Poudcake Screens at Florida Film Festival

THE 2009 FLORIDA FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS:

POUNDCAKE

DIRECTED BY RAFAEL MONSERRATE

Southeast Premiere

DIRECTED BY RAFAEL MONSERRATE
Southeast Premiere

Monday, March 30, 8:45 PM - 10:30 PM at
Regal Winter Park

Thursday, April 2, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM at
Regal Winter Park

BUY TICKETS

BUY A TICKET AND SAVE AT O'BOYS BBQ

Monday, March 30, 8:45 PM - 10:30 PM at
Regal Winter Park

Thursday, April 2, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM at
Regal Winter Park

BUY TICKETS

POUNDCAKE SYNOPSIS

On the night before Thanksgiving, Cliff and Carol Morgan gather their three grown children, Robby, a late night radio DJ, his hypochondriac younger brother Charlie and their adopted sister Brooke at their favorite Chinese restaurant, The Golden Buddha for an announcement. After 30 years of marriage, Cliff and Carol are getting a divorce. Now the Morgan's must spend what may be their last Thanksgiving together as a family, in as civilized a manner as possible. Set in Buffalo, NY in the late 1980’s with a killer authentic soundtrack from the era, Poundcake is a dysfunctional family comedy with heart and stars Academy Award® Nominee Kathleen Quinlan and Jay O. Sanders.

Ian Bailey - Sara Wells Poundcake Movie - AFI Film Festival

POUNDCAKE Movie Premiere at AFI Film Festival

POUNDCAKE ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Rafael Monserrate- Director

Rafael Monserrate was born in Puerto Rico and studied Acting and Directing at Framingham State College before winning a scholarship to study theatre at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC. He directed a series of plays in NYC before moving to LA to work as an acting and dialogue coach, productions include Miss Miami (NBC), Chasing Pap(20th Century Fox), and The Rundown(Universal Pictures). In 2004 he was hired to voice direct the first all Latin cast animated feature SIAN KAAN and then went on to voice direct A Cat’s Tale starring Michelle Rodriguez, Troy Garity, Jeremy Piven, and Troy Hall. This past December, Rafael directed a television pilot, IMAGINE THIS that is already buzzing all around the networks. Poundcake is his directorial debut.

Troy Hall – Producer/ Screenwriter/Actor

Troy is a good ol’ Georgia boy but has been living in the New York City area for the last fourteen years. He is a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and has been working as an actor for the last eight years. Some of Troy’s film and television credits include THE FAMILY MAN, THE WAR WITHIN, TWO AGAINST TIME, and as “Tito” on ANOTHER WORLD. His theatre credits include DANNY BOY (Official Selection of The New York Fringe Festival), LONESTAR, TRACERS, THE MELVILLE BOYS, AWAKENING, and WRONG FOR EACH OTHER. Troy has made a living doing voice-overs for commercials as well as acting in several on-camera campaigns. He starred in comic genius Marty Granger’s 2005 Miller Lite campaign, which was voted one of 2005’s Funniest Commercials. He also kicked off Cingular Wireless’ “More Bars in More Places” campaign in a commercial called “Road Trip”, directed by world-renowned cinematographer Lance Acord and slated as the most recognizable commercial of 2005 & 2006. Troy has been the voice of a number of national campaigns, including Verizon, Oral-B, H&R Block, Garnier, Dunkin Donuts, and Ralph Lauren. Troy met writing partner Kevin Logie while doing improv at New York City’s well-known Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and shortly thereafter, Poundcake was born. Poundcake is Troy’s first feature length screenplay, which he also stars in and produced.

Kevin Logie– Producer/ Screenwriter/Actor

Actor Kevin was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. He was a disc jockey working nights and weekends for 103.3 WEDG-FM and then auditioned to be an emcee for the New York Lottery. Competing with over 400 people, Kevin was chosen as the Western New York representative of the New York Lottery Draw Team. He took classes at Studio Arena Theatre School and soon after, moved to NYC to be an actor. Eventually, he ended up doing improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, where he met writing partner Troy Hall, and started writing Poundcake. Poundcake is Kevin’s first feature length screenplay, which he also stars in and produced.

