Articles about Tater Tomater
 
 

Character Comedy
Play by MacLachlan is About Small-Town People
by Genie Carr
Winston-Salem Journal
04/1987

     People who aren't writers sometimes ask people who are writers how they get their ideas for what they write.  Sometimes writers don't like the question because they don't really know exactly what inspired the story, or book, or play, or poem.
     Angus MacLachlan knows why he wrote Behold, Zebulon, his latest play which will be performed next weekend at the Salem Fine Arts Center.
     "I wrote it for my oldest brother (Lachie," MacLachlan said in an interview last week.  "He always says, 'Why don't you write something funny?' "
    Behold, Zebulon, MacLachlan said, "is entertaining, I hope, but there is a spirit of apprecitation of the characters, too.
     "This is a character comedy," he said. "Basically, the story is about a woman who moves to a small town and the people she encounters there.  It's funny, but there is a theme that's serious.  The woman felt like she never belonged anywhere....It's about wanting a sense of place, of being part of a home and a community."
     The town's name is Zebulon, MacLachlan said, but it isn't necessarily North Carolina; other states have Zebulons.  It's definitely a small Southern town, though.
     MacLachlan, who "was born and reared, as they say," in Winston-Salem, is a 19890 graduate of the N.C. School of the Arts.  He has written several plays, including last year's well-received Tex's Dream.  Behold, Zebulon, he said, stems from a couple of earlier stage pieces of his.
     One of those works was done while he was in school.  Called Really Gross - partly because one of the perpetrators was a drama studnet named Monica Gross - it featured character-based comedy sketches.  One of them was about a cafeteriaworker who goes a little crazy and starts talking in rhymes.  The worker has  been moved to Zebulon, as has a barber whom MacLachlan created for a show called Parings.  Other characters include an old man in a nursing home and a teacher and her 13-year-old students in a ballroom-dancing school.
     "I had to change the pieces a little," MacLachlan said.  "The tone ws more satirical before, and this play is not satirical."
     The small town of Behold, Zebulon, with all its quirky inhabitants who give the lead character, Molly,  a sense of belonging, "is very, very loosely based on Ardmore, where I grew up," MacLachlan said.  "A lot of it is not autobiographical at all, but is based on someone I would know or meet...and I would start with that basic image.
     "One of the first things I did when I knew I wanted to write this was to start remembering funny stories I'd heard about things that happened to my mother and father, or stories my grandparents told," he said.
     MacLachlan is a playwright, and he's an actor - chiefly, now, with the aCE - Charlotte Repertory Company.  His acting strongly influences his writing.
      "Everything I write is based on character," he said.  "I'm an actor, and teh important thing for actors in my play is to understand the characters...I'ts not like I have an idea about the political implications of people in cafeterias never being seen, and that's what I write about.  That's inherent in the piece, but the important thing is, what do people say?  What do they feel?"
     He is not only the playwright for Behold, Zebulon, but also the producer and teh director.  He said someone suggested that it might not be a good idea for him to direct his own play, but he disagrees.  "At least initially, I want to direct it," he said.  "When we start rehearsing, I am still in the process of finding out about it.
     "That's what's great about working with these actors," he said.  "If they feel that something is not right about a character, we can change it.  It's a collaboration, really."
     The actors in Behold, Zebulon, are Vivian Tedford as Molly, the woman who moves to town, and Beth Bostic, Mike Huie, Lee Sellars, and Mary Lucy Bivins.  MacLachlan has worked with all of them except Huie, who, like Sellars and Ms. Bivins, studied theater at Wake Forest.  Like MacLachlan, Ms. Bostic studied drama at the School of the Arts.  She and MacLachlan have been friends since the sixth grade and have worked together in and on numerous theater pieces.
     Before the collaboration comes the initial writing.  "I do a lot of rewriting," MacLachlan said.  "I'm not the kind of person who writes on a schedule every day.  With a play, you create so much more than what you write.  You have to create the whole history of a person....I spend a lot of time figuring that out."
     Once the piece is up on stage and actors are becoming the characters - making them more than lines on a page - MacLachlan finds themes and meanings he had not consciously realized were there.
     "In the theater, what you write down is not as important as what you see," he said.
     Behold, Zebulon has no sets and no costumes, partly as a matter of economy and partly as a matter of drama.  Some of the actors play four or five roles each.  "It's sort of a series of vignettes, like the poster," he said.
     MacLachlan designed the publicity poster for Behold, Zebulon, which has photographs of a family over time in different places. He said he found the snapshots in a junk pile at a house that ws being gutted.  "Again, I'm alwasy interested in people and characters, and I wondered about these people and who they were," he said.
    Behold, Zebulon will be at 8:15pm Friday, Saturday and next Sunday in the Drama Workshop of the Salem Fine ARts Center.  Admission is $4 at the door.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

C & C Cafeteria is the setting for a tale of two emotions
by Justin Catanoso
Greensboro News & Record
12/31/1987

Winston-Salem - To the casual observer, business appears to continue as usual this week at the C & C Cafeteria on Old Salisbury Road.
     Cars and trucks crowd the gravel parking lot.  And inside the double doors, workers dash in and out of the kitchen, while folks at the tables and in booths sit around eating, smoking cigarettes, and killing time.
     But things are drastically different at the cafeteria.  Alive and dead at the same time.  And within it's cinderblock walls, two dramas are unfolding.  One fictional, one all too real.
     On Christmas Eve, Melvin Michael and Jerry Boyles, co-owners of C & C for more that 15 years, reluctantly served their last meals to a roomful of teary-eyed patrons.
     They're out of business now for one reasons: "Interstate 40, the new bypass," Michael said.  "We're in the way.  Simple as that."
On Saturday, with Michael's permission, Phil Morrison began transforming the C & C into the set for a short movie.  Morrison is a  19-year-old film major at New York University and a Winston-Salem native.
     His 20-minute film, entitled "Tater Tomater," focuses on the unheralded life of a cafeteria server who dishes up,  you guessed it, potatoes and tomatoes.
     This week, the cafeteria, built in 1966, enjoys a last hurrah of sorts. Next week, it will be reduced to a pile of rubble.  As a result, Morrison's excitement for his project, the most ambitious he'll undertake as a student, is in stark contrast with the emotions Michael feels these days.
     "Like they told us, you can't stand in the way of progress," Michael sid, referring to the state Department of Transportation's reason for condemning his "tremendous" business.
     "it just took our livelihood away from us," he added.  "Changed our lives completely.  We had such a good location and all.  We haven't been able to find a place where we can afford to go back in business.  We just fed the working-class people.  Served breakfast and lunch.  Opened 5 in the morning; closed 2 in the afternoon."
     From New York, Morrison brought a crew of 10 to assist him with lighting, sound and cinematography.  Mostly everyone else - actors, extras and a variety of crew people - are from Winston-Salem.
"It's going to be like a home movie," Angus MacLachlan, and a Winston-Salem playwright, said of the casting.   "It's everybody I've ever known or been related to.  We were counting up how many mothers are in this film and we got to five. There are even some grandmothers."
     MacLachlan adapted the screenplay for "Tater Tomater" from his play "Behold Zebulon," a series of vignettes and character sketches set in the South.  The play was produced in January at the Salem Fine Arts Center.
     Morrison saw the play and realized soon after that he had found the material necessary on which to build his project.  Most NYU student productions are filmed in New York City, Morrison explained, but when his professor approved the project, he knew there was only one place to produce it.
     "I really like it in New York and I like the school," said Morrison, wearing a hooded NYU sweatshirt and a red "Winston Drag Racing" cap.  "But I don't feel connected to it.
     "Plus, Angus wrote this great play, and it was such wonderful material, and I knew we had such great talent down here.  I felt like, why make a movie in New York?  I can make a movie in Winston-Salem."
     Over the past two years, Morrison had eaten several times at the C & C.  He figured it was the perfect location for "Tater Tomater."  Once he got permission to use it, he was on his way.
     The cafeteria, now a film set, is crowded with a variety of portable lights, a dolly mounted camera, microphones and recording equipment and assorted props.  Occasional calls of "Quiet, leas, Action!" all lend to the aura of art in the making.
     "This film is being done just like any Hollywood film," said Godfrey Cheshire, co-assistant director.  "It's just not on as big a scale."
 
 
 
 
 

Behold, C & C: It Will Soon Be a Movie Star
by Genie Carr
Winston-Salem Journal
12/1987

     For more than 20 years, the C & C Cafeteria on Old Salisbury Road has cooked up sausage and eggs, country style steak and green beans.  This year, though, during the week after Christmas, the menu will feature lights, camera and action.
     Phil Morrison of Winston-Salem, a junior in the film school at New York University, is making a 20-minute, 16mm color film of the "Tater? Tomater?" scene from Behold, Zebulon, a play by Angus MacLachlan, a Winston-Salem playwright.
     Morrison, 19, and Matt Mindlin, his co-producer, cinematographer and dormitory roommate, visited the C & C  several times recently on a hurried trip from New York to absorb the atmosphere and take notes about the lighting and the sights and sounds of a busy cafeteria.
     The also shot a videotape of the original scent in MacLachlan's play with the actors who have played the characters working in a cafeteria in  small-town Zebulon.  They are Michael Huie, Mary Lucy Bivins and Beth Bostic, who plays the lead character, the hapless Doris, who becomes slightly strange as she keeps dishing up the 'taters and tomaters.'
     Morrison said, "Since I'm not down here most of the time, I want the tape to remind myself of the language and the action."
     He also wanted the tape to show around the film school.  "A professor keeps telling us we can't do it," Morrison said. "The real root of existing in this region is talking.  The professor, who's a Yankee, keeps saying, "You gotta cut this dialogue.' But I want this film to be about 100 percent chatter so that any moment of silence Doris has is important...
"The professor likes films to have sparse dialogue, which generally is right for films.
"Just not this one."
The play is about storytelling.  The people of Zebulon tell their own stories  - the time a tornado hit town, the loneliness of a blind but optimistic old man in a nursing home, the day that Doris finds her own way of expressing how she feels about her live...
     Both Morrison and MacLachlan grew up in Winston-Salem; MacLachlan is a drama graduate of the N.C. School of the Arts.
     Morrison said that his "Tater? Tomater?" project, which he is doing for his class Narrative Workshop II, "is the most ambitious project I've heard of since I've been in school.
      "It's ambitious in two ways; the location - it's not being done in New York - and the amount of dialogue."
     On-camera dialogue makes filming a movie more complicated than it is when the sound is added later, he said.  The picture and the sound have to be synchronized; the actors have to get their lines and movements right; the microphones have to be placed so that the pick up the sound the director wants to be picked up (and don't record extraneous noises), and placed so they don't show on camera.  Between now and this Christmas holiday, Morrison and others working on the film will be planning each camera angle each line of dialogue, the lighting and the sound, Mindlin explained that each shot will be plotted in detail, and the actors' blocking and the camera positions will be noted.
     "Much of each scene will be covered by more than one shot," Mindlin said.  "We decide what kind of coverage we need for each shot and whether we can technically do it.  The place is so big, and there is a  lot of action," he said.
     Morrison wants to fill the place with extras, whom Morrison hopes to recruit between now and Christmas.  He hopes that some of the C & C's regular customers will want to become part of the project.  (It will be their last visit to the cafeteria; the C & C,, which has been in business since 1966, will close Dec 23 or 24, said the owner, Melvin Michael.  The building later will be torn down to make way for the new Interstate 40.)
     Some of the crew will shoot exterior shots doing visits here at Thanksgiving and during mid-December.  MacLachlan's play scene takes place entirely in the cafeteria, but for the film MacLachlan has added some scenes at Doris' house and in the back room of the cafeteria.
     After Christmas, Morrison said the crew and equipment will take over the cafeteria, which Michael will leave as-is for them.  "We will turn this place into a studio, just like MGM," he said with a grin.  "It will be a studio and a production office and probably a sleeping place for some of us.  There will be a core crew of five to 10 people who will come down from New York."
     Nothing in this creative-academic venture comes cheap.  Morrison said that if the film were being made independently, it would easily cost $50,000.  As it i, the cost will be between $8,000 and $10,000; and Morrison has to find the money himself.  The NY philosophy is that it's all part of a young filmmaker's education.
     He Said, "At NYU, anyone who has a good script and is willing to fight the incredible political battle within the school to do the project can do it.  It's raising the money that's the hardest part... We'll have no trouble starting to shoot.  It's the post production that costs so much, especially the lab processing and sound mixing."
     The filmmakers will use professional labs to process the film.  Mindlin said that the labs in New York pay attention to the student filmmakers because some day they may be big-time producers and directors, with lots of business to bring to the labs.  But they don't give away their work.
     Another expense - the largest onsite expense, Morrison said - will be food.  Not only prop food for the film ("fats and vats of 'taters and tomaters' ") but also eating food for the crew and actors, who are working for free.
     Morrison will use a lot of local talent, which he said Winston-Salem has in abundance.  "There are such creative people here, theater people and musicians," he said.  "I wanted to get them together."
     Jay Johnson of Winston-Salem is doing the sound design, Morrison said.  He said that Johnson and two other members of the Live Bait band, Kenny Pritchert of Raleigh and John French of Winston-Salem, will work on the sound track.  The music "has a county influence but is sort of, um, mysterious."
Morrison, Mindlin and other members of the film crew are no strangers to filmmaking.  In addition to their work for school, Morrison and Mindlin - as Standing in the Lake Film Productions - have made a music for a Winston-Salem band, Thrift Bakery.
     Mindlin, a New Yorker, said that he hopes to become a producer; his studies have also focused on cinematography.  He worked as a cinematographer on a documentary about filming of the Robert Redford - Debra Winger movie Legal Eagles, an experience that left him rolling his eyes in exasperation at the apparent chaos inherent in making movies.
     Morrison said he is interested in producing and editing as well as directing.  "Someday, I would like to direct feature films like this one," he said.
    Morrison ws a regular performer in Little Theater productions when he was growing up here.  The last play he was in was a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Fred Gorelick and performed in Old Salem.
     Morrison has known for a while that acting  would not be his career.  "In theater," he said, "I often felt like I knew what should be done, but I wasn't inclined to do it myself.  I usually thought I knew who would be the best person to do it."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

