Keith Gordon, Karyn Kusama & Jeremy Podeswa to Serve as Lab Mentors

LOS ANGELES (February 1, 2012) – Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, has announced the filmmakers and projects selected for its 11^th annual Directing Lab.  Starting today and continuing through the end of March, the Directing Lab is an intensive nine-week program in Los Angeles, designed to assist directors with strong, original voices develop new narrative feature films, improve their craft, and advance their filmmaking careers in a nurturing yet challenging creative environment. This year’s Lab Mentors include Keith Gordon (The Singing Detective), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) and Jeremy Podeswa (Boardwalk Empire), with Cinematographers Nancy Schreiber (American Gun) and Amy Vincent (Hustle & Flow) and Editor Amy Duddleston (Laurel Canyon) serving as Lab Advisors.

“We’re proud to welcome this talented and diverse group of filmmakers to the Film Independent Directing Lab and help them develop their films. We recently had eleven Fellows from our Artist Development programs debut their work at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, in addition to our other Fellows screening their films at festivals all over the world. We look forward to seeing this year’s Lab participants experience similar success,” said Josh Welsh, Film Independent’s Co-President. “It’s also an honor to welcome back our Lab Mentors Keith, Karyn and Jeremy and Lab Advisors Amy, Nancy and Amy—their guidance and advice is so valued, by the filmmakers and by our organization.”

In the Directing Lab, filmmakers are provided digital camera and sound packages and a cash stipend to shoot scenes, as well as access to a variety of production resources. Under the tutelage of the Lab Mentors, filmmakers receive script feedback, cast actors to workshop scenes, learn how to break down scripts into shot lists, collaborate with cinematographers and construct scenes in the editing process. They are also introduced to established directors and film professionals who serve as one-on-one Advisors who provide mentorship and guidance, in and beyond the program. For the first time this year, Film Independent is partnering with the International Cinematographers Guild to introduce the Directing Lab filmmakers to the Guild’s Emerging Cinematographer Award winners. The Lab is provided free to accepted directors, and upon completion, they become Film Independent Fellows, receiving year-round support including access to Film Independent’s annual educational offerings, on-staff Filmmaker Advisor and the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Recent projects developed through the Directing Lab include Sheldon Candis’ LUV, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Robbie Pickering’s Natural Selection, which garnered numerous accolades at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and has been nominated for Best First Feature at the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards, Cherien Dabis’ Amreeka, Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned, and Scott Prendergast’s Kabluey.

Upcoming submission deadlines for some Film Independent’s other Artist Development programs include Fast Track at the Los Angeles Film Festival (February 27), Screenwriting Lab (March 26), Project Involve (April 30), and Producing Lab (July 9). To apply for these programs, please visit www.filmindependent.org.

The 2012 Film Independent Directing Lab filmmakers and their projects are:

1.Betty – In 1968, singer/songwriter Betty Mabry thought all of her dreams came true when she married legendary jazz icon Miles Davis…that is, until she met Jimi Hendrix…

Nicole Jefferson Asher is a writer/director and producer who began her career studying ballet at the Dance Theater of Harlem. From there, she went onto earn a BFA in Theater Dancing from UC Berkeley and then a MFA in Film Directing from UCLA. She has numerous credits in theater, film and television, creating projects for HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon Movies and Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule Film Works. Jefferson served as story producer on Interscope Presents: The Next Episode, a hip-hop reality show from Showtime and has written episodes for the animated children’s program, ToddWorld on Discovery Kids. Most recently, Jefferson completed The Tour, a feature film set in the dance world, produced by Millar Gough Ink. She is also currently writing and directing Betty.

2.Foreign Relations – An American family hosts a South Korean exchange student for a six-week summer home stay. When she accidentally learns all the secrets they’re keeping from one another, she turns their lives upside down.

Jon Goldman is a filmmaker and translator. His short film Diplomacy, a wry take on the power of interpreters in a closed-door negotiation between the United States and Iran, played over two dozen film festivals worldwide, including Abu Dhabi, SXSW and Tokyo, winning jury awards in Paris, Aspen, New York City, Switzerland and Mexico. Goldman is a former AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship Finalist and a Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition Finalist. Fluent in French, Goldman has worked on films in both Europe and Hollywood, and continues to indulge a passion for cross-cultural stories.

