Hey everyone who still looks at this or gets alerts when it's updated! I have a bit of news that's entirely unrelated to HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS. I made a web-series called BUTTERKNIFE that starts Ronnie Bronstein (FROWNLAND) and his wife, Mary (YEAST), and the first episode went online today!
The good people at Heretic Films, the comany that released KISSING ON THE MOUTH, have made another great indie film available today. Bryan Poyser's DEAR PILLOW is finally available to everyone, and I recommend you check it out immediately. The disc also includes two of Bryan's short films, PLEASURELAND and GRAMMY'S. I programmed PLEASURELAND at the Big Muddy Film Festival when I was in film school, and years later I had the pleasure of working with Bryan as an actor in GRAMMY'S. It was a crazy awesome experience! I basically stood there looking stupid while Rusty Kelley and Chris Doubek ran circles around me, literally and figuratively.
So check it out! Pick it up for youself or buy it as a Christmas present for someoe. You won't be sorry. It's one of the best indie films from the 2000's.
IFC FIrst Take has put the official theatrical trailer online, and it's time to start getting excited about the fact that HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS opens in NYC on August 22!
Wow! I don't know what to say about the last 3 weeks. It was fun, productive, exhausting, exciting, encouraging, important and a million other things. Greta and I hit the road together to show the film in 4 different cities, and we were joined by the one and only Kent Osborne at two of the stops. Get ready for a lot of pictures!
First up was the Sarasota Film Festival. Greta and Ry (who was screening her film ORPHANS) were on a panel together about women in film. It was Greta's first panel, and it was a doozy. It seemed like there were about 45 women on stage, and I'm pretty sure Greta fell asleep at a few points during the marathon session.
Craig Zobel's film, GREAT WORLD OF SOUND, was showing at all the same Festivals as HANNAH, and we celebrated this fact with matching eye make-up.
David Lowery thought we looked like super heroes, so he threw together the first issue of our comic. Then he changed his mind and thought it looked more like a cereal box. You decide!
We had the absolute pleasure of seeing of Montreal perform at one of the parties. I have been obsessed with the new album, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? since I first heard it, and I've had a major crush on their album Cherry Peel for years, so getting the chance to see them play many of my favorite songs was incredible.
After the show, Greta and I took part in a dance party, one of our favorite things to do.
We all piled into a really weird bus/trolly type vehicle to get back to the hotel, where the party continued in Michael Tully's room until the hotel eventually shut us down. It was either this night or the next night that I stayed up until 7AM talking with Craig Zobel and Barlow Jacobs about movies and life and whatever else popped into our heads. When the sun came up, we decided it was time to go to sleep.
We had our photos taken on the beach by Getty Images the next day. It was fun to do a photo shoot with a photographer and lights and a beautiful sunset behind us.
Here's one of the pictures from the shoot. You can see the other ones here.
I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with AJ Schnack, but it was great to see him again. AJ has been a huge supporter of my work since the very beginning. He was the first outside person to see footage from KISSING ON THE MOUTH and he's been keeping up with me and encouraging me ever since. It was a real thrill for me to be showing at another Festival with his film, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON. Notice David Lowery in the background looking scary as hell!
Aaron Katz was in town with QUIET CITY, and we both enjoyed the delicious options available from the "Night of 1,000 Stars" party. That's a slice of cheesecake dipped in chocolate. There were also hundreds of shot glasses filled with pudding and other mouth watering treats.
On the left is Holly Herrick, one of the Sarasota Film Festival programmers. She is joined by the lovely Jessica Wolfson, who produced CRAZY SEXY CANCER. Spending more time with these two awesome people was one of the highlights of the Festival for me.
One of the nightly rituals at the Festival was walking across the street from the hotel to the beach and swimming in the Gulf. It was really scary to swim in such a huge body of water really late at night, but totally thrilling. Also, there were phosphorescense in the water, so you could see little glowing trails when you moved your arms. This picture of Greta and I, which I'm stealing from David Lowery's blog, is the only photographic proof I've seen of these adventures. Check out David's Sarasota post for more pics of his experience.
Greta, Ry, Michael Tully and I all piled into a limo early one morning and headed for the airport. Our destination was the NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL, where all of our movies were playing. Now is a good time to mention that Tully, Greta and I spent the entire 3 weeks together. We took the same flights, stayed at the same hotels, screened in the same venues, hung out at the same parties and really got to know each other a lot better. I got so used to having Tully around that I'm kind of expecting him to just show up at my apartment tonight to hang out.
Greta and I started editing our new film, NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS, while we were in Sarasota, but we really got down to work in Nashville. We were there for 3 days, and all I really remember from the experience is looking at footage, ordering Domino's pizza and watching Conan O'Brien. We occasially left the hotel/editing room to attend screenings of HANNAH and do interviews, but otherwise we were totally focused on the new project.
And now on to the INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL OF BOSTON!
Well here we are, two years later, having all worked together on at least one project, and with many new friends in the mix. Looking at this chart makes me really happy to know so many amazing people. I also know that as more lines of interconnectedness get added between the people already present on this chart, it will continue to grow with new names, and that's the most exciting aspect of it.
First and foremost, thanks to Matt Dentler for going so far out of his way to make this an amazing experience. He has been incredibly supportive since the beginning, but this year he really put us front and center, and it felt great.
Last year Chris Wells and Greta were answering questions about their relationship for LOL. This year Chris was back to support HANNAH and QUIET CITY (where he makes a brief appearance) and check out some other films for IFC.
Kris and I were so excited to be back for the third year in a row.
On Saturday morning we made a visit to the Austin Movie Show, where Jegar Erickson hosts as many filmmakers as possible. Each year I go to SXSW, they have a nicer set and a more professional set up. I always look forward to it. Kent and Todd had to sit like little kids on the floor and they got the giggles.
That night saw us back at the hotel room engaged in a Blokus tournament.
The tournament was cut short by the late hour, but will be resumed at the next festival.
Sunday night we gathered at the Paramount for the World Premiere of the film. This was the big moment. It's fun to look back at the journal entries from July and see that it was all leading up to this. We couldn't believe how many people came out to see the film.
This is what it looked like inside. There was also a balcony full of people. There were over 1,000 people there! It was really amazing.
There was a HANNAH/ORPHANS party afterwards, where we all danced and hung out with good friends. It felt great to celebrate with all the people who helped make the film so special. We felt a lot of love coming from Austin and the Festival. Kevin celebrated by lighting fireworks in the rain.
On Tuesday, ORPHANS and FROWNLAND were given awards at the ceremony, and we all got together for one last time at the Closing Night party. Here's a little montage of some of the great people I saw that night.
Please check out Kent's Blog for more photos and videos from this amazing week.
