Committee LA–a creative content production studio led by directors Frank Samuel and Jeff Reed along with EP Lauren Bayer–has added two indie filmmakers to its spotmaking/branded content roster: Jennifer Phang and Husein Alicajic.
Phang directed, wrote and edited Advantageous, which in 2015 won the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Collaborative Vision (given to both Phang and film’s star Jacqueline Kim), resulting in Netflix acquiring the film’s worldwide distribution rights. Currently available via Netflix, Advantageous blends sci-fi themes and striking visual effects into a story that at its heart was a parable about a mother’s love, sacrifice and society’s worship of youth. Phang has also been active in television, having recently directed an episode of the FOX network horror series The Exorcist based on the seminal film of the same name.
A Bay Area native, Phang graduated from the American Film Institute with a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Directing.
Meanwhile Alicajic, a native of Sydney, built a reputation in his native land for ads promoting such brands as Samsung, United Health, Foxtel, Officeworks, and Taubmans paint. The director’s short titled The Fading Symphony, which raised awareness of Motor Neurone Disease, was shortlisted at Cannes and the Clios, and won Silver at last year’s Ciclope Awards.
Alicajic’s visual sense is also on display in the short films Harry The Hunchback (2002) and Beginnings (2005). He also earned a 2005 Inside Film Award for Best Unproduced Screenplay for Divine Shadows.
In 2012 he relocated to Los Angeles to focus more on theatrical film projects, which include writing the screenplay for the official biopic of legendary country singer/songwriter Waylon Jennings, and directing the upcoming feature Snowbound.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More