By Jill Lawless
VENICE, Italy (AP) --Florida's realtors and tourism authorities will probably not be using "99 Homes" in their promotional material.
The Sunshine State looks pretty shady in Ramin Bahrani's Orlando-set drama, one of 20 films competing for prizes at the Venice Film Festival.
The movie stars Andrew Garfield as an evicted construction worker who sells his soul to the devil — or at least to Michael Shannon's reptilian real estate agent — and takes a job evicting other struggling souls to earn enough money to get his family home back.
A portrait of a financial system stacked in favor of the winners, it's "Wall Street" for the subprime mortgage era, and the director says he wanted to show a different side to a state famous for "golf carts and retirees, Magic Kingdoms and castles."
Bahrani, the director of grittily naturalistic indie movies including "Chop Shop" and "Goodbye Solo," researched the film by visiting real estate agencies, hedge-fund managers, fraud attorneys and foreclosure courts in the state.
"After two or three weeks in Florida, I was dizzied by the corruption," the American director told reporters in Venice on Friday.
Garfield and Shannon also dived into first-hand research. Shannon spent time with a real estate agent, while Garfield, like his character, stayed in a motel occupied by families whose homes had been repossessed.
The actor said he found the evictees remarkably willing to talk.
"It felt like they needed to share it constantly throughout the day to make sense of it," Garfield said. "Because it felt completely irrational and of course unjust, the situation they were in.
"I think it's impossible to make a film like this without honoring the people that are living it every day."
It's a story with global resonance since the 2008 banking crisis shook the global financial system, and "99 Homes" has received praise in Italy, one of the European countries whose economy has suffered most.
The movie certainly hasn't convinced its stars of the merits of home ownership. Shannon said he's "always found mortgages suspicious."
And despite gaining stardom as "The Amazing Spider-Man," Garfield said he doesn't own property.
"I have a surfboard and a Vespa," he said.
The film is dedicated to the late film critic Roger Ebert, who championed Bahrani's work.
"He never saw the film," Bahrani said. "I told him the story one time, very, very quickly, and he gave me the thumb's up."
The director encouraged the journalists to emulate Ebert in supporting "cinema that is emotional, cinema that is about something — cinema that is more than a selfie."
Comedic Director Roderick Fenske Joins Yard Dog TV For U.S. Spot Work
Roderick Fenske, the award-winning agency copywriter/creative director turned comedic director of commercials and films, has joined Yard Dog TV for U.S. representation.
Fenske--known for his idiosyncratic casting, stylish art direction, and blend of practical and digital effects--saw his newest commercial work, for Drink Weird Ice Tea, break earlier this month. His most recent short film, I’m Dead, You’re Welcome, starring JR Russell, Taissa Zveiter, Sandy Eels, and Julia Lorpriore, is making the rounds of film festivals now, having won Best Comedy Short at the Flagstaff International Film Festival last month.
Fenske, who started out in the business as a copywriter, is one of a select group of agency creatives to have found success in both New York and London, where his last post was as a creative director at TBWA there. “I owe so much of my career to Trevor Beattie [TBWA London chairman/creative director at the time], because he believed in me and started my career directing commercials,” said Fenske, citing work for Sony PlayStation, French Connection UK, and Channel 5.
Those spots led to an invitation to become a member of the visionary Swedish film collective known as ACNE. “I learned so much there working in a directing collective. With everybody talking about how to make stuff look stylish and cinematic it was like a film school for me,” Fenske explained. “Production design is so important because humor can be much more unexpected when you have an elevated look.”
Over the course of his career, Fenske’s work has received many international awards from shows including the Cannes Lions, British D&AD, and AICP. He moved from London to Los Angeles, and during this time he met Yard Dog... Read More