Flix Premiere Close Up Magazine - March 2019

March 2019

FLIX PREMIERE Close-Up

this month’s UPCOMING PREMIERES

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome Readers: The purpose of this magazine is to share with our movie-goers, the industry and our partners updates about what is happening at Flix Premiere each month. We aim to highlight and explore the upcoming month’s film premieres in each market, and occasionally announce new developments on our platform.

Happy reading!

For get tin g the Gir l

Love Me Do

IN THIS ISSUE:

Sug ar So na ta

March Premieres Snapshot Learn about our exclusive new premieres showing each week.

US March Premieres Snapshot - pg. 3 UK March Premieres Snapshot - pg. 4

Close Up: Premieres Feature Reviews

Holly wood Bank er

A chance to immerse yourself in the wonderful stories premiering each week.

The View from Tall - Amanda Drinkall, Michael Patrick Thornton, Carolyn Braver, Josh Bywater - pg. 5 Homeless - Michael McDowell, Hosanna Gourley, J.W. Buriss, Lance Megginson - pg. 6 Sonata for Cello - Montse Germán, Juanjo Puigcorbé, Jan Cornet, Marina Salas - pg. 7 Love Me Do - Jack Gordon, Rebecca Calder, Max Wrottesley, Samantha Coughlan - pg. 8 Hollywood Banker - Dino De Laurentiis, Frans J. Afman - pg. 9 Neptune - Jane Ackermann, Tony Reilly, William McDonough III, Dylan Chestnutt - pg. 10 Divine Access - Billy Burke, Gary Cole, Patrick Warburton, Joel David Moore, Dora Madison - pg. 11 I Put a Hit on You - Sara Canning, Aaron Ashmore, Danny Smith, Heather Sande - pg. 12 Forgetting the Girl - Christopher Denham, Lindsay Beamish, Elizabeth Rice, Paul Sparks - pg. 13

fo r Ce llo

HOME OF AWARD-WINNING CINEMA AND MORE

“Brave, honest and heartfelt.”

Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction TV

US PREMIERE March 1, 2019 - 7pm EST

A 17-year-old student finds an unlikely lifeline in her disabled therapist after a sexual transgression.

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“Incisive and sensitive.”

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

US PREMIERE March 8, 2019 - 7pm EST An eighteen-year-old boy navigates his way through life in a homeless shelter after the passing of his grandmother.

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US PREMIERES SNAPSHOT

Starring: Amanda Drinkall, Michael Patrick Thornton, Carolyn Braver, Josh Bywater

march 1, 2019 - 7pm EST

Starring: Michael McDowell, Hosanna Gourley, J.W. Buriss, Lance Megginson

march 8, 2019 - 7pm EST

Starring: Jack Gordon, Rebecca Calder, Max Wrottesley, Samantha Coughlan

march 15, 2019 - 7pm EST

Starring: Jane Ackermann, Tony Reilly, Dylan Chestnutt, William McDonough III

march 22, 2019 - 7pm EST

Starring: Sara Canning, Aaron Ashmore, Danny Smith, Heather Sande

march 29, 2019 - 7pm EST

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UK PREMIERES SNAPSHOT

Starring: Michael McDowell, Hosanna Gourley, J.W. Buriss, Lance Megginson

march 2, 2019 - 7pm GMT

Starring: Montse Germán, Juanjo Puigcorbé, Jan Cornet, Marina Salas

march 9, 2019 - 7pm GMT

Starring: Dino De Laurentiis, Frans J. Afman

march 16, 2019 - 7pm GMT

Starring: Billy Burke, Gary Cole, Patrick Warburton, Dora Madison, Joel David Moore

march 23, 2019 - 7pm GMT

Starring: Christopher Denham, Lindsay Beamish, Elizabeth Rice, Paul Sparks

march 30, 2019 - 7pm GMT

The View from Tall

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review US Premiere MARCH 1 - 7PM EST

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t’s a scene familiar from coming-of-age movies. A social outcast walks through the halls of her high school, turning inwards as everyone passing by stares at her. Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss’ The View From Tall does something great with the trope. It doesn’t feel cliché. It feels fresh, particularly because of how well-written (and performed) the protagonist is. Justine (Amanda Drinkall) is a tall, be-spectacled and dignified young woman, who has created a scandal because word got out that she was involved with a teacher at the school, who has since absconded. Students tease her with words from her diary. Boys grope and verbally assault her.

She takes it in stride, counting down the days until she can move out of her hometown and begin her college scholarship.

