One Last Festival & Awards Ahead of DVD Release

Carlo Fiorletta and Tara Westwood

Surviving Family had its (probably!) last festival screening at the Northeast Film Festival, where we were thrilled to pick up 6 awards.  Tara Westwood received the Breakout Performance award for her great work as Jean Malone Fulton; she's pictured at left with our Executive Producer Carlo Fiorletta.  The two will co-star in the upcoming feature About Us, shooting fall 2014, and are also on board as producers.

We were also delighted to receive awards for Best Feature, Best Director (Laura Thies), Best Screenplay (Mara Lesemann, who is also the screenwriter for About Us), Best Actress (Sarah Wilson), and Best Supporting Actor (Vincent Pastore).

We'll be out on DVD via Redbox (those red kiosks in your supermarket, bank branch, and pharmacy!) later this fall, and will announce the official release date as soon as it's available.

Wonderful NYC Premiere at the Manhattan Film Festival

Lots of the cast & crew were on hand for the event.

Our NYC premiere at the Manhattan Film Festival on Saturday night June 22 was tremendous: lots of cast and crew on the red carpet, a full house at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street, and an after-party at Le Midi.

Check out the photos for a peek at the evening.

Tara Westwood and Phyllis Somerville on the red carpet.

Director Laura Thies

3 June Festivals - in NYC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh

As we head into summer, we're gearing up for 3 festival screenings this month: 

The Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival, where we'll screen on Sunday June 16 at 6:40 PM at the Father Ryan Arts Center.  The screening will be followed by a q&a with writer/producer Mara Lesemann.

The Manhattan Film Festival, screening on Saturday June 22 at 7:15 PM at the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th St. in Manhattan.  The screening will be followed by a q&a with director Laura Thies, writer/producer Mara Lesemann, and several cast members.

The Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, screening on Saturday June 29 at 4:00 PM at the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 North Broad St., Philadelphia.  The screening will be followed by a q&a with director Laura Thies and writer/producer Mara Lesemann.





You can contact us at info@survivingfamily.us with questions on these or any other screenings!

"Surviving" in Kentucky & Munich



Writer/Producer Mara
Lesemann with PJ Stokes,
director of the River City Festival
of Films, Owensboro, KY

 Mara Lesemann & Laura Thies
answer audience questions
in Munich, Germany



The Neues Gabriel Kino
Theater in Munich, German



Director Laura Thies introduces
Surviving Family in Munich



Surviving Family had its European premiere on the evening of November 7 at Munich's Neues Gabriel Kino theater, in front of an enthusiastic full house.  Director and Munich native Laura Thies organzed and hosted the event, which was attended by indie film lovers and filmmakers from around Germany and as far away as Switzerland.

We were thrilled to confirm our expectation (and hope!) that the story and characters do truly cross borders.

A few days before Munich, it was great to introduce Kentucky audiences to the Malone family at the River City Festival of Films in Owensboro, KY.  Festival director and filmmaker P.J. Starks put together a terrific event that offered the opportunity to network with filmmakers from throughout the region.

If The Movie "Multiplicity" Were Reality....

"Multiplicity" starred Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell;
it was directed by Harold Ramis, better known for "Groundhog Day"
and "Ghostbusters"

There's still only one copy of me - and I'm sure plenty of people think that's more than enough!  But I've recently found myself thinking about the movie Multiplicity, in which Michael Keaton accepts an offer to make multiple copies of himself.  It was directed by Harold Ramis, who also teamed up with co-star Andie MacDowell in the far superior  Groundhog Day. In Multiplicity, Keaton's copies take over his life, and are also paler and paler versions of himself. 

This has started to seem like an attractive (if impossible) option with the festival schedule over the next few days.  The Columbia Gorge International Film Festival starts tomorrow, Aug 15 , in Vancouver, WA.  Surviving Family screens there on Saturday night Aug 18 at 7 PM - director Laura Thies and I arrive Friday night, and will be there until Sunday afternoon.  Then we fly to Action on Film (AOF) in Monrovia, CA, which starts Friday the 17th, and Surviving Family screens Tuesday evening Aug 21 at 6 PM.   Laura and I are (I think?  I hope?!) on the same flights from Newark to Portland OR (near Vancouver, WA), and on to LAX. 

That all sounds great, until you add in The Indie Gathering in Hudson, OH which also starts Friday Aug 17 and is also screening Surviving Family on Saturday night at 7:55 PM.  Fortunately, our executive producer Carlo Fiorletta is able to represent us there.

So - THAT's why Multiplicity starts to look like more than a silly little movie, and more like a fantasy. Oh well.  Maybe next time!

In the interim, I'm thrilled to be able to screen our movie for festival audiences in 3 such varied locations.  And hope to have this problem many more times in the future. 

A Great Premiere at a Great Fest: Woods Hole



Director Laura Thies (left) with Surviving Family's leading lady,
Sarah Wilson

We did it!  We put the people in the seats, had a terrific screening and q&a, and on top of that, Surviving Family was the runner up for the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Woods Hole Film Festival.  All in all, a terrific premiere.

