Vision Film has acquired rights to I Love Us, a romantic drama from Danny A. Abeckaser’s 2B Films. Abeckaser stars with Jackie Cruz, Katie Cassidy, Harlow Jane, David James Elliott, Robert Davi, Jasper Polish, Greg Finley, James Madio, David James Elliott, Elya Baskin and Courtney Lopez in the ensemble, which wrapped production at the end of March after a shoot in Los Angeles. It will get a 10-city theatrical run along with VOD in September.
In the script by Kosta Kondilopoulos, a seasoned thief (Abeckaser) trades in his criminal ways for a “normal” married life after falling in love with a single mother (Cassidy) that catches him off guard. But when tragedy strikes, he’s forced to take one last job to pay off old debts and keep his new family together, creating conflict all around him.
Abeckaser also produced with Wild7Films’ Kyle Stefanski and Mike Hermosa, and Above the Clouds’ Jeff Hoffman. Executive producers are Katie Cassidy, Ron Rofe, Isaac Gindi, Eddie Gindi and Gustavo Nascimento.
“I Love Us was such a passion project and a labor of love. I felt the movie deserved to be with a company that really believes and loves the movie like I do. Lisa Romanoff at Vision was the right person for this journey for myself as director along with producers Kyle Stefanski, Mike Hermosa and Jeff Hoffman. We are excited for people to see it.”
***
Level 33 Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Rollers, written and directed by Isaiah Smallman. The film will be available in theaters and on VOD on June 25.
The plot centers on Rufus Paisley (Johnny Ray Gill), a closet alcoholic and whose everything he loves is smashed together into one place: Rollers. He gave up a promising career as a musician in order to keep it alive, but the historic venue, once owned by his parents, is in trouble and he’s running out of ways to save it, and himself. His friends urge him to move on, but can he?
Kevin Bigley, Vicky Jeudy, Kate Cobb, Joel Allen and Spencer Rayshon Stevenson also star. Smallman and Tara Ansley produced the pic, which was executive produced by Tiffany Boyle, Bryce McGuire, Elsa Ramo and Eric Costello.
The deal was negotiated by Boyle and Erika Canchola on behalf of the filmmakers and by Andreas Olavarria and Kate Sheffield on behalf of Level 33.
***
Gravitas Ventures has acquired rights to the sports documentary Resurgence, directed by social media fitness stars Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers (aka the Buttery Bros). The pic, which follows the shakeup of the worldwide annual fitness competition The CrossFit Games in the midst of the pandemic, will debut on iTunes and Apple TV on July 20, followed by digital platforms and VOD on August 3.
“With Covid-19 restrictions allowing for only 10 athletes versus the usual 80-100+, it’s the first and possibly last year we will be able to tell interesting angles from every athlete competing,” the directors said. “We are honored to have been there for this intimate event, and excited for the world to see the behind the scenes of what went on at the 2020 CrossFit Games.”
“The collaboration among the Buttery Bros., CrossFit HQ, and Gravitas has been smooth and it’s great to get the band back together,” said Michael Murphy, President of Gravitas Ventures. “Previous CrossFit films are immediate best-sellers, and we expect the same from Resurgence which is awesome in scope, story-telling, and quality.”
***
The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles‘ Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature went toTamil director Thamizh’s debut film Seththumaan (Pig) as the 19th edition of the fest wrapped its run this week. The Features Jury gave honorable mention to Malayalam film Biriyaani, directed by Sajin Baabu. Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature Fire in the Mountains won the Audience Award for Best Feature.
The Grand Jury Prize for Best Short went to Karishma Dev Dube for Bittu, while the Audience Award for Best Short went to Aarti Neharsh’s queer love story The Song We Sang.
***
Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American VOD rights to the World War II feature documentary Lost Airmen of Buchenwald. It will hit digital platforms June 15.
Written and directed by Mike Dorsey, the doc tells the story of the 168 Allied airmen in World War II who fought for survival in Germany’s infamous Buchenwald Concentration Camp after they were caught by the German Gestapo while hiding with the French Resistance. Facing starvation, disease, execution, forced marches, and even a bombing by their own side, the airmen are in a race against time to get out of Buchenwald alive.
Dorsey, Gerald Baron, Frank Imhof and Duane McNett are producers. Freestyle negotiated the deal with A3 Artists Agency representing Dorsey.
Here’s the trailer:...
