Pulse Films has added director Haley Elizabeth Anderson to its roster for commercials and branded content worldwide. This marks her first production house representation in the ad arena.
The NYC-based filmmaker is a rising talent. She wrote and directed Pillars which debuted this year at the Sundance Film Festival as a selection in the U.S. Narrative Short Films program. Additionally her short documentary If There Is Light was released on Hulu. If There Is Light debuted at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Procter & Gamble-supported Queen Collective program aimed at accelerating gender and racial equality behind the camera. If There Is Light was one of two short films selected for Tribeca’s Queen Collective showcase, giving exposure to work created by diverse young women and inspiring positive social change.
Most recently, Anderson directed a seminal film for Hennessy and Droga5’s provocative and compelling “Unfinished Business” initiative, released to accompany the brand’s new program which pledges $3 million for small businesses hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anderson commented, “I am very happy to be joining the Pulse Films family and look forward to growing, learning, and working with the supportive people here. I’m so thankful for this opportunity to create more work and forge new collaborative relationships with like-minded artists in this next stage of my creative journey.”
Anderson is a filmmaker, writer, and photo-based visual artist from Houston, Texas. She recently graduated from New York University’s Graduate Film Program as a Dean’s Fellow.
With roots across the American South and Gulf Coast, and a background in playwriting and poetry, her work revolves around fragile, nebulous emotions in memories and coming-of-age experiences; familial mythology, and the ever-growing class-divide through mundane but significant moments of human vulnerability and intimacy. Although her work is often a meditation on personal histories and identity, she is interested in examining these ideas within a global landscape, experimenting with natural environments and cinematic language.
Before moving to New York, Haley worked in casting. Her experiences street-casting a Terrance Malick project in Austin, Texas led her to further develop her love for collaborating with first-time actors, a process that drives part of her aesthetic: a hybrid of narrative film and experimental documentary.
Her work has been featured at the Barbican in London, The Shed in New York, Le Cinema Club, the Criterion Channel, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Sundance. She was recently selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Davud Karbassioun, global president, commercials/branded at Pulse, shared, “Haley and I met at Sundance in January where she was screening her film Pillars. It is such a beautiful piece–cinematic, authentic and artistic in equal measure.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More