Loyalkaspar, the design/production collective founded by directors Beat Baudenbacher and David Herbruck, has signed an exclusive representation deal with bicoastal/international @radical.media for commercials. Plans call for @radical to rep Loyalkaspar not only for domestic and international spot work, but to also seek out opportunities for the collective to collaborate with other @radical talent. Loyalkaspar recently teamed with agency The Brooklyn Brothers on a campaign for travel Web site kayak.com, and is currently directing and designing a series of Web ads for Adobe…..Industry vets Tanya Hunger and Craig Farkas have partnered to launch Instant Karma Films, Santa Monica. Hunger is president of the company while Farkas is its executive producer. The shop–which has also secured Sidney Bowen as its East Coast exec producer–opens with a directorial roster that consists of Maxime Giroux, Achim Lippoth and Jesse Jacobs. Hunger and Farkas describe their new venture as a “totally Green” shop, meaning it operates under pro-environment initiatives. For example, Instant Karma plans to use sustainable, renewable and recycled materials in all phases of production, and to utilize alternative, more climate friendly fuel, hybrid vehicles and generators. The production house also intends to plant 10,000 trees this year, and donate a percentage of company profits to environmental and social causes……Ad agency vet Patrick Walsh (DDB, Wells/BDDP, BBDO), stock footage researcher and longtime editor Ellen Rennell and production house mainstay David Russell (exec producer at such former shops as Coast and CPC) have teamed to form shot-baggers, a stock footage shop in Pacific Palisades, Calif. The company moniker comes from its pledge to clients that if it can’t come up with the right stock shot, shotbaggers will “bag it,” and go shoot wherever necessary the desired still or motion shot for cost plus 10 percent…..Global creative agency Attik has hired Michele Morris as senior producer in its Los Angeles office. Over the past year and a half, she had been freelance producing for Attik, working on campaigns for Scion and AOL/AIM Mail….
“Atropia” and “Twinless” Win Marquee Prizes At Sundance Film Festival
The war satire “Atropia,” about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. dramatic competition, while the Dylan O’Brien movie “Twinless” got the coveted audience award.
Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah.
Other grand jury winners included the documentaries “Seeds,” about farmers in rural Georgia and “Cutting Through the Rocks,” about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition.
“It’s for my dad,” said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking.
Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” about the bromance between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the U.S. dramatic category. O’Brien also won a special jury award for his acting.
The U.S. documentary audience award went to “André is an Idiot,” a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were “Prime Minister,” about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and “DJ Ahmet,” a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia.
Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline.
“Here’s to all... Read More