In the script by Kosta Kondilopoulos, a seasoned thief (Abeckaser) trades in his criminal ways for a “normal” married life after falling in love with a single mother (Cassidy) that catches him off guard. But when tragedy strikes, he’s forced to take one last job to pay off old debts and keep his new family together, creating conflict all around him.
Abeckaser also produced with Wild7Films’ Kyle Stefanski and Mike Hermosa, and Above the Clouds’ Jeff Hoffman. Executive producers are Katie Cassidy, Ron Rofe, Isaac Gindi, Eddie Gindi and Gustavo Nascimento.
“I Love Us was such a passion project and a labor of love. I felt the movie deserved to be with a company that really believes and loves the movie like I do. Lisa Romanoff at Vision was the right person for this journey for myself as director along with producers Kyle Stefanski, Mike Hermosa and Jeff Hoffman. We are excited for people to see it.”
***
Level 33 Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Rollers, written and directed by Isaiah Smallman. The film will be available in theaters and on VOD on June 25.
The plot centers on Rufus Paisley (Johnny Ray Gill), a closet alcoholic and whose everything he loves is smashed together into one place: Rollers. He gave up a promising career as a musician in order to keep it alive, but the historic venue, once owned by his parents, is in trouble and he’s running out of ways to save it, and himself. His friends urge him to move on, but can he?
Kevin Bigley, Vicky Jeudy, Kate Cobb, Joel Allen and Spencer Rayshon Stevenson also star. Smallman and Tara Ansley produced the pic, which was executive produced by Tiffany Boyle, Bryce McGuire, Elsa Ramo and Eric Costello.
The deal was negotiated by Boyle and Erika Canchola on behalf of the filmmakers and by Andreas Olavarria and Kate Sheffield on behalf of Level 33.
***
Gravitas Ventures has acquired rights to the sports documentary Resurgence, directed by social media fitness stars Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers (aka the Buttery Bros). The pic, which follows the shakeup of the worldwide annual fitness competition The CrossFit Games in the midst of the pandemic, will debut on iTunes and Apple TV on July 20, followed by digital platforms and VOD on August 3.
“With Covid-19 restrictions allowing for only 10 athletes versus the usual 80-100+, it’s the first and possibly last year we will be able to tell interesting angles from every athlete competing,” the directors said. “We are honored to have been there for this intimate event, and excited for the world to see the behind the scenes of what went on at the 2020 CrossFit Games.”
“The collaboration among the Buttery Bros., CrossFit HQ, and Gravitas has been smooth and it’s great to get the band back together,” said Michael Murphy, President of Gravitas Ventures. “Previous CrossFit films are immediate best-sellers, and we expect the same from Resurgence which is awesome in scope, story-telling, and quality.”
***
The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles‘ Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature went toTamil director Thamizh’s debut film Seththumaan (Pig) as the 19th edition of the fest wrapped its run this week. The Features Jury gave honorable mention to Malayalam film Biriyaani, directed by Sajin Baabu. Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature Fire in the Mountains won the Audience Award for Best Feature.
The Grand Jury Prize for Best Short went to Karishma Dev Dube for Bittu, while the Audience Award for Best Short went to Aarti Neharsh’s queer love story The Song We Sang.
***
Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American VOD rights to the World War II feature documentary Lost Airmen of Buchenwald. It will hit digital platforms June 15.
Written and directed by Mike Dorsey, the doc tells the story of the 168 Allied airmen in World War II who fought for survival in Germany’s infamous Buchenwald Concentration Camp after they were caught by the German Gestapo while hiding with the French Resistance. Facing starvation, disease, execution, forced marches, and even a bombing by their own side, the airmen are in a race against time to get out of Buchenwald alive.
Dorsey, Gerald Baron, Frank Imhof and Duane McNett are producers. Freestyle negotiated the deal with A3 Artists Agency representing Dorsey.
Here’s the trailer:...
- 5/28/2021
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Samuel Goldwyn Films has taken U.S. rights to Collin Schiffli’s dramatic thriller All Creatures Here Below which stars Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Karen Gillan, Bird Box’s David Dastmalchian and Once Upon a Time‘s Jennifer Morrison. The film is having its international premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival later this month and is slated for a day and date release this spring. Bleiberg Entertainment is handling worldwide sales on the film.
In the pic, Gensan (Dastmalchian) and Ruby (Gillan) struggle to thrive in the face of abject poverty. When Gensan loses his job and gambles his last pay check, he sets in motion a series of events with dire consequences. Little does he know, Ruby has taken the one thing she’s always yearned to possess – a child of their own. Racing across the country with the infant, they seek refuge in their hometown of Kansas City,...
