3-30-07
Asian American Showcase Premieres Local Film
Masahiro Sugano’s debut feature, the romantic neo-yakuza meditation Second Moon, has its local premiere April 4 in the 12th annual Asian American Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Andre Ing stars as a member of Art of Love, a secret society of gigolos who runs afoul of his brotherhood when he violates the group’s cardinal rule not to fall in love. With Jennifer Shin (recently on stage in The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at Chicago Dramatists), Jim Finn (Interkosmos), Monte, Rueben D. Echoles and Freeman Coffey.
Sugano shot Second Moon in Chicago on HD in summer 2005 and premiered it last fall at the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea. Sanghoon Lee produced through Sugano’s Eye From the Sky, Inc., which produces commercials, animation and stadium video for the U.S. and Japanese markets.
The Asian American Showcase opens March 30 with the local premiere of Justin Lin’s new mockumentary Finishing the Game, about the casting for the lead actor to replace Bruce Lee in the master’s unfinished Game of Death. Lin and stars Roger Fan and Sung Kang will attend.
The festival also features Tre by Eric Byler and shorts by locals Phoebe Chao, Cheng-yun Kuo, Kerry Yang, Yuting Hsueh, Emily Wang, Deirdre E. Lee, Sean Seung W. Kang, Karen Lin, Caroline Hong, Michelle Kaffko, Maki Terashita and Chi-Jan Yun. Through April 12. See faaim.org.
Second Moon screens April 4 at 7:45 p.m. at the Film Center, 164 N. State St. See secondmoonmovie.com.
William Pierce Class Productions shoots its eighth film, Tactical, this April. It stars Tommy “Red” Phipps of Pierce’s Hostile Takedown and Ran$um Games, with WGCI personality Johnny “Koolout” Starks, Simeon Henderson (“Partyline”) and Greg Niestro.
Pierce is writer, producer and DP. His comedy The Engagement: My Phamily BBQ 2, directed by Ytasha Womack, is due for release from Maverick Entertainment. The Engagement stars Andy Gershenzon and Tenique Mathieu as a Jewish man and an African-American woman contending with their clans’ culture clash over their impending nuptials. E-mail Pierce at darkhollywood@mail.com.
Ben Byer’s documentary Indestructible won the Best Feature Documentary award at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, Calif., where the film had its world premiere in March.
Indestructible follows the Chicago theatre vet and single father’s battle with the neurodegenerative disease ALS. Byer is producing with his sister Rebeccah Rush through their nonprofit ALS Film Fund. See indestructiblefilm.com.
Split Pillow’s collaborative feature Common Senses was released on DVD March 27 from Echelon Entertainment. Luis A. Perez, Holly Montgomery-Webb and Cheryl Lynn Golemo star in interlocking stories of loss and hope, directed by Maria Gigante, Scott P. Jones, Nick Martin, and Ben Poster. See splitpillow.com.
Ricardo Islas’ horror thriller Lockout is due for DVD release June 26 from Polychrome Pictures through an output deal with Warner Bros. Kris Desautels stars as a man who loses his job and moves his family to a farmhouse in rural Wisconsin, where they encounter an horrific mystery. Featuring Cyn Dulay and Claire Davenport. Islas produced with Dulay and Mark Harris (Holla If You Hear Me) through Islas’ Alpha Studios. Salomón Carmona is executive producer. See alphaflicks.com.
Satish Menon’s family drama Bhavum, which the local filmmaker shot in his native Kerala, India in 2002, was released on Netflix on March 20. Murali Menon stars as a journalist torn between his wife (Jyothirmayi) and her sister (Mita Vasisht).
Bhavum won numerous festival prizes, and was awarded the best film honor at the Kerala state film awards. See bhavum.com.
Derek “Pretty Boy” Dow of Love Above All Productions screens his first feature Family Values April 22 at 6:30 p.m. at Loews Chatham 14 Theatres, 210 W. 87th St.
Family Values is a coming-of-age drama about three cousins facing violence, addiction and self-doubt. Writer/director/star Dow will appear at the screening with co-stars Ramon Anthony and Roderick Haygood. See myspace.com/laap03.
IFP Chicago’s annual Producers Series began March 31 and continues Saturday April 14 and 28 and May 5. Titled “The Art of Getting It Done,” the Producers Series focuses on getting a narrative feature from script to screen.
The April 14 session includes a business plan workshop with Louisville filmmaker Stu Pollard (Keep Your Distance,) and a case study with Michigan producer Bob Brown of Purple Rose Films, whose Bonneville, featuring Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange, Joan Allen and Tom Skerritt, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year.
April 28 includes a Before and After program, exploring sound design and color correction. May 5 is a distribution workshop and a pitch session with industry professionals. See chi.ifp.org.
Jeff Kehe and John Champion of Evanston-based Stone Face Productions have landed a deal with Orlando-based Transit TV, to play Stone Face’s DVD review show “DVD Geeks” on Transit TV’s 9,000 screens on public transit vehicles in six cities. The show debuted the week of March 12.
“‘DVD Geeks’ is the only show that reviews a DVD on its own merits, commenting on everything from bonus features, transfer quality, packaging and the like,” Kehe said. “We really distinguish the DVD from its theatrical release and tell people why it’s worth adding to their collection.”
Transit TV, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Torstar, is the largest transit TV network in North America, with screens in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, San Diego and Milwaukee.
Stone Face also produces the shows “Chef-on-a-Stick” and “The Garden Slug.” See dvdgeeks.tv.
Soreloser Productions director Richard T. Celenza Jr. and producer Kevin Kachan screened their second feature film, the thriller Insanity, at the Miami Underground Film Festival on March 11. They’ve optioned the psychological thriller script Film Students to Haxan Films (The Blair Witch Project), which has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. See insanitythemovie.com.
Ed M. Koziarski is in post-production on the feature film The First Breath of Tengan Rei, formerly Untitled Okinawa Project. E-mail edk@homesickblues.com.