Bicoastal production and post company Greenpoint Pictures has signed director E.J. McLeavey-Fisher for US representation. He has created documentary content for brands including Samsung, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Microsoft, Converse, Kellogg’s and Lincoln. His short films Comic Book Heaven and The Dogist have been awarded with Vimeo Staff Picks and have screened at film festivals around the world including AFI Docs, DOC NYC and the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. His work has been featured on The Atlantic, Slate and Vice, and at the Aspen Arts and SFO Museums. McLeavey-Fisher recently completed his first narrative screenplay while working on a second. He is also in various stages of development and production on documentary projects about a blue-collar stuntman, an avant-garde saxophonist and a mass kidnapping in the 1970’s….
NY-based production company Residency Content has signed Belgian director Sebastien Petretti for his first U.S. commercial representation. He has helmed commercials, music videos and short films, bringing detailed art direction and refined humor to all of his work. He has worked on spots for such global brands as Samsung, Galaxy, Durex and Kyriad Hotels. His short films Family for Sale, Pink Velvet Valley and State of Emergency Motherf*cker were recognized at a number of film fests, including the Palm Springs Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. Recent work for Petretti with Residency includes a spot for Dixie To Go out of Droga5….
Indie creative shop Mother has made 17 new hires in its U.S. operation spanning offices in NY and LA. The artisans joining Mother are: creative directors Abe Baginsky, Erik Norin and Craig Love, art directors Trevor Gilley, Claire Manganiello, Rachel Ellam and Lindsey Bissing, copywriters Catalina Monsalve, Emily Sheehan, Mike Vitiello, Sarah Sharp and Valentina Sulbaran, creative Heather Schmitz, design director Matt van Leeuwen, and designers Jessica Yan, Ross Gendels and Hoang Truong….
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More