'New Directions,' Eight Brief Works
by Vincent Canby
New York Times
3/4/1990

     "New Directions" is a 90-minute program of eight short subjects, at least six of which are first-rate.  their only common denominator is that they are the work of new film makers.
     The prize of the lot (the film opened Friday at the Bleecker Street Cinema) is the six-minute "No More Disguises" (directed by Boryana Varbanov and Tom Sigel and produced by Pam Yates), which was shown at the New York Film Festival last fall.  The film, which has something of the manner of a music video, features Cui Jian, described by the film makers as the Chinese answer to John Lennon.
     Most of "No More Disguises" was shot in Beijing in the months before the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, but it has been edited into a most effective lament for the events that followed.
     Much smaller in scale but a complete delight is Ilse Somers's 12-minute "Joey-Joey," a record of the Washington Square Park performance of a young, very funny Hispanic juggler.  Joey also swallows swords, jumps rope and rides a unicycle, sometimes all at the same time.
     In Karen Silverstein's 14 minute "Gefilte Fish," three women in one family - the grandmother, her daughter and her liberated grand-daughter - discuss and demonstrate how they make gefilte fish.  It's both funny and moving.
     the grandmother, now retired from the exhausting work takes a dim view of the Cuisinart used by her daughter, an upscale member of the middle class who admits that the smells almost make her sick.  In turn, her daughter, who wears a Cornell sweatshirt, demonstrates how to open a bottle of ready-made gefilte fish.  When the cap won't unscrew, she bangs it on the floor, saying, "This usually works with peanut butter."
    the 15 minute "Tater Tomater," directed by Phil Morrison and written by Angus MacLachlan, is a lighthearted look at the emotional collapse of a woman who works in a North Carolina cafeteria all day, serving potatoes and tomatoes.  When last seen, she's being led away on a rhyming jag: "Tater, tomater, radiator, incubator, humiliator," and so on.  the five minute "Taylor Slough" is Kurt Hall's poetic evocation of wild-life in the Florida Everglades.
     "Howard Finster: Man of Visions" is a good straightforward report on the career of Mr. Finster, a Southern backwoods preacher, now in his 70's, who has been called the Picasso of folk art.
     The 20-minute film ws directed by Julie Desroberts, Randy Paskal and Dave Carr.  they remain nonjudgmental as their subject is discussed by himself and by people who collect his work, which is very primitive and full of religious messages (printed on the paintings).
     The six films are worth attending to.  The rest of the program is a good deal less successful.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Short film by Winston-Salem man is featured at festival
by Nilla Childs
Winston-Salem Journal
01/26/1992

     Winston-Salem's own Angus MacLachlan was in Park City last week, along with most of the rest of Hollywood, for the 1992 Sundance Film Festival, an internationally recognized showcase for independent American cinema, which ends today.
     MacLachlan's 1989 film Tater, Tomater, directed by Phil Morrison, is featured in a popular Festival Shorts Program.  The Festival Film Guide introduces the shorts: "Here are six short films, each one so complete in its vision that all of them are sure to be classics."  It describes Tater, Tomater as a "Southern serving of semantics.  It's a deadpan romp that will leave you reciting lines for months."
     Those who missed the Winston-Salem screenings of Tater, Tomater several years ago will have two more chances to see the film.  It will be part of the program of the new film series at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art at 7:30pm Tuesday; and MacLachlan said, it will be telecast on PBS' American Playhouse on Feb. 26, after the feature presentation of The Feud.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cruising in the Fast Lane
Director from here turns to commercials as a steppingstone to doing feature films
by Roger Moore
Winston-Salem Journal
06/07/1992

     Winston-Salem native Phil Morrison has been traveling in some pretty fast circles in the film world
     After graduating from New York University Film School with a bachelor of fine arts at age 20, Morrison worked at Robert De Niro's TriBeCa Film Center.
     He directed Tater Tomater, the critically acclaimed short film of Angus MacLachlan's play Behold, Zebulon.  Tater Tomater appeared on the PBS series American Playhouse earlier this year.
     Morrison filmed music videos for Yo La Tengo, Das Damen, Sonic Youth, The Feelies, the Blake Babies, Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey.
     And since many of today's feature film directors, Ridley and Tony Scott for instance, earned their first credits making videos and commercials.  Morrison has been working his way toward feature films, one commercial at a time.  Morrison, now 23 and living in New York, has agents on each coast who are helping him get commercial shooting jobs for Ivory Soap, Ikea Furniture and others.
     Now, he's hit the big time.  He's directed basketball superstar Michael Jordan in a jazzy series of Wheaties commercials that are being televised nationally.
     "When I was up for that job, I don't doubt that the fact that I was from down here helped," Morrison said.  Jordan, the Chicago Bulls star, grew up in Wilmington and was a star at the University of North Carolina.  "We were shooting the spots in the middle of the NCAA Tournament," Morrison said, "We actually shot on the day Carolina lost in the tourney.  We were both really concerned that we could finish and go watch the game."
     Like many directors, Morrison is animated, half-talking, half-performing his sentences.  He said that his youth and Jordan's cereal-pitching savvy made for an interesting set for the commercial.
     "He has to have a huge ego to be who he is, hut he has just the right amount of self-effacement," Morrison said.  My job directing him wasn't like directing actors.  Much of my job was just to mess around with him.  He's only got one line, but you want to get something different, off the cuff, out of that 'You'd BETTER eat your Wheaties.' "
     Morrison, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall, said he sometimes found himself directing the 6-foot-6 Jordan from a stepladder.
     "In trying to keep him loose, my job was o be the goofiest guy on the set," Morrison said, laughing.  "The whole time, I could tell he wasn't really sure why I was there.  His whole attitude had to be, 'How did this guy get to be my director?'   I used that."
     IN the commercials, Jordan, dribbling a basketball or zipping to and fro, appears in a plain white room, running or walking tilted.  An announcer intones that Jordan runs up and down the court this many times in a game or "dribbles 498 times a day."  Jordan adds the kicker, "You'd better eat your Wheaties."
     "In one of them, the camera acts as if it's trying to defend against him as he's moving to the hoop, which turns out to be a bowl of Wheaties.  So as he was moving toward the camera, I'd yell "Laimbeer! Laimbeer! It's the Piston! The want the ball!'  The most exciting thing for me was I'd be trying to steal the basketball from Michael Jordan while he was coming at the camera."
     Morrison's spots for Ikea Furniture are funny, slick, post-thirtysomething encounters with people putting a little style into their "living space."  His commercials for NBA Hoops cards are hilarious hard-sells built on the fact that dentists love the cards because they are sold without gum.  But for Morrison, the cereal, cards, and "Ivory babies" are just a means to an end.
     "I'm learning more doing these things than I ever did at NYU" Morrison said.  "You work with top-notch crews.  A lot of good people work in commercials.  NYU is, in a lot of ways, a trade school.  You have to kind of make the program for yourself.  They give you the context in which to learn things, but they don't hold your hand.  You kind of feel your way through it.   It's very competitive.  In order to make Tater Tomater, we had to fight with an entire class of people who wanted to make their movies."
     Of the commercials, he said: "I just sort of fell into doing these.  A lot of the work has come from people who didn't have a lot of money to hire a director with.  But what really gets me going are music videos.  Both things are arenas where, at 23, I can be directing.  It's good to do videos when you're making commercials for a living because it's one thing that doesn't feel corporate."
     Morrison's music videos bubble with visual puns, showing off deft talent for the camera, camera movement and scene composition that do not rely on special effects.
     "I like working with bands that aren't really comfortable with the whole idea of music videos,." Morrison said.  "Bands like The Blake Babies make music that gives you something to chew on."
     Morrison began his music-video career as a sophomore in college, shooting a local band, Thrift Bakery.  Later, he had the chance to work with former local musicians Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey.
"I was always such a huge fan of the dB's and Peter and Chris; they were local heroes in every sense to me when I was growing up.  They had gone off to make terrific pop art."
     Meanwhile, Morrison is pounding the boards, working with MacLachlan on a script and hoping to get a feature film deal.  He says he hopes to be a part of a foreign-financed series of short films about New York in which he will direct a segment on "Southern Expatriates in New York."
     "But I don't see any use in being in a great, great rush to make a movie," he said.  "There's a lot I can learn before I put all my eggs into one basket like that."

They won't be long, but they may be captivating
MOVIES
July 15, 2005,
Los Angeles Times

A four-week program dedicated to short films is taking place at the Hammer Museum.
By Merrill Balassone, Times Staff Writer
 

In an age where animated movies use sophisticated computer software and the characters look eerily human, Don Hertzfeldt's work is an anomaly.

Using animation paper and ink and limited to his $20,000 out-of-pocket budget, Hertzfeldt spent nearly four years making his short film "The Meaning of Life." It took nearly two years just to animate the opening crowd scene, in which more than 40 stick-figure characters with bug eyes pass one another on the street under dark storm clouds, muttering humorous and angry phrases against a Tchaikovsky score.

"When I go speak to film classes, the first thing students ask me is what kind of software I use," Hertzfeldt said. "When I tell them I don't use computers for anything, I get a lot of blank stares. There's not a lot of understanding about how cartoons used to be made."

There are few venues where short films like Hertzfeldt's are shown, and rarely are they seen outside of festival settings such as Cannes or Sundance, said John Cooper, director of programming at the Sundance Institute.

"It's one of those things that whenever people see shorts they absolutely love them, but there never seems to be a commercially viable way to get them out there," Cooper said. "We're trying to really turn people on to discovering short films."

The Hammer Museum in Westwood is hosting a four-week program of short films put together by Cooper and the Sundance Institute, featuring films that have previously screened at Sundance over the last 15 years.

Last Friday, more than 800 people packed the museum's open-air courtyard for the first installment, which showed four films that won top Sundance honors, including "Wasp," which went on to win an Academy Award in 2004. Tonight, the program will screen shorts by up-and-coming or established feature directors, including Spike Jonze's 1996 short "How They Get There."

Next Friday, Hertzfeldt's work will be shown with five others, showcasing more experimental and edgy forms. On July 29, documentaries will wrap up the series.

Since Cooper started Sundance's short film program in 1991, the festival has debuted the shorts of now-famous directors such as Jonze and Wes Anderson , among many others. But Cooper said that short films are more than just an amateur director's "audition" for a feature film and are used to tell personal stories and try experimental techniques.

"People are becoming more inventive with short films and taking chances," Cooper said. "The whole trend has changed to finding pure talent as opposed to having it look like a mini-big movie." Mike Mills' short film "Architecture of Reassurance," which screens tonight at the Hammer, is based on his childhood fascination with the cookie-cutter suburban housing developments that surrounded him growing up in Santa Barbara.

Mills began designing album covers and directing music videos for artists such as Frank Black and Blues Explosion and directing advertisements for Adidas, Nike and Gap, which helped him pool together the $30,000 budget to make the 23-minute short.

While the film helped him gain attention in the movie industry and allowed him to hone the writing and directing skills necessary to make a full-length feature, it wasn't the "calling card" to a feature-length film. For his feature, "Thumbsucker," which opens in September, Mills believes it was his ability to handle million-dollar budgets for advertising campaigns and videos, which had more "cultural clout," that lent him legitimacy to executives.

But as exposure and interest in short films has grown in recent years, Mills believes the future for young filmmakers will be in shorts. For Mills, watching his film in a festival setting is one of the most nerve-racking and gratifying experiences of his career.

"It's the most emotionally rewarding and most scary experience I've had in my life," he said. "To go to a screening and see the way people took it in is my ultimate reward."

While most short films never make it near a movie theater, some take on a life of their own as cult hits within the independent film community.

Director Phil Morrison will show his 20-minute short comedy "Tater Tomater" at the Hammer tonight, which follows a small-town cafeteria worker as she works her shift serving tomatoes and Tater Tots while wearing the obligatory hairnet. "Tater? Tomater?" she drawls in a high-pitched voice.

An emotional breakdown at the end of her shift leads her on a rhyming jag, as she screams "radiator, incubator, humiliator" before graduating to more explicit rhymes as she is carried out from behind her station.

