Filmmaker will be repped worldwide for commercials, branded content
Director Sterlin Harjo is joining the Hungry Man directing roster for worldwide representation spanning commercials and branded content.
A member of the Seminole Nation, Harjo has Muskogee heritage and is from Holdenville, Okla. Now based in Tulsa, Harjo is the co-creator and showrunner of Reservation Dogs (FX Productions), a comedy series following four Indigenous teenage friends living on a reservation in Oklahoma. After its first season, Reservation Dogs won a 2022 Peabody Award, 2022 Television Academy Honors Award, 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Comedy Series, was an American Film Institute Awards Honoree, and won Best Breakthrough Series under 40 minutes at the 2021 Gotham Awards. The series– co-created by Taika Waititi, who too is on the commercialmaking roster of Hungry Man–is now in its second season.
Currently, Harjo’s series Poster Girls, which he co-wrote with bestselling novelist Jonathan Lee, is in development with FX Productions. Paramount+ recently acquired Harjo's series Yellowbird, which he is co-creating with Erica Tremblay. The show is based on Sierra Crane Murdoch’s novel of the same name.
LeBron James’s company, SpringHill, is producing Rezball (Netflix), a series Harjo co-wrote with Sydney Freeland. Harjo has several other projects in development.
Over his career, Harjo has created and directed five feature films: three narrative dramas and two documentaries. His most recent feature, Love and Fury, is a documentary chronicling the work and intersection of over a dozen contemporary Native American artists. Love and Fury was acquired by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY and released on Netflix in December 2021. The film premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival and was an official selection of the Seattle International Film Festival, Virginia Film Festival, and DeadCenter Film Festival.
Harjo’s first feature film, Four Sheets to the Wind, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. His feature documentary, This May Be the Last Time, premiered at Sundance in 2014. His most recent narrative feature, Mekko, premiered at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival and had its international premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. Each of his films are set in Oklahoma and address contemporary Indigenous experiences.
A founding member of the Native sketch comedy troupe, the 1491s, Harjo co-wrote the group’s play, “Between Two Knees,” an intergenerational comedic love story/musical set against the backdrop of true events in Native American history. “Between Two Knees” was commissioned in 2018/2019 by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and New Native Theater. In 2022, it completed a run at Yale Repertory Theater.
Hungry Man managing partner Mino Jarjoura said that the company is “honored to begin working with a filmmaker with as much raw talent and commitment to the craft as Sterlin has,”
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More