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The Me Too movement has done a lot to raise awareness of sexual exploitation and abuse in the film industry, but cultural understanding of how it happens still has a long way to go. Based on real events that happened to a friend of director Deborah Kampmeier, this film explores some of the factors that make young actresses vulnerable to abuse and some of the reasons why they might not wish to talk about it afterwards.

It begins with Rosa (Annarosa Mudd) shaving off her long dark hair, piercing her tongue and putting on dark lipstick and shades, a traditional cinematic post-trauma transformation which now has added reference because of the particular resemblance it conjures up. As well as changing the way she looks - and shedding characteristics she associates with the way she was targeted - she's strapping tiny cameras and wires to her body: going prepared.

For what?...

Isabelle Fuhrman as Isabelle in Deborah Kampmeier’s harrowing, true-story based #MeToo drama Tape. Photo courtesy Full Moon Films.

Tape opens with images of the mutilated character Lavinia from Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus,” followed by horrific footage of a young woman strapping a camera to her belly to film herself engaged in self-mutilation. The scene looks like something out of a horror film but the film shifts gears, as she turns her camera towards secretly filming a predatory male director/producer as he moves in on a young actress, with a pretense of coaching her acting. The echos of Harvey Weinstein and his ilk are unmistakable, and this based-on-a-true story about a Me Too experience offers a harrowing journey with a gut-punch ending.

The fact that it is based on a true story adds power to director/writer Deborah Kampmeier’s taut drama Tape, is a chilling drama for the MeToo era,...

The specialty box office space has quickly adapted to the changing film landscape as many are shifting to virtual theatrical openings. Many indie and arthouse titles do day and date releases and are VOD-only so the transition, for the most part, is familiar territory for many distributors and production companies.

Written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, Resistance tells the true story of a group of Girls and Boy Scouts that created a network that went on to save nearly 10,000 orphans whose parents had been killed by the Nazis in the World War II. Jesse Eisenberg takes the lead role as an aspiring Jewish actor who has a need to help the children which leads him to the world of pantomime. As a result, he would become the iconic French mime Marcel Marceau.

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Long before struggling actress Pearl (Isabelle Fuhrmann) finds herself at the mercy of a powerful man who demands sex in exchange for her career advancement, she’s already been violated by another person bent on trading on Pearl’s personal trauma for their own ends. That Deborah Kampmeier’s “Tape” — per a title card, “based on true events” — is unable to reckon with the implications of its own plot in service to a story about pervasive sexual misconduct is one of many missteps the lo-fi #MeToo drama makes, highlighting how far even the most eager of allies still has to go.

At least the film, Kampmeir’s fourth feature (she’s likely best known for her similarly discomfiting drama “Hounddog”) Before we meet wide-eyed, nearly manic Pearl, there’s Rosa (Annarosa Mudd), clearly reeling from her own trauma and working through it by preparing for an upcoming audition. But Rosa...

“Tape,” a guerrilla indie drama that confronts some of the ways sexual harassment has been embedded in the entertainment industry, begins with Rosa (Annarosa Mudd) getting ready to go undercover — but really, she’s dressing for battle. After rigging herself up with a hidden camera, she mutilates her body in homage to Lavinia in “Titus Andronicus,” piercing her own tongue and using a razor blade to carve a bracelet of blood around her wrist. She then shaves off her long curly brown hair, leaving a scalp that’s more patchy than chic, and completes the look with dark magenta lipstick, a long black “Matrix” coat, and big sunglasses.

She then heads to a reality-show audition, pretending to be an actress in the waiting room. But really, she’s there to surreptitiously film what she sees, especially once she connects with Pearl (Isabelle Fuhrman), an ambitious but naive young actress. We’re not sure,...

"Following my method will get you where you need to go in the quickest route possible." Full Moon Films has debuted an official trailer for an indie drama titled simply Tape, the latest film by director Deborah Kampmeier. Based on true events and set in New York City, Tape is the story of an aspiring actress who crosses paths with the darker side of the entertainment industry. The film sounds a bit inspired by Harvey Weinstein (and Rose McGowan) and what he would make actresses go through. Here's a more compelling description: "This film addresses burning societal curiosities, taking the audience into the room where questionable behavior goes unseen, finally answering the question 'how could this kind of thing happen?' More than a film, Tape is a visceral moment-by-moment unveiling of the way ambitious and everyday women are systematically coerced and taken advantage of." This stars Isabelle Fuhrman, with Annarosa Mudd,...

Full Moon Films announced today that Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games) is joined by Thom Bishops (pictured below; The Tale, Time Out of Mind) and newcomer Annarosa Mudd in writer/director Deborah Kampmeier’s new film Tape, Bloody Disgusting learned. The film is based on the true story of an innocent young actress, a powerful producer and a woman looking for revenge. “Tape tells the story of […]...

Exclusive: The Hunger Games actress Isabelle Fuhrman has been tapped as the lead in Full Moon Films’ indie drama Tape, along with Thom Bishops (The Tale, Time Out of Mind) and tyro Annarosa Mudd. Deborah Kampmeier is directing the film from her own script, and will also produce the project with Veronica Nickel (First Match) from Full Moon.

Based on a true story, the pic follows a young, ambitious actress (Fuhrman), who meets a producer (Bishops) at an open call audition. Taken with her, he invites her to his hotel to discuss another role. What he doesn’t know is that another actress (Mudd), is waiting to exact her revenge against him.

Fuhrman, who co-starred on Showtime’s Masters Of Sex, is reuniting with Kampmeier, who wrote and directed the 2007 film Hounddog, which marked Fuhrman’s feature debut.

Ken and Marie Romanski will serve as exec producers. Additional casting is...