The film, which screened at Sundance in 1992, inspired the website tatertomater.com, where a collection of fans or "Tater Tots" can take the Tater Poll, buy a video of the film, read stories by Tater fans and sign the Tater guestbook.

It has aired on PBS, at New York's Bleecker Street Cinema, on the USA Network and, he was told, at an Atlanta cross-dresser's bar.

"I feel like it has its own life that I don't really feel part of in a way," said Morrison, who made the film when he was 18 as an undergraduate at NYU. "It's like a kid that has left the nest."

Fifteen years after "Tater Tomater," Morrison will release his first full-length feature film, "Junebug," next month.

Morrison said that while the making of his short film helped him make contacts in the industry, he didn't do it for career advancement.

"I didn't make it in order to show off to someone how good we would be at making features," he said. "It's cool that with what the Hammer's doing, little by little, they're creating an environment that shorts can be an end unto themselves."
 
 

Junebug Links
Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  | Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, LA, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info|Reviews and Articles after the Release
 
 
 

Filming Junebug
 
 

Junebug, a movie set in Winston-Salem, is to begin filming in and around town in June
Thursday, May 27, 2004
By Mark Burger
JOURNAL ARTS REPORTER
Winston-Salem Journal

     It may be a little early to consider erecting a giant "HOLLYWOOD" sign along U.S. 52, but the Piedmont is starting to look like a Southern Mecca for moviemakers.
     Director Phil Morrison, who grew up in Winston-Salem, will begin filming an independent feature film, Junebug, in and around Winston-Salem in mid-June, according to Rebecca Clark, the director of the Piedmont Triad Film Commission.
     "They're here, and they're in preproduction," Clark said.
     Angus MacLachlan, an award-winning playwright who lives in Winston-Salem, wrote the screenplay for Junebug.
     MacLachlan and Morrison have known each other for years. Morrison's mother told him that MacLachlan held him when he was a baby. The two of them had been collaborating on the story of Junebug for several years.
     "It was a while until the train was on the tracks," MacLachlan said.
     The film, which is specifically set in Winston-Salem in the script, focuses on three couples and how their relationships change as a result of interacting with one another. MacLachlan calls it a comedy/drama and said it is based on the first play he ever wrote.
     "The humor comes from the characters," he said.
     Junebug stars Connie Nielsen, Scott Wilson, Alessandro Nivola and Celia Weston (a graduate of Salem Academy). Brian Thomas, who is based in New York, is producing the film.
     The budget for Junebug is less than $1 million, and the film is scheduled for a 20-day shoot.
     "Which is a real challenge," Morrison said. "The story is so delicate, (in that) it's about the ways the seven main people interact - but I feel really fortunate to be working with so good a group of people."
     MacLachlan, too, is gratified that the actors - some of whom have appeared in films with considerably bigger budgets - would be so taken by the story that they would take less salary up front. He is also pleased to be more involved in the production than screenwriters usually are. Likewise, Morrison is pleased to have the writer close at hand.
     "I feel really fortunate to be working with so good a group of people," he said.
     According to Clark, the filmmakers debated shooting the film elsewhere - possibly Richmond or Woodstock, N.Y. - before settling on the Piedmont.
     "They wanted to make sure that the area has the local resources they need," Clark said. "We do have the local infrastructure and the local support. And, again, the reputation we've built here speaks for itself."
     When the makers of Junebug were considering the Piedmont, Clark recommended that they consult with Kate Miller, the assistant to the dean of the School of Filmmaking at the N.C. School of the Arts, and producer Andrew J. Sacks - both of whom worked on Two Soldiers. Clark said she believes that the project came here partly because of Miller's and Sacks' recommendations.
     Filming here, Morrison noted, would cost much less than it would elsewhere - and the fact that the story was specifically set here adds even more.
     "It doesn't just help the production," Morrison said. "It helps the movie. This is where it takes place, so it makes sense to shoot it here."
     "I wanted it to have that (local) flavor," MacLachlan said.
     Feature films aren't the only things being produced here. In April, the reality-TV series Ambush Makeover filmed segments in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point.
     In terms of feature-film production, there was last year's horror hit Cabin Fever, which was filmed in Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and Surry County in 2001. Two Soldiers, a feature short film, won the Academy Award earlier this year. Last month, the National Lampoon comedy The Trouble with Frank - starring Jon Bon Jovi and directed by Arthur Hiller - began filming in High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem. That film is scheduled to complete production next week.
     "Things are looking great," Clark said. "There's a lot of interest in filming here. Trying to attract new business is so much easier when there's already a project under way. So, we are building momentum.
     "I just want people to have a good experience working here and to take advantage of all the opportunities here."
     In addition to the production of Junebug, MacLachlan has other projects in the works. His play, The Radiant Abyss, will be performed at the Kennedy Center Film Theatre in Washington from June 20 through July 18.
     MacLachlan, also an actor and director, previously wrote the award-winning drama The Dead Eye Boy, which was produced in 2001 off-Broadway with Lili Taylor. His short film, Tater Tomater, was screened at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and has been broadcast on PBS's American Playhouse. He is a graduate of the N.C. School of the Arts' School of Drama.
 
 

Junebug: It's a Wrap
A quiet spot off the beaten track becomes set, office and living quarters for the shooting of a feature film

Sunday, July 18, 2004
By Mark Burge
(photo of Phil Morrison by Bruce Chapman)

WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL ARTS REPORTER

     Except for the trucks and cars lining the street and a couple of hand-drawn placards, hardly anything seemed out of the ordinary. But for the past few weeks, on a quiet, dead-end street near Hanes Mill and Bethania Church roads, a motion picture was being filmed.
     The local residents who live on the block drove to and from work every day, usually waving at crew members as they went to their jobs.
     "They're going to work, and so are we," said Alicia Van Couvering, officially the assistant to the producer and unofficially one of the film's ace troubleshooters. "It's a little weird. It's like we moved in ... but, then, I guess we did."
     And so they did. They were the cast and crew of Junebug, an independent feature directed by Phil Morrison from a screenplay by Angus MacLachlan. Both Morrison and MacLachlan are Winston-Salem natives, and MacLachlan specified the setting of his story as Pfafftown. Filming began in early June, and principal shooting was completed last Sunday.
     Junebug, which has a budget of under $1 million, is a character-driven drama centering on three couples whose interaction compels them to re-examine their relationships and themselves.
     MacLachlan's screenplay is based on the first play he ever wrote.
     The cast includes Scott Wilson, Celia Weston, Alessandro Nivola, Amy Adams, Benjamin McKenzie and Embeth Davidtz, who replaced Connie Nielsen during preproduction.
     According to Van Couvering, the production stayed on track and on schedule because of the devotion of the cast and crew.
     "Everybody's an intern," she said, laughing. "It's an egalitarian arrangement. Everybody is working with a lot of love, and everyone's contributions are necessary."
     Kate Miller, an assistant to Dale Pollock, the dean of the School of Filmmaking at the N.C. School of the Arts, acted as production liaison for Junebug. She referred to the unique location arrangement as "Camp Junebug."
     A number of houses on the block were vacant, so the production rented them for a month and used them as sets, production offices and, for some of the crew, living quarters.
     "It's fun to watch scenes I had in my head become embodied in reality ... well, pseudo-reality," MacLachlan said with a smile.
     It's not common for a screenwriter to be present during the shooting of his screenplay, which is generally a bone of contention among Hollywood writers, but that has not been the case with Junebug. Although he spent some time recently in Washington, overseeing the Kennedy Center's world-premiere production of his play The Radiant Abyss, MacLachlan was a constant presence throughout the production of Junebug.
     The entire experience was a screenwriter's dream, he said. "There's such a respect for the script, which is fantastic."
     Morrison and the actors said they appreciated having the writer close at hand for revisions.
     Although both Morrison and MacLachlan are Winston-Salem natives, it was not a foregone conclusion that they would be making Junebug here. Other North Carolina towns were considered, as were Woodstock, N.Y., and Richmond, Va.
     The majority of the film crew is from North Carolina and most are from the Piedmont Triad area.
     "It was hard for me to imagine we could have made June-bug here, but now I can't see how we could have done it any other way," Morrison said. Junebug is his feature directorial debut after having made a name for himself directing short films and music videos.
     "It's cool to come back home - very supportive and inspiring," he said.
     For Wilson, a veteran of more than 50 films, including such notables as In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967) and last year's Monster and The Last Samurai, the decision to join Junebug was predicated primarily on one thing:
     "This man's script," he said, gesturing toward MacLachlan.
     "We've got a terrific cast and a terrific group of people," Wilson said. "Phil is really on top of it."
     Having worked with such renowned directors as Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood), Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night), John Frankenheimer (The Gypsy Moths) and Ridley Scott (G.I. Jane), Wilson has also had good luck with first-time or relatively new directors. He worked with Patty Jenkins (Monster), William Peter Blatty (The Ninth Configuration) and Tim Robbins (Dead Man Walking). He adds Morrison to the list.
     "The work is great," he said. "For him to be able to turn his attention from one thing and start thinking about the next thing - before he's even finished thinking about the last thing - everything is so focused."
     Celia Weston, an alumna of both Salem College and the N.C. School of the Arts' School of Drama, said she felt a sensation of homecoming. That she had known MacLachlan before and had co-starred with Wilson in Dead Man Walking added to the sensation. MacLachlan introduced her to Morrison, whom she described as "an actor's dream."
     "We are limited in budget and therefore limited in time, but we never feel that from Phil," Weston said. "He has created a really good atmosphere, with great collaboration and a lot of respect for each other, for the story and for the actors.
      "He gives you what you need and what you don't need - which is often just as important. It's wonderful. It's just like breathing. The whole experience has been as simple as that."
      Weston came to Junebug from The Village, M. Night Shyamalan's eagerly anticipated thriller, which will be released July 30. She plays Adrien Brody's mother in the film.
      For Weston, the opportunity to make a small, intimate film such as Junebug is just as important as making the potential blockbuster.
      "It's joyous to make a living by your gifts," she said. "To discover them and to then discover that someone wants them, and to be able to make a living at it - it adds up to a very big life experience."

• Mark Burger can be reached at 727-7370 or at mburger@wsjournal.com
 
 
 

Winston-Salem becomes character in 'Junebug'
By Craig Miller
ESP Magazine
Volume 16, Issue 50
July 21-27, 2004

     The movie 'Junebug isn't the first film shot in Winston-Salem, but it's one of the rare times that the city plays itself on screen.
     Moviemakers have come to the Triad on a fairly frequent basis in recent years, but they usually want cities and towns here to pretend to be somewhere else. Fictional Southern towns, small streets in big cities or Anytown, U.S.A. are the sorts of roles handed to Triad cities.
     But the city in'Junebug' really is Winston-Salem. 'There's one part of the film where Winston-Salem plays Chicago but other than that, it's what it's supposed to be, so it really is starring Winston Salem,' said Beth Bostic, a North Carolina School of the Arts alumna who acts in the film.
     'Junebug', which recently wrapped up filming, also aims the lens at Southern culture. Written by Angus MacLachlan, another NCSA grad, it's about a Chicago woman running an art gallery, recently married to a man from Winston-Salem.
     She finds an undiscovered artist who lives outside the city. In her attempt to get the artist to show in her gallery, she meets her husband's family for the first time. Her relationships with the husband's parents and his younger brother's family shake up her preconceptions.
     'It's sort of about a woman who loves the culture from the South, then she encounters it in a very real way,' said MacLachlan. 'She finds out that she doesn't know it as well as she thought she did.'
     Phil Morrison is making his debut in feature films with 'Junebug.' Morrison is a successful commercial director, the one behind the current series of Verizon TV ads.
     Both Morrison and MacLachlan wanted to do a movie not easily pigeonholed into any genre. 'Junebug' deals with Southern characters, but not stereotypes. It contains humor, but not at the expense of the characters. That puts a bit of distance between their movie and much of the product that comes from Hollywood.
     'We both feel that Southerners are not portrayed very realistically,' MacLachlan said. 'They're portrayed very stereotypically.' Bostic thinks the movie may help introduce moviegoers to the real South.
      'Local culture is a big part of the story. What's wonderful is that its not stereotyped. It's a big chance for audiences outside of the South to see what genuine Southern characters are like.'
     Filmed on a budget of a little less than a million dollars, the movie features some names that will be quite familiar to film goers, including current and upcoming major features.
     Amy Adams played in 'Catch Me If You Can' with Leonardo DiCaprio. Scott Wilson has a long resume, with film credits going all the way back to his role as one of the killers, along with Robert Blake, in 'In Cold Blood.' Celia Weston plays in M. Night Shyamalan's ' The Village.' Cast member Alessandro Nivola, a favorite actor among independent filmmakers, will appear in the upcoming 'The Clearing' with Robert Redford and Willem Dafoe.
     'Junebug' also offered roles for area actors. Bostic of Winston-Salem, who was one of MacLachlan's classmates at the North Carolina School of the Arts, plays neighbor Lucille.
     'I'm the neighbor who's not invited to the baby shower, but I turn up anyway,' Bostic said. She has known MacLachlan since they were in the sixth grade and starred in Morrison's short film 'Tater Tomater.' ('Tater Tomater,' about a cafeteria worker who goes insane, aired on PBS, late night TV and at the Sundance Film Festival. It has a cult following and a web site: tatertomater.com.)
     MacLachlan, 45, has earned previous success with his plays. MacLaclan's ' The Radiant Abyss' last Sunday finished its run at the Kennedy Center Film Theatre in a production by the Wooly Mammoth Theatre.
     He finished his first novel last year and has another play optioned for production in London.
     In fact, 'Junebug' is based on a MacLachlan play performed in New York. He and Morrison had long wanted to make it into a movie, since they worked together on 'Tater Tomater.'
     'Phil has been offered a chance to direct (other films), but he didn't want to do them. We had been talking about wanting to do 'Junebug' since we made our other film 10 years ago.'
     A mainstream movie driven by characters, rather than car chases, cops or aliens, may seem a gamble in today's market. Many young filmmakers attempt to find a genre with a ready-made audience and give them what they want. The theory goes that the safest bet is something similar to what moviegoers have seen before. MacLachlan doesn't buy it.
     'I just don't think that's really true,' he said. 'Most independent filmmakers are making something personal that they feel strongly about.'
 

