Every week, I get several press releases, screening invitations and other notifications from a handful of studio contacts. While I won’t be sharing any information regarding my screening invites, some of the press releases might be of interest to my readers, so I thought I’d start sharing them in toto with all of you. These could include new image galleries for various films or important updates to upcoming releases from various smaller studios and art house production companies.

• Press Release: ‘Well Digger’s Daughter’ Opens July 20
• Press Release: Brigade’s 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Line-Up (with Gallery)

Press Release: ‘Well Digger’s Daughter’ Opens July 20

New York, NY, May 22, 2012 – Kino Lorber is pleased to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER (La Fille du puisatier), the directorial debut of master screen actor Daniel Auteuil (Caché, Jean de Floret, Manon of the Spring), who stars in the film alongside luminous rising French starlet Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Le Havre), Sabine Azéma and Nicolas Duvauchelle. Auteuil’s celebrated remake of Marcel Pagnol’s eponymous 1940 film transcends homage giving us a new French cinema classic in its own right.

In this sprawling, bucolic World War I drama set in the rich countryside of Provence, Auteuil embodies the tender and rugged character of Pascale Amoretti, a widower and father to six girls, the eldest and most beautiful of whom is 18-year-old Patricia, played with impeccable grace and innocence by Bergès-Frisbey. The de facto mother of her five younger sisters, Patricia is described by Pascale as her daddy’s princess, ripe for a prince. But as Pascale tries to arrange a marriage for his beloved daughter with the humble, middle-aged Felipe, Patricia is slowly swept away by the charms of Jacques Mazel, the town’s rich young fighter pilot and Adonis. When Jacques is drafted to the front in the dead of night and Patricia finds herself pregnant, Pascale is left to contend with the consequences of their passion as provincial social norms taint a once happy life. The affluent Mazels accuse the Amorettis of trying to steal their fortune, but when young Jacques goes missing on the frontlines, the rich merchants reconsider their rebuff of the family who is now raising their son’s only child. As the war marches on, an almost Shakespearean plot twist reverses their collective misfortune – with the promise of a joyous outcome. An exquisitely crafted tale of love, reconciliation and redemption, Auteuil once again captures and exalts Pagnol’s humanistic spirit with THE WELL DIGGER’S DAUGHTER.

Press Release: Brigade’s 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Line-Up

((For a gallery of images from this line up, visit this link))

2012 LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL LINE UP

Summer Showcase – Jonathan Lisecki’s GAYBY (Wolfe Releasing)
Starring Jenn Harris and Matthew Wilkas
Jenn and Matt, best friends since college who are now in their thirties, decide to
have a child together, the old-fashioned way – even though Matt is gay and Jenn is straight.

Narrative Competition – Jared Moshé’s DEAD MAN’S BURDEN (Acquistion Title)
Starring Barlow Jacobs, Clare Bowen, David Call
This tense, classically crafted Western, set in the aftermath of the Civil War, ignites with a startling
act of violence: a father is shot on the open range. His eldest son, thought to be killed in the war,
returns to the family homestead to reunite with his sister.

Narrative Competition – Alex Karpovsky’s RED FLAG (Acquistion Title)
Starring Alex Karpovsky, Onur Tukel, Jennifer Prediger
with Caroline White, Keith Poulson, & Dustin Guy Defa
Writer/director/star Alex Karpovksy reveals his sterling comic chops playing an indie filmmaker
named Alex Karpovsky who, unexpectedly dumped by his girlfriend, takes to the road for a
misbegotten mini-tour of film screenings and overly ardent groupies.

Please see below for filmmaker bios

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GAYBY

Summer Showcase – Jonathan Lisecki’s GAYBY (Wolfe Releasing)

Jenn (Jenn Harris) and Matt (Matthew Wilkas) are best friends from college who are now in their thirties. Single by choice, Jenn spends her days teaching hot yoga and running errands for her boss. Matt suffers from comic-book writer’s block and can’t get over his ex-boyfriend. They decide to fulfill a youthful promise to have a child together… the old-fashioned way. Can they navigate the serious and unexpected snags they hit as they attempt to get their careers and dating lives back on track in preparation for parenthood? Gayby is an irreverent comedy about friendship, growing older, sex, loneliness, and the family you chose.

TRT: 89 minutes

LAFF Screenings:
Saturday, June 16th at 9:40pm – Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 9 (Premiere)
Thursday, June 21st at 9:40pm – Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 11

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DEAD MAN’S BURDEN

Narrative Competition – Jared Moshé’s, DEAD MAN’S BURDEN (Acquistion Title)

The year is 1870, and a fragmented America still strains to pick up the pieces from a savage Civil War. Martha (exciting newcomer Clare Bowen, ABC’s “Nashville”) and her husband Heck (David Call, Tiny Furniture) are living on a homestead Martha’s father purchased on the rural New Mexico frontier and struggle to make ends meet. When a mining company expresses interest in buying their land, Martha and Heck see their ticket to a better life.

