Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Extras needed


"The Grace Card," a faith-based film with Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr. that begins production in the Memphis area next week, is seeking African-American extras for a pair of big church scenes to be shot Oct. 17 and 24.
Interested parties should e-mail contact information to thegracecard@ memphiscalvary.org or call 386-8988. Extras should be willing to be on set for six to eight hours.
"The Grace Card" is being directed by David Evans, writer-director of "Passion Play" productions at Cordova's Calvary Church of the Nazarene, the congregation that helped form Graceworks Pictures. The movie stars actor/comedian Michael Joiner as a bitter Memphis police officer forced to confront his racism when he's brought together with an African-American pastor-cop.

omg/hahaha on DVD



Jokingly dubbed the "Titanic" of the 2008 Indie Memphis Film Festival after it captured most of the event's major awards, Memphis moviemaker Morgan Jon Fox's feature "OMG/HaHaHa" arrives on DVD on Tuesday from Water Bearer Films.
The movie's title is Internet slang for the phrase "Oh my God," followed by laughter.
A tender and impressionistic film structured as a series of video blog entries and stream-of-consciousness vignettes about families, friends, lovers and loners in Midtown Memphis, "OMG/HaHaHa" was named best "Hometowner" feature (devoted to films produced by residents of Memphis and Shelby County), and also earned four other competitive and special awards at the 2008 festival.
The 2009 Indie Memphis Film Festival is underway, and ends on Thursday at Malco's Studio on the Square.
Water Bearer is a company that specializes in art and foreign films, with an emphasis on films with gay themes. Significant directors in the Water Bearer catalogue include Britain's Mike Leigh and Italy's Pier Paolo Pasolini.
A pioneer in local digital filmmaking who has served as a mentor to many younger artists, Fox in July was named one of "25 New Faces in Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine, which called Fox "the voice of the YouTube generation."

IM09: Tuesday's Flyer picks




The Memphis Flyer makes its choices for Tuesday here. Pick of the Day is Hometowner winner The Conversion. Doc pick is The Garden, features choices are Cory McAbee's amazing American Astronaut and Stingray Sam, local pick is Mark Jones' On the Edge of Happiness, shorts pick is A City to Yourself. Wild cards: Robyn Hitchcock and Shooting Robert King.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Casting: America's Most Wanted

Notice from LAX CASTING:

Please submit photo or headshot/resume to Angela Frederiksson at 
arayfredriksson@cs.com
if you fit any of the descriptions.  INCLUDE A phone number so we can get in touch with you.






Barreto Character Breakdown:
Main characters:
Janet Barreto: 38 yrs, 350-500lbs, white female. Janet is very lazy, manipulative, and violent with the children. She is a diabetic who doesn’t seem to care where she leaves her insulin needles, and doesn’t make cleanliness a priority. She runs a puppy mill and is a slum lord for a living, and adopts small children from Guatemala like some people collect records. She has very little patience with children, and makes her daughter Marainna care for the small adopted children on her own.
Ramon Barreto: 30s, 165lbs, Hispanic male. Like the song, Ramon apparently likes his women on the trashy side. He is skinny and mean, and instrumental in running the puppy mill business. He is accused of disciplining the children by putting hot peppers in their mouths to make them stop crying and dunking them in barrels of water until they pass out. Despite this harsh behavior, neighbors say he put on a good front. 
Marainna Torres: 17, white and Hispanic female, apprx. 200 lbs. Marainna is Janet’s daughter from a previous relationship, and bears a strong resemblance to her mother. She has been beaten by Janet since her father moved out when she was young and Ramon moved in. Janet basically uses Marainna as a servant and babysitter. She forced Marainna to quit school at age 16 to stay home permanently and take care of all the adopted children by herself. She lives in fear of her mother, and is forced to carry out her duties as the pressure and unhappiness in her builds to a breaking point.
Young Marainna: age 8, resemblance to older Marainna. Young Marainna is afraid of her mother, who beats her often.
Enna Barreto: 2, Hispanic female. Enna was adopted by the Barretos and brought to their home in New Albany, MS. The Barretos abused the poor little girl, and she was subsequently killed when Janet ordered Marainna to discipline the crying child and the teenager snapped. It was Enna’s death that started the investigation into the Barretos. 
Edwin Barreto: 3, Hispanic male. Edwin was also adopted from Guatemala by the Barretos and abused the same way as Enna. When he was recovered by DHS and police from the Barreto household, he immediately formed a special bond with the Chief Deputy Jimmy Edwards. Edwards says that Edwin “picked him” right away. Edwards and his wife began visiting Edwin in foster care, and fell in love with the little boy. Now, they have adopted Edwin into their happy family.
Other adopted children :
Celeste Barreto: 3, Hispanic female
Byron Barreto: 8, Hispanic male
Juan Barreto: 3, Hispanic male
Lucrecia: 2, Hispanic female
Luisa: 2, Hispanic female