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, LA, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews and Articles after the Release
 

Junebug premieres at Sundance - Feb 2005
 

Writeup from Sundance site
JUNEBUG

U.S.A., 2004, 102 Minutes, color
Director: Phil Morrison
Screenwriter: Angus MacLachlan

      Director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan have forged a creative relationship that delivers an expertly crafted film--one that brings the idiosyncrasies of the modern South into sharp relief, and unearths the discovery that families can be experts at masking their own dysfunction. In Junebug, the unexpected appearance of an outsider illuminates one clan's unresolved resentments and repressed anxieties.
     Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) comes to her family as an infusion of unapologetic big-city swagger--a sophisticated gallery owner from Chicago who becomes the new wife of George (Alessandro Nivola). On a road trip to close a deal with a reclusive North Carolina artist, George finally resolves to introduce Madeleine to his family: prickly mother Peg (Celia Weston); taciturn father Eugene (Scott Wilson); cranky brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie), who has always suffered in the shadow of golden boy George; and Johnny's very pregnant, childlike wife Ashley (Amy Adams), who is instantly awestruck by her Yankee sister-in-law.
     Kudos to the creative team who assembled a gifted cast so perfect that they imbue each scene with spot-on emotional pitch. Junebug is blessed to have Morrison's sure-handed and insightful direction. And MacLachlan has crafted a regional tale so pure and so authentic that it's clear that southern storytelling has found its voice again.— John Cooper
 

Executive Producer : Daniel Rappaport
Producers : Mindy Goldberg, Mike S. Ryan
Cinematographer : Peter Donahue
Editor : Joe Klotz
Production Designer : David Doernberg
Music : Yo La Tengo
Cast : Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Ben McKenzie, Alessandro Nivola, Celia Weston, Scott Wilson
imdb link
Screening Times
Monday , Jan 24 2:30 PM Racquet Club JUNEB24RA
Tuesday , Jan 25 12:00 PM Eccles Theatre JUNEB25CD
Wednesday , Jan 26 7:30 PM Broadway Centre Cinemas VI, SLC JUNEB26BE
Friday , Jan 28 5:30 PM Racquet Club JUNEB28RE
Saturday , Jan 29 8:30 AM Library Center Theatre JUNEB29LM
 

Director Bio
Phil Morrison
Phil Morrison was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His NYU student film Tater Tomater, written by Angus MacLachlan, was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992 and later on American Playhouse. Morrison's music videos include work with Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Superchunk, The Feelies, Lemonheads, and Juliana Hatfield. Other work includes an episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete for Nickelodeon and as consulting producer and director for several episodes of Upright Citizens Brigade for Comedy Central.

Film Contact

Mindy Goldberg
Epoch Films
122 Hudson St., 3rd Fl.
New York, NY  10013
  (212) 226-0661
mindy_goldberg@epochfilms.com
 

Local Talent: Angus MacLachlan's film is going to Sundance
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Winston-Salem Journal

     Angus MacLachlan is no stranger to the Sundance Film Festival. Back in the late 1980s and early '90s he worked for the festival in various capacities: as a ticket-taker, host at the hospitality suite, VIP liaison and emcee who would introduce films at the different venues. MacLachlan even saw a film short that he'd written, Tater Tomater , screened at the festival in 1992.
     However, after all those years as a festival helper, the rising playwright and screenwriter vowed in 1993 that he would not return to Sundance unless he had something more to show: a full-length feature film.
     At 45, MacLachlan is finally getting his wish. He will be a VIP, not a VIP liaison, when Junebug is screened at Sundance in Park City, Utah, Jan. 20-30.
     He wrote the film and his friend Phil Morrison directed it. Both men grew up in Winston-Salem, and Junebug was filmed in and around the city last summer.
     Junebug is one of 17 films chosen from roughly 750 submissions in the highly competitive dramatic feature-film category. Positive buzz at Sundance could result in a distribution deal and national exposure for the film. Many influential film-industry insiders will get to see it, and more work could come from it.
     Junebug is a drama with comic elements. It is the tale of Madeleine, a successful outsider-art dealer from Chicago, and her new husband (George). They trek south on a dual mission: to meet his family and to sign up a folk artist whom she has discovered. His parents (Peg and Eugene) live in Pfafftown, and his underachieving younger brother (Johnny) and pregnant wife (Ashley) are encamped in their home.
     Worlds collide in the film: George's upscale cosmopolitan life vs. Johnny's frustrated, rut-like existence, Madeleine's quaint notions of folk artists and the South vs. the realities she encounters on her visit, and the disparate lives of the three related couples around which the film revolves.
     “It's very character-driven,” MacLachlan explained from his home in Winston-Salem. “I guess it's a drama, but it's also touching and funny.
     “It's about art and it's about families,” he continued. “There's a lot in the movie about who's inside and who's outside, who's idealized and who's not. The new wife, who's beautiful and sophisticated, comes into the family and in a very beneficent way tries to help them out. Eventually they tell her, ‘We don't need this kind of help.'
     “One thing we really intended to do with this film was show the South in a more realistic light, because the region is generally patronized and characterized, even when people like it, in ways that don't seem very real. I don't think there have been a lot of good depictions of the South and Southern people.”
     Junebug represents the first feature-length collaboration between MacLachlan and Morrison. It's been a long time in the making. The two old friends had talked about adapting Junebug for film for many years. It's based on the very first play that MacLachlan wrote, which Morrison had seen when it was staged in Winston-Salem 20 years ago. Morrison, who had an eye for quality even then, was all of 15 years old at the time.
     He went on to attend the N.C. School of the Arts, as had MacLachlan, and then headed north to study at New York University's prestigious film school. For an undergraduate project, he made a 20-minute film short titled Tater Tomater , based on a skit about hard-working waitresses that MacLachlan had written for a comedy revue.
     After graduation, Morrison became a successful director of television commercials, but Junebug always stuck in the back of his mind. In 1996 they discussed the project in earnest, and MacLachlan started retooling the script with the big screen in mind. Once they secured a production commitment from Mindy Goldberg at Epoch Films, based in New York, the project gradually moved into higher gear. It took off in 2004. Morrison took a break from commercials and has been working on Junebug steadily since last March. It is his first feature film.
     In fact, Junebug is a first for a lot of people. It's the first feature film for MacLachlan, for the costume designer and for Benjamin McKenzie, a well-known teen heartthrob on the TV show The O.C. Morrison used people he's worked with on his commercials, interns from the School of the Arts, and extras from all over Winston-Salem.
     Many in the cast will be familiar to film hounds, however. They include Embeth Davidtz ( Schindler's List , Bridget Jones' Diary ), Scott Wilson ( In Cold Blood , The Last Samurai ), Alessandro Nivola ( The Clearing , Laurel Canyon ), Celia Weston ( The Village , Far From Heaven ) and Amy Adams ( Catch Me If You Can ). Wilson and Weston costarred in Dead Man Walking .
     Junebug was made for just under $1 million, and the final cut runs 104 minutes. Morrison worked “like a demon,” MacLachlan recalled, to get the film edited in time to submit to Sundance in September. Final production work was completed last week - just in time to meet the festival's delivery deadline.
     Were there any bumps along the way?
     “Oh yeah, lots of them!” MacLachlan said with a laugh. “It's always that there's not enough time or money. We wanted more shooting days, and some scenes had to get dropped or changed because we couldn't budget them. Postproduction was a scramble.
     “In any creative project people get tense and there's always that high level of intensity, but it never tested our friendship. The only thing I will say is that I do miss our friendship aside from the film, because Junebug is like the only thing we have time to talk about now.”
     The talk should all be positive from here on out. MacLachlan and Morrison will head out to Sundance and stay for the festival's duration. For MacLachlan, an award-winning playwright who's been producing quality work for a quarter of a century, Junebug looks to be a well-deserved break and sweet vindication.
     “I really am pleased with it, because Phil has done a great job,” MacLachlan said of Junebug . “He's done what every writer really dreams about, which is somebody taking your work and making it better. That is incredibly unusual and one of the first times, if not the first time, that's happened to me in 25 years of writing and producing.
     “He just really has done it. It's a nice film. The actors come off terrifically.”
 

Phil Morrison
JUNEBUG
sundancechannel.com

Phil Morrison was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1968. His NYU student film, TATER TOMATER, written by Angus MacLachlan, was featured at the Sundance Film Festival and on American Playhouse. It is distributed by First Run Features and was one of very few shorts to be selected by the Museum of Modern Art for its First Run retrospective in May, 2001. Morrison was Consulting Producer and Director of several episodes of the highly regarded series "Upright Citizens Brigade" for Comedy Central. Other work includes an episode of "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" for Nickelodeon and a long-form Godard homage for X-Girl clothing, starring Chloe Sevigny. His music videos include clips for Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Superchunk, The Feelies, Lemonheads, Rocket from the Crypt, and Juliana Hatfield.

Filmmaker Q and A

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and was there through high school, and then moved to New York to go to college.

What book are you currently reading?
I'm always reading Galway Kinnell. I'm reading Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Monroe. I like to read James Agee a lot and Jonathan Rosenbaum to get excited about movies.

What music are your currently listening to?
Big and Rich, Jeffrey Dean Foster, Allan Toussaint.

What was the first film you remember seeing?
I think the two earliest films I can remember seeing in a movie theater are DR. DOOLITTLE and SONG OF THE SOUTH.

What was the first film you took a date to and how did it go?
The first movie I can remember taking a date to would be ARTHUR, and it went pretty well, I think we made out. And that Christopher Cross song, good for making out.

Which actor, living or dead, would you most like to work with?
Joseph Cotton. Don Cheadle. Veronica Lake.

Did you go to film school? If so, where?
NYU for undergraduate.

Red or Blue?
Purple.

Anderson Cooper or Jon Stewart?
Jon Stewart.

CD or MP3
CD.

JUNEBUG
Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a dealer in regional outsider art, sees George (Alessandro Nivola), a Southern expatriate, at her Chicago gallery and immediately falls in love. Six months later she goes with her new husband to North Carolina to try and sign an unknown visionary artist, David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor) and to meet his family: his prickly mother Peg (Celia Weston); taciturn father Eugene (Scott Wilson); angry younger brother Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie) who has always suffered in the shadow of golden-boy George; and Ashley (Amy Adams) Johnny's very pregnant, innocently garrulous wife.
 