To make matters worse, her home life is kind of a mess. Her parents don’t pay enough attention to her out of embarrassment for the scandal, and her younger sister Paula (Carolyn Braver) has developed a troubling drinking habit. Her main solace comes from writing and in books. But her

The View from Tall is everything a great independent film should be.

Scott Menzel, We Live Film

parents force her to attend therapy sessions, and, quite reluctantly, she does. In a meet-cute, she sees a man in a wheelchair drop his cigarette box in the parking lot, and she runs to pick them up. They commiserate over not wanting to attend their next meeting. A few minutes later, much to their surprise, they end up in the same room. The man, as the therapist, and she as the patient. The next few sessions are a little bit tumultuous, and they end with the therapist quitting. Although in a captivating twist of fate, they end up meeting again, under very different circumstances.

The View From Tall shines in all aspects, but particularly in its crafting of such a charismatic

lead, both confident and sensitive at the same time.

Justine, who is expertly performed by Drinkall, is a force on the screen. She commands the viewer’s attention through her presence and wit. And she endears them with her moments of vulnerability.

The View From Tall portrays a difficult subject with grace and compassion, showing that even when there are high school students who may criticize or ostracize Justine, there are those who will support her and understand her struggles - and just how much she has to offer. This is a film that sparkles with wit, sincerity, and beautifully constructed characters. It’s both heartwarming and powerful without being moralizing or heavy-handed.

Homeless

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review UK Premiere MARCH 2 - 7PM GMT US Premiere MARCH 8 - 7PM EST

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erforming at a rock concert. Taking care of his elderly grandmother.

These are the visions that preoccupy 18-year-old Gosh (Michael McDowell), particularly now that the world as he knows it has been turned upside down and sideways. After his grandmother’s tragic passing and the incarceration of a family member, Gosh is left on his own. With nowhere else to turn, he finds refuge at the local homeless shelter, where he is ostracized due to the last vestiges of former luxury: a cell phone, a nose ring, kohl lining his lash line.

He spends his time at the library, researching his father. He is looking for a job, but has a difficult time securing one until he meets Tina (Julie Dunagan), a kind middle-age woman who works at a Chinese food restaurant in the mall, who convinces her boss to hire him there. His good luck also happens to coincide with an unlucky circumstance. He’s kicked out of the shelter for using his cell phone - to look and reminisce of pictures of his grandmother - after hours, and is forced out onto the street. Tina kindly takes him into her home, which she shares with her

A naturalistic portrait of society’s lowest economic rungs.

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

young son. They become fast friends, although tensions rise as money begins to dwindle.

Director Clay Riley Hassler’s Homeless shines in its empathetic portrayal of its characters. They all have rich interior lives that they are always working on communicating more directly, more efficaciously, with each other. Trapped in difficult circumstances, they are learning what it means to be a good person when the world tries to strip that good out of you. The film is a shining example of what we owe each other, and how we can help each other through trying times - and this help can come from even the most unlikely of sources.

The film delivers this message through sharp writing, particularly the realism of the dialogue. The cinematography, too, gives a distinct look and high production value; the images feel haunting and real, evocative of an interiority that is hard to communicate.

Homeless is an important and urgent drama that will stay with viewers for a long time. Gosh is a compassionate character, who learns to use the love that he has been given to help others. Darkly funny at times, it is a film that grabs you and refuses to let go.

Sonata for Cello

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review UK Premiere MARCH 9 - 7PM GMT

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irector Anna Bofarull’s Sonata for Cello hedges its bets on the sensorial and ethereal, and absolutely shines. The film begins so as to disorient the spectator: So we are to be prepared for what is to come.

Julia (Montse German) is a cellist, seasoned, prestigious, world-renowned.

And yet here she is, in the bathroom before a performance, shaking from nervousness and deciding to down a pack of sleeping pills. She collapses, and her manager finds her unconscious. Interspersed, the viewer sees glimpses of a woman’s face that is not her own: an aging singer, caked with white makeup on her face and thick dark kohl lining her eyes. This appears to be the stuff that haunts Julia’s dreams.

Julia has been suffering from pains that doctors have only recently been able to definitely diagnose: her joints hurt, her memory is foggy, and she is irritable. The condition has been affecting her relationships and her

Empathetic, riveting portrayal of the suffering artist.

Melissa Legarda Alcantara, SineScreen

music - now she’ll explode with anger at one of her students and not really understand why.

Even in her deteriorating health, she clings to her music. Part of the beauty of this film is its slow meditative qualities. Her life is punctuated by rhythms: performing, practicing, swimming in the pool and visiting her ailing mother. This cinematic rhythm echoes a musical one. As the climax of her story approaches, tensions build and wither away, only to be built again.

