COLONIST JOHN HENRY SUMMEROUR'S ('06) SAHKANAGA OPENS DEC. 7TH

After an extraordinary year traveling to festivals worldwide, SAHKANAGA is opening on Dec. 7th at Brooklyn's reRun Theater and Atlanta's historic Plaza Theatre, presented by IFP, Filmmaker Magazine, & Filmwax. 

The writer and director, John Henry Summerour ('06), will be in Brooklyn for opening night (12/7) and in Atlanta for screenings on Dec. 8th & 9th and again in New York for the remaining screenings Monday through Thursday.

John wrote and developed the script at the Colony back in 2006 and went on to direct and produce the film with Miky Wolf. Since completion the film has played at countless international film festivals including its premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival and Rome International and winning several awards 

"In 2002, over 300 bodies were discovered on the property of the Tri-State Crematory in the Appalachian foothills of northwest Georgia, thrusting an unassuming, tight-knit community into the international spotlight. SAHKANAGA (meaning “Great Blue Hills of God” in Cherokee, pronounced “sock-uh-nogga”) imagines this event from the perspective of Paul, a teenager who stumbles upon the first body."

For tickets to the event in Brooklyn on the 7th go here or to the film's event page on Facebook.

And here is a link to the official website.

SUNDANCE 2013: COLONIST CHRIS GALLETTA'S ('10) TOY'S HOUSE IN FEATURE COMPETITION

Colonist Chris Galletta's ('10) first feature film TOY'S HOUSE will premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category at Sundance Film Festival 2013.

Chris wrote the original screenplay that is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and produced by Big Beach films, who also produced SUNSHINE CLEANING written by colonist Meghan Holley ('04) and developed at the Colony.

The film is about "Three unhappy teenage boys who flee to the wilderness where they build a makeshift house and live off the land as masters of their own destiny. Or at least that’s the plan." 

The cast includes Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman (Parks And Recreation), Megan Mullally (Children's Hospital), Alison Brie (Save The Date). 

(Galletta at the Colony in 2010)

Chris spent several years as a contributing writer to "The Late Show with David Letterman." In 2009, he sold his first screenplay, TOY'S HOUSE to Big Beach Films in 2010. Chris spent his time at the Colony working on a new script, THE HOLLANDSWORTH MAN.


Check this link for the full Sundance Lineup.

JAMES COHEN: THE WINDS (Week 2)

The Winds

After talking about my work this past weekend with Chris Vesper of the Sundance Channel (and resident stud Ben Robbins) and then watching the presidential debate last night, I'm more than ready to serve up another brilliant metaphor. Brace yourselves.

I'm feeling a new form of energy.

Is it sustainable? It fucking better be. Is it renewable? If there's coffee. It seems to depend on what kind of momentum I tap into each morning. Is this reinvigoration partly because I've spent much of my time here thinking, and now I need to generate? Absolutely.

It's windy out here in Nantucket. You hear various perspectives on your script-in-progress, and they're all truthful because they're real reactions felt by real people whom you admire and respect. It's not always easy to stay on course. You can get lost, or think you've discovered Asia when you're bashing into the Bahamas, or find yourself in irons, feeling rudderless.

How'm I doing? Getting sick yet?

Gimme a second.

There's a compass in writing. A North Star. Let's call it your instinct. Your gut. And although it's well worth harnessing gusts of insight from everyone who's passionate about your work - even when they're blowing in different directions - when you catch that wind that you can ride North - which is over here, by the way, not over there - it's a powerful thing.

I'm feeling it.

Let me guess. You have a note.

I'm mixing metaphors. Sailing? Turbines? Yes, they both use wind, but it's too easy. Lazy, really. Just pick a direction and go with it!

Ah. Welcome to the winds of Nantucket. May I take your order?

See what I did there? Bringing in globalization. This is serious business.

I need to convert this wind into energy, and this energy into pages, and these pages into good pages. Pages that meet the needs of our people for generations to come.

Give me four years. It'll get done.

SILKA LUISA: SEALS & MENTORS (Week 2)

Screenwriter Silka Luisa talks about settling in, writing, procrastination, and working with Mentor Jeremy Pikser (Bullworth, War Inc.)

Aside from getting lost in the moors, this week has been a dream - a steady stream of gourmet meals, afternoon jogs and seal watching. In addition to being pampered, I also started a sci-fi script. I’ll be writing this script for the first 3 weeks, while I get notes from my mentors on a thriller that I’ve already written. After I’ve collected a few rounds of notes, I’ll revise the thriller in the final week. Starting new pages on the sci-fi script has been… interesting. Whenever I’m starting something new, distractions seem even more tempting. De-activating Facebook became necessary pretty early on. After a few days of settling in though, I’ve finally hit my stride and the pages are starting to flow much better.

