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Exclusive: International Film Trust will kick off sales in Berlin on the comedy from Benaroya Pictures and Rough House Pictures.

Dick Move is scheduled to begin shooting in the summer and Munn will play a once in-demand artist who starts seeing phallic imagery in her paintings.

The artist must battle an old nemesis and overcome the belief she is going mad and rise to new heights with her comeback exhibition.

Todd Sklar will direct Dick Move from a screenplay by Tommy Castillo and Ift head of sales Todd Olsson will introduce to buyers at the Efm this week.

Michael Benaroya is producing for Benaroya Pictures with Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Jody Hill and Brandon James of Rough House Pictures. CAA represents North American rights.

Munn starred in HBO drama The Newsroom and her feature credits include Magic Mike, X-Men: Apocalypse, Ride Along 2 and the upcoming The Predator and the all-female Ocean’s Eight.

“Olivia Munn is one...

Chicago – On Tuesday, December 2nd, the Midwest Independent Film Festival will award their 2014 “Best of the Midwest” honors with a ceremony at The Underground Nightclub in Chicago. The evening will be hosted by Festival Director Mike McNamara, and nominees include “Animals” – directed by Collin Schiffli, “The Starfish Throwers” – directed by Jesse Roesler and “Happy Christmas” – directed by Joe Swanberg.

Presented by the Midwest Independent Film Festival

Photo credit: MidwestFilm.com

The Midwest Independent Film Festival is a year-round movie event in Chicago that takes place the first Tuesday of every month, at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. The festival has been named by Chicago Magazine in their “Best of Chicago” issue, and has become one of the top places for local filmmakers, producers and actors to network in the city.

The nominees for the “Best of the Midwest” Awards are as follows….

Best Music Video

“Shadow” directed by Ryan O...

Stars: James Pumphrey, Christopher Meloni, Brett Gelman, Laura Ramsey, Alex Rennie, Keely Hazell | Written by Todd Sklar, Alex Rennie | Directed by Todd Sklar

You know you’re in for a tough time with a movie, especially a comedy, when the promotion centres around one of the smaller roles and Not the films leads. And so is the case with Awful Nice. Yes, despite the appearance of Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: Svu, True Blood) amongst the cast of unknowns, the apparent star of this film – at least according to the PR spiel rolled out for the movie so far – is “British FHM darling Keely Hazell”.

Yeah doesn’t look good does it?

Awful Nice tells the story of Jim and Dave. Two brothers who haven’t seen each other in years, but when their father unexpectedly dies, they are forced to travel down to Branson together to redeem their inheritance; the family’s lake house.

Having clashing opinions with a sibling on important matters can often be a distressing process in life, as people strive to figure out what’s truly significant and valuable to them. But if they hold a strong enough bond, and put in the effort to understand the other person’s point-of-view, they’ll finally be able to overcome their differences and reconnect. That’s certainly the case with the two starkly contrasting brothers in the new independent comedy, ‘Awful Nice,’ which was directed, co-written, produced and stars filmmaker Todd Sklar. The film, which is currently available on VOD, and is set to open in select theaters tomorrow, is a heart-wrenching but equally comical exploration [ Read More ]

The post Interview: Todd Sklar Talks Awful Nice appeared first on Shockya.com.

People can often leave a lasting impression on those they inadvertently meet as they struggle to find their true identity and purpose in life. That is certainly the case with two brothers who are the polar opposite of each other, with one being a responsible family man and the other being a spontaneous free spirit, as they embark on an impromptu journey to reconnect with each other. As they strive to rebuild their estranged relationship in the new independent comedy, ‘Awful Nice,’ from co-writer and director Todd Sklar, which is now available on VOD and iTunes, and opens in theaters tomorrow, they meet an unsuspecting waitress they disastrously pull into [ Read More ]

The post Interview: Keeley Hazell Talks Awful Nice appeared first on Shockya.com.

The relationship between brothers can be one both loving and competitive, and both of those qualities are right up front in the upcoming comedy "Awful Nice." Co-written and directed by Todd Sklar, and based on his short film “'92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card,” film stars James Pumphrey, Alex Rennie, Christopher Meloni, Brett Gelman, and Keeley Hazell, and tells the story Jim and Davie, brothers who haven't seen each other in years, who are reunited when their father dies, and must take a trip to redeem their inheritance. And that's the start of a mishap filled series of misadventures, and in this clip, we see the pair take their rivalry to absurd levels. "Awful Nice" opens on March 7th. Watch below.

Director Todd Sklar’s new brothers comedy, ‘Awful Nice,’ is bringing familial camaraderie to theaters with the film’s release. Screen Media Films will distribute the film, which Sklar co-wrote with Alex Rennie, on March 7. ‘Awful Nice,’ which debuted at last year’s SXSW, stars James Pumphrey, Alex Rennie, Christopher Meloni, Brett Gelman and Keeley Hazell. Screen Media Films has released the following synopsis for the comedy: Todd Sklar’s ‘Awful Nice’ centers on estranged brothers Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (Alex Rennie) who are forced to travel to Branson together to renovate and flip the lake house they’ve inherited from their just-deceased father. A series of hilarious mishaps and costly misadventures follow [ Read More ]

The post Brothers Become Awful Nice in Todd Sklar’s New Comedy Release appeared first on Shockya.com.