Sonata for Cello is not a film about a prodigy suffering from an existential crisis. It is a film in which the body of this prodigy gives way, usurping the whole identity, the whole of the genius. Julia is a musical genius heard by all of

the world when she plays, but is not listened to when she is not performing - doctors have all but ignored her, and lovers too seem to take without listening. It is tender to watch her with the cello. The relationship between her and her beloved instrument is a tenuous one, as each note brings her pain and yet beauty to the world.

The director Anna Bofarull brings everything in harmony. The score, the cinematography, the writing, and the performances: everything sings and shines. At times, it even haunts. Sonata for Cello is a film that won’t be forgotten for its sensitivity, vibrant cinematic qualities and for its unsettling and deeply moving performances. The opening scene is forever lodged in the brain.

Love Me Do

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review US Premiere MARCH 15 - 7PM EST

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e’re meant to be a little suspicious of Antonia (Rebecca Calder) when we first see her. She’s too in control, too ambitious, too attractive.

The world outside of the film says that we’re supposed to be suspicious of women who know who they are. When she begins dating Max (Jack Gordon), an aspiring actor, she invites him to her apartment and takes a picture of his credit card when he’s in the bathroom. Later, when he moves into her apartment, we learn that she has installed cameras throughout her property to keep an eye on him at all times, even when she’s at work at her high-profile banking job. But Jack is not so innocent either. He spends his day shirking acting opportunities and instead snoops around the house, trying to find everything that he can about her.

One day, he stumbles upon a locked door. He finds his way in: a room filled with a crib and items for a newborn baby. A million thoughts run through his mind, worried that perhaps she was trying to “entrap” him with a child. She explains, however, that the baby memorabilia was from a previous pregnancy from a volatile relationship that ended, tragically, with a stillborn child. As Antonia and Jack’s relationship grows, their knack

An exquisitely-crafted tale of l'amour fou.

Stuart Black, Londonist

for duplicity begins to complement each other, as they embark on a plan to exact revenge on an individual who has done Antonia harm.

Turns out we were right to be suspicious of the woman. But not for the reasons viewers may have initially believed.

Martin Stitt’s Love Me Do is a riveting, fast-paced film that will keep viewers guessing.

With high production values, excellent writing, and stand-out performances from the protagonists, it’s packed with drama in every shot, every word, and every intonation. One of the real standouts of the film is the chemistry between Antonia and Jack. They perform roles

in their careers, and perform them in the relationship. Yet the actors are able to communicate a deep sincerity in their performances. With sharp dialogue, inventive cinematography and a plot so expertly crafted, Love Me Do is a riveting, incomparable film. Coupled perfectly by moments of high octane drama and strong character development, it will offer an expertly crafted narrative. It’s visceral and won’t be forgotten anytime soon. This film surely weaves a powerful, enticing magic.

Hollywood Banker

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review UK Premiere MARCH 16 - 7PM GMT

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ocumentaries can inspire and educate. They can show the world that remarkable people really do exist and they can make people care about important subjects. Documentaries can also show a life well-lived - and one that needs to be remembered. Hollywood Banker shows the world a man who played a crucial role in the film industry, and its role in practically reinventing film financing; essentially showing banks that films are worthwhile to invest in. Frans Afman proved to be one of the most important men in Hollywood, working to push independent cinema forward. The role that financiers and producers play in films are sometimes under-appreciated and Hollywood Banker gives them the recognition that they deserve. Although Frans was a celebrity in his own right, having earned the respect from Hollywood’s A-listers. Frans worked for a large bank in Rotterdam when meeting Dino De Laurentiis changed his life forever. They worked together for years, with De Laurentiis teaching Frans the ins-and-outs of film financing. Frans went on to finance major films such as King Kong and When Harry Met Sally.

The film is informative, beautifully shot, and intimate. Marked by a voice-over of his daughter, Rozemyn Afman - who is also the director -

A fascinating insight into film history and the industry.

Katy Vans, Blueprint: Review

and featuring family members and film executives, Hollywood Banker portrays the life of this remarkable man with due diligence, honesty and captivating charm. He emerges as someone who loved his life in the movies and the movies loved him just as much in return.

And as the first scene of the film shows, with Frans in front of the camera, he could captivate and command attention from viewers. The talking heads are vibrant and lovely; the appreciation that the subjects have for Frans is immediately apparent and is highly contagious.

And there is a real sense that director Rozemyn really collaborated with the subjects, some of whom she would have known throughout

childhood, as they appear to be at ease working together to remember and create a portrait of Frans. There is a sense of the importance of this project, not only for the family, but for the world: a sense of urgency in remembering.