 

From hot 'Tomater' to 'Junebug'
A simple story about adjusting for those who love us
By Jana McQuay, Record guest writer
The Park Record
Jan 22, 2005

     Director Phil Morrison has reunited with playwright Angus MacLachlan to present the Sundance Film Festival feature, "Junebug."
     The duo created the short flick, "Tater, Tomater" that screened at Sundance in 1992 and aired on PBS and late-night television.
     Thirteen years later, Morrison is celebrating his feature directorial debut at The Festival with "Junebug," a small film with a simple storyline that offers a glimpse of Southern culture unfamiliar to most Americans.
     MacLachlan wrote the original screenplay, which he and Morrison further developed together.
     The American Dramatic Competition film, which was shot in 20 days last summer, takes place over a three-day period.
     "It's about three couples and how their relationships change in just the littlest ways over those three days," Morrison explained.
      A scene from Junebug, which will be participating in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute.
      A talented ensemble cast features Amy Adams ("Catch Me If You Can"), Embeth Davidtz ("I Heart Huckabees"), Ben McKenzie ("The O.C." on Fox), Alessandro Nivola ("The Clearing"), Celia Weston ("The Village") and Scott Wilson ("Pearl Harbor").
     "It has a great cast, and in so many of my favorite movies, the standout performance is by the ensemble cast," says Morrison. "That's a strong suit, and it was really fun working with them."
     Not only is the director impressed with veteran feature actors in the film, but also indie newcomer, Ben McKenzie.
     Though the "O.C." star has gleaned much from working a rigorous schedule in front of the camera on the set of a professional network television program, there's something to be said about adapting to the feature-film experience.
     "He made the adjustment to our modest, small movie," Morrison said. "He made it so well. He just dug in."
     McKenzie plays the "cranky brother Johnny, who has always suffered in the shadow of golden boy George," played by Alessandro Nivola.
     Johnny isn't a particularly sympathetic character, not the kind to win you over from the get go, Morrison says.
     "And Ben really had no problem with that," he said. "He wanted to play him truthfully -- that was just really impressive to me."
     Morrison and MacLachlan are both natives of Winston-Salem, N.C., where "Junebug" is set and also where it was filmed. They've known each other for years and had hoped the day would come when they could work together on a full-length film.
     "We've been wanting to do a feature for a long time," said Morrison." We were just trying to find money to make the movie."
     Mindy Goldberg, who Morrison has worked with on numerous television commercials, is credited with scouting out financial backing. Mike S. Ryan came on board as co-producer with Goldberg.
     Once the money materialized, they were ready to get down to business.
     It's easy for Morrison to become sentimental when he talks about using super-16 mm film. Though "Junebug" is quiet and more suitable for film, his rationale for the choice is heartfelt.
     "I'm really proud we used that format because, these days, if you don't have 35 mm, you shoot video," Morrison said. "And, also, it's just selfish in a way that we shot film, because I'm glad to have done what all of these [filmmakers] have done in history as opposed to being part of the new thing. It feels good to me."
     As with most films, there were trials and tribulations. Along with struggling for funding, the director recalled one mishap he'd like others to forgive.
     "One time I spilled wine on my shirt, and I threw it in the production designer's sink, which he shared with others in the art department," Morrison recalled. "I ran to get another shirt. Meanwhile, another actor called to talk to me, and we got involved in an intense conversation. I flooded the entire floor of the art department. I completely flooded the whole section. They were not happy with me. I had to bend over backwards to make it up to them."
     More recently, Morrison and others have been under the gun trying to meet the Sundance deadline while confronting technical difficulties.
     "A big snafu in the finishing," he said. "We kind of had to start all over again, but it'll be OK."
     The filmmaker has been editing "Junebug" since last summer, scrutinizing it repeatedly.
     "I feel differently about it every time I see it," Morrison says.
     Just how will he respond when "Junebug" premieres at Sundance?
     "I'm really gratified that people like it, but what I like about it is so wrapped up in having made it," Morrison said. "It's impossible for me to enjoy it the way I enjoy lots and lots of other movies. The nature of my enjoyment in the finished product is wrapped up in the memories of making it."
     Though Morrison is hesitant to reveal much about the film prior to its premiere, he does offer insight about interpretation.
     While many viewers may point to "Junebug" as a portrait of dysfunctional families, Morrison thinks otherwise.
     "To me, it's about the ways in which we adjust ourselves for the sake of people who love us and why that may well be a good idea," Morrison said. "These days, there's so much talk about being yourself and the dangers of co-dependency, and you shouldn't change for the sake of the person you love. Sure, you shouldn't do that to unhealthy degrees, but maybe you can go too far. You forget about the value in being emotionally responsible to each other and that people who love you can help you.
     "It's about how we can push ourselves forward, morally or spiritually. It's what movies ought to do. A movie can inspire you to be better. If that spreads out to lots and lots of people, a culture can move forward."
 

Filmmaker scurries at Sundance
N.C. native promotes his first full-length effort
Jan 28, 2005
Raleigh News and Observer
By CRAIG D. LINDSEY, Staff Writer

[Actor Alessandro Nivola and director Phil Morrison consult on the set of 'Junebug,' Morrison's first full-length film. 'Junebug,' about a Chicagoan who comes south to visit her in-laws, was shot in Morrison's hometown, Winston-Salem.  ]

     For the past week, director Phil Morrison has been working it like a dancer in a Ludacris video.
     "It is exhausting," says Morrison, on the phone from Park City, Utah, where he's promoting and screening "Junebug," a film in the dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival. "I am really, really, really tired."
     Morrison, a Winston-Salem native, thought he would screen his movie a few times, check out other flicks, see Paris Hilton table-dancing -- the usual Sundance stuff. But he has found himself on the move around the clock, attending meetings, shuttling with cast and crew and other filmmakers, trying to squeeze into packed screenings.
     This isn't the Sundance Morrison remembers when he screened his short film "Tater Tomater" in 1992.
     "There is a whole lot of stuff you have to do for your movie," he says. "Eating and sleeping are two things that are on the back burner for me."
     Since he made "Tater Tomater," his New York University student film, Morrison has directed videos for such bands as Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo (who did the music for "Junebug") and Chapel Hill's Superchunk as well as TV commercials and episodes of "Upright Citizens Brigade" and "The Adventures of Pete and Pete." "Junebug," his first full-length film, takes him back him to Sundance, a festival that has turned many a young filmmaker into the next Hollywood wunderkind.
     In Park City, Morrison has met other budding auteurs and such idols as Werner Herzog. He also learned that Matt Chesse, the brother of "Junebug" crew member Damon Chesse, was nominated for an Oscar for editing "Finding Neverland."
     "It's just like camp, except somebody you're going to camp with just got nominated for an Academy Award," he said.
     "Junebug," about a Chicago art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) who travels to North Carolina to visit her in-laws, is one of many films at Sundance to get notice for showing the sophistication of the South. Morrison, who shot the film mostly in his hometown, says he wanted to tell a Southern story with widespread appeal.
     "What me and [screenwriter] Angus [McLachlan] have been talking about is we don't want to stand for regional filmmaking," he says. "A movie about human beings can take place anywhere. At the same time, I must acknowledge that the South is pertinent in the movie."
     During the interview, with Morrison talking by cell phone on a Park City street, a woman from Alabama grabbed him to say how much she liked his film.
     "There have been a lot of people talking about how much they like seeing the South depicted in a way that's new to them," he said. "It's really gratifying. People really seem to be getting the movie."
     Morrison also talked about putting the South on film at a panel discussion called "Southern Exposure," moderated by New York-based writer Godfrey Cheshire, film critic for The Independent Weekly. Morrison shared the panel with a number of other young filmmakers, including Monroe-born Tim Kirkman, whose made-and-set-in-North Carolina film "Loggerheads" is also getting notice.
     Kirkman's movie, which is also in dramatic competition, was the first one Morrison saw at Sundance.
     "It's a really moving film," he says. "It sticks with me."
     Now, all that's left for Morrison to do is attend a couple more "Junebug" screenings and wait for the weekend's award ceremonies. Asked whether he thinks his film could take the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize on Saturday, he is speechless.
     "I don't know," he says, finally. "I'm protecting myself from considering that."

Other Sundance articles

Mentioned in Indiewire article 01/21/2005. Lost in America: Sundance Shines on Complex Nation
Interview with Phil on Indiewire
Photos of cast and Angus and Phil from the Sundance and at the Premier - on IMDB but from WireImage - you'll see the links to Junebug Portraits and Junebug Premier
Mentioned in a Critic's Diary article on Indiewire - scroll to the bottom for a one paragraph review
Review on FilmThreat.com
Review at aintitcool.com
Photos of Phil at his panel about southern filmmaking, and with his friends in Yo La Tengo
Review from Timeout UK
Review from Domani Vision Film Society
Article about Regional Filmmaking from Sundance.org and another pic from his panel appearance
There's a 2 minute video interview with Phil if you click here and then click on the words Behind the Scenes, then click on Meet the Artists.  When you see the picture of the pregnant girl, you can click the right arrow under the picture to play the video.  I find this site hard to navigate so follow those instructions very carefully.
Provo Utah Daily Herald review
See Phil's interview from the Sundance Festival Dailies show posted on movieweb.com. It actually has a bit more from the movie than what made it on TV.
An Inside Look at the 16 Films in the Dramatic Competition on Emanuel Levy's site.  He thought Junebug was one of the 2 best films of the festival and promises a full review.
Photos from Angus's panel appearance 'Of Credit Crawls and Curtain Calls'  . Scroll on over a few pics - there's on of Angus in there.
Review at Overstock.com - seems a strange place for it...no?
Great Review on the Hollywood Reporter.
More from aintitcool.com
Read at least the last 3 paragraphs of this article in the Detroit Free Press.
iofilm.co.uk mentions Junebug.
I won't link all the articles, but Amy Adams won the female acting award at Sundance for her role in Junebug. Here is the Salt Lake City Tribune article about the awards.
Here's the Winston-Salem Journal tid-bit about Amy.
Actress in Winston-Salem film wins at Sundance
Jan 31, 2005
     Actress Amy Adams captured a special jury prize this weekend at the annual Sundance Film Festival for her role in a movie written and directed by two men who grew up in Winston-Salem.
     Amy Adams, best known for her role as Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend in the movie Catch Me If You Can, plays a childlike Southern waif captivated by her worldly new sister-in-law from up north in Junebug.
     Angus MacLachlan, 45, wrote the screenplay, which was directed by his friend Phil Morrison. The movie was filmed in and around Winston-Salem last summer. It was one of 17 films chosen from about 750 submissions in the dramatic feature-film category at Sundance.
     Junebug is the first feature-length collaboration between MacLachlan and Morrison. The movie is based on the first play that MacLachlan wrote, which Morrison had seen when it was staged in Winston-Salem 20 years ago.
     Morrison, who graduated from Reynolds High School, went to New York University. As one of his undergraduate projects, he made a 20-minute film short titled Tater Tomater, based on a skit about hard-working waitresses that MacLachlan had written for a comedy revue.

Ramos Blogspot has an interesting take on Junebug in their January 26th entry. Here's another version of the same idea and author but in the Cincinnati City Beat.
Mention in the New York Post.
20 Films at Sundance You Won't Want to Miss includes Junebug on movies.com
Review from The Ubyssey from Vancouver, CA
Photo of Cast, Writer and Director from Indiewire
Photo of Phil introducing 'Junebug' at the premier at Sundance
Interview with Phil and Angus from goTriad.com Feb 4
Southern Comfort: The American South on Tap at Sundance from usnews.designerz.com.  Good pic of Angus and Phil with cast members.
Unhappy Families Under the Microscope at Sundance from the San Francisco Chronicle - the writer lists Junebug as her favorite filme at Sundance.
Sundance wrap up from the San Francisco Chronicle where a different writer lists Junebug among her faves.
Actor/Filmmaker/Diarist/Photographer Josh Leonard (Blair Witch Project) lists Junebug as one of the 4 films he loved at sagindie.org.
Q: What films did you love this year?
A: Noah Baubach's The Squid and the Whale, Phil Morrison's Junebug, Mike Mills’s Thumbsucker and a documentary called The Devil and Daniel Johnston were all amazing, transformative, independent films.

Scenes from the South from the Charlotte Observer.
Listed as one of his favorite Sundance movies at James Israel's blog.
Listed as one of the top 10 Sundance movies on moviefone.com (you have to scroll through the choices, it's #6)
Hollywood Bitchslap review of Junebug gives Junebug 5 stars and pronounces it 'Awesome.
The Evangelist's blog mention of Junebug on it's Best of Sundance list calls it 'a small gem of a film'
A Southern Sundance by Godfrey Cheshire ( who worked on Tater Tomater ) from indyweek.com talks about the North Carolina Connection.
Indiewire interviews Phil Morrison and other directors from Sundance about making their movies.
Click Here for a link to the article from Premiere Magazine about Sundance - there's a photo of some of the cast of Junebug.
The eFilm Critic practially RAVES about how great Amy Adams' performance is.  There's a snippet below but here's the rest.

by Chris Parry
2/12/05
What's incredible about this is that director Phil Morrison, in weaving an amazing tale of the clashing of cultures, does not have a background in such fare. In fact, he's directed TV for Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, and a couple of music videos before that - but not a darn thing that would warn you that his debut on the big screen, Junebug, would be a tour de force. To be sure, Adams is the jewel in the crown, but there isn't a step put wrong with anyone else in this film, from Davidtz's driven city girl to McKenzie's terminally pissed little brother. Gazarra barely speaks five words, but his face speaks volumes, and Celia Weston is as ornery as she is talented.
 