My meeting with my first mentor Jeremy Pikser was one of the best notes sessions I’ve ever had. We met for breakfast, which carried into lunch. After first figuring out what I was trying to accomplish, he spent five hours giving me page-by-page notes. He posed specific questions and helped me figure out how to clarify certain scenes. This left me aware of the script’s problems, but also gave me an idea of some ways to fix them. In talking with the other writers, we all agreed that the attitude of the person giving you notes is what makes all the difference. Is the person helping you write your movie or are they implementing their own vision? Jeremy was all about helping me clarify what I am trying to say. He was incredibly generous with his notes, both in the time he spent with me and the time he took to read the script closely. Most importantly, he pointed out the potential of my script and encouraged me to keep fighting to achieve it. Even though there’s still work to be done, the session left me energized.

The acceptable period of settling in is officially over. Hopefully, productivity this week will be much higher. I promise myself less seal watching and more pages.

STELLA MEGHIE: WHISKEY SESSIONS (Week 2)

Screenwriter Stella Meghie, forced to blog, gives some insight into the workflow of the past week:

It is officially week two which means it's time to take stock of what's actually been accomplished during week one apart from our lively evening whiskey sessions. There's an early panic as I read through a new draft of You Ain't Hip to Baby which leads to a panic that I don't really have time to write a blog post, but a friendly reminder from Colony Director Ben Robbins has gotten me here.

It's amazing what you can accomplish with no phone reception and a few talented writers to go back and forth with on your ideas. I think I've made some major strides forward. I can hope. On Friday things shifted from cobbled writing sessions to the arrival of the mentors for the weekend. I switched gears to discuss Jean of the Joneses. I can't tell you how much I appreciated my mentor (and our bike ride we struggled to finish). Her notes gave me a big push to reach my goal of polishing a script I've been working on the past four years.

Here's a photo of fellow colonist Silka Luisa taking a photo at sunset at a nearby beach this past weekend.

- Stella Meghie

Silka at Sunset.

RUSSELL HARBAUGH: WHAT I'VE WATCHED (Week 1)

Screenwriter Russell Harbaugh talks about movies that influence him in and out of the process:

On days where I have nothing to do but write, I enjoy taking breaks in the middle of the day and putting on a movie. I brought several films to look at again: WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF and SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE for public airings of things better left private; A NOS AMOURS for its unusual structure and breathless spontaneity; RULES OF THE GAME and A DAY IN THE COUNTRY for their formal illustrations of big, unwieldy groups of people; MURMUR OF THE HEART for its playful mix of taboo and adolescence; THE MOUTH AGAPE for its scenes of death and dying. These are all films that are particularly useful for different sequences of LOVE AFTER LOVE and I’ve kept them within easy reach for most of the past year and half as I’ve been whittling away at what, exactly, this movie is.

I don’t always enjoy watching things as research assignments, though, and I often find daydreaming during unrelated films to be as useful as investigating those that resemble what I’m writing. An early trip to the library has cluttered our living room with a stack of movies.

Here’s what I watched this week:
The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
The Shining (Stanly Kubrick, 1980)
September (Woody Allen, 1987)
Another Woman (Woody Allen, 1988)
Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966)
A Nos Amours (Maurice Pialat, 1983)
The  Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008)
Extract (Mike Judge, 2009)

-Russell Harbaugh

JAMES COHEN: LAND HO! (Week 1)

We'll be hearing from the colonists directly about their experiences and work throughout their stay this month. Our first post is coming from screenwriter James Cohen:

Arriving in Nantucket on the Ferry.

LAND HO!
Ooh. Look. A lighthouse! How beautiful. On Saturday, when we arrived, it was a beacon of hope. I was Ahab, ready to tackle the rewrite. Five days later, I'm Kafka, and this little lighthouse pisses me off. It’s become a harrowing metaphor as I search for story and resolution in the the fog of my mind.

Okay.. I'm being melodramatic. It's really, really nice here. I love it. Everyone’s kind of awesome. The writing is going well. Or at least the thinking is. The plotting…

And I dig the light house. It’s been Instagrammed.