In the pic, Gensan (Dastmalchian) and Ruby (Gillan) struggle to thrive in the face of abject poverty. When Gensan loses his job and gambles his last pay check, he sets in motion a series of events with dire consequences. Little does he know, Ruby has taken the one thing she’s always yearned to possess – a child of their own. Racing across the country with the infant, they seek refuge in their hometown of Kansas City,...
- 2/13/2019
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Ten years ago Elsa started practicing law on the backlot of Universal Studios, in a trailer on the lot. “I began in 2005 with a lot of schlock films in the early days of digital shooting,” she told me from her Beverly Hills office where she now employs five other women attorneys and has just hired the first man. In 2005 you could make digital movies (just after “Blair Witch”) and international sales agents paid good money for them. DVDs still existed and were a relevant income stream for independent producers. For a $200,000 budget you could reap a return of $2 million even without a large theatrical release. What came out of those days was “bootstrap entrepreneurship” from producers who could produce a film digitally on a shoestring budget.
Her firm also employs a packaging and sales person, Tiffany Boyle, to consult and advise with producer and financier clients on meeting and evaluating distributors, sales agents and financiers. This is not too different from the job of producer reps, but the packaging and sales consultant can work on an hourly or take a percentage of distribution which includes legal.
“It is an enhanced legal service, not at all in competition with Submarine, Preferred Content and other indie producer reps. In fact, sometimes we place our films with them, or we work in tandem with them and even introduce our clients to them as we value what producer reps and agents bring to the table in terms of procuring offers and creating a marketplace for an independent,” she adds.
Tiffany Boyle was previously director of sales at Crystal Sky, working under head of production Benedict Carver (“Underworld”, “Resident Evil”) and head of international sales Daniel Diamond (“The Believer”). She worked in the development and sales on the company’s films, including “Doomsday”, “Big Stan” And “Bratz”.
Ramo herself was born in L.A. but grew up in San Diego as a first generation U.S. citizen. She went to Uc Riverside and as soon as she graduated from University of San Diego School of Law, she returned to L.A.
She began in royalty litigation for music and asked her first employers if she could find her own clients and proceeded to network through the film organizations in L.A. for whom she would do free transactional work. She came from a family business and is very entrepreneurial by nature.
Her expertise has been featured in numerous outlets, including Variety’s 2014 Women Impact Report, The Wrap, Forbes, and Latino Weekly. Incidentally, she is not Latino but her partner, Erika Canchola, is Mexican-American. Erika was an intern for Elsa during law school, then was hired, became an associate, and now is a partner.
Ramo has also lectured on film financing for the California Lawyers for the Arts, Film Independent, Attorney Credits, LawReview Cle,myLawCLE, and the Institute for International Film Financing.
She has been a panel and guest speaker at USC, AFI, UCLA, South by Southwest V2V, Slamdance Film Festival, the San Diego Film Festival, Digital Hollywood, Boston University School of Law, and the University of San Diego Law School. In May 2010, she was awarded an Artistic License Award along with Maria Shriver by California Lawyers for the Arts for her outstanding pro-bono work providing artists and arts organizations with legal services.
Eight years ago she moved her office to Beverly Hills. Every year her business doubles in size. She handles about 50 features a year at various stages of financing, production and distribution. At every major market she has a handful of films.
She just spoke at Digital Hollywood on a panel about women entrepreneurship. She recognizes that men and woman are different and respect for one another professionally is what makes progress possible. She began ten years ago as a young woman in an older man pool, but now she is seen less as a female and more as an equal professional. She tells her interns who are women “never give an excuse of sexism, better than putting energy in negativity is putting it into negotiating and doing your job well irrespective of your sex.”
Elsa is straightforward and outgoing, she has a self-confidence that is warm and welcoming. You want to share with her.
She also notes that the talent to produce low budget films is the same skill set which, even without money to back it, can be used for the new networks and she finds that she is succeeding at pre-selling TV series lately. She is currently legal counsel for her first unscripted doc series to Netflix Chef’s Table and finds that non-conventional serial content is hot now.”
“What is your real goal?” I asked, and she answered that she appreciates the opportunities given to her and appreciates the growth of herself and of her clients. She is also interested in “how much the indie business is changing and has always changed. Three or four years ago it was DVD, and now it is all changed to digital streams of revenue and the great thing is it will all change again.”