Hollywood Banker is an important and lively film, peopled with fascinating characters, high production value, and a sense of strong collaboration.

Viewers will want to read up more on Frans Afman’s impactful life and career - and surely, it will make viewers pay attention to the rest of star-on-the-rise Rozemyn’s current, and future, filmography.

Neptune

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review US Premiere MARCH 22 - 7PM EST

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hen Hannah Newcombe is not studying, or doing chores at the church she calls home, she enjoys long bike rides along the rocky cliffs of a Maine island’s treacherous coastline. Enraptured by the immensity of nature, she is similarly fascinated with television programs depicting telescopic explorations of our solar system and its planets. But when one classmate in her tight-knit community goes missing – believed to have perished in the sea – her reveries gradually transform into foreboding nightmares.

The ward of the Reverend Jerry Cook, Hannah is to be sent to an elite boarding school on the mainland to become an ordained minister.

However, this unexpected loss in her community pushes Hannah toward a different path. She offers to replace the dead boy on his father’s lobster boat and greatly angers her caretaker in the process. What begins as a local tragedy becomes a personal quest for self-knowledge and self-realization by Hannah, who must fight to begin building the kind of life she desires for herself. All the while, she must contend with her bullheaded guardian and his increasingly punitive fits of rage as he senses his designs for Hannah are slipping from his grasp.

A meaningful story touching on the broader mysteries of our life.

Brinley Froelich, Slug Magazine

Neptune is a lyrical look at childhood that avoids the rose-colored lens so often tied to the coming of age genre. Rather, it explores the morosity that can overwhelm a difficult adolescence – one whose constraints seem impossible to escape. As we watch scenes from Hannah’s life unfold, we gradually identify the obstacles holding her back from pursuing her dreams. Realistic sequences, shot with beautiful landscape cinematography, suddenly transform into surreal escapist contemplations of nature and death. From the wide-open vistas of the ocean from the lobster boat, to the cramped and smothering space of the church and its broom closet, we come to sense that Hannah must escape her circumstances if she wishes to flourish.

Jane Ackermann offers a breakthrough performance as Hannah, in the tradition of the most memorable and poignant embodiments of childhood found in the cinema. (She was only 14 years old when the feature was shot). Portraying both wonder and despair, curiosity and fear, Ackermann reveals for us, again, the secrets of youth, full of both possibility and challenges.

Neptune brings us into the silently tormented world of adolescence in order to send us to the stars and the wide-open seas. Be sure not to miss it on Flix Premiere!

Divine Access

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review UK Premiere MARCH 23 - 7PM GMT

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s a child, Jack Harriman’s mother took him from one religious pilgrimage to the next, exposing him to a myriad of the world’s religions in her spiritual journey. Because of this unlikely adolescence, Jack is more deeply familiar with a variety of belief systems than most scholars and theologians. He is so familiar with them all, in fact, that he does not really believe in anything.

Sensing in Jack’s casual and philosophical takedown of religious zealousness a ratings opportunity, his local television producer friend Bob invites him to be a guest panel member on his show Divine Access. When Jack coolly undermines the fire and brimstone evangelical Reverend Guy Roy Davis, their conversation is an instant viral success. Jack reluctantly becomes the new star of the public-access show and a popular figure on a multi-city spirituality speaking circuit. But while his good fortunes rise, Reverend Davis falls on hard times, spiraling out of control. How far is Jack willing to go in turning his resistance to belief into cash? And what can he do when others start to see him as a guru to be worshipped – will he become someone who he naturally resents?

Charming in its simplicity yet still thoughtfully inquisitive.

Matt Donato, We Got This Covered

Divine Access is equal parts comedy and drama, emanating from a heartfelt reflection on what it means to know and love ourselves, others, and our universe. Jack takes on an unwilling prophetic posture, befriending prostitutes and a self-proclaimed “catcher” of people so moved by the spirit that they fall over. The three of them hit the road of the speaking circuit in a sequence that parallels the best of buddy travel films. And through it all, Jack is needled and questioned by a mysterious and beautiful woman, a presence who may be human, spirit, or angel.

Billy Burke plays the chill, noncommittal, and introspective Jack with all the seductive charm

and nonchalance that the role requires. The always funny Gary Cole of Veep fame strikes a bold opposite to Burke’s hipster messiah as the unshakeable fundamentalist Reverend Guy Roy Davis. Overall, it is an endearingly damaged, likeable, and human ensemble that accompanies Jack on his journey.

Divine Access is a warm and charmingly funny meditation on community and spirituality. Watch it on Flix Premiere to consider life with a fresh and unique perspective.

