Patricia Velasquez, Rumer Willis & More Set For Social Impact Film ‘Maya’ From Director Julia Verdin
Exclusive: Patricia Velasquez (The Mummy), Gian Franco Rodriguez (Halston), Rumer Willis (Sorority Row), Billy Budinich (Frank and Penelope) and newcomer Isabella Feliciana will star in the social impact film Maya from director Julia Verdin (Angie: Lost Girls), which has entered production in Los Angeles.
The film written by Verdin looks to raise awareness on key issues including child trafficking, domestic violence, alcoholism and child abuse. It’s inspired by true events and will show how predators use social media to lure vulnerable teens into their lair.
When Maya (Feliciana) is six years old, her father abandons her and her mother Camila. This, of course, has a lasting effect on them both. Camila resorts to seeking comfort in alcohol and an abusive boyfriend, with Maya suffers from feeling unlovable. No longer feeling safe in her own home, Maya searches for comfort outside of her family—finding it in Ray (Budinich), an edgy,...
The film written by Verdin looks to raise awareness on key issues including child trafficking, domestic violence, alcoholism and child abuse. It’s inspired by true events and will show how predators use social media to lure vulnerable teens into their lair.
When Maya (Feliciana) is six years old, her father abandons her and her mother Camila. This, of course, has a lasting effect on them both. Camila resorts to seeking comfort in alcohol and an abusive boyfriend, with Maya suffers from feeling unlovable. No longer feeling safe in her own home, Maya searches for comfort outside of her family—finding it in Ray (Budinich), an edgy,...
- 5/17/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
“You are the white Mandela,” says a ham-faced warden, all but spitting in the face of anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin upon his arrival at Pretoria Local Prison in 1978. It’s not intended as a compliment: “The most deluded of them all,” the warden adds, lest it be taken as such. As clunkily deployed in the script for “Escape from Pretoria,” however, the line acts as a shortcut to nobility, in a tight genre exercise that has scant time for such elaborate niceties as character development and social context. Adapted from Jenkin’s memoir of his time served — and resourcefully cut short — as a South African political prisoner in the country’s darkest days of white supremacy, Francis Annan’s film works effectively as a straight-up jailbreak thriller, well-oiled in greasy B-movie tradition. It’s when it shoots for more historical import that it falls somewhat short.
Jenkin’s book of...
Jenkin’s book of...
- 3/6/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In today’s film news roundup, production starts on “Six Minutes to Midnight,” Artists for Change launches with “Lost Girls: Angie’s Story” and Sundance names five docs for its Edit and Story lab.
Production Start
Production has launched in the U.K. on the period thriller “Six Minutes To Midnight,” starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.
The film also stars Carla Juri, James D’Arcy, Jim Broadbent. Andy Goddard is directing from a script he wrote with Celyn Jones and Izzard. The story, set in 1939, follows a teacher assigned to a finishing school on the south coast of England who becomes alarmed that the students include the daughters of high-ranking Nazis.
“Six Minutes to Midnight” is financed by Motion Picture Capital, the Welsh Government, Ffilm Cymru Wales and West Madison Entertainment. Producers are Sean Marley, Andy Evans and Ade Shannon of Mad as Birds, Sarah Townsend producing for Ella Communications...
Production Start
Production has launched in the U.K. on the period thriller “Six Minutes To Midnight,” starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.
The film also stars Carla Juri, James D’Arcy, Jim Broadbent. Andy Goddard is directing from a script he wrote with Celyn Jones and Izzard. The story, set in 1939, follows a teacher assigned to a finishing school on the south coast of England who becomes alarmed that the students include the daughters of high-ranking Nazis.
“Six Minutes to Midnight” is financed by Motion Picture Capital, the Welsh Government, Ffilm Cymru Wales and West Madison Entertainment. Producers are Sean Marley, Andy Evans and Ade Shannon of Mad as Birds, Sarah Townsend producing for Ella Communications...
- 7/6/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
I met Bronwen Hughes (director of “Forces of Nature,” “Harriet the Spy” and “Stander,” as well as episodes of “The L Word” and “Breaking Bad”) on a video call, while she was in Atlanta shooting a TV series. The focus of our conversation was her latest movie, “The Journey Is the Destination,” now streaming on Netflix. The film recounts the true story of Dan Eldon (Ben Schnetzer), who was an incredible artist and a brave, socially active photographer who traveled the world. He died at only 22, in Somalia. However, it feels like he lived more than many other people. Also Read:.
- 11/20/2017
- by Giulia Cardamone
- The Wrap
There’s a lot to do at Comic-Con. From panels, screenings, checking out the floor and gawking at cosplayers, it’s pretty much impossible to do even a fraction you want to. But every year, no matter what, I always make it a point to go check out the Raw Publishing booth.
