Biscuit Filmworks UK has brought Rupert Reynolds-MacLean as its managing director. He joins the company after 10 years at Independent Films, London, where he held various roles from production to sales and helped to launch its in-house content division Indy8. Projects to which he’s contributed have earned accolades from Cannes Lions, Kinsale, The Webby’s, British Arrows, D&AD, and a BAFTA. He’s known as a leader in both production and new business development.
Shawn Lacy, co-founder of Biscuit, said of Reynolds-MacLean, “He has launched the commercial and branded content careers of many successful directors, and he understands the industry and its constant evolutions.”
Additionally, Biscuit UK has promoted Hanna Bayatti to executive producer and head of sales.
Biscuit Filmworks UK is the London outpost of the Los Angeles-based commercial production company founded in 2000 by director Noam Murro and managing director Lacy. Directors on the Biscuit UK roster include Aaron Ruell, Aaron Stoller, Andreas Nilsson, Ayse Altinok, Big Red Button, Christopher Riggert, Clay Weiner, Isaiah Seret, Jeff Low, Lucie Beecham, Matt Dilmore, Michael Downing, and Murro.
“Biscuit is one of the few production companies that has truly been at the top of its game for years on end,” said Reynolds-MacLean. “I’ve admired Shawn and Noam for a long time and I’m very excited to start working alongside Hanna and the rest of the talented production team and spectacular roster of directors.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More