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2005
Scenes
Festival entries show off N.C.'s beauty and enhance state's reputation as a good setting for independent filmmakers
LEIGH DYER
Staff Writer
Charlotte Observer
Posted on Sun, Feb. 06, 2005

PARK CITY, Utah - The South ruled at the Sundance Film Festival, the annual independent film celebration that wrapped up last weekend. Two North Carolina films were among the in-demand premieres there.
     In the festival's prestigious dramatic competition, which has launched the careers of filmmakers including Steven Soderbergh ("sex, lies and videotape" and "Traffic") and Ed Burns ("The Brothers McMullen"), fully one-fourth -- four of 16 -- of the films were from the South. Phil Morrison and Angus MacLachlan of Winston-Salem brought their film "Junebug" to the competition, while Tim Kirkman, a native of Wingate, debuted his work "Loggerheads."
     The other two were Tennessee films: "Forty Shades of Blue" from Ira Sachs; and Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow," which became the first film of the festival to be picked up for distribution in a $9 million acquisition deal with Paramount and MTV Films.
     The Southern films raked in awards -- "Hustle & Flow" won the audience award for dramas and "Forty Shades of Blue" took the grand jury drama prize. And Amy Adams, who provides the most memorable moments in "Junebug" as a daffy pregnant woman who plans to give her baby the titular nickname, won a special acting prize from the jury.
     "Loggerheads" and "Junebug," both family dramas, were filmed in North Carolina. They showcase the state's variety and beauty, from coast to Piedmont to mountains. And they generated buzz about the state as an independent filmmaking destination.
     "This was a big step forward for our state," said Dale Pollock, dean of the school of filmmaking at the taxpayer-funded N.C. School of the Arts. Pollock attended the festival to support the films.
     "This is so indicative of the direction we need to be going in North Carolina. We need to be encouraging the kind of filmmaking Tim Kirkman and Phil Morrison did -- local stories and local crews."
     But North Carolina still needs a financial incentive program to compete with other states including South Carolina and Louisiana that are luring away film projects, said "Junebug" director Morrison. Virginia almost lured "Junebug" away before the project settled in Winston-Salem, he said.
     "I want to poke the N.C. Film Commission," he said. "If it weren't so critical for us to film in Winston-Salem, financially, we would have been better off in Richmond."
     Added writer-director Kirkman: "I would hope that more movies will come back to the state .... The crews in Wilmington were fantastic -- all pros, but just not working too much in the last few years. We were the first movie to shoot there in 18 months."
     State officials have been working for more than two years to craft financial incentives to hold onto the film industry. North Carolina has historically had the nation's third-largest film industry, behind California and New York. State officials credit filmmaking with pumping more than $6 billion into the N.C. economy since 1980.
     But Pollock said incentives shouldn't be aimed at big Hollywood productions that parachute in and then pack up and leave. "The focus really has to be on filmmakers staying in North Carolina," he said.

A sense of place

     Asheville, the Charlotte skyline, Pfafftown, Kure Beach. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Cheerwine soda, the Carolina Panthers and Carolina Blonde beer. All of those were on-screen references, amid other details both subtle and obvious, that firmly placed the two N.C. Sundance films in their home state.
     It's a testament, said Pollock, to a recent surge of interest in regional films with an identity outside New York or California. The advent of digital technology that makes homegrown filmmaking easier, combined with the public's rising appetite for independent film, have helped fuel the trend, he said.
     In "Junebug," a big-city art gallery owner travels with her new husband to visit his N.C. family and recruit a local folk artist. Benjamin McKenzie, currently the bad-boy lead in the hit teen Fox show "The O.C.," stars as a cranky young man who resents his brother for leaving their hometown.
     In "Loggerheads," three intertwined narratives -- each set in one of the state's three regions -- tell the story of a middle-aged mother (Bonnie Hunt) yearning to find the son she gave up for adoption at age 17, as the audience learns that the son (Kip Pardue of "Remember the Titans") has become estranged from his adoptive parents after he revealed he was gay. He travels to the coast to pursue a fascination with loggerhead turtles.
     Both debuted to generally favorable reactions, with Daily Variety reporting that "Junebug" has strong prospects for theatrical distribution.
     McKenzie, who hails from Texas, was drawn by the way the movie portrays the South. "It was actually the first time I read a script that didn't either belittle or exalt Southerners," he said. "It's not patronizing. It's just honest."
     And despite his status as a teen heartthrob, he didn't mind playing an angry character with few appealing moments, he said. "I like him. I like that he's utterly pitiful. He's trapped in his life."
     Screenwriter MacLachlan, an N.C. School of the Arts graduate who still lives in Winston-Salem, said the sense of place was crucial to the film, even down to the humidity during filming last June that added an air of authenticity.
     "It was important to get the way it looks, to get the whole feeling that is not stereotypical," he said. "These people live in a way that's middle-class. They're not foreign. They go to Barnes & Noble, they wear clothes like everybody else, and they're influenced by the rest of the world but they're also very specific to this place."
     For Kirkman's "Loggerheads," the setting was important because his script is based on the true story of a gay man from North Carolina who chose not to get treatment after he was diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS.
     The story also hinges on N.C. adoption law, which until 2001 required all records of agency adoptions to remain sealed even after adult adoptees wished to seek out their birth parents.
     Filming in the state brought back painful memories of his own youth, when he was afraid to come out as gay, Kirkman said. But at the same time, he said, "It's my home. I love the state."
     Kirkman's first feature was "Dear Jesse," a 1998 documentary that contrasted his own life with that of former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Members of a group called Mothers Against Jesse In Congress, many of whom had lost sons to AIDS, introduced Kirkman to the birth mother who inspired the story of "Loggerheads."
     "The South is very interesting, because we have these contradictions," Kirkman said. "The same people who are vehemently anti-gay now were the people in the 1960s saying black people shouldn't sit at the lunch counter. Twenty-five years later, they say, `We were wrong about that, but we're definitely right about gays.' "
     The theme of homophobia is subtle in the film, sharing the story with the shame of a long-ago teenage pregnancy, the strained relationship between Hunt and her mother, played by Michael Learned of "The Waltons," and the struggle of small-town parents (Tess Harper and Chris Sarandon) to cope with the absence of their runaway son.
     "There's an opportunity for all people to find themselves in this movie, no matter who they identify with," Kirkman said. "I put it out in the world, and I hope it's going to go out there and make it a better world."
 

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, LA, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews and Articles after the Release
 

Junebug gets Distribution Deal

Sony plays with 'Junebug'
MacLachlan-penned pic bowed at Sundance
Date in print: Fri., Feb. 11, 2005, Los Angeles
By DANA HARRIS

     Sony Pictures ClassicsSony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Phil Morrison's directorial debut, "Junebug," with international rights going to Renaissance Films.
     SPC plans an August release. Renaissance will privately screen the film at the European Film Market during the ongoing Berlin Film Festival.
 

Junebug picked up for distribution by Sony Classics Pictures in the US and Renaissance Films internationally. There's also a review.  (These links are to Variety, subscription only.  Here's part the blurb about the release and a couple of quotes from the review.)

Junebug

An Epoch Films production. Produced by Mindy Goldberg, Mike S. Ryan. Executive producers: Mark P. Clein, Ethan D. Leder, Daniel Rappaport, Dany Wolf. Directed by Phil Morrison. Screenplay, Angus MacLachlan.
With: Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Ben McKenzie, Alessandro Nivola, Frank Hoyt Taylor, Celia Weston, Scott Wilson.
By JOE LEYDON
Posted: Wed., Feb. 9, 2005, 6:39pm PT

     A breakthrough performance by appealing up-and-comer Amy Adams, who won a Sundance acting prize, should spark favorable press and aud awareness for "Junebug," Phil Morrison's understated dramedy about the ripple effects of a Northern yuppie's first meeting with her dysfunctional Southern in-laws. But elliptical, indirect storytelling and overall muted tone might narrow indie's appeal to more venturesome ticket buyers. A challenging but by no means impossible sell for risk-taking distribs, contemplative pic will need favorable word of mouth and critical support to thrive in theatrical rollout.
...
Partly due to her character's generosity of spirit, but mostly due to her own charisma, Adams dominates pic with her appealing portrayal of a nonjudgmental optimist savvy enough to recognize the shortcomings of others, but sweet enough to offer encouragement, not condemnation. "God loves you just the way you are," Ashley tells Johnny at one point, "but too much to let you stay that way."

Distribution Deal also mentioned on FilmStew.com
 

Triad-shot movie 'Junebug' lands distribution deal
DAWN DeCWIKIEL-KANE, Staff Writer
(Monday, February 14, 2005 8:40 am)
Triad.com

GREENSBORO -- Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American distribution rights to "Junebug," with international rights going to Renaissance Films. Prices were not disclosed.
     "I love that they like it enough to want to get behind it," "Junebug" Director Phil Morrison, a Winston-Salem native, said Friday in a telephone interview from his New York home.
     Sony Pictures Classics, which produces, acquires and distributes independent films, plans to release the movie in August, Morrison said. Efforts to reach Sony Pictures Classics for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
     Renaissance will screen the movie privately at the European Film Market during this week's Berlin Film Festival. A sales agent, Renaissance will sell it to distributors in other countries, Morrison said.
     Phil Morrison and crew on the set of "Junebug."
     Written by Winston-Salem playwright Angus MacLachlan, "Junebug" was shot primarily in Winston-Salem, with one scene at Replacements Ltd. in Greensboro. It premiered at last month's Sundance Film Festival, an internationally recognized showcase for independent films held in Utah.
     Although it did not win Sundance's drama category, Amy Adams won a special jury prize for her acting in "Junebug." She plays a pregnant, childlike Southern woman captivated by her wordly sister-in-law from up North. The film also stars Ben McKenzie of television's "The O.C.," Scott Wilson, Celia Weston, Alessandro Nivola, Embeth Davidtz and local actors Beth Bostic and Keith Harris.
     Produced by Epoch Films of New York, the 102-minute film focuses on a Chicago art dealer and her new husband. When the art dealer gets a lead on an undiscovered North Carolina artist, she uses the opportunity to visit him and to meet her husband's family. The visit illuminates the family's unresolved resentments and repressed anxieties.
     Sundance gives filmmakers a chance to show their work to industry insiders, and Morrison said during Sundance that two distributors had expressed interest. He learned about the deal Thursday.
     Among Sony Pictures Classics' recent releases are "House of Flying Daggers" and "Being Julia."
     "I think they are the perfect distributor for this movie," Morrison said. "They have released so many great films over the years."
 

New Directors, New Films festival includes Junebug
 

IndieWire gives a preview of the New Directors, New Films festival including Junebug which will be at Lincoln Center on March 25.
Variety talks about New Directors, New Films (subscription required)
Indiewire talks about New Directors, New Films
The Museum of Modern Art site shows schedule for the New Directors, New Films - Here's the blurb they write about the movie:

Junebug.  2005. USA. Directed by Phil Morrison. Madeline (Embeth Davidtz) is a go-getting art gallery owner from Chicago, recently married to George, a near-perfect specimen of Southern manhood (Alessandro Nivola), and their sex-life is, well, super-sexy. When Madeline needs to close a deal with a reclusive North Carolina artist, George takes the opportunity to introduce her to his family: prickly mother Peg (the superb Celia Weston); taciturn father Eugene (Scott Wilson); cranky brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie), who can’t measure up to perfect George; and Johnny’s very pregnant, childlike wife Ashley (Amy Adams is a revelation!), who is awestruck by her thin and glamorous Yankee sister-in-law. The presence of an outsider in their midst exposes how fragile a family’s dynamics can be when hidden resentments and deep anxieties surface. Director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan give their characters a striking regional authenticity. A miracle of a film graced with a perfect cast, whose road to self-discovery is full of insightful and humorous detours. 102 min. A Sony Pictures Classics release.   Friday, March 25, 9:00 p.m. ATH; Sunday, March 27, 1:00 p.m. MoMA

Here's what the NYTimes had to say about the movie when it premiered at the New Directors, New Films festival on 3/25/2005.

'Junebug'

Directed by Phil Morrison
102 minutes
9 p.m. Friday, Alice Tully Hall; 1 p.m. Sunday, Museum of Modern Art

     A funny/painful study of clashing cultures and repressed hostilities within a tightly knit North Carolina clan, "Junebug" is a small revelation that lingers in a region Hollywood movies visit all too seldom. When George (Alessandro Nivola), the eldest of two sons and his mother's favorite, brings his stylish British wife, Madeline (Embeth Davidtz ), a Chicago art dealer, home to North Carolina, the attitude of his unsophisticated, churchgoing family is suspicious verging on unfriendly. George's less-favored younger brother, Johnny (Benjamin McKenzie), is so knotted with rage and jealousy he can barely speak, while Johnny's pregnant, girlish wife, Ashley (Amy Adams), befriends Madeline. But in a moment of crisis, Madeline displays a shaky sense of family values.
     Without condescending to its characters or becoming overtly political, the beautifully acted film distills antagonistic red-state, blue-state attitudes with a sad understanding that no amount of polite walking on eggshells can dispel the tension between them. Ms. Adams's portrayal of an effusive girl-child is especially outstanding, and the camera's leisurely exploration of the family house conveys a rich, indelible sense of place. HOLDEN

And here's what Indiewire had to say

JUNEBUG *** (Alice Tully Hall, 9pm)

Phil Morrison's debut feature is a minor gem of a movie, a well-crafted (by screenwriter Angus MacLachlan) portrait of life in western North Carolina. The arrestingly beautiful Embeth Davidtz plays an art gallery owner in Chicago who visits the small hometown of her recently acquired husband (Alessandro Nivola) to sign a gifted artist (a dimwitted fella with a thing for the Civil War and oversized boners). Once there, she meets her husband’s family: his quiet, decent father (Scott Wilson), his stubborn mother (Celia Weston), his bitter brother (Ben McKenzie), and his chatty, pregnant sister-in-law (Amy Adams). In only a few short days, the newly married couple learns more about each other than they have in the past six months. Tenderly directed by North Carolina native Morrison, JUNEBUG is an acting tour-de-force for the film’s six leads, with Adams being the clear standout. Still, everyone imbues their characters with grace, tenderness, and honesty. Sony Pictures Classics will be releasing this in August. It's no YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, but it's definitely worth watching.

