Commercial production house Picrow (Pictures in a Row) has signed independent rep Dawn Ratcliffe to handle marketing and sales in the Midwest. The Chicago-based Ratcliffe will be repping Picrow's directorial roster which includes company founder Peter Lang, Marc & Ish, Bryan Barber, Marc Silver, Margaret Malandruccolo, Florian Hoffmeister and the shop's latest signing, Australian director Husein Alicajic….Hollywood-based music house DeepMix has secured indie reps Val Gobos of Gobos Entertainment to cover the Midwest and Lisa Gimenez of Lisa G Reps to handle the West Coast….BE the Creative Source, a recently formed advertising, promotion, design and interactive representation agency founded by Jeff Boortz, has brought Ann Epstein aboard as West Coast partner/executive producer. Epstein's background includes posts at E! Networks, Pittard Sullivan and Nickelodeon, spanning 20-plus years of professional experience in network identity, brand strategy, marketing and promotion. BE's roster includes Denver-based creative production company Impossible TV, international creative network United Senses and digital creative boutique Neo-Pangea. As sr. VP, creative director, for E! Networks between 2001 and 2009, Epstein was charged with the on-air branding and identity for both E! and the Style Network brands across platforms, both domestically and internationally. Epstein led an in-house creative team of 21 art directors, designer and producers, managed outside creative agencies and oversaw seven network redesigns, four of which were completed entirely in house….
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More