Sebastian Hill-Esbrand has joined the directorial roster of L.A.-based Gravy Films, marking his first U.S. commercial representation. Esbrand’s work is infused with artfully layered visuals that reflect his diverse worldview and global experience. His moving 2022 short film Family earned a Gold Screen at the Young Director Awards at Cannes and was a Young Guns 20 finalist.
Esbrand is a Toronto-based, Caribbean-Australian director who has lived in 15 different cities, and he brings that international, intersectional awareness to his creative pursuits. He has directed standout creative campaigns for Google, the United Nations, Toronto Metropolitan Uni, Lifesaving Society, and Worksafe, along with several independent short film projects. He is repped internationally for commercials by Skin and Bones in Canada and Entropico in Australia.
Gravy Films’ founder Brent Stoller said of Esbrand, “The second I met him I was all in. He’s just a wonderful person whose charm, kindness, and enthusiasm are infectious. His global perspective and truly innovative & unique visual style put him in a class of his own.”
Esbrand shared, “Brent has such a genuine disposition and that comes through in the way that Gravy really promotes all of their directors. Gravy has been strategic in building out its roster, and it feels like the production company home that will go the extra mile to take my commercial directing career to the next level.”
Esbrand comes aboard a Gravy Films’ lineup of directors which includes Cameron Harris, Trent & Marlena, Crobin Leo, and Laura Murphy.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More