It’s small, not flashy, and usually tucked away. But it’s there where Raw head honchos, Tom Jane (The Punisher, *61, Stander) and Tim Bradstreet, hang out for a good chunk of the week. Selling and signing books, interacting with fans, and generally just being cool dudes.
This year at Comic-Con I had the awesome chance to sit down and chat with Tom and Tim about their current and upcoming projects, as well as a super-secret panel that’s happening this Saturday. Check it out!
Dread:You’ve got something secret going here at Comic-Con, some kind of big top secret project.
It’s small, not flashy, and usually tucked away. But it’s there where Raw head honchos, Tom Jane (The Punisher, *61, Stander) and Tim Bradstreet, hang out for a good chunk of the week. Selling and signing books, interacting with fans, and generally just being cool dudes.
This year at Comic-Con I had the awesome chance to sit down and chat with Tom and Tim about their current and upcoming projects, as well as a super-secret panel that’s happening this Saturday. Check it out!
Dread:You’ve got something secret going here at Comic-Con, some kind of big top secret project.
- 7/14/2012
- by JTMosh
- DreadCentral.com
No movie springs from a vacuum. There are always influences from past examples of the genre, from the previous work of the filmmakers and stars, even from similar films that don’t quite work. If you want to understand where a movie is coming from, take a look at where it’s coming from. In The Town, bank robber (Ben Affleck) falls in love with a witness (Rebecca Hall) to his latest heist while dodging the investigation of an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) into his crimes. This flick sprang from (among other films): • Gone Baby Gone (2007), also from Affleck as director (and starring his brother, Casey), which also captures working-class Boston like no other filmmaker has before. • A History of Violence (2005), in which Viggo Mortensen is a criminal who’s left his past behind, as Affleck’s thief hopes to do in The Town. • Stander (2003), in which Thomas Jane...
- 9/30/2010
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
This gangster thriller set in modern-day Johannesburg looks initially promising, but loses its way when tries to tackle complex moral issues, says Peter Bradshaw
Ralph Ziman's flashy gangster thriller, set in post-apartheid Johannesburg, begins strongly and seems at first like a plausible South African version of Goodfellas or Scarface or City of God – or at least a movie to compare with Bronwen Hughes's South African thriller Stander. But sadly things unwind and the movie loses power with covert special pleading for the wiseguy protagonist, who is supposed to be morally superior to obviously vindictive white cops or evil drug dealer rivals. Lucky Kunene is a carjacker-turned-property-racketeer who exploits poor black tenants in Jo'burg's shabby housing blocks, scheming rent-strikes and squat-takeovers against nervy white landlords. He claims to be a Robin Hood hero working outside the law, admiring Al Capone and Karl Marx (he actually reattributes Proudhon's maxim "property...
Ralph Ziman's flashy gangster thriller, set in post-apartheid Johannesburg, begins strongly and seems at first like a plausible South African version of Goodfellas or Scarface or City of God – or at least a movie to compare with Bronwen Hughes's South African thriller Stander. But sadly things unwind and the movie loses power with covert special pleading for the wiseguy protagonist, who is supposed to be morally superior to obviously vindictive white cops or evil drug dealer rivals. Lucky Kunene is a carjacker-turned-property-racketeer who exploits poor black tenants in Jo'burg's shabby housing blocks, scheming rent-strikes and squat-takeovers against nervy white landlords. He claims to be a Robin Hood hero working outside the law, admiring Al Capone and Karl Marx (he actually reattributes Proudhon's maxim "property...
- 7/8/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
We haven't seen much of ex-Brat Packer Emilio Estevez since he spent so much time with the Mighty Ducks, but that's because he's been behind the camera. After directing a number of TV series episodes and the acclaimed drama Bobby, the bro-Sheen is underway on a new low-budget indie film called The Way. The movies stars smoky-voiced actress Deborah Kara Unger (The Game, Stander) and Brit actor James Nesbitt (Match Point, Bloody Sunday). Estevez also managed to coax screen veteran Martin...
- 10/1/2009
- by Dave Davis
- JoBlo.com
NEW YORK -- Helmer Nick Castle's indie feature The Seat Filler, starring pop songstress Kelly Rowland, has been tapped to close the eighth annual Urbanworld Film Festival Aug. 8. Exec produced by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and also starring Duane Martin, Filler follows a struggling law student who works as a seat filler at awards ceremonies to make ends meet. Filler is one of 103 films set to unspool this year at Urbanworld, which is dedicated to the exhibition of independent urban cinema. Other Urbanworld highlights include a 20th anniversary retrospective screening of the Prince vehicle Purple Rain; Cinque Lee's UR4 Given; special screenings of Bronwen Hughes' Stander and the Sundance standout The Woodsman; and the world premiere of the Mo'Nique-starrer Beauty Shop. Michael Mann's Collateral, being released Aug. 6 through DreamWorks, will open Urbanworld Aug. 4.
- 7/20/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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