There is a point, kind of, I just haven’t made it yet. Writing is a lot like fishing. I've known this to be true my entire life, having grown up angling trout streams with my father and brother. I imagine that whaling, or scalloping, or whatever goes on here in Nantucket is a similar-ish meditation. These are disciplines that require patience, vision. Eventually, you hook onto something big, wrestle with it, and bring it to shore.

Okay. It's nothing like whaling - which I'm against, by the way - or scalloping, not that I've done that. I think you just grab those with your hand? And maybe I've confused whaling with whale watching, which I'm totally for. Who cares. But writing is like trout fishing. I stand by that. And I am patiently wading the shallow waters of my brain for the end to my script.

I know where it's going. The script, I mean. How I want it to turn out and everything.

Let me start over. I'm writing a screenplay. We all are. That's why we're here. We're screenwriters. In Nantucket. In a colony. That needs funding. Surely, you must know this by now. No?

In a draft or so, my little Moby Dick of a script will be where I want it to be. Which is "done." And if all goes well, this lovely 4-week sojourn will afford me the time and headspace to get it there.

Here's the deal with the draft…

My initial instinct, many moons ago, was to have the two main characters wind up apart. And then for some reason - I think it was common sense - I decided a romantic comedy couldn't end that way, and so I had them wind up together. But now I'm going back to having them apart. I’ve realized that common sense can be bad for storytelling, plus it's so predictably common and sensible. The "catch" is, I never wrote the version where they wind up apart at the very end. I just had it in my head, sort of. It needs to be written. And make sense. Not common sense. Uncommon sense. Fun sense. So that's what I'm doing here. In this farmhouse. In Nantucket. In the off-season. In my pajamas.

Joyce and Kyle will NOT end up together. Period.

There. I said it.

PS – I miss my wife.

THE SCREENWRITER'S COLONY WELCOMES THE NEW 2012 COLONISTS

Meet James Cohen, Russell Harbaugh, Silka Luisa, and Stella Meghie. They will be our Writers-in-Residence, living and working together at the Almanack Farm on the edge of Natucket's cranberry bog conservation land. Congratulations to the colonists!

James Cohen began his career in New York as the assistant film editor on features by Sam Mendes, Alan Parker, and James Ivory. Since then, he’s written a number of TV pilots and feature screenplays, the latest of which is slated to be read by his mother at some point in the distant future. His 33-minute fictional audio comedy, THE LACEY STUDY was an official selection of the Third Coast International Audio Festival. It premiered at WNYC’s The Greene Space in 2009 and aired on NPR shortly thereafter. Most recently, James wrote a TV spot directed by Eastbound & Down creator Jody Hill, and penned a wedding toast that was declared “ill considered” by the New York Post. James graduated in literature and film from Vanderbilt University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

James will be working on his script. THANKS FOR NOTHING: When a guy breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, and his parents are forced to take sides, they choose her.

Russell Harbaugh went on from earning his MFA in film directing from Columbia University to see his thesis short, ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING, play at festivals worldwide, including the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, BAMcinemaFest, Maryland, Sarasota, Seattle, Warsaw, Milano, and many others. Russell assisted director Eric Mendelsohn on the 2010 film 3 BACKYARDS for which Mendelsohn won a Best Director Award at that year's Sundance. Currently, Russell is developing the feature-length version of the short, LOVE AFTER LOVE, with Mendelsohn and producing partner, Michael Prall. LOVE AFTER LOVE is one of 12 projects included in the 2012 IFP/Film Society of Lincoln Center EMERGING VISIONS program.

Russell will be working on his script, LOVE AFTER LOVE, a messy, autobiographical love story about grief, sex, and the separation of a family that takes place over the course of several years.

Silka Luisa started working in film at Killer Films, Panamax Films and Sony Pictures Television. She recently completed an MFA in Film from Columbia University. Among other awards, Silka received the IFP-Marcie Bloom Fellowship, a mentorship program led by Dylan Leiner and Marcie Bloom of Sony Pictures Classics, a Film Independent Project Involve Fellowship and an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Grant. Her screenplay, CACIQUE, placed in the Nicholl Fellowship and her screenplay, RED CLOVER, was funded by the McNamara Creative Arts Grant.

Silka will be working on her script, ARCANA: A psychic teenager discovers that the tarot deck is a treasure map to dangerous relics and she must reconnect with her Romani family to decode the cards and destroy the artifacts.

Stella Meghie is the winner of 2012 Showtime Tony Cox Award for Screenwriting. She is an alumna of Berlin International Film Festival’s Talent Campus for emerging filmmakers and Bell Media Diverse Screenwriters Program presented by the Writer’s Guild of Canada. Her screenplay ‘Jean of the Joneses’ was a screenplay winner at Atlanta Film Festival and selected finalist for BET’s Urbanworld Film Festival. Stella is graduate of University of Westminster’s MA in Screenwriting and Columbia University’s Directors Workshop.

