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Exclusive: Cristián de la Fuente, Julieth Restrepo, Jeff Fahey and Sal Velez Jr have been set to star in Switch Up, an indie romantic comedy that will serve as the feature directing debut of Tara Pirnia. Production begins in January in Texas.

Written by Pamela Beach and Felice Heather Monteith from Pirnia’s original story, the pic centers on popular Miami talk show host Ricardo De La Cruz, whose world gets turned upside down when a scheming rival sets him up for a scandalous fall. Destitute, Ricardo finds himself stranded at a homeless shelter he once featured on his show, where he meets a young widow who finds it hard to move on. As Ricardo begins to fall in love, he comes to understand how helping others is the true path to finding happiness.

To celebrate the casting community and spotlight its members, Casting Society of America (CSA) and IMDbPro are collaborating to present a monthly series of interviews between CSA casting directors and actors about their careers, the casting process, and how IMDbPro helps them advance their careers. This month Katrina Wandel George interviewed Felice Heather Monteith.

See the full interview.

"Life isn't about toys... it's about mistakes." FilmBuff has released a trailer for a weird indie film titled The Arbalest, a quirky romantic drama starring Mike Brune. It's about an inventor of the world's greatest toy (called the Kalt Cube) who reflects through flashbacks on his obsession with a woman who hates him. The cast includes Tallie Medel, Matthew Stanton and Felice Heather Monteith. One review describes: "If David Lynch and Wes Anderson had a cinematic baby, it might look something like The Arbalest." It won the top prize at this year's SXSW Film Festival, and looks like it has some twisted but amusing aspects to it. There's all kinds of weird touches, including the production name: "A Fake Wood Wallpaper Film." Check it. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Adam Pinney's The Arbalest, direct from YouTube: From the minds behind "Too Many Cooks" comes The Arbalest: the tale of enigmatic,...

Albert Lamorisse, the talented maker of fantasy short films and the board game Risk (here the game is rebranded as The Arbalest) influences a young Foster Kalt, a dreamer whose invention, despite being dazzling, is laughed at on the eve of its debut in 1968. His proposal is a device that converts oxygen to helium, filling a balloon without a clunky tank. It appears the world, or at least the object of his affection, prefers the Rubik’s Cube.

Luckily for writer/director Adam Pinney, The Arbalest is a far more fitting title than Risk. A piercingly original and very funny debut feature, the picture takes no prisoners as it constantly changes shapes and form. Its subject, the elusive fictional Foster Kalt (Mike Brune), is a narcissist who takes aim at those that dare laugh at him — an unholy combo of Donald Trump’s ego and The Hudsucker Proxy’s Norville Barnes...