The Latest News from the Zip Creative Community
Director-producer-writer-editor Shari Berman has just completed the screenplay Pink Mist – a twisted, off-beat tale about a 12-year-old amputee, her eccentric grandmother and the holocaust ghost that lives in the attic. Shari is currently actively raising funds to produce the film, which is scheduled to shoot in the fall. Her Super 8 film, Woman, continues its festival tour, recently screening at the St. Louis International Film Festival. For more information about Shari, visit www.shariberman.com.
Michael Connif‘s novel, Book Of O’kells: Mother Nature, hit the top ten on the Amazon bestseller list for Historical Fiction in January. He is also preparing for publication of the how-to Write Good! And Notes On The Supernovel: The First Twenty Years, his journal about his quest to create a truly multimedia platform to encompass all media in the 21st Century. He also finished the television pilot Spy High and the movie script for Dire. At the moment he is writing Hyde: Seek as a novella based on his script of the same name. Michael has also been hired to develop a television pilot and series about the clash of the Mughal Empire and the Britsh East India company in the time of the Taj Mahal.
Amy Guggenheim just shot Dawn, a 15-minute short film and proof of concept for her feature dramatic film about love and the martial art of Kendo. A great and unusual team of cinematographer Chris Benker, actors Mickey Koga and Katie Morrison, along with sword choreographer Ken Kensei, and martial artist actors Ted Oyama and Yoshi Amao made the film come to life over an intense three days! The first Manhattans screening took place on February 15. Stay tuned for more news on the feature as it gets its legs.
Naomi McDougall Jones is currently in post-production on her second feature film, Bite Me, which she wrote, produced, and acted in and will be released later this year. Naomi’s TEDTalk What it like to be a Woman in Hollywood went viral on TED.com in October and has since been viewed nearly 1 million times. She is at work on a book expanding that talk, that will be published by Beacon Press. 2018 will continue her crusade get more women behind the camera with The 51 Fund and a new Revolution as well as her own work as a filmmaker with her third screenplay and a TV series in development. www.naomimcdougalljones.com
Playwright/screenwriter Arden Kass had a readong of her new musical libretto Daddy’s Girl in January at BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in NYC, as the kick-off to her search for a composer/lyricist. Daddy’s Girl follows the feminist academic daughter of America’s pioneering sexy lingerie mogul, who, the night before his funeral, wrestles with how to portray her larger-than-life Papa in a eulogy. Arden is also shopping a TV drama set during the American Reconstruction era, written with partner Mark Gallini. Next up, she’ll start work on a new TV series set in a strip club in Philadelphia, and a play about a female Impressionist painter. http://ardenkass.com/
In 2014, Cornelia Ravenal initiated a documentary called Moving Stories, directed by Sundance award-winner Rob Fruchtman. After three years of hard work with her producing partners Mikael Södersten and Wendy Sax, it’s finally coming to fruition, with a premier at MoMA this month. You can see a trailer at www.wildernessfilms.us.
Sarah Wharton produced and starred in The Ring Thing, a feature film about marriage that is currently on the festival circuit and will be released by Gravitas Ventures in the Spring. She also is a producer on Bite Me, a subversive romantic comedy about a real-life vampire and the IRS agent who audits her. Bite Me is currently in post-production. http://sarahawharton.com/
Kerstin Karlhuber moved from New York City to Los Angeles in August with her husband and two dogs. Her film Fair Haven is still airing on Showtime and releasing internationally. Kerstin is working on her second feature film the drama Rear View Mirrors about 3 generations of women in a small town which will shoot in Texas in the spring of 2018. https://www.silentgiantproductions.com/
Arthur Vincie’s webseries “Three Trembling Cities” was accepted to the HollyWeb Festival which runs April 5th-8th http://www.hollywebfestival.com. On Tuesday, Feb. 27th at 7pm, Arthur will be on a panel called “So You Want To Produce a Webseries” at Montclair State University. The panel touches on webseries creation, production, distribution, community outreach, and financing. www.chaoticsequence.com