Stella will be working on her script, JEAN OF THE JONESES: A blocked writer learns the secrets of an immigrant family of women when her long-lost grandfather arrives on her grandmother’s doorstep and promptly dies.

MEET THE FINALISTS part 3

Last week, the Screenwriters Colony selection committee announced the ten finalists for the three remaining slots at this year's colony. In advance of next week's announcement of the invitees, we'll be posting mini-bios of the finalists this week.

Here is the final post:

Sasha Sagan (MINISTRY OF DATING) has worked as a television producer,
documentarian, film editor and screenwriter in New York and London. In
2010 She produced and co-wrote the short film, BASTARD, with Kirsten
Dunst. The film was screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and the
International Critics Week award ceremony at the Cannes International
Film festival. She graduated from NYU with a BA in Dramatic Literature
and a minor in Cinema Studies.

Katherine Nolfi (THE WORLD OF MEN), a graduate from NYU's Tisch School
of the Arts for film, has worked on many award winning screenplays.
Her debut, UPSTATE, premiered in competition at the 2012 LA Film
Festival and was selected by LA Weekly as one of the "Best of the
Fest". Her short, UNLIMITED, was an official selection of SXSW in
2009, and MOUTH BABIES was an official selection of the 2011 Slamdance
Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival and the
CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival.

Nichalas Clift Bateman (THE WITHERING WINDS) finished his first
feature, THE CIRCUS ANIMALS, in early 2012. As the owner of Painted
Stage Pictures, his commercial work includes clients Goodwood NY,
Stillpointe Theatre Initiative, Ricky Powell, 191 Unlimited, Friend
Roulette, and Thinking Giant Design. He has been featured on
karmaloop.tv and at the SXSW Film Festival. As a writer, Nicholas’
work has been performed in Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. As an
undergraduate,, Nicholas was awarded the National and International
Championship for Dramatic Interpretation for his one-man show about
Montgomery Clift.

Joshua Zeman (COLLIDER) has been creating independent films for over
10 years. His directorial debut, the horror documentary CROPSEY,
premiered at NYC’s IFC Center and was a critic’s pick with The Wall
Street Journal, The New York Times, Variety, and Roger Ebert. It has
been called “one of the year's best documentaries" and "one of the
scariest films of the year". He recently executive produced CEREMONY,
starring Uma Thurman and directedby Max Winkler. The film premiered at
the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and wasreleased by Magnolia Pictures.

MEET THE FINALISTS part 2

Last week, the Screenwriters Colony selection committee announced the ten finalists for the three remaining slots at this year's colony. In advance of next week's announcement of the invitees, we'll be posting mini-bios of the finalists this week.

Here is the second of three posts:


Silka Luisa (ARCANA) has a long history of working film, starting with
development at Killer Films, Panamax Films, and Sony Pictures
Television. With an M.F.A. in Film from Columbia University among many
awards, Silka was selected as one four fellows for the IFP-Marcie
Bloom Fellowship in Film, a mentorship program led by Dylan Leiner and
Marcie Bloom of Sony Pictures Classics. Her most recent screenplay,
CACIQUE, placed in the Nicholl Fellowship and RED CLOVER was funded by
the McNamara Creative Arts Grant.

Christopher Radcliff (THE STRANGE ONES) earned his MFA in Film from
Columbia University where he received the Ezra Litwak Award for
Distinction in Screenwriting. THE STRANGE ONES has screened at
numerous film festivals around the world, including Sundance, SXSW,
Rotterdam, and Clermont-Ferrand, among others. In addition, it has
received over 20 awards, including several Oscar-qualifying wins, and
has been sold for television and DVD distribution in several
countries.

James Cohen (PRO-JOYCE), a graduate of Vanderbilt University, began
his career in New York as the assistant film editor on features by Sam
Mendes, Alan Parker, and James Ivory. He started in screenwriting when
British director Nicholas Hytner asked him to pen a page-long joke for
the film Center Stage. Since then, he has written a number of feature
screenplays. His 33-minute fictional audio comedy, THE LACY STUDY – an
official selection of the ThirdCoast International Audio Festival –
premiered at WNYC’s The Greene Space in 2009 and aired on NPR shortly
thereafter. Most recently, James wrote a TV spot directed by Eastbound
& Down creator Jody Hill.