Director Hannah Pearl Utt has signed with bicoastal Epoch Films for commercial representation in the U.S.
Utt is a director, writer, and actor who’s feature directorial debut, Before You Know It, came out in theaters on August 30. The film, which also stars Utt, alongside co-writer, Jen Tullock, played in competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It was also recently screened at the W+K Film Series, which was founded and is curated by its head of production, Matt Hunnicutt. The series invites writers, directors, and others to share their stories through private, pre-release screenings at a local theater with the goal of enriching W+K’s creative culture and exploring future opportunities to collaborate on commercial projects.
Utt and Tullock also co-wrote/created the series Disengaged for SuperDeluxe, which Utt also directed.
In 2017, Utt participated in Sundance’s inaugural Catalyst Women’s Initiative, as well as the Sundance Screenwriter and Director Labs, and received a 2018 Adrienne Shelly Foundation Women Filmmakers Grant.
As an actor, Utt can be seen in Dorm Life, Ingrid Goes West, and many commercials (including a few from fellow Epoch director, Phil Morrison), inhabiting such roles as “Toilet Girl” and “Egg Woman.”
Utt said, “I’ve been a fan of Epoch’s taste ever since getting cast in Phil’s 1-800-CONTACTS spot–that kind of vision is 20/20. I am honored to be in the company of the directors on Epoch’s roster, and getting to collaborate with the brilliant, hilarious and incredibly stylish women who run the company is a literal daydream come true.”
“A few years ago, Phil Morrison called me about Hannah,” recalled Mindy Goldberg, founding partner of Epoch Films. “He had worked with her as an actor and saw Disengaged, the series she wrote, directed and starred in. He said, ‘she’s fantastic, Epoch should sign her!’ Melissa (Culligan, Epoch’s managing executive producer), Hannah and I met, fell madly in love (we girl crushed on her) and knew we had to work together. A female director who understands nuanced comedy and has a sophisticated visual vocabulary. I think the ad world is ready to embrace Hannah.”
Utt and Epoch are represented in the West by Dexter Randazzo and Jonathan Logan at The Department of Sales; in the East by Tara Averill and John Robertson at Representation; and in the Midwest by Chris Brown at Baer Brown Reps.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More