Director Debra Granik, acclaimed this past awards season for her feature film Winter’s Bone, has joined the roster of trio films for representation in commercials. This marks her first career spot representation.
The story of a 17-year-old trying to uncover the fate of her father among the criminal clans of the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone earned four Academy Award nominations this year–for Best Motion Picture, Best Lead Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes) and Best Writing (for a screenplay based on material previously produced or published). Granik and Anne Rosellini shared the writing credit.
Earlier, Winter’s Bone took the Grand Jury Prize as well as the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In between Sundance and the Oscars, the film won two 2011 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male (Hawkes) and Best Supporting Female (Dale Dickey). Additionally, Winter’s Bone garnered Spirit nominations for Best Director (Granik), Best Feature, Best Female Lead (Lawrence) and Best Screenplay (Granik and Rosellini).
Granik’s first feature, Down To The Bone, launched the career of actress Vera Farmiga. For that film, Granik won the Best Director honor at the ’04 Sundance Film Festival.
“Winter’s Bone was hands down my favorite film last year,” said trio films’ co-founder Erin Tauscher. “when I saw it, I knew I had to work with the director, so I sought out Debra and through a series of meetings eventually signed her.”
Granik is currently prepping for a documentary on U.S. veterans in the South. she is a graduate of the NYU Graduate Film Program where she won multiple awards for her short film Snake Feed.
Granik comes aboard a trio directorial roster that includes Todd Field, Ramaa Mosley, Jackie Oudney, Otis, Bob Rice and James Weitz. Company founders/owners are exec producers Tauscher and Taylor Ferguson.
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck Tell “Freaky Tales,” Look Back On The Impact Of Sundance On Their Careers
When Sean Baker accepted the Best Director Oscar this month for Anora, he made an impassioned plea for the theatrical motion picture. “Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater,” he affirmed, adding that it’s “a communal experience you don’t get at home.” The shared experience of being in an audience--being moved to tears, laughter, or stunned into silence--is like no other. And it is all the more invaluable in a world where we've become increasingly divided. Writers-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden know all too well the richness of the in-theater experience. Boden recalled last year’s Sundance Film Festival when Freaky Tales--a feature she and Fleck teamed on--was screened before a capacity crowd. Described by Boden as a “crazy, popcorn, fun film,” Freaky Tales elicited a loud, boisterous response from the audience. “The laughter was loud,” as was the applause “when crazy shit went down,” she noted. Now Fleck and Boden, a long-time directing team dating back to their film school days, hope to see and hear that audience reception replicated in theaters across the country as Freaky Tales is slated for wide release by Lionsgate on April 4. Freaky Tales is a genre mashup set in Oakland, Calif., Fleck’s hometown, in the 1980s. Its ensemble cast includes Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Dominique Thorne and Normani. The directing team describes it as a personal fever dream fantasy incorporating Fleck’s youthful obsessions from sports, movies and music. The film had been percolating within Fleck for some 30 years, springing from his childhood experience in the 1980s with influences ranging from basketball to hip-hop to punk rock. Fleck at one point called... Read More