Cynthia Rockwell"There is an entire neighborhood full of funny people in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising," wrote Kevin Polowy, senior editor at Yahoo! Movies. "But some of the film’s biggest laughs belong to newcomer Beanie Feldstein, who makes her major-studio movie debut as the party-hearty sorority pledge Nora." Feldstein '15, a Los Angeles, Calif. native and sociology major at Wesleyan has been acting on stage since she was 5, with "three to six musicals a year every singer year from 5 to 22," ending last year with graduation. She tells Yahoo that Neighbors 2 was not a typecasting situation: “My college experience was nothing…
Jack of the Red Hearts, a film by director and executive producer Janet Grillo ’80, depicts a family raising a child with autism, as did her first feature, Fly Away. This new work features Famke Janssen (of Taken and X-Men) and AnnaSophia Robb (Carrie Diaries and Soul Surfer). Jack of the Red Hearts has garnered 11 festival awards both in the United States and abroad including the jury award at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, co-founded by activist/actor Geena Davis, to promote women and diversity in filmmaking. Jack of the Red Hearts will open in limited theatrical release on Feb. 26, in 25…
David LowMichael Bay ’86 has directed a new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (Paramount), which opened in U.S. theaters on Jan. 15. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name, the movie traces what happened Sept. 11–12, 2012, when terrorists attacked two Central Intelligence Agency compounds in Benghazi, Libya. The film tracks six security operatives, most of them former military, who defended the diplomatic compound and nearby CIA annex. The cast includes James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini, Toby Stephens, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa and Demetrius Grosse. In his review in Slate, film critic…
In his recently released debut film Mediterranea (IFC Films), director and writer Jonas Carpignano ’06 focuses on two friends from West Africa’s Burkina Faso (played by non-professional actors Koudous Seihon and Alassane Sy) who take a hazardous journey to Calabria, Italy, across the Mediterranean Sea, hoping to better their economic fortunes. Carpignano recently received two awards for his work: the Independent Film Project’s Gotham Award for Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director and the Best Directorial Debut Award from the National Board of Review. In his New York Times review of the film, Stephen Holden writes that Carpignano “has adopted a low-key neorealist…
Olivia Drake
Julia Morrison ’96 has co-produced, co-written and edited a new film, Hank and Asha (website), which opened at the City Cinemas Village East Theater New York City last weekend and will run at the Laemmle NoHo 7 Theater in Los Angeles from April 18–24. This lovely romantic comedy about identity, longing, and the irresistible appeal of entertaining life’s what-ifs was co-written and directed by James Duff, who is also Morrison’s husband. In the film, an Indian woman (Mahira Kakkar) studying in Prague and a lonely Southerner (Andrew Pastides) living in New York begin an unconventional correspondence through video letters—two strangers…
Mike SembosDan Poliner ’97 released his debut feature-length film “Jack, Jules, Esther & Me” in October 2013 at the Austin Film Festival. It’s about four friends living in NYC — two rich and two poor — during their final week of summer before leaving for college. It’s a wacky comedy, a romantic comedy and an examination of the differing paths presented to those who have money, and those who don’t. Much of the music in the film was provided by the band Peace Museum, which Casey Feldman ’12 formed on campus. “I believe all the music was recorded while they were…
Tatanka, directed by Jacob Bricca ‘93, will have its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana on February 22, 2014. Big Sky is one of America's premiere documentary festivals with over 20,000 visitors/year, and the film will be screening alongside such critically lauded films as Citizen Koch, I Am Divine, and Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia. In the film, based on his own experiences, Bricca, the son of a sixties activist, confronts the enigma that is his father Kit, a man whose uncompromising idealism helped build a movement but nearly tore his family…
Ron Medley ’73 is a featured speaker in the hour-and-a-half commentary on the DVD of How to Survive a Plague, (Sundance Selects), a highly acclaimed documentary directed by David France that was nominated for an Academy Award. (Medley also appears briefly in the movie.) The film tells the story of the brave men and women in two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these improbable, self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental…
Gabe Rosenberg '16My Last Day Without You, an indie romance film written and directed by Stefan Schaefer ’94, will be making a limited theatrical release through AMC Theaters on Oct. 4. The movie centers on a German business executive (Ken Duken) who falls in love with a Brooklyn singer-songwriter (Nicole Beharie) after a chance encounter on a short business trip to New York City. After winning a Black Reel Award for Best Independent Film and a Certificate of Excellence from the Brooklyn International Film Festival for Best Producer, My Last Day Without You will open in Atlanta, Seattle, Washington, DC, Chicago, and New Orleans. Schaefer…
Five alumni have contributed to exceptional documentaries that were shown this January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Marc Shmuger ’80 is one of the producers of We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, which had its premiere at Sundance. Directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, the film is an in-depth study of all things related to WikiLeaks and the larger global debate over access to information. It tells a compelling story of what happens when a small group of people decide to break open the intelligence vaults of the world’s most powerful nation. The…