From lab to festival
"Don't Let Me Drown" - a romantic drama about Brooklyn teens from different ethnic backgrounds just after 9/11 - is a Sundance Institute baby from start to finish.
Director Cruz Angeles and his co-writer (and wife) Maria Topete first came to Sundance for the January screenwriters' lab. Then they workshopped the script at the Filmmakers' Lab in June 2005. The film also received the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Award, which provided start-up funds to make the film, and an Annenberg Foundation fellowship, which helped with more money along the way.
Going through the labs "helped me to grow as a filmmaker," Angeles said, adding that the lab process improved the script. "The heart and the emotion was in there, but it wasn't really fleshed out," he said.
It was in casting for the June 2005 lab that Angeles found his male lead, E.J. Bonilla. "He was a very charismatic young man," Angeles recalled in a post-screening Q&A Monday at the Racquet Club Theatre in Park City.
Bonilla even wrote a rap song, in the voice of his character Lalo, for the female character, Stefanie. Bonilla performed the rap at the Q&A, receiving appreciative applause from the Racquet Club audience.
(For a review of "Don't Let Me Drown," click here.)
Director Cruz Angeles and his co-writer (and wife) Maria Topete first came to Sundance for the January screenwriters' lab. Then they workshopped the script at the Filmmakers' Lab in June 2005. The film also received the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Award, which provided start-up funds to make the film, and an Annenberg Foundation fellowship, which helped with more money along the way.
Going through the labs "helped me to grow as a filmmaker," Angeles said, adding that the lab process improved the script. "The heart and the emotion was in there, but it wasn't really fleshed out," he said.
It was in casting for the June 2005 lab that Angeles found his male lead, E.J. Bonilla. "He was a very charismatic young man," Angeles recalled in a post-screening Q&A Monday at the Racquet Club Theatre in Park City.
Bonilla even wrote a rap song, in the voice of his character Lalo, for the female character, Stefanie. Bonilla performed the rap at the Q&A, receiving appreciative applause from the Racquet Club audience.
(For a review of "Don't Let Me Drown," click here.)
posted by Sean P. Means @ 1:58 PM |
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