,” Eberhardt said, “a kind of Woody Allen, Seinfeld and Richard Linklater hybrid.”
E-mail Eberhardt at nflproductions@yahoo.com.
Dalia Tapia, director of the feature Buscando a Leti, is in pre-production on her second picture, Silent Shame, to shoot this year. Silent Shame is an expansion of Tapia’s 2001 short film.
Buscando a Leti premiered last October at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival and is the subject of talks for domestic and international distribution. See www.daliatapia.com.
Kitchen Film Productions is negotiating a deal through Erik Baron’s Red Baron Entertainment of Maine for a 400-screen theatrical release in Spain for their gangster drama Legit, starring director James W. Boinski as a mob lieutenant trying to go straight.
Kitchen has signed with California distributor Echelon Entertainment of Glendale, Cal., to rep the film in all territories excluding Spain. (Echelon recently announced their video release of Mark Harris’ Barber Shop Jokes Live in Chicago.)
Boinski wrote and produced with John Stemberg and Richard Strimer, who both also acted in the film. Also starring Allen Kalfas, Angelynn Schoofs, and Norm Boucher. DP is Brian Levin, who is developing his feature directorial debut The Grand McNally. See www.legitthemovie.com.
Kurtwood Smith in Hard Scrambled
David Scott Hays’ Hard Scrambled, based on his own play from Visions & Voices Theatre and starring Kurtwood Smith (“That 70’s Show”) and Richard Edson (“Do The Right Thing”), won best feature drama at the Garden State Film Festival after premiering at the Cinequest Film Festival. It goes on to the Big Island Film Festival in May. See www.n-v-f.com/ourfirstfilm.html.
Tinycore Pictures of Bensenville shoots the horror short “W.O.R.M.” in the suburbs this May. Producer Anthony Sumner plans “W.O.R.M.” as part of a feature-length anthology.
TinyCore produced Sumner’s wedding shocker Jitters and producing partner Eric Richter’s Creative Differences, about an artist whose right hand takes on a mind of its own. They’ve also done spots for Edge Ice Arena, Bensenville School District #2, and Two Chefs Cafe and Catering, and shot parts of Cherry Bomb’s battle rap tournament documentary Rhyme Spitters 2. See www.tinycorepictures.com.
Ed M. Koziarski is a Chicago filmmaker and journalist. He is developing the feature film Okinawa Project. edk@homesickblues.com.
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