Their hopeful plans are soon complicated when Martha’s oldest brother Wade (Barlow Jacobs, Shotgun Stories)—whom she had thought killed during the war —returns to the family homestead after learning of their father’s death. A defector to the Union Army, Wade soon discovers that Martha is hiding secrets of her own. As the two siblings become reacquainted, torn between a desire to reconcile with the only family they have left and their clashing convictions, tension and suspicion continue to mount. Filmed on location in the rugged high desert of northern New Mexico, Dead Man’s Burden, shot in the style of a classic western, marks Jared Moshé’s directorial debut.

TRT: 93 minutes

LAFF Screenings:
Saturday, June 16th at 7:00pm at Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 10
Friday, June 22nd at 9:50pm at Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 10

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RED FLAG

Narrative Competition – Alex Karpovsky’s RED FLAG (Acquistion Title)

Writer/director/star Alex Karpovsky (Tiny Furniture, HBO’s “Girls”), a familiar face to indie filmgoers, reveals his sterling comic chops in this close-to-the-bone comedy. Teasing the line between fiction and reality, he plays an indie filmmaker named Alex Karpovsky who, dumped by a longtime girlfriend fed up with his refusal to marry, takes to the road with a reluctant old pal for a misbegotten mini tour screening his movie on college campuses and independent cinemas. Pursued by an overly ardent groupie and his own demons, he sinks deeper into a swamp of humiliations. Keeping a deftly-judged distance between himself and “himself,” Karpovsky pulls hilarity out of personal pain.

TRT: 83 mins

LAFF Screenings:
Friday, June 15th at 9:50pm – Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 13 (Premiere)
Sunday, June 17th at 3:50pm – Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 11

Media Opportunities:
Alex Karpovsky, Jennifer Prediger, Onur Tukel

Publicity Contact:
Sara Sampson / Sara@BrigadeMarketing.com (cell: 206-412-2314)

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FILMMAKER BIOS

Jonathan Lisecki
Gayby is writer/director Jonathan Lisecki’s first feature film. Since premiering at the 2012 SXSW festival, the film has won the Audience Award for Best Feature and a Jury Prize for Best Acting Ensemble at the Ashland Film Festival, and a Special Jury Prize at IFFBoston. Gayby is a full-length version of the celebrated short film of the same title, which played at over 100 festivals on six continents since its premiere at Slamdance in 2010, and received multiple jury prizes and audience awards at such festivals as Philadelphia, Rhode Island, Arizona and Palm Springs ShortFest. It’s available on the 15th edition of the Wholphin collection. Lisecki’s first short film, Woman in Burka, won various awards, including the 2008 Spirit of Slamdance Award for its debut, and was featured on the 12th edition of Wholphin. Before turning to filmmaking Lisecki worked extensively in independent theatre. He lives in New York with his husband.

Jared Moshé
New York based writer-director Jared Moshé marks his transition from accomplished producer to the director’s chair with the debut of his feature film Dead Man’s Burden, a classic Western. Among Moshé’s notable independent production credits, Kurt Cobain About A Son premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and went on to receive a nomination for Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film was produced under Moshé’s Sidetrack Films banner, a financing and production company he co-founded.

Among the other innovative narrative and documentary films produced by Moshé at Sidetrack are the Emmy-nominated documentary Favela Rising; Low and Behold (Sundance Film Festival); and Beautiful Losers (SXSW Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival). Most recently, Moshé’s producing credits include Silver Tongues, nominated for a 2012 Independent Spirit Award, and Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, a documentary about the legendary Hollywood filmmaker Roger Corman, which played as part of the official selection at the 2011 Festival de Cannes and the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Prior to his work behind the camera, Moshé’s feature-length screenplay The Low Country was a finalist for the Nichols Fellowship and selected to be part of the IFP market.

Alex Karpovsky
Writer, director and actor Alex Karpovsky is one of the most familiar faces in independent cinema today. This April marked Alex’s crossover to the small screen as series-regular Ray Ploshansky in the highly anticipated HBO comedy series “Girls.” This is his second collaboration with Lena Dunham following his critically acclaimed role as Jed in the 2010 feature Tiny Furniture, for which Alex received a 2010 Gotham Award nomination for Best Ensemble Cast. Alex also had two films premiere at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival: Rubberneck, a psycho-sexual thriller he wrote, directed and stars in, and Dan Schechter’s Supporting Characters. Alex Karpovsky’s directorial feature debut, The Hole Story, was completed in 2006. The critically acclaimed dark comedy screened at over 50 festivals, garnered numerous awards, and Filmmaker Magazine named Alex as one of its 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Karpovsky’s follow-up features, Woodpecker and Trust Us, This Is All Made Up, premiered at the 2008 and 2009 South by Southwest Film Festivals, respectively.

As an actor, Karpovsky played the male lead in Beeswax, which premiered at the 2009 Berlinale (Forum); the voices of several Russian gangsters in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV; Mean Man Mike in Harmony and Me, which premiered at the 2009 New Directors/New Films Series; Paul Lucas in Lovers of Hate, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival; Paul in The Grownups, which screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival; Wally Combs in Wuss, which premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival; Ian Gilmore in Sleepwalk with Me, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Currently, Alex is in production on Inside Llewyn Davis, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen. For more information, please visit www.alexkarpovsky.com.