IM09: The winners!


Edward Valibus Phillips accepts the award for Hometowner Feature for "The Conversion." Other members of the Corduroy Wednesday team are Ben Rednour (right) and Erik Morrison. At far left is Jimmie Tashie, filmlover, Malco exec and chair of the Memphis and Shelby County Film and TV Commission.


At a modestly rowdy awards ceremony (Elvis Mitchell chided the crowd for not being sufficiently inebriated), awards were handed out for Indie Memphis.

Read John Beifuss' story/blog in the CA here and here.

And Chris Herrington's story in the Memphis Flyer here.

Herrington also provides the Flyer's picks for Monday here.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

IM09: Photos from Saturday

Three cheers each to Nicki Newburger, Robin Salant and Tommy Kha for their continuing devotion to making a photo record of Indie Memphis. See their work on the Indie Memphis homepage, but here are a few Nicki took on Saturday:


Christopher Reyes and Sarah Fleming of Live From Memphis explain how it all works.


Filmmaker Dan Baker at the Filmmaking for the Web workshop.


Misti Rae Warren performs beautifully at the Festival Cafe.


Ben Rednour of Corduroy Wednesday and Christopher Reyes of Live From Memphis try to locate the power button.


Web filmmakers Edward Valibus Phillips, Joe Swanberg, Cory McAbee and Craig Brewer help the rest of us figure it out.


Corduroy Wednesday's Erik Morrison and Edward Valibus Phillips annoy some unidentified blogger.

IM09: Flyer picks today's best


Memphis Flyer film critic Chris Herrington and former New York Times
critic Elvis Mitchell at Saturday's workshop on the state of film criticism.


The Flyer serves up its Indie Memphis Sunday choices here, with The Hand of Fatima as pick of the day. Also: Easier with Practice is feature pick, Ghost Bird is documentary pick, Li'l Film Fest 11 (Musical Horror) is local pick and Nowhere Kids is shorts pick. Wildcard picks include Joe Swanberg's workshop on working with nonprofessional actors, plus the films St. Nick, Hair High and the documentary The Way We Get By. 


Thanks to Chris Herrington for this plug of Li'l Film Fest:
Local Pick: Li'l Film Fest 11: Musical Horror (5:30 p.m., Brooks Museum of Art)
Live From Memphis' Li'l Film Fest series is a very good thing. By giving local filmmakers a manageable task — creating a short film (roughly 5 minutes) on a set topic — the fest has helped to inspire and hone talent in the local scene, while also creating a setting to build the local filmmaking community. The latest Li'l Film Fest — with the promising theme "musical horror" — is being held alongside Indie Memphis. As always, a jury award will be matched by an audience award voted on by those in attendance. Among the notable names in local filmmaking presenting films: Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, Jon W. Sparks, HG Ray, and Adam Remsen.





And here's my summary of "The Way We Get By" that I wrote for the Indie Memphis program:


This documentary takes a sympathetic yet unwavering look at three senior citizens determined to maintain purposeful lives even in the face of personal adversity. The trio have assumed the demanding volunteer task of greeting troops coming through the airport at Bangor, Maine. This is no small chore as the airfield has been the departure and return point for hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops going to and coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. For Bill Knight, Joan Gaudet, and Jerry Mundy, this is something they simply must do at any hour of the day or night. Yet they have their own personal issues, such as health, financial problems and for Gaudet, the anxiety of having a granddaughter who will fly helicopters in Iraq. In examining the personal lives of these "troop greeters," documentarian Aaron Gaudet (the son of Joan Gaudet) shows that theaging population of America is tirelessly finding ways to sustain their own humanity, and to teach the rest of us by example.