Mridu Chandra-Producer

Mridu Chandra has been producing social issue documentaries and narrative films for the past decade. In addition to co-producing Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (Sundance 2003, P.O.V. 2003), she produced the documentary film Let the Church Say Amen (AFI/ Silverdocs 2003, Sundance 2004, Independent Lens 2005). Her Indie feature projects include line producing “Love, Ludlow” (Sundance 2005), associate producing Tanuj Chopra’s “Punching at the Sun” (Sundance 2006) and most recently producing “Poundcake.” She currently teaches documentary classes at The New School in their Graduate Department of Media Studies and at New York University in their School of Continuing and Professional Studies. She is a fellow at American University’s Center for Social Media focusing on ethical practice in documentary filmmaking. Mridu was born in India, grew up in Virginia, and lives in New York City.

Gene Miller -Producer

Gene Raphael Miller studied acting with Mr. Hall and Mr. Monserrate at the American Academy Of Dramatic Arts. He furthered the collaboration with the two in numerous theatrical productions in the late 90's. Gene co-produced "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me" in 2000, and in 2004, Gene lead produced the recently released at Blockbuster film "Crazy For Love" starring David Krumholtz, Natasha Lyonne, and Tim Blake Nelson. "Poundcake" came next, and most recently Gene has produced a television pilot called "Imagine This!."

David Vacarri -Producer

David Vaccari is currently a casting director at Telsey & Company where his most recent film credits include Jonathan Demme’s, “Rachel Getting Married”, Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park”, Peter Hedges’ “Dan in Real Life”, Helen Hunt’s “Then She Found Me” and Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe.” Past film projects include “Rent”, “Pieces of April” , “The Bone Collector”, “Keane,” “The Grey Zone” & “Finding Forrester.” In television he has worked on “Whoopi” for NBC, and for HBO he worked with John Leguizamo on his film “Undefeated” as well as the JJ Abrams pilot, “Hope Against Hope.” One of the original casting directors of the stage musical “Rent”, his career in theater casting includes working with Woody Allen, David Mamet, Martin Short, Edward Albee. and Eric Bogosian on premiers of their work. Current commercials include work by Chris Guest, Todd Field, Tom Schiller, Frank Todaro, Noam Murro, Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris and Jared Hess. “Poundcake” marks his first feature as a producer, having produced the short film, “Right Foot, Left Foot”, which appeared on IFC last year.

Anthony Ripoli – Editor

Anthony Ripoli is a graduate of NYU’s Film School and “Poundcake” is his first feature editing credit. Previously, he served as assistant editor on “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints,” “El Cantante,” and “Fighting” (due out this Spring). Most recently, he edited with David Tedeschi on the Martin Scorsese featurette “Shine A Light: The Making Of” (the Rolling Stones Concert Film).

Josh Silfen – Director of Photography

Josh Silfen has been shooting films since graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2001. In that time he has shot shorts, music videos, commercials, and several feature films including THE BIG BAD SWIM (Tribeca ‘06) and GOODBYE BABY (Slamdance ‘08). POUNDCAKE marks Josh’s first collaboration with director Rafael Monserrate, and his first film in Buffalo.

POUNDCAKE FILMMAKERS’ NOTES TROY HALL AND KEVIN LOGIE

FIRST DATE

We met while performing improve at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City and after performing together for about a year, we decided to break away from UCB and develop a comedy sketch show for themselves. The original idea for the show was based on Kevin’s parents who were, unfortunately at the time, going through a divorce. The first sketch was about a husband and wife dealing with an affair that was inevitable. The mother was being won over by a man who claimed to be the world’s master of origami. The sketch was funny, but also heartbreaking and real. For Kevin, it was a cathartic process and for Troy, it was free practice in psychoanalysis… and there, in Starbucks on 42nd Street, POUNDCAKE was conceived.

MEETING THE PARENTS

We would sit for hours and talk about the effect the divorce was having on Kevin’s family and of course, Kevin. Troy would ask questions, trying to get to the core of what it all meant to a grown man watching his family dissolve before his eyes. We both quickly realized that there is a loss of innocence at whatever age, when you realize that your parents aren’t super heroes, they are just two people trying to survive and sometimes that means … not together. The point: “Divorce is hilarious!”