It wasn't an easy start, though.  On the drive from Newark Airport (where director Laura Thies had arrived on a flight from her home in Germany), it rained.  And rained.  And then it came down in buckets.  A drive that should have taken 4 1/2 hours took 9 hours.  But it was worth it.

The town of Woods Hole, MA is home to both the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (which gives a college town look to many of the buildings) and a LOT of summer tourists who are there to enjoy the ocean and bay views, go boating, eat lobster (yeah!), and maybe take a side trip to Martha's Vinyard.  

Whether despite or because of the scientific tilt of the town, this is a place that loves and supports indie films.  We spent much of the week handing out postcards to tourists (aka potential movie goers) and leaving cards with local stores and restaurants, all of which were delighted to have them.  The festival has been running for 21 years, and seems to be supported by every local business.

So despite knowing no one in town, we nearly sold out the 220 seat Redfield Auditorium (a beautiful space!).  After the screening, almost half the crowd stayed for the q&a with star Sarah Wilson, director Laura Thies, and writer/producer Mara Lesemann. 

What's next?  We have 4 (count 'em!) festivals coming up between now and Labor Day.   Executive Producer Carlo Fiorletta will be hosting the screening at the Indie Gathering in Hudson, Ohio (near Cleveland) on August 18, while Laura Thies and Mara Lesemann host a screening the same night at the Columbia Gorge Film Festival in Vancouver, WA, followed the next week by Action on Film (AOF) in Monrovia, CA.  The current schedule wraps up with the Central Florida Film Festival over Labor Day weekend.

A Marathon After a Sprint

If shooting Surviving Family was a sprint (an adrenaline-fueled dash through 10 locations in 3 states over 20 shooting days in the course of one month), then marketing it is a marathon.  You go around a curve, up a hill, and back down, and then you do it again.  On the bad days, you stumble over a twig or into a pothole.  But on the good days, you feel the wind at your back and feel invigorated.

On the plus side, and it's definitely a big plus:  Surviving Family is now represented in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean by Circus Road Films.  A distribution deal - a GOOD distribution deal - is the holy grail of independent filmmakers, and it's great to have these guys working on our behalf to help us get distribution.

I managed to only stumble slightly in the pothole, and recovered quickly:  after learning that there is an important difference between HD Cam SR and HD Cam as screening tapes, I had NO idea that our required HD Cam came in two possible frame rates, and that having the wrong one would spell disaster.  Fortunately our friends at Off Hollywood made sure that I had the right info from the Woods Hole Film Festival before they made my tape.

And the twig?  Lately I feel like I'm personally keeping Fed Ex and the US Post Office in business, as I send dvd's, blu ray discs, posters, postcards, press kits and all sorts of fun stuff around the country for upcoming festivals.  On the other hand, I'd have much more to complain about if I DIDN'T have fests to send all this stuff to, right? 

So next stop:  Woods Hole.  Director Laura Thies arrives from Germany next Saturday morning, and then we're off to our world premiere.  I can't wait.

Indie or big budget: it's all about people in the seats

I found myself getting a bit jealous of the movie TED this past weekend.  Not because it features a talking stuffed animal - hey, I wrote a play about talking cats, so been there, done that!  No, because they get to inundate us on TV or on-line with ads about how cute the bear is, and how much you should want to see him with Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. 

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that there really isn't a whole lot of difference between what Universal Studios is doing and what indie filmmakers do:  it's all about putting people in the seats.  Yeah, they have a few (hundred) million more dollars to play around with than I do.  But the goal is the same.

So you'll see Surviving Family on Facebook, and Twitter, and Blogger rather than on Dancing With The Stars.  And we'll use posters in stores in Woods Hole, MA during their film festival.  And we'll hand out our postcards person-to-person.   But in some ways that's nice, in an old-fashioned sort of way, because you never know who you'll meet, and talk to, and maybe make friends with, as you hand out the postcards and explain to people why THIS is the movie that they should see.

Don't miss us when we come to a film festival near you:

Friday August 3 at 9 PM, Woods Hole Film Festival in Woods Hole, MA
Saturday August 18 at 7 PM, Columbia Gorge Int'l Film Festival in Vancouver, WA

AOF Film Festival in Monrovia, CA, date and time to be announced
Central Florida Film Festival, Labor Day Weekend, date and time to be announced

More coming soon!

First up: Woods Hole Film Festival

After a year of pre-production, a 2 month shoot, and 6 months of post-production, we finally know when and where Surviving Family will premiere!  It's an official selection of the 21st annual Woods Hole Film Festival in Cape Cod, MA, and will screen on Friday night August 3 at 9 PM.  It's a terrific time slot (dinner and a movie, anyone?), both for festival goers and tourists!

We'll get everything off to a hopefully-smooth start a few days in advance:  in a well-choreographed scheduling dance, director Laura Thies will arrive on an over-night flight from her home in Germany, and writer/producer Mara Lesemann will swoop into Newark Airport to pick her up.  The two of us will then hit the road (traffic-free of course!) from New Jersey to Cape Cod.  Nothing can go wrong.  Right?

Please follow us and share our festival experiences through the summer, and fall, and into next year! 

And if you haven't yet seen our trailer, you can check it out here.