Slant Magazine seemed to enjoy it - see the full review here
Junebug
Morrison  understands that the people of the South feel very different from the people in the North, and his melancholic imagery and dissonant use of sound echoes this conflict. But Junebug  shouldn't be construed as some contrived depiction of culture clash: Even without Madeleine in the picture, George's family remains unhappy. Why they're estranged is never clear, but such details aren't important to Morrison -he's more concerned with the way people, their surroundings, and the past communicate via some form of mystical osmosis, and he conveys this sensation with subtle narrative nuances and breathtaking visual textures.

There's a blurb at the Village Voice

Here's a good review from an NYU student's review site.  Insightful.  He saw at the New Directors, New Films Festival.
Here's a FANTASTIC review from aintitcool.com
And here's an article about Benjamin McKenzie and Junebug from VH1.com
 

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, LA, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews and Articles after the Release

Junebug shown at Cannes in the International Film Critics Week

Junebug is going to be shown during the International Film Critics Week at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20 - it is the featured closing film.
Here's an Article from the Winston-Salem Journal.
Here's one from Hollywood Reporter.
Here's an Article from Variety - and a review from Variety from May 19, 2005
The Complete International Film Critics Week lineup is on Indiewire.
Archives de la Semaine Internationale de la Critique (International Critics' Week) has a synopsis here.

Excerpt from
CANNES FESTIVAL
The accent is on American films
BY JAN STUART
STAFF WRITER - New York Newsday - Read Full Article Here
May 12, 2005

     Phil Morrison has only directed one feature film, but he has already mastered the auteur's art of the 11th-hour freak-out.
     "I have an amazing ability to generate all different kinds of anxieties, in any and every situation," says the 36-year-old filmmaker from North Carolina. His debut feature "Junebug," is one of 11 new American films being showcased at the 58th Cannes Film Festival, the Barnum & Bailey circus of film gatherings that kicked off last night.
     Morrison revved into full anxiety mode to whip "Junebug" into presentable enough shape to enter the Sundance festival last winter. And now that his film is Cannes-bound with praise and prizes in tow, Morrison has adjusted his neuroses accordingly.
     "The No. 1 anxiety of an American going to Cannes for the first time is dealing with the can vs. con situation," he says, referring to the Riviera town's debated pronunciations. And somehow, Morrison is able to link this dilemma to his movie. A group character study of a humble North Carolina family, "Junebug" re-energizes stock Southern tropes with a shimmering plainspokenness that would thrill Willa Cather.
     "Patronage is an element," he says, comparing the "con"-sayers of Cannes to a foreign-born sophisticate in "Junebug" who has married into this Carolinian clan and is trying hard to be accepted. "Adapting yourself to others, even if it isn't authentic. Do you just go along with the way they say it because you don't want to be a jerk, or is that sort of patronizing to do that?"
     While "Junebug" was shot on a dime in 20 days, the performances by an estimable ensemble, including Amy Adams, Celia Weston and Ben McKenzie, are polished to a shine. "This is not like Cassavetes naturalism," Morrison insists. "This is real movie acting."
     If "Junebug" is any indication, it is only a matter of time before Morrison achieves the status of such veteran American directors as Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant and Woody Allen, whose newest films are premiering at this year's festival.

Washington Post mentions Phil at Cannes -  here's the link to the full article  and here's the excerpt

Cannes: For Rookies, a Festival of Nerves
By Laura Winters
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 22, 2005; Page N01

     First-time directors who don't have Black's track record are even more apprehensive at Cannes. "Before you get here, Cannes seems like a myth that doesn't really exist -- like Brigadoon," says Phil Morrison, whose movie "Junebug" was chosen as the closing-night film of a festival section made up of either first or second films.
     "Junebug," one of the most buzzed-about films at Sundance in January, opens in Washington this August. It's the story of a charismatic Southerner (Alessandro Nivola) living in Chicago who accompanies his very sophisticated bride (Embeth Davidtz) on a business trip back to his home town of Winston-Salem, N.C. While they're there, he introduces her to his semi-estranged and eccentric family.
     Morrison is not that worried about whether the international audience at Cannes will understand his portrayal of the American South. "I'm really curious about how they're going to translate the Carolina Panthers when we mention them in the film," he said, laughing.

Article about Brooklyn Artists at Cannes - features info about Phil and the artist that created the artwork for Junebug.  Scroll down - it's towards the bottom.

For Pics of Phil and Ben McKenzie from Cannes, click here and put the word Junebug in the search box.  There are about 15 images, including this one.

 

And the New York Daily News picks Junebug as one of the three indie films to watch out for this summer.
Here's a Review by Emanuel Levy which says Junebug was his choice for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.  Thanks, Mr. Levy.
There are Stills and a summary at MonstersandCritics.com
On Sony Pictures Classics page, they've got the Coming Soon information up.
Synopsis at Box Office Prophets is here.
Good review from offoffoff.com here.
 
 

In an article in the L.A. Times which talks about all the remakes Hollywood seems intent on making, and content to make, they mention that some movies are original and use Junebug as an example.
excerpt from
Remade in the USA
L.A. Times
By Carina Chocano, Times Staff Writer
05/08/05
     Not to suggest American cinema doesn't have filmmakers attuned to the particularities of American life. Alexander Payne and Richard Linklater (who has just finished remaking "The Bad News Bears") are among the best known, and small, gem-like films crop up regularly on a smattering of screens (such as Phil Morrison's upcoming "Junebug," in which a cosmopolitan Chicago art dealer visits her new husband's parents' home in North Carolina, where she's met with quiet wariness by his small-town family).
     In the early '90s, I worked for a video game company that made live-action videos and aspired to make interactive movies. One day, one of the managers, a man prone to sudden enthusiasms, grabbed me in the hall: "What if you could direct your movie?" And me, ever the surly underling: "Uh, I'd ruin it?"
     I suspect it's this sort of thinking, more than anything else, that has shaped the tone and sensibility of so many mainstream American movies, leaving the stories of American life mostly untold — or at least largely unhyped and unseen.
 

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, LA, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews and Articles after the Release

Seattle, Los Angeles, Provincetown, Melbourne Australia, and Edinburgh Film Festivals - Summer of 2005

Seattle International Film Festival chooses Junebug as part of their New American Cinema lineup. Summary and schedule here.  It will be shown June 10 and 12.
Article about Seattle from the Seattle Times here.
Article that mentions Junebug from the Seattle Gay News here.
A blogster's Seattle Film Festival Journal - Junebug is mentioned - keep scrolling it's there.
Nice mention in the Seattle Post Intelligencer here.
Los Angeles Film Festival chooses Junebug as part of their Summer Previews lineup. Listing here.  It will be shown on June 24.
Article about the appearance at the Provincetown International Film Festival here.
Provincetown Film Festival Site here.
Junebug will be shown in Santa Monica at the KCET Cinema Series West on July 19.  Info here.
Junebug was shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia in July - web site here
Junebug will be shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festval on August 25 and 27th. - web site here

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, Los Angeles, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews after the Release

Release Info
Sony Pictures Classics Press Kit
Junebug Website
Reviews and Interviews

Tentative Release Dates so far (updated 09/01/05 - subject to change)

Mark your calendars NOW.
You must go the first weekend it is anywhere near you - and YOU MUST TAKE 5 FRIENDS!!!