I Put a Hit on You

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review US Premiere MARCH 29 - 7PM EST

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t seems like it’s happened before. Harper (Sara Canning), sits at a restaurant, patiently, then lethargically, then with a glass of wine in her hand, until her boyfriend Ray (Aaron Ashmore) finally does show up. He gives some lame excuse, and the dinner goes on as if nothing particularly strange has happened. Turns out, the couple doesn’t normally do this, but the woman thought that they deserved a night out, and she decides to treat him to a luxurious meal. By the end of the meal, she’s the one doing something drastic: she proposes to him. He says no. They go home to their separate apartments, and the woman, drowning her sorrows in glass after glass, does something she immediately regrets. Finding a website that her boyfriend had mentioned over dinner - which allows you to place an ad for a task to be completed if you offer something in return - through which she calls a hit on Ray in exchange for the diamond ring that she had. Someone answers the ad immediately. Harper becomes scared and regrets the decision. She finds her boyfriend and they try to hide together, but as hiding becomes more difficult as the night goes on, they test their relationship, learning more about each other as day threatens to break.

A fresh take on the relationship dramedy genre Kevin Rakestraw, Film Pulse

Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart’s I Put A Hit on You is a remarkably tense - and thrilling - film about a relationship that needed a jolt to be tested; about a character who needed to raze away selfish behaviors and another who needed to learn how to claim space. The ante is always raised, and the characters keep getting better, unraveling, showing layers of their complexities. The writing is so superb here, as the characters feel raw and real; and the plot is often one step ahead of the viewer. Although the particular, and unique tension of the film a hit being placed on a man by his girlfriend - is extraordinary, the struggles that the couple

goes through feel very human and universal. The viewer is treated to how these two individuals react in the most trying of circumstances, and reveal themselves to each other when everything seems to be against them.

Gorgeously shot, at times darkly funny, I Put a Hit on You is a delightful and unexpected film that will entertain viewers far beyond the final credits. Bold, beautiful and suspenseful, I Put a Hit on You is a hit.

Forgetting the Girl

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Close Up: Premiere Feature Review UK Premiere MARCH 30 - 7PM GMT

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evin Wolfe (Christopher Denham) looks directly at the camera. The camera through which viewers are watching this film, but also a camera of his own: He is making a tell-all. To paraphrase, he says: “If you’re watching this, you’re discovered something you shouldn’t have.” Kevin has a cold, detached look in his eye. We come to understand that that’s how he relates to the world, and particularly to his clients. The coldness bleeds out and into work as a studio photographer, taking headshots for mostly women, mainly “models” and “actors,” he says. Most notably, he laments that he asks out every girl that he shoots, and almost all of them rebuff him.

And by now, after what might be years of doing this, he has developed a system for “forgetting” the women by turning their rejections into something positive for him. He’ll forget one girl by binge watching a television show. To forget another, he might take a weekend trip. It’s all to forget. Forgetting is important for him. He’s been forced to forget for

Director Nate Taylor skillfully evokes a clammy sense of dread in this stealthily suspenseful indie thriller.

Joe Leydon, Variety

most of his life, ever since his little sister drowned in a pool, and his mother died.

He admits that women are his weakness. So it is very surprising to him when one girl, a gorgeous blond named Adrienne (Anna Camp) agrees to go out with him. The date goes well, but they meet shortly after and she tells him that she is no longer interested. He tries to forget her, but he can’t. Her sister walks into his studio one day to say that Adrienne has been missing, wanting to know if he knows anything.

A painful search ensues.

Forgetting The Girl is sharp. Acerbic and darkly comedic, it is a poignant satire fit for the

#MeToo era, criticizing certain narrative conventions and genre tropes. The film wants us to think about how many true crime films depend on familiar tropes: detached men who treat women as “objects,” even harkening back to films like Antonioni’s Blow Up, which shows the particular power relations of a male photographer shooting a young female model.

Director Nate Taylor skillfully uses humor as a way of reflecting on the cinematic language that perpetuates sexism, and an industry that is sometimes fueled by it. The film itself is gorgeously cinematic and visceral - but its sting comes from its poignancy, the coldness of its protagonist.

HOME OF AWARD-WINNING CINEMA AND MORE

“Warm and charmingly funnny”

UK PREMIERE March 23, 2018 - 7pm GMT

After humiliating Rev. Guy Roy Davis on a public-access TV show, events lead Jack Harriman to question whether he has a deeper calling.

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“Denham hits all the right notes” Joe Leydon, Variety

UK PREMIERE March 30, 2018 - 7pm GMT Haunted by a traumatic history, photographer Kevin Wolfe struggles to forget all his bad memories.

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