Los Angeles-based production company Eskimo has signed award-winning director Nico Kreis for commercials. This marks his first career U.S. spot representation. Kreis is a versatile director with a body of work that spans performance-driven campaigns and character-driven cinematic spots for brands including Mercedes-Benz, Samsung, Nissan, Toyota, and Pilsner. Most recently, he directed the global release campaign for the Porsche 911. He has often taken the road less traveled to shoot projects in remote locations including the Andes, the urban jungle of the Far East, the desert dunes of Arabia, among many others. He’s turned out content that has earned him numerous accolades including a Young Directors Award at Cannes Lions, AICP Show and Art Directors Club recognition in Germany…..
QUAD group, the French production company behind numerous award-winning campaigns, has launched In Finé, a division oriented exclusively towards the luxury sector. With its directorial roster, QUAD has already worked with many leading luxury brands such as Jaguar, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Cartier, and myriad others. The new division will be devoted to elevating brands through the visual representation of luxury products and the design of the world around them. Directors, motion designers, 3D artists and branding specialists will collaborate to create campaigns for digital, TV, experiential, AR and social media, among other platforms. In Finé’s French-Amerian founder, Johanna Marciano, is a specialist in branding and visual communication for luxury products. Her aim is to bring to Paris this concept, which she developed over two decades in New York, working with brands such as L’Oréal, Garnier, Tiffany’s and Revlon. In Finé already represents nine directors, including Elisa Valenzuela, Animal, Alexandre Piriou, Julien Fanton D’Andon and the Cokaus…..
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