New media collective and production company Artists And Derelicts (AND) has signed director Armen Djerrahian. With a talent for photography and film rooted in the urban underground cultures of Paris, Djerrahian brought his passion for writing and directing to New York. Since making the move, Djerrahian has had the opportunity to work with some of the industry’s most iconic artists and brands, including a Vibe Magazine shoot with Usher, a series of short films he wrote and directed for Van Cleef & Arpels and ELLE, and an ad campaign he worked on with Spike Lee, among others. In 2010 he was nominated for a BET “Best Video of the Year” Award for directing R&B artist Melanie Fiona’s video “It Kills Me”…Julia Pepe has joined global editorial company Cutters as a producer in its NY office. Pepe comes over from mcgarrybowen’s Chicago office, where she was an associate broadcast producer. During her nearly three years with the agency, she produced high-profile, cross-media commercial and branded content projects for Cars.com, Disney, Kraft, and Sears. Pepe is also a filmmaker in her own right, having written, produced and directed independent films focused on a wounded Marine and other soldiers returning home from Afghanistan. Her background also includes stints working for various PBS productions, and serving as a reporter in the local NPR newsroom in Washington, D.C….
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