My short film, Middle Ground, has been awarded a Hollywood Foreign Press Association Fellows Fund grant. This is super exciting because I can definitely use the money to support the film and the HFPA is the organization that awards the Golden Globes each year.
What makes this even cooler is that the feature film I produced, But Not For Me, also won the same grant! It's been an encouraging week and I'm thankful for that.
Check out that crowd - so big, so cool!!
My first mention on the NYU Grad Film Blog and I didn't even notice it at first! Woo Hoo! Personal goal accomplished.
This is cool: I was tooling around on Google and discovered the organization Coalition to Stop Gun Violence - a group I connected with in 2013 - had actually discovered online and shared my short film, The Choi Family, a year earlier in 2012. That's neat! I guess in this instance the film found its target audience.
Check out my Summer/Fall 2014 Newsletter.
Sign up here (on the right) if you want to receive them via email.
Sent only 4ish times a year, so no email overload from me.
A Warm Spell (formerly Koharubiyori) - the film I produced that was shot in Japan in February 2013 - has been accepted to the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. Clermont-Ferrand is one of the best short film festivals in the world and only 77 films were chosen for the International Competition.
Big congrats to Writer/Director Toshimichi Saito, cast, and crew!
We in the papers! Website coming very, very soon.
Got an exciting request today:
A Dr. working at the Institute for Queer Theory in Berlin requested permission to use an excerpt of the script from my film, This Is My Body (co-created by Siobhan O'Loughlin).
The book is currently titled "Global Justice and Desire: Queering Economy" and is being published by Routledge.
This is super exciting! This is what it's all about - connecting with people via my work, having an effect on people.
Here's the excerpt that's going to be used:
"This is my body. I do what I want with it.
This is my body. I make my own choices.
This is my body. I use it as a canvas,
tattoo it, decorate it, and pierce it.
I take medicine if I want to and only undergo medical procedures I choose.
I eat what I want, exercise for my health, and wear what I like.
I fall in love with whomever,
fuck/sleep with whomever and marry whomever I choose.
I decide when and how to become a mother.
This is my body, not yours."
Middle Ground Friends & Family Screening (if you're reading this, you're invited)
October 16, 2014
8pm
Honey & Poison Performance Series
Two Moon Art House and Cafe - Brooklyn, NYC
Be there. Come. Check it out. Stop by. You don't want to miss it!
Today, I submitted my application for Berlinale Talents - the talent campus at the Berlin Film Festival. For years I've been wanting to apply, and for one reason or another - eligibility or missing the deadline or not feeling up to the application - I hadn't applied. But this year changes that!
I've been getting a lot of rejections lately, which is nothing particularly new, but I remain (with great effort) undaunted and cautiously optimistic that I will be selected, especially on the strength of the scene I submitted from Middle Ground.
Berlin in February? Glad I don't have anything against the cold!
Check out my Winter/Spring Newsletter - lots of good things going on!
Sign up here (on the right) if you want to receive them via email. Sent only 4 times a year, so no email overload from me.
Breaking News: Aidan Rojas is Jason Stefaniak's Little Brother.
We've been notified that Koharubiyori also won the Audience Choice Award (the favorite of all Graduate Films) at the NYU First Run Film Festival!
This is exciting news - not only do the "critics" like the film, but the people do too!
The film will screen at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles on June 5th.
Toshi Saito's Koharubiyori - a short NYU Graduate Thesis film which I produced - has won third place in the NYU Wasserman Awards!
The film has won a cash prize and will screen at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles in June.
Congrats to Toshi and the entire crew and cast! I'm very proud of the work we did.
On Sunday, March 30th, we wrapped principal photography on the feature motion picture, But Not For Me!
This is the first feature film I've produced starting at the development stage - and the second feature I've produced in the past year.
Next step for #BNFM: Applying for the IFP Narrative Lab, Post-Production, and festival submissions (Sundance and Cannes, here we come!)
Koharubiyori, my classmate Toshi Saito's NYU Grad Thesis short film - which I produced and we shot in Japan last February - is one of eight nominees for the prestigious NYU Wasserman Award. The three winning films are screened in LA and the filmmakers take industry meetings.
The film also received a number of craft commendations - Original Score, Cinematography, and a Producing craft award that Toshi and I shared!
Thank you to everyone who voted and shared the film! It was air on NYC's WNET/Thirteen this Saturday night, 2/24/14.
My film The Choi Family is competing in the Reel 13 Shorts Competition. If it wins, it'll be screened on NYC Public TV on Saturday, February 22nd, 2014 (the day after my birthday!)
Please click here and vote for The Choi Family - voting ends at 5pm on Wednesday, February 19, 2014.
If you like the film, please spread the word via email and on social media and ask people to vote. Thanks!
Vote Here: http://www.thirteen.org/reel13/vote/
