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BBC Dark Comedy ‘Guilt’ Remade In Australia

Guilt, the dark BBC comedy out of Scotland starring Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives, in being remade in Australia. Production has begun on an Aussie version, which has Nitv, Sbs, Screen Australia and Screenwest attached, with Kodie Bedford (Return to Paradise, Mystery Road) the writer and exec producer. . BBC Studios Productions Australia is making the show, known locally as Reckless, with Tasma Walton (The Twelve, Mystery Road) and Aacta Award winner Hunter Page-Lochard (The Newsreader, Critical Incident) playing the feuding siblings from the original. They are forced to work together when an accidental hit-and-run death spirals wildly out of control in their hometown, Fremantle. Also cast are Jessica De Gouw (The Couple Next Door), Clarence Ryan (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), Jane Harber (Offspring), Tracy Mann (The Twelve), Duncan Fellows (Deadloch), Perry Mooney, Kelton Pell (Mystery Road: Origin), Matthew Dyktynski (Japanese Story...

Exclusive: Dakota Shapiro (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Ben Groh (God’s Time, Mutt) and Oliver Cooper are to star in psychedelic indie movie The Lemurian Candidate after it received SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement approval.

The film, written and directed by Casey Cooper Johnson, follows three former college buddies who reunite for a backpacking trip on Mount Shasta to heal old wounds and improve their mental health. The weekend descends into madness and a quest for alien contact after one of them introduces hallucinogens into the mix.

Production is set to begin this summer in California following the go-ahead from the striking SAG.

The union’s interim agreements, aimed at keeping truly independent productions filming and retaining jobs for below-the-line workers, have come under scrutiny in recent days following the approval for more than 120 films and TV to continue. The situation was described...

After losing both their sister and their mother to the Kosovo war two days before it ended, filmmaker sisters Antoneta Kastrati and Sevdije Kastrati, tell a very personal tale in ‘Zana’.

Zana premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. It was released recently in Kosovo and is one of the country’s top theatrical openings.

Los Angeles-based director/co-writer Antoneta and her sister, cinematographer Sevdije, both graduated from the American Film Institute. The screening, held at AFI, was attended by classmates and family, including the director’s husband, co-writer and producer of the film, Casey Cooper Johnson, an American who lived for 10 years in post-war Kosovo producing documentaries and television who Antoneta met in Kosovo with whom she has now been working for 17 years. At AFI he wrote and directed the short film Unmanned which screened at AFI Fest and Tribeca. He is currently completing a documentary for Brave New Films on voter suppression in U.

Kosovo’s Oscar® 2019 Entry for the Best International Feature ‘Zana’After losing both their sister and their mother to the Kosovo war two days before it ended, filmmaker sisters Antoneta Kastrati and Sevdije Kastrati, tell a very personal tale in ‘Zana’.

Zana premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. It was released recently in Kosovo and is one of the country’s top theatrical openings.

Los Angeles-based director/co-writer Antoneta and her sister, cinematographer Sevdije, both graduated from the American Film Institute. The screening, held at AFI, was attended by classmates and family, including the director’s husband, Casey Cooper Johnson, an American who lived for 10 years in post-war Kosovo producing documentaries and television. whoshe met in Kosovo with whom she has been working for 17 years. At AFI he wrote and directed the short film Unmanned which screened at AFI Fest and Tribeca. He is currently completing a documentary for Brave...

Haunted by the trauma of war and pressured by family to seek treatment for her infertility, a Kosovar woman struggles to balance the responsibilities of motherhood with her personal healing in “Zana,” documentarian Antoneta Kastrati’s feature debut, which has its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

“Zana” is produced by Casey Cooper Johnson for Crossing Bridges Films and co-produced by Sevdije Kastrati, Dritan Huqi for On Film Production (Albania), and Miguel Govea and Brett Walker for Alief. Alief is handling world sales.

“Zana” is a deeply personal film for Kastrati, who lost her mother and a sister in a war that claimed more than 10,000 lives and displaced more than a million people. After surviving the conflict and studying journalism she began to make documentaries about post-war Kosovar society, including her most recent short, “She Comes in Spring,” which premiered at the Busan Film Festival.

Film Independent chose 19 filmmakers for its 10th Annual Fast Track program last night at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Reception in Los Angeles. The non-profit arts organization, which produces the Los Angeles Film Festival and Spirit Awards, also awarded a $15,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, and for the first time this year, a $10,000 grant from Millennium Entertainment. Fast Track, best described as a three-day film-financing market, is held June 14-24 and runs during the La Film Festival. Participants have one-on-one meetings where they meet professionals in the film industry like financiers, production companies, agents and managers.  This year, the $15,000 grant went to writer/director Casey Cooper Johnson and producers Casey Fenton and Peter W. Singer for "Unmanned," a film about a young Air Force drone operator who tries to balance family life with going to a war he fights by remote control. Doron Weber, VP of Programs at the...

The use of an unmanned military drones is ethically complicated, to say the least. As of now, the Us Air Force has about 7,000 of them, all capable of launching missiles at the push of a button thousands of miles away from the target. It effectively de-personalizes the violence, turning war into video game. Air force officers can sit in the comfort of a military base in Nevada, striking at the lives of those halfway across the world. Yet it’s not something we think about much. The short film Unmanned, which had its New York Premiere at Tribeca last week, addresses the issue head on by telling the story of one such enlisted airman. Directed by Casey Cooper Johnson as his thesis film at the AFI, it was the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan development grant...

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2012 Tribeca Film Festival Announces Short Film Selections

The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by founding sponsor American Express, today announced its lineup of 60 short films, 26 of which are world premieres.

For the second year running, the recipient of the Tribeca Film Festival.s Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules. The 2011 Tff Narrative Short Pentecost was nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year.s annual Academy Awards®, while last year.s award-winning Tff documentary short Incident in New Baghdad was nominated for Best Documentary Short.

Tff.s shorts programs chart a wide range of cultural perspectives and geographic coordinates. Drawn from more than 2,800 submissions, the 2012 roster represents 25 countries and territories, including Australia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan,...

HollywoodNews.com: The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by founding sponsor American Express, today announced its lineup of 60 short films, 26 of which are world premieres.

For the second year running, the recipient of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules. The 2011 Tff Narrative Short Pentecost was nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year’s annual Academy Awards®, while last year?s award-winning Tff documentary short Incident in New Baghdad was nominated for Best Documentary Short.

Tff’s shorts programs chart a wide range of cultural perspectives and geographic coordinates. Drawn from more than 2,800 submissions, the 2012 roster represents 25 countries and territories, including Australia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Palestine, Puerto Rico,...

Liv Mjönes, Ruth Vega Fernandez, With Every Heartbeat Breakthrough Selections Expecting: In Chile, a young girl and her boyfriend wait for a black-market drug to take effect in this tense and insightful examination of teen pregnancy. Dir/Scr Francisca Fuenzalida. Chile. U.S. Premiere. Light Of Mine: Rapidly going blind, photographer Owen and his wife Laura take a life-changing trip to Yellowstone National Park where they experience a beauty that rivals their tragedy. Dir Brett Eichenberger. Scr Jill Remensnyder. USA. Three And A Half: Three women risk everything and travel to the northwest Iranian border in hopes of escaping prison and reuniting with their comrades. Dir/Scr Naghi Nemati. Cast Samaneh Vafaiezadeh, Shooka Karimi, Negar Hassanzadeh, Mehdi Poormoosa. Iran. U.S. Premiere. With Every Heartbeat: In this Swedish romantic drama, uptight Mia attends her father’s engagement party and not only gains a stepmother, but also a new lover,...