Theatre Name  (Green means already opened)	City	State	Release Date
SUNSET 5	LOS ANGELES	CA	8/3/2005
MONICA FOUR	SANTA MONICA	CA	8/3/2005
ANGELIKA FILM CENTER 6	NEW YORK	NY	8/3/2005
LINCOLN PLAZA CINEMAS	NEW YORK	NY	8/3/2005
EDW SO COAST VILLAGE 3	COSTA MESA	CA	8/5/2005
TOWN CENTER 5	ENCINO	CA	8/5/2005
LAEMMLE'S PLAYHOUSE 7	PASADENA	CA	8/5/2005
ALBANY TWIN	ALBANY	CA	8/12/2005
LA JOLLA VILLAGE THEATRE	LA JOLLA	CA	8/12/2005
SEQUOIA TWIN	MILL VALLEY	CA	8/12/2005
AQUARIUS TWIN	PALO ALTO	CA	8/12/2005
CENTURY FIVE	PLEASANT HILL	CA	8/12/2005
EMBARCADERO CENTER CIN. 5	SAN FRANCISCO	CA	8/12/2005
UA STONESTOWN TWIN	SAN FRANCISCO	CA	8/12/2005
CAMERA STADIUM 12	SAN JOSE	CA	8/12/2005
CINEARTS AT SANTANA ROW	SAN JOSE	CA	8/12/2005
CENTURY 12 DOWNTOWN SAN MATEO	SAN MATEO	CA	8/12/2005
LOEWS PIPERS ALLEY 4	CHICAGO	IL	8/12/2005
CINEARTS 6	EVANSTON	IL	8/12/2005
RENAISSANCE PLACE CINEMA	HIGHLAND PARK	IL	8/12/2005
FINE ARTS KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA 9	SCARSDALE CAMBRIDGE	NY MA	8/12/2005
EMBASSY CINEMA 6	WALTHAM	MA	8/12/2005
SEVEN GABLES THEATRE	SEATTLE	WA	8/12/2005
UPTOWN THREE CINEMAS	SEATTLE	WA	8/12/2005
LA JOLLA VILLAGE THEATRE CINEARTS AT SANTANA ROW CHEZ ARTISTE (U HILLS 3)	LA JOLLA  SAN JOSE  DENVER	CA CA CO	8/19/2005
EDINA CINEMA 4	EDINA	MN	8/19/2005
MONTGOMERY CINEMAS 6	BELLE MEADE	NJ	8/19/2005
FOX 10 THEATRE	PORTLAND	OR	8/19/2005
THE MAGNOLIA THEATRE	DALLAS	TX	8/19/2005
ANGELIKA THEATRE 8	HOUSTON	TX	8/19/2005
GREENWAY THREE THEATRE	HOUSTON	TX	8/19/2005
RANCHO NIGUEL EIGHT CENTURY STADIUM 25 STADIUM 10 PALM SPRINGS RIVER 12 THE AVENUES 13 PLAZA DE ORO TWIN CENTURY DOWNTOWN 10	LAGUNA NIGUEL ORANGE PALM SPRINGS RANCHO MIRAGE ROLLING HILLS ESTATES SANTA BARBARA VENTURA	CA CA CA CA CA CA CA	8/26/2005
CRITERION CINEMAS GARDEN CINEMA E-STREET CINEMA SHADOWOOD SQUARE 16 GATEWAY CINEMA IV SOUTH BEACH 18 SUNRISE 11 BETHESDA ROW CINEMA MAPLE ART 3	NEW HAVEN  NORWALK  WASHINGTON BOCA RATON FT LAUDERDALE MIAMI BEACH SUNRISE BETHESDA BLOOMFIELD HILLS	CT CT DC FL FL FL FL MD MI	8/26/2005
MONTGOMERY CINEMAS 6 CLAIRIDGE SIXPLEX RITZ SIXTEEN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS CINEMA KEW GARDENS CINEMAS LLC MALVERNE CINEMA 4 MANHASSET TRIPLEX RITZ AT THE BOURSE 5 THE MAGNOLIA THEATRE ANGELIKA FILM CENTER & CAFE SHIRLINGTON 7 THEATRES CINEMA ARTS THEATRE 6 ORIENTAL 3	BELLE MEADE  MONTCLAIR  VOORHEES  BROOKLYN  KEW GARDENS  MALVERNE  MANHASSET  PHILADELPHIA  DALLAS PLANO ARLINGTON FAIRFAX  MILWAUKEE	NJ  NJ  NJ  NY  NY  NY  NY  PA  TX TX VA VA WI	8/26/2005
KEW GARDENS CINEMAS LLC METRO TEN CINEMAS	KEW GARDENS  SEATTLE	NY  WA	8/31/2005
CATALINA 6 CENTURY ELCON 20 HYATT CINEMAS 3 PASEO CAMARILLO CINEMAS 3 OSIO PLAZA THEATRE THE AVENUES 13 CAMERA STADIUM 12 DEL MAR THEATRE 4 LAEMMLE'S FALLBROOK 7 CINEMA CITY FOUR GARDEN CINEMA LOEWS GEORGETOWN 14 BONITA SPRINGS 12 UA BOYNTON BCH 9 MOVIES DELRAY 18 CINEMA BELL TOWER 20 MIRACLE FIVE WINTER PARK VILLAGE 20	TUCSON TUCSON BURLINGAME  CAMARILLO MONTEREY ROLLING HILLS ESTATES  SAN JOSE  SANTA CRUZ WEST HILLS  HARTFORD NORWALK  WASHINGTON  BONITA SPRINGS BOYNTON BEACH DELRAY BEACH FT MYERS TALLAHASSEE WINTER PARK	AZ AZ CA CA  CA CA CA  CA CA  CT  CT  DC  FL FL FL FL FL FL	9/2/2005
UA TARA CINEMA 4 TRIPLEX GREAT BARRINGTON CROWN HARBOUR NINE  RIO 14 THEATRE	ATLANTA  GREAT BARRINGTON ANNAPOLIS GAITHERSBURG	GA MA MD  MD	9/2/2005
PLAZA FRONTENAC CINEMA 6 CLAIRIDGE SIXPLEX  UA MOVIES @ MARKET FAIR 9  CENTURY 14	FRONTENAC  MONTCLAIR PRINCETON  ALBUQUERQUE	MO NJ NJ NM	9/2/2005
UA DEVARGAS CENTER 6 VILLAGE SQUARE 18 CINEMA 100 QUAD  SOUTHAMPTON FOURPLEX  BALA THEATRE 3 PLYMOUTH MEETING 12 GREEN HILLS COMMONS 16 ARBOR CINEMAS @ GREAT HILLS DOBIE FOUR MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FT. WORTH FIESTA 16 BALLSTON COMMONS 12 CITY CENTER CINEMA 12	SANTA FE LAS VEGAS GREENBURGH  SOUTHAMPTON BALA CYNWYD  PLYMOUTH MEETING  NASHVILLE AUSTIN AUSTIN FT. WORTH SAN ANTONIO ARLINGTON VANCOUVER	NM NV NY NY PA PA TN TX TX TX TX VA WA	9/2/2005
CAMEO CINEMA CHELSEA THEATRE	ST HELENA  CHAPEL HILL	CA NC	9/8/2005
CENTURY 16 ANCHORAGE GALLERIA TEN CINEMAS MADISON SQUARE TWELVE MARKET STREET CINEMA WHEELER OPERA HOUSE GAINESVILLE 14 BEACH BLVD CINEMA 12  SFS BURNS COURT CINEMA  HYDE PARK THEATRE VARSITY THEATRE CAPE CINEMA THEATRE CHARLES THEATRE  GALAXY CINEMA STONE CREST 22 @ PIPERS GLENN  AMC CONCORD MILLS CAROLINA 3  COLONY CINEMA 2 WYNNSONG 12 RED BANK ARTS CINEMA RIVERSIDE 12 ESQUIRE 6 CEDAR-LEE CINEMA 6 DREXEL EAST 3 AMC SOUTHROADS 20 AVALON CINEMA BIJOU ART CINEMA JANE PICKENS THEATRE REGAL DOWNTOWN WEST EIGHT STUDIO ON THE SQUARE 5 ORIENTAL 3	ANCHORAGE BIRMINGHAM (HOOVER) HUNTSVILLE LITTLE ROCK  ASPEN  GAINSVILLE JACKSONVILLE SARASOTA TAMPA  DES MOINES  DENNIS  BALTIMORE CARY  CHARLOTTE CONCORD DURHAM  RALEIGH WINSTON-SALEM RED BANK  RENO CINCINNATI  CLEVELAND HEIGHTS  COLUMBUS  TULSA  CORVALLIS EUGENE NEWPORT KNOXVILLE MEMPHIS MILWAUKEE	AK AL AL AR  CO  FL FL FL FL  IA  MA  MD  NC NC NC NC NC NC NJ NV OH  OH  OH  OK  OR OR RI TN TN WI	9/9/2005
PLEASANT STREET THEATRE 2	NORTHAMPTON	MA	9/15/2005
MINOR THREE TOWER ANGELIKA FILM CTR. 3 RIALTO LAKESIDE CINEMAS  BETHEL CINEMA FOUR BEACON 8  BEECHWOOD STADIUM 11            EXCHANGE 20 CINEMA  SKI TIME CINEMA 2 AVON THEATRE HOLIDAY 8 THEATRE KENTUCKY THEATRE 2 BAXTER AVE THEATRE 8 UA SIEGEN VILLAGE TEN  NICKELODEON 5 MICHIGAN CAMEO ART HOUSE THEATRE CAROUSEL GRANDE THEATRE AMHERST 3 THEATRES  FALL CREEK CINEMA 3 LITTLE CINEMA 5 AMBLER THEATRE COUNTY THEATRE OAKS  MANOR 4 AVON THEATRE  TERRACE THEATRE JAMES ISL  HOLLYWOOD 20 WESTGATE MALL CINEMA 8  BROADWAY CENTRE CINEMAS 6 WESTHAMPTON THEATRE 2  HILLDALE 2	ARCATA  SACRAMENTO SANTA ROSA  BETHEL  NEW SMYRNA BEACH ATHENS AUGUSTA KETCHUM  DECATUR  FT WAYNE LEXINGTON  LOUISVILLE BATON ROUGE NORTH FALMOUTH  ANN ARBOR  FAYETTEVILLE  GREENSBORO BUFFALO ITHACA ROCHESTER  AMBLER  DOYLESTOWN  OAKMONT PITTSBURGH PROVIDENCE CHARLESTON GREENVILLE SPARTANBURG  SALT LAKE CITY  RICHMOND  MADISON	CA  CA CA  CT  FL GA GA ID  IL IN KY KY LA MA MI  NC  NC NY NY NY  PA  PA  PA PA RI SC  SC  SC  UT  VA WI	9/16/2005
LITTLE CINEMA	PITTSFIELD	MA	9/22/05
CAMELVIEW PLAZA 5 UA MOVIES EIGHT MILL CREEK CINEMAS  TOWER ANGELIKA FILM CT  BALBOA TWIN  OPERA PLAZA FOUR  CENTURY 25 TWIN  NICKELODEON FOUR  MONICA FOUR  RIALTO LAKESIDE CINEMAS  ISIS THEATRE ASPEN  SKYLINE CINEMAS  VARSITY 2 THEATRE NEW OMNI 4 FLICKS FOUR HIGHLAND PARK 4  PREMIERE PALACE  DEDHAM COMMUNITY TWIN IMAGES RAILROAD SQUARE CINEMA FINE ARTS THEATRE SKYLAND CINEMA  ROBERTS WELLMONT TRIPLEX  RED BANK ARTS CINEMA  STARLIGHT  EASTERN HILLS CINEMA 3  TINKER STREET  DREXEL EAST 3  LITTLE ART THEATRE VARSITY 5 CINEMAS  AVALON CINEMA  HOLLYWOOD THEATRE 3  DESTINTA'S CHARTIERS 20  PLYMOUTH MEETING 10  MALCO QUARTET CINEMA  WESTHAMPTON THEATRE 2  GRANDIN THEATRE  GRAND TACOMA 3  FOX FOUR	SCOTTSDALE CLOVIS MCKINLEYVILLE  SACRAMENTO SAN FRANCISCO  SAN FRANCISCO  SAN JOSE  SANTA CRUZ  SANTA MONICA SANTA ROSA  ASPEN  DILLON  AMES  COUNCIL BLUFFS BOISE  HIGHLAND PARK WICHITA  DEDHAM WILLIAMSTOWN  WATERVILLE  ASHEVILLE HENDERSONVILLE MONTCLAIR RED BANK  LOS LUNAS  WILLIAMSVILLE  WOODSTOCK  COLUMBUS YELLOW SPRINGS ASHLAND  CORVALLIS PORTLAND  BRIDGEVILLE  CONSHOHOCKEN  MEMPHIS RICHMOND ROANOKE TACOMA LARAMIE	AZ CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CA CO CO IA  IA ID  IL KS MA MA ME  NC NC NJ NJ NM NY NY OH OH OR OR OR PA PA TN VA VA WA WY	9/23/2005
CASTLE THEATRE  19TH ST	KAHULUI ALLENTOWN	HI  PA	9/28/2005
SHATTUCK 8  RAVEN FILM CENTER 5  PARKWAY 2  BOULEVARD CINEMAS 12  STARZ FILM CENTER  THE MOVIES OF LAKE WORTH 4  VARSITY TWIN CAPITOL THEATRE SIX  CINEMA 95  OLD GREENBELT THEATRE  GRAND AUD HANCOCK COUNTY  CHATEAU 14  TIVOLI AT MANOR SQ 3  BARRINGTON STATION CIN 5  CONCORD CINEMA  COLONIAL THEATRE TOWNE STADIUM 16  STRATHMORE CINEMA 4  CINEPLAZA  STORYTELLER 4  CINEMAPOLIS CTR. ITHACA 2  QUAD CINEMA 4  SAG HARBOR  AUSTINTOWN CINEMA  SISTERS MOVIE HOUSE  POCONO FILMS  MIDTOWN CINEMA  COLONIAL THEATRE  SOUTHSIDE WORKS CINEMA  AVON THEATRE  COLIGNY THEATRE  VINEGAR HILL  WEST TOWER MALL 10  LATCHIS CINEMA 1 & 2 & 3  LYNWOOD  ROSE TWIN  YAKIMA CINEMAS 10 PULLMAN SQUARE 16	BERKELEY HEALDSBURG OAKLAND PETALUMA DENVER LAKE WORTH HONOLULU ARLINGTON SALISBURY GREENBELT ELLSWORTH ROCHESTER  KANSAS CITY  BARRINGTON STATION  CONCORD KEENE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP MATAWAN  NORTH BERGEN  TAOS  ITHACA NEW YORK SAG HARBOR YOUNGSTOWN  SISTERS EAST STROUDSBURG HARRISBURG PHOENIXVILLE PITTSBURGH  PROVIDENCE HILTON HEAD ISLAND CHARLOTTESVILLE  RICHMOND BRATTLEBORO BAINBRIDGE ISLAND PT TOWNSEND YAKIMA  HUNTINGTON	CA CA CA CA CO FL HI MA MA MD ME MN MO NH NH NH NJ NJ NJ NM NY NY NY OH OR PA PA PA PA RI SC VA VA VT WA WA WA WV	9/30/2005
SCHWARTZ CENTER FOR THE ARTS CAPITOL THEATRE	DOVER OLYMPIA	DE WA	10/2/05
ART CENTER CINEMA VICKERS THEATRE	SALINA  THREE OAKS	KS MI	10/6/2005
GASLIGHT TWIN  MOVIE DEL RAY 5 (ORIOLE)  CASTLETON SQUARE 3  NEWBURYPORT SCRNING ROOM BAYVIEW ST CINEMA THE MUSIC HALL  SUPER CINEMA 10 MACK THEATRE  MARQUIS THEATRE  POINT OF VIEW CINEMA  JANE PICKENS THEATRE  NARO  SAVOY THEATRE  LINCOLN  TOWNEGATE THEATRE	DURANGO DELRAY BEACH  INDIANAPOLIS NEWBURYPORT CAMDEN  PORTSMOUTH HOLLAND (TOLEDO) MCMINNVILLE EASTON MILLERSVILLE  NEWPORT  NORFOLK  MONTPELIER  MT VERNON WHEELING	CO FL IN MA ME  NH OH OR  PA PA RI VA VT WA WV	10/7/2005
MARKET PLACE CINEMAS 6	HENDERSON	NC	10/10/05
GARBERVILLE	GARBERVILLE	CA	10/11/05
MAGIC TWIN THE MOVIES	NEVADA CITY  PORTLAND	CA  ME	10/12/2005
PEAK THEATRE 2  ACT ONE THEATRE OF DAYTONA  KEY WEST FILM SOCIETY  PICKFORD CINEMA	COLORADO SPRINGS  DAYTONA BEACH KEY WEST  BELLINGHAM	CO FL FL WA	10/14/05
METROPOLITAN THEATRE	SPOKANE	WA	10/16/05
BEVERLY ARTS CENTER OF CHICAGO CALLICOON CINEMA  PARAMOUNT CENTER	CHICAGO CALLICOON  PEEKSKILL	IL NY NY	10/19/2005
GLACIER FIVE CINEMAS COLONIAL THEATRE 3 EVENING STAR CINEMA  STRAND THEATRE  VASHON THEATRE	JUNEAU  BELFAST  BRUNSWICK ROCKLAND  VASHON	AK  ME ME ME WA	10/21/2005
TIVOLI THEATRE TRYON THEATRE	DOWNERS GROVE TRYON	IL NC	10/24/2005
UCCCA AT THE ONEONTA	ONEONTA	NY	10/25/2005
CALLICOON CINEMA	CALLICOON	NY	10/26/2005
ART THEATRE  LYRIC THEATRE  CATAMOUNT FILM AND ARTS	CHAMPAIGN  BLACKSBURG  ST JOHNSBURY	IL VA VT	10/28/2005
KIMBALL THEATRE	WILLIAMSBURG	VA	11/3/05
HUNTER  CARMIKE BIJOU 7	HUNTER  CHATTANOOGA	NY TN	11/4/2005
RED VICTORIAN MOVIE HOUSE	SAN FRANCISCO	CA	11/6/05
PEACHTREE EIGHT	COLUMBUS	GA	11/14/05
MUNSON WILLIAMS PROCTOR	UTICA	NY	11/16/05
NORMAL THEATRE	NORMAL	IL	11/17/05
WESTHAMPTON BEACH           LIBRARY	WESTHAMPTON     PARK CITY	NY UT	11/18/05
NEWPORT PERFORMING ARTS	NEWPORT	OR	11/20/2005
STRAND-CAPITOL PERFORMING ART CTR	YORK	PA	11/23/2005
RIALTO	BOZEMAN	MT	12/9/05
more coming soon...we hope...

Filming  |  Sundance - 02/05  |  Distribution Deal  |  New Directors, New Films - 04/05  |  Cannes - 05/05  |  Seattle, Los Angeles, Provincetown Film Festivals - 06/05  | Release Info |Reviews after the Release
 

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