3.Raw – When Howie’s wife gives him permission to have an affair, he finds himself falling head over heels for a Williamsburg hipster half his age. The result is at once funny and tragic, as Howie discovers adolescent love so late in his life.

Gil Kofman is a writer/director and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama in playwriting. Before that, he studied Physics at Cornell and was enrolled in the MFA film program at NYU. He wrote and directed the feature film Memory Thief starring Mark Webber and Rachel Miner, which won the Edmonton International Film Festival and Red Rock Film Festival. He was an associate producer/additional editor on the Sundance documentary film Derrida (2002) and co-edited and acted in You Won’t Miss Me (Sundance 2009). Additionally, he shot vérité footage for Kirby Dick’s Outrage and This Film Is Not Yet Rated. This summer, he directed a thriller in China called Case Sensitive in Chinese, which was originally work shopped at the Sundance Producer’s Lab as iCapture. The film had a wide release in China this June. Kofman has had three plays published by Broadway Play Publishing, including American Magic with Sonic Youth doing music and Richard Foreman reading one of the parts, and Pharmacopeia, which received a strong LA premiere. His other plays have been produced in London, New York, Chicago, Dallas Theater Center, Canada and Los Angeles. A short fiction piece was previously published in Gordon Lish’s The Quarterly, and he’s currently working on a feature on the life of Rainer Werner Fassbinder called RWF: The Terror of Dreams Come True with Tanner King Barklow. Kofman recently finished a novel called acKursed! (The Story of Kafka’s Curse as Bestowed Upon Francis Krow). He’s also having a photo show this March and April at dnj Gallery at Bergamot Station.

4.The Fencer – A hard-charging female athlete faces personal demons as she vies for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Fencing Team.

Jasmine McGlade Chazelle recently wrote and directed her first feature, Maria My Love, starring Film Independent Spirit Award nominee Judy Marte (Raising Victor Vargas) and Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominated actress Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces). The film premiered in competition at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and won Best U.S. Feature at HBO’s New York International Latino Film Festival. Chazelle grew up in Littleton, Colorado and London, England, graduating from Harvard in 2007.  While in college, she produced the critically acclaimed feature-length musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, won Special Jury Prize at the Torino Film Festival, was nominated for a Gotham Award and was released in theaters the following year to rave reviews. After college, she worked for Kimberly Peirce (Stop Loss, Boys Don’t Cry). Outside of filmmaking, Chazelle is known as a national champion fencer and four-time U.S. Junior World Team Member. She was voted one of Teen Magazine’s “Athletes of the Year,” has trained at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and is a NCAA All-American athlete. She has won numerous national and international gold medals, including the Junior Olympics, Heidenheim Cadet World Cup, NCAA Championships and the U.S. National Championships.

5.Three – A college professor, his wife and her young lover struggle to create a polyamorous relationship that works.

Anna Kerrigan is a playwright, screenwriter and director based in New York City. Her first independent feature Five Days Gone (which she produced, wrote, directed, edited and starred in) premiered this summer in the Brooklyn Film Festival, where she was awarded Best Screenplay, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Her play, The Talls, premiered this August at Second Stage’s McGinn Cazale Theater. A graduate of Stanford University, Kerrigan has developed plays with Naked Angels, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Ensemble Studio Theatre.

6.  Unmanned – A young Air Force drone operator struggles to cope with the daily commute between his suburban family life in Las Vegas and the war he fights by remote control.

Casey Cooper Johnson is a writer/director, prior to completing his MFA at AFI, he spent the past ten years in Kosovo as a TV producer, documentary filmmaker and political satirist. Having graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Environmental Studies, he first explored video making during his volunteer work in post-ward Kosovo. Since then, he has produced and directed dozens of documentaries in the Balkan region, collaborating with his wife, Antoneta, and his sister-in-law/cinematographer, Sevdije Kastrati, under their film company, Crossing Bridges Productions. Johnson is best known for his work as co-producer of the acclaimed current affairs show, Life in Kosovo, and his self-directed satirical TV sketches, “Kosova’s Son in Law.” Now a graduate of AFI, he is currently promoting his short film, Unmanned, while developing it into a feature movie.

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