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Los Angeles, CA – July 27, 2016 – Inspired by one of the most terrifying, cult movie franchises ever released in theaters, named one of “The 25 best horror movies since 2000” (Av Squad), one of “The 100 Best Horror films” (Time Out), and one of “The 25 Best Horror Movies Since The Shining” (Vulture), the six-part television event, Wolf Creek, is a psychological thriller premiering exclusively on Pop on Friday, October 14 at 10:00 Pm, Et/Pt.

In conjunction with Lionsgate Television and Zodiak Rights (a Banijay Group company), the Wolf Creek television series on Pop stars John Jarratt, who reprises his movie role as the murdering psychopath Mick Taylor, wreaking havoc in the Australian Outback—except this time, things are different. The television series immediately turns the entire genre on its head when a 19-year-old American college student, played by rising star Lucy Fry, survives the massacre of her parents and little brother and sets out to...

Following its debut on the Australian streaming service Stan this past May, the six-part Wolf Creek series—featuring John Jarratt once again playing the malevolent Mick Taylor—will make its Us premiere on the Pop network on October 14th.

Comprised of six one-hour episodes, the Wolf Creek series was directed by Tony Tilse and Greg McLean (director of Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2) from a script by Peter Gawler and Felicity Packard. The series pits a vengeful young woman named Eve (Lucy Fry) against infamous Outback killer Mick Taylor (Jarratt):

Press Release: Los Angeles, CA – July 27, 2016 – Inspired by one of the most terrifying, cult movie franchises ever released in theaters, named one of “The 25 best horror movies since 2000” (Av Squad), one of “The 100 Best Horror films” (Time Out), and one of “The 25 Best Horror Movies Since The Shining” (Vulture), the six-part television event, Wolf Creek, is a psychological...

Exclusive: The sales company has added The Preppie Connection and We Don’t Belong Here to its roster of titles on the eve of the Efm.

Joseph Castelo wrote and directed The Preppie Connection (pictured) starring Thomas Mann from Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, Lucy Fry, Sam Page and Logan Huffman.

The story is inspired by the true story of students at the private Choate Rosemary Hall School in Connecticut who attempted to smuggle $300,000 of cocaine into the country. IFC will distribute in the Us on March 18.

Joseph Mensch, Adam Folk, Joseph Castelo, Billy Raftery, Charlie Bunting, Eric Schultz, and Carlo Sirtori produced.

Tony Piantedosi, director of development and acquisitions at Premiere Entertainment Group, brokered the deal with Schultz and ICM Partners.

Premiere Entertainment svp of sales and acquisitions, Jack Campbell, who brokered the deal, said: “This true account takes the viewer on a wild ride of building a drug empire as an outsider at a stuffy...

Whether you are a filmmaker, or one of the Sundance programmers whose task it is to identify the films that make up a line-up, it is indeed the most wonderful, panic-filled and nerve racking time of the year. The 31st edition of the Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 22nd with Park City and Salt Lake City playing host to some of the more innovative, thought-provoking narrative and non-fiction films of 2015. Last year, a Jenga tall order of 4,057 features and 8,161 shorts were submitted. Now let’s think about those numbers for a second.

Twenty years ago, Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb claimed the Grand Jury Prize Documentary award, Living in Oblivion‘s Tom Dicillo was honored with the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and Edward Burns’ micro-budgeted The Brothers McMullen (there is a read-worthy, lively, eleventh hour account on how it was submitted to the fest in Ted Hope’s “Hope...

Starting today, The Vladar Company - an independent motion picture and entertainment studio - opens the critically acclaimed feature documentary "Death Metal Angola," from director Jeremy Xido ("The Machinist"), produced by Joseph Castelo ("The War Within"), with Vlad Yudin and Edwin Mejia exec producing. The film is now in a limited theatrical release in New York & Los Angeles, and will be available on iTunes on November 21. The film first caught our attention when it screened at Doc NYC - New York’s premier documentary festival - in 2013. The short version of the story, goes... Following nearly 40 years of unrelenting war,...

The Vladar Company - an independent motion picture and entertainment studio - has acquired (from production companies Coalition Films and Cabula6) release rights to the critically acclaimed feature documentary "Death Metal Angola," from director Jeremy Xido ("The Machinist"), produced by Joseph Castelo ("The War Within"), with Vlad Yudin and Edwin Mejia exec producing. The company will release the film in a limited theatrical release on November 7, 2014, in New York & Los Angeles. The film first caught our attention when it screened at Doc NYC - New York’s premier documentary festival - in 2013. The short version of the...