THE BIRTH OF BABY “POUNDCAKE”

For two years we worked night and day to bring POUNDCAKE to life. We’d meet anywhere we could during the day-- the floor in Grand Central Station, Barnes & Noble and restaurants… but mostly we worked at various Starbucks locations all over Manhattan. In fact, Troy spent $1,344.00 on grande coffees over the time spent there … true story. A usual evening of work would require Kevin to drive an hour each way from his home to Troy’s and then we’d write until the wee hours of the morning. This was at least two or three nights a week. In fact, one night at the wee hour of 3 a.m., Kevin went outside to his car to go home only to find that the spot where he parked his car was missing one thing … his car!

MONEY FOR COLLEGE

After two years on the script, it was time to figure out how we were going to make the movie. Inspired by the Coen brothers, we opted to shoot a trailer and over two days and a minimal budget we did. With Director Rafael Monserrate on board, we would eventually gain the interest and the money of two investors. After a month or so, the “experienced” Hollywood investor of the two, informed the team that he thought the movie couldn’t be shot for under a million because we needed a stunt coordinator and CG to make it legit. So needless to say there were obvious creative differences that made Troy put his foot down which in turn made the “experienced” investor pull his monies out one month before production was suppose to start. See ya’ … now what? Troy and Kevin decided, like any proud parent, that they would invest in their baby. Troy took out a loan and with Kevin, they would split it down the middle. By the way Kev, still owes Troy for September and October. Not having much experience in the realm of producing independent films, Troy and Kevin searched for someone who could steer the ship. After much research, Rafael contacted Mridu Chandra via email and pleaded their case. Mridu had some experience, she had line produced the indie film “Love Ludlow” and several documentaries. It was the indie aspect of her resume that attracted them to her. Mridu met with Troy, Kevin and Rafael at Coffee Bar in NYC and decided she would do a budget for the film but she would be going back to her day job and the boys would fend for themselves… accept Troy got down on his knees and begged Mridu to quit her job and take a chance on them. She did and it proved to be the best possible move for all of them. It seemed that this team was meant to be and Mridu Chandra proved to be the powerhouse producer that the boys thought she was. Troy refers to Mridu as his “producing soul-mate”.

FINDING PEOPLE TO LEAD

Working at New York’s well known casting agency Telsey + Co., casting director David Vaccari has known Troy for about ten years. Troy gave David the script in hopes that he could help with casting. After reading it, David immediately came on board as a producer and ended up getting the script into the hands of many well-respected actors in both New York and LA but the three of us had Kathleen Quinlan and Jay O. Sanders at the top of our wish list. After numerous meetings on both coasts, we sat down with Kathleen Quinlan at a Mexican restaurant Santa Monica and then with Jay O. Sanders in a little New York French bistro in the west village and we got our wish.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL POSTPONED

October, a week before production was to begin, Buffalo – where we were filming -- was hit with a catastrophic blizzard. Hundreds of thousands of trees were destroyed, millions of people were without electricity or heat in their homes and the entire Western New York region looked as if it was a war zone. The production team had to make a decision, ‘Do we make POUNDCAKE into a war epic? Or do we shoot around the chaos?’ Needless to say, we made a post apocalyptic war film comedy. The production went forward.

OFFICIAL FIRST DAY

The team was in place and everyone would be venturing on this journey with at least one thing in common: their first feature film… first time director, writers, producers and editor. Both Kathleen and Jay attached themselves based on the merit of the script and graciously agreed to work for scale. Also, the actors would have the luxury of four days of rehearsal with first time director Rafael. The cast and crew of forty people would become one big happy family while working on the film for the nineteen-day shoot and living together at the Holiday Inn. Great rates by the way. For nineteen days, the production team worked tirelessly and enjoyed every second of the film’s true independent spirit. All of the locations were given to the production at no cost. Food was donated, cooked for us and volunteers from the Buffalo community came to the set each day and helped in whatever capacity they could. Even Kevin Logie’s grandmother let the production take over her home for a week to use as “The Morgan” house. Kevin’s hometown was proving to be the perfect place for POUNDCAKE.

FOUR YEARS OF EDUCATION

From the day of the film’s conception, through the writing process, finding investors, the 19-day shoot and the post-production phase, it’s all taken four years. Director Rafael and first time feature film editor, Anthony Ripoli, sat in Anthony’s homemade edit suite in Brooklyn and worked passionately for a year. Independent films rarely have the luxury of resources that would allow the film making process to be much faster, but we looked at our indie status time stretch as a huge blessing… “It’s our one shot, let’s get it right.”