After three years in the making, Socket is officially released and ready to be experienced.
You can watch SOCKET now at the NSI Online Short Film Festival
Special thanks to producer Matt Seeley at Hamster Wheel Productions for being the first to step aboard this production and working like a pro. To the cast and crew who shared their time and talent to make this all possible: My appreciation knows no bounds.
You can also read more about Socket HERE.
The film festival Cinema New York City has officially selected my new short film Socket (2016)!
My producer Matt Seeley (Hamster Wheel) and I are thrilled to be included in the film festival’s lineup.
So what’s Socket about?
A doctor punishes a photographer for ridiculing her amateurish attempts at his profession.
You can read more about it HERE.
The good people at the Rio Theatre have selected my new short film Socket (2016) to screen at The Rio Grind Film Festival. All twenty-three minutes of it! This marks its world premiere in theatres, and a Vancouver one at that.
What they said:
Join us at the Rio Theatre for what may be the absolute best Short Film Screening event in the history of Vancouver, ever. It’s the Rio Grind Film Festival’s 2016 lineup, and it is good.
In fact, it’s so good that we’re presenting it over the course of two days! This year, we were fortunate to receive submissions from 12 countries, and were overwhelmed with the quality and variety of stories told by emerging filmmakers from around the world.
Artwork by Akiko Stehrenberger from the Criterion booklet of Life During Wartime.
The cast of Life During Wartime (2010) from left to right:
Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens (Andy Kornbluth), Shirley Henderson (Joy Jordan), Michael Kenneth Williams (Allen), Ally Sheedy (Helen Jordan), Rich Pecci (Mark Wiener), Michael Lerner (Harvey Wiener), Allison Janney (Trish Jordan), Emma Hinz (Chloe Maplewood), Chris Marquette (Billy Maplewood), Ciarán Hinds (Bill Maplewood)
As I suspected about the new Criterion release of Life During Wartime (2011) back in May, Miss Stehrenberger has illustrated the whole gaggle of characters from the film.
Beautifully done!
The arrangement of the characters complements their relationships to each other so thoughtfully. All three of the Jordan sisters are separated from each other. Joy is torn between her husband and the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. Helen, the black sheep, who has abandoned her family, is ignored by everyone. Most dominant is Trish, positioned up front. With her steely gaze, she has a dynamic presence. Her vibrant, almost violently paint-slashed dress suggests that she has survived a battle.
Notice how both Joy and Trish’s daughter Chloe have their arms behind their backs. I find Chloe standing in front of her mother has the stance of a foot soldier. Joy and Chloe also share similar hairstyles, head shape and facial features. How ironic that Trish is on her way to raising little Joy all on her own. Remember when Chloe wondered if baby carrots feel pain? That’s the kind of thought “Sensitive Joy” might have had as a kid.
Fathers and sons are paired together on both Wiener and Maplewood fronts. The two Wieners assume the same pose. I’m going out on a limb, but I doubt Bill has his hands in his pockets like his son does. Of course, Bill is cast off to the far right. The only character in the group he talks to is his son. Andy is on the far left – he’s dead with only Joy as his last connection to the the world of the living… or is it just in her head?
For the first time, a film by Todd Solondz is getting the Criterion treatment. This is Life During Wartime (2010), one of the most exciting movies to come out last year that very few even noticed on its limited release. Now everyone has a chance to catch up with it as well as the characters from Todd Solondz’s most controversial film Happiness (1998). That’s right: Life During Wartime is Happiness 2! Now have Bill, Trish, Joy, Helen, Andy and the rest of the gang gotten along after ten years? Not surprising, they’re worse now than before.
Yes, Andy is still dead. Solondz just brings him back as a ghost to haunt his ex-girlfriend Joy. What luck Joy has!
At first glance, it appears that the designers at Criterion had their work on the DVD’s front cover handed to them. The final illustration and design of the original Life During Poster promotional poster by Akiko Stehrenberger was already at their high level of quality. All that was needed was to slap on that big C and set it to Screen. Before its theatrical release, I wrote about the process that the Life During Wartime movie poster went through to come to this.
That is until I found this on Akiko Stehrenberger’s bio:
Her illustrated poster, Life During Wartime, garnered press as well, which she recently adapted and illustrated the cast for the Criterion Collection DVD. She was deemed “Poster Girl” by Interview Magazine, and Creative Review published a 20 page zine of her illustrated movie poster work for their January 2011 Monograph series.