Content evolves in a circle. She started with offering free services and was happy to be hired. Now she gives low rates to new filmmakers; she can evaluate their talent better, she recognizes passion and talent. Sometimes it works out for her and the new talent, and sometimes it fails.
“I am always looking for emerging talent, looking at the cutting edge.” The business is constantly evolving and my biggest goal is never to ‘settle’, never to stop.”
Check out her website at www.ramolaw.com. It offers a great list of filmmaker resources as well as bios of her growing staff.
Her firm also employs a packaging and sales person, Tiffany Boyle, to consult and advise with producer and financier clients on meeting and evaluating distributors, sales agents and financiers. This is not too different from the job of producer reps, but the packaging and sales consultant can work on an hourly or take a percentage of distribution which includes legal.
“It is an enhanced legal service, not at all in competition with Submarine, Preferred Content and other indie producer reps. In fact, sometimes we place our films with them, or we work in tandem with them and even introduce our clients to them as we value what producer reps and agents bring to the table in terms of procuring offers and creating a marketplace for an independent,” she adds.
Tiffany Boyle was previously director of sales at Crystal Sky, working under head of production Benedict Carver (“Underworld”, “Resident Evil”) and head of international sales Daniel Diamond (“The Believer”). She worked in the development and sales on the company’s films, including “Doomsday”, “Big Stan” And “Bratz”.
Ramo herself was born in L.A. but grew up in San Diego as a first generation U.S. citizen. She went to Uc Riverside and as soon as she graduated from University of San Diego School of Law, she returned to L.A.
She began in royalty litigation for music and asked her first employers if she could find her own clients and proceeded to network through the film organizations in L.A. for whom she would do free transactional work. She came from a family business and is very entrepreneurial by nature.
Her expertise has been featured in numerous outlets, including Variety’s 2014 Women Impact Report, The Wrap, Forbes, and Latino Weekly. Incidentally, she is not Latino but her partner, Erika Canchola, is Mexican-American. Erika was an intern for Elsa during law school, then was hired, became an associate, and now is a partner.
Ramo has also lectured on film financing for the California Lawyers for the Arts, Film Independent, Attorney Credits, LawReview Cle,myLawCLE, and the Institute for International Film Financing.
She has been a panel and guest speaker at USC, AFI, UCLA, South by Southwest V2V, Slamdance Film Festival, the San Diego Film Festival, Digital Hollywood, Boston University School of Law, and the University of San Diego Law School. In May 2010, she was awarded an Artistic License Award along with Maria Shriver by California Lawyers for the Arts for her outstanding pro-bono work providing artists and arts organizations with legal services.
Eight years ago she moved her office to Beverly Hills. Every year her business doubles in size. She handles about 50 features a year at various stages of financing, production and distribution. At every major market she has a handful of films.
She just spoke at Digital Hollywood on a panel about women entrepreneurship. She recognizes that men and woman are different and respect for one another professionally is what makes progress possible. She began ten years ago as a young woman in an older man pool, but now she is seen less as a female and more as an equal professional. She tells her interns who are women “never give an excuse of sexism, better than putting energy in negativity is putting it into negotiating and doing your job well irrespective of your sex.”
Elsa is straightforward and outgoing, she has a self-confidence that is warm and welcoming. You want to share with her.
She also notes that the talent to produce low budget films is the same skill set which, even without money to back it, can be used for the new networks and she finds that she is succeeding at pre-selling TV series lately. She is currently legal counsel for her first unscripted doc series to Netflix Chef’s Table and finds that non-conventional serial content is hot now.”
“What is your real goal?” I asked, and she answered that she appreciates the opportunities given to her and appreciates the growth of herself and of her clients. She is also interested in “how much the indie business is changing and has always changed. Three or four years ago it was DVD, and now it is all changed to digital streams of revenue and the great thing is it will all change again.”
Content evolves in a circle. She started with offering free services and was happy to be hired. Now she gives low rates to new filmmakers; she can evaluate their talent better, she recognizes passion and talent. Sometimes it works out for her and the new talent, and sometimes it fails.
“I am always looking for emerging talent, looking at the cutting edge.” The business is constantly evolving and my biggest goal is never to ‘settle’, never to stop.”
Check out her website at www.ramolaw.com. It offers a great list of filmmaker resources as well as bios of her growing staff.
- 11/10/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
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