The Vladar Company - an independent motion picture and entertainment studio - has acquired (from production companies Coalition Films and Cabula6) release rights to the critically acclaimed feature documentary "Death Metal Angola," from director Jeremy Xido ("The Machinist"), produced by Joseph Castelo ("The War Within"). The company will release the film in a limited theatrical release this fall in New York & Los Angeles. The film first caught our attention when it screened at Doc NYC - New York’s premier documentary festival - in 2013. The short story, goes... Following nearly 40 years of unrelenting war, peace and...

NEW YORK -- "The War Within" is the first American feature to examine terrorism through the eyes of a Muslim terrorist. It concerns a Pakistani immigrant who's part of an Islamic terrorist cell in New York. While film does not -- and, of course, should not -- try to evoke any sympathy for the perverse aims of its protagonist, it does a fairly good job of laying out the basic political motives behind Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, as a drama, it has its narrative peak in the middle and quickly runs out of story afterward.

Director Joseph Castelo's second feature likely will attract politically aware audiences in upscale urban venues. Boxoffice success will depend on whether reviewers find it a deep enough analysis of the subject. The film opens Sept. 30 in New York.

The story, from an idea by leading actor Ayad Aktar, which he co-scripted with Castelo and Tom Glynn, starts violently. Hassan (Aktar) is picked up in the streets of Paris and deported to Karachi because his dead brother was a terrorist. The mild-mannered young man is radicalized in Pakistan and relocates to New York as part of an Islamic terrorist cell planning to blow up Grand Central Station.

Hassan moves in with Pakistani friends who have no interest in his terrible agenda. The attack is called off because of increased security, and Hassan has a short time to hear contradictory views about his beliefs. But he has become too radicalized to change his mind and continues with his plan to suicide-bomb the station.

The first half of the film is good. Castelo cuts between brief scenes of Hassan's radicalization in Karachi and his underhand efforts to plan the crime in New York. Pacing and editing are crisp and propel the story along while laying the foundations for a psychological examination of the would-be mass murderer. But things fall apart at the midpoint.

When the attack is called off, the story suddenly has nowhere to go. Castelo does spend time allowing characters to voice opinions about Western imperialism. But any serious character analysis is dropped in favor of messy plotting involving a romance and plans for a new terrorist atrocity.

Castelo leaves the most interesting part of the story out of the film. Why seemingly nonviolent and relatively affluent young men decide to become suicide bombers is one of today's most pressing questions. Castelo never probes this psychology deeper than offering a few casual thoughts about American foreign policy. What drives Hassan to become a suicide bomber is insufficiently explored, and the motives that are offered will hardly be new to those with even a marginal knowledge of current affairs. A 1997 British film "My Son the Fanatic" offered a much better analysis of why and how young Muslim men become radicalized.

Considering the clear and present danger posed by Islamic terrorism, it's amazing that no independent American filmmakers have dared to make a feature examining it before. So, in spite of its narrative shortcomings, it's still refreshing that Castelo, backed by New York's HDNet Films, has decided to approach the subject directly.

THE WAR WITHIN

Magnolia Pictures

HDNet Films

Credits:

Director: Joseph Castelo

Screenwriters: Joseph Castelo, Ayad Aktar, Tom Glynn

Producers: Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, Tom Glynn

Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban

Director of photography: Lisa Rinzler

Production designer: Stephanie Carroll

Music: David Holmes

Costumes: Sylvia Grieser

Editor: Malcolm Jamieson

Cast:

Hassan: Ayad Aktar

Sayeed: Firdous Bamji

Duri: Nandana Sen

Farida: Sarita Choudhury

Khalid: Charles Daniel Sandoval

Ali: Varun Sriram

Rasheeda: Anjeli Chapman

Abdul: Aasif Mandvi

Running time -- 100 minutes

No MPAA rating...

NEW YORK -- Media moguls Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's nascent HDNet Films -- the high-definition production unit of the duo's 2929 Entertainment -- has greenlighted a trio of features to be shot this year. HDNet Films heads Jason Kliot and Joana Vicente said Thursday that the company's first films will include helmer Carlos Brooks' Quid Pro Quo, Joseph Castelo's Over the Mountains and a new feature documentary by The Trials of Henry Kissinger director Alex Gibney called Black Magic. The slate ramp-up comes after indie vets Kliot and Vicente put their HDNet team in place this year, installing ICM agent Will Battersby as their head of development and upping Gretchen McGowan to head of production.