“Night Dancing,” the latest collaboration between partner/editor Marco Perez of bicoastal Union and director Barney Cokeliss (repped by Dark Energy/London and Steam Films/Toronto), won the Best Editing Award at the 5th Annual Utah Dance Film Festival, alongside Best Director for Cokeliss and the Audience Award. The film, which will next screen at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in early April, won the Jury Award at the LA Dance Film Festival in January, and the Best Short Film Award at the Frankfurt Biennale for the Moving Image and received heavy praise following its premiere at the Toronto international Film Festival (TIFF).
Laden with romance, intrigue and fantasy, the 6:30 film is a return to narrative filmmaking for Perez, who edited CNN “Why We Go” (Klaus Obermeyer, dir.), which won the 2017 Emmy® Award for Outstanding Promotional Announcement. He also edited the chilling “Every Three Hours,” for CeaseFire.org, which was a SHOOT Top Spot of the Week this past summer. Additional spot work by Perez includes: Apple “Dillan’s Voice” (TBWA Chiat Day/John X Carrey); and Hershey’s “Hello From Home” campaign (Arnold Worldwide/Tyler Manson).
“Night Dancing” stars Jason Thorpe (well-known in the UK for comedy, taking a more dramatic turn here) as a man whose nights are consumed by visions of a street dancer (Louise Tanoto). Unsure whether she – or her partner (Jacob Ingram-Dodd) – are real, our protagonist relates this to his therapist (Alister Cameron), in an attempt to qualify his sanity, or, perhaps, to free his soul.
"I’ve loved editing with Marco ever since we first started working together on commercials in Paris (Peugeot, CIC Bank), and he’s become a close friend as well as a massively valued collaborator,” said Cokeliss, who also wrote and produced the film.
For his part, Perez hopes to continue working across a variety of genres and platforms. On the feature front, he edited the doc “Uncertain,” which won the Albert Maysles Award at Tribeca and was named one of Newsweek’s Best Docs of 2015; the 2017 narrative film “The Sounding,” directed by Catherine Eaton, which received a slew of festival honors; and the narrative 2014 Tribeca entry, "X/Y" (with fellow Union partner/editor Sloane Klevin). “It’s fun to juggle, and I bring tools from documentary to narrative, from films to spots and vice versa,” he observed. “This helps me to find new ways to tell stories, and makes all of my work stronger.”
About Union
Union Editorial has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and London, where it maintains an alliance with Marshall Street Editors. The company also develops and produces original content, in partnership with Killer Content companies through its Union Entertainment Group banner. Other Union companies include Platform, a creative and advertising solution for the gaming industry; and Resolution, a visual effects boutique specializing in commercials, features and gaming.
Union is presided over by Partner/Managing Director Michael Raimondi in LA, Partner/Executive Producer Caryn Maclean in NY and Executive Producer Vicki Russell in Austin. The Union roster is comprised of Partner/Editors Jim Haygood, Einar, Jay Friedkin, Sloane Klevin, Marco Perez, and editors Christopher Huth, Nicholas Wayman-Harris, Rachael Waxler, Daniel Luna, Jason Lucas, Kevin Ray, Laura Milstein, Eric Argiro, Karen Kourtessis, Zach Kashkett, Andrew Doga, Paul Plew, Jinx Godfrey, Ben Longland and Nico Alba as well as select projects with Tim Thornton-Allen, Matt Chesse, John Mayes and the Marshall street roster.
