Photoplay, a production house headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with offices in Auckland, NZ, and representation across Asia, has entered the U.S. market, opening a NY office through the acquisition of RAZR, an experiential production start-up launched a year ago by entrepreneur Mitchel Elsen who will stay on board as managing director overseeing all North American activities. Photoplay will launch its U.S. office with heavy sales capacity on both coasts and the Midwest. Sara Barnthouse, currently based in San Francisco, will continue to handle West Coast sales together with Lisa Gimenez in Los Angeles, while James Deloye will cover the Midwest market out of Chicago. Dana Dubay will take on all East Coast sales duties together with Daryl Devlin of Bernstein & Andriulli, who will specifically focus on Photoplay’s digital and experiential efforts….Matt Murphy has been named a partner at 72andSunny. He will continue his leadership on the agency’s Google business and will help to head up 72andSunny’s commitment to experimentation with art, technology, and entertainment. Since joining 72andSunny in 2009, Murphy has been a driving force behind some of the company’s most standout work, from introducing Kenny Powers as the outspoken MFCEO of KSWISS, to 72andSunny’s work with Nike, Activision, and most recently, Google….
The Hottest Ticket At Sundance: Writer-Director Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Rose Byrne plays a mother in the midst of a breakdown in the experiential psychological thriller "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You."
Anticipation was high for the A24 film, which will be released sometime this year. Its premiere Friday at the Sundance Film Festival was easily the hottest ticket in town, with even ticketholders unable to get in. Those who did make it into the Library theater were treated to an intense, visceral, inventive story from filmmaker Mary Bronstein that has quickly become one of the festival's must-sees.
Byrne plays Linda, who is barely hanging on while managing her daughter's mysterious illness. She's faced with crisis after crisis, big and small — from the massive, gaping hole in their apartment ceiling that forces them to move to a dingy motel, to an escalating showdown with a parking attendant at a care center. The cracks in her psychological, emotional and physical wellbeing are become too much to bear.
"I'd never seen a movie before where a mother is going through a crisis with a child but our energy is not with the child's struggle, it's with the mother's," Bronstein said at the premiere. "If you're a caretaker, you shouldn't be bothering with yourself at all. It should all be about the person you're taking care of, right? And that is a particular kind of emotional burnout state that I was really interested in exploring."
Byrne and Bronstein went deep in the preparation phase, having long discussions about Linda with the goal of making her as real as possible before the quick, 27-day shoot. Byrne said she was obsessed with figuring out who Linda was before the crisis. The film was in part inspired by Bronstein's experience with her own daughter, but she didn't want to elaborate on the... Read More