Chicago – On Tuesday, December 3rd, the Midwest Independent Film Festival will award their “Best of the Midwest” honors with a ceremony at The Underground Nightclub in Chicago. The evening will be hosted by Festival Director Mike McNamara, and nominees include “The Kings of Summer,” directed by Justin Vogt-Roberts, “Sole Survivor,” directed by Ky Dickens and “Be Good,” directed by Todd Looby.

The ‘Best of the Midwest’ Awards Are Tuesday, December 3rd

Photo credit: MidwestFilm.com

The Midwest Independent Film Festival is a year-round movie event in Chicago that takes place the first Tuesday of every month, at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. The festival has been named by Chicago Magazine in their “Best of Chicago” issue, and has become one of the top places for local filmmakers, producers and actors to network in the city.

The nominees for the “Best of the Midwest” Awards are as follows….

Best Music Video...

Cleverly expanding upon the narrative set-up from his short film '92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card, Todd Sklar takes the story of two hapless brothers brought together by their father's funeral and shows us the aftermath. Awful Nice essentially begins with a replay of '92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card, as Jim (James Pumphrey) tracks his brother Dave (Alex Rennie) and bribes him into returning to Minnesota for their father's funeral. It quickly becomes apparent why these two siblings have grown so far apart. They do not like each other -- you might even say that they detest each other. Fist fights and wrestling matches are inevitable, but after their father's funeral they still decide to go on a road trip together to Branson, Mo. Why? Well, they plan on selling their family's summer home in order to cash in on their inheritance.

AFI Fest 2013 presented by Audi, a program of the American Film Institute, today announced the remaining sections and films that will screen in the festival’s World Cinema, American Independents, Breakthrough, Midnight, Cinema’s Legacy and Presentations programs. AFI Fest, which redefines Hollywood today as a place where icons and emerging artists bring audiences together to experience global cinema in the movie capital of the world, will take place November 7 through 14 at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

World Cinema showcases the most anticipated and prize-winning international films of the year, the American Independents section features work by U.S. filmmakers, Breakthrough highlights work discovered only through the blind submission process, Midnight’s selections tend toward the macabre and Cinema’s Legacy highlights restorations and classic films.

This year’s program includes the return of several filmmakers to AFI Fest...

The distributor has acquired Us rights to Todd Sklar’s comedy and has earmarked a spring 2014 theatrical and VOD release preceded by a nationwide college tour of event screenings and interactive parties through Sklar’s Range Life.

Awful Nice premiered at SXSW and stars James Pumphrey and Alex Rennie as estranged brothers forced to flip their recently deceased father’s house.

Screen Media president Suzanne Blech and manager of acquisitions and marketing Seth Needle brokered the deal with CAA for the producers.

Jason Krigsfeld and Joseph Krigsfeld of Brothers K Productions produced with Michael Forstein, Adam Paulsen, Sklar, Maury Steinman and Brock Williams.

To call director Todd Sklar's sense of humor peculiar is to understate the weird and wacky no-holds-barred comedy we've come to know in his work. One look at his hit short '92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card and his punch-you-in-the-balls style will be apparent. With Awful Nice, that short has now seen the feature adaptation treatment, and if the small version had you chuckling, the super-sized package will have you in stitches As seen in 92Samrc, the story begins when Jim (James Pumphrey) finds his brother Dave (Alex Rennie) passed out in a wigwam and bribes him into driving back to Minnesota with him to attend their father's funeral. Drinking contests turn into fist fights and eventually Jim and Dave set out for Branson,...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Director Todd Sklar's short film, brazenly titled "'92 Skybox Alonso Mourning Rookie Card," followed a pair of estranged brothers drawn together by the untimely passing of their father. At less than 13 minutes, it managed to economically set up two aimless characters and let them run wild to comic effect, culminating with a kitchen food fight for the ages. Before either their crude personalities or the relentless virile jokes grew tiresome, it was over. No such luck with "Awful Nice," Sklar's feature-length treatment of the material, which resembles the short in spirit but takes its puerile energy to a tedious extreme. At the same time, Sklar and his cast display an admirable commitment to the zany task at hand, attempting to inject nearly ever scene with caustic wit. Brothers Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (Alex Rennie) are both unruly in their own distinct ways that pull them out of reality.

After self-releasing his first feature film, Box Elder, around the country in 2008, director Todd Sklar has had a successful run of it with major U.S. film festivals. His short ’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card premiered at Sundance in 2012, which he has made into the feature Awful Nice. Co-written by Sklar and Alex Rennie, Awful Nice follows the misadventures of two brothers who travel back home to Branson, Missouri, to put their recently deceased father’s estate in order. Starring Christopher Meloni, Alex Rennie, and James Pumphrey, Awful Nice premiers in the Narrative Feature Competition category tomorrow at SXSW. Filmmaker: Awful Nice is an expansion …...

This is one of the rare moments in one’s life when jury duty calls…. you emphatically say, yes. Yours truly is headed to the 2013 edition of the SXSW Film Festival as one-third of jury for the fest’s Narrative Feature Competition. On this site, we heart film festivals for their uniqueness, quirks, rebel attitude, flamboyancy, spirit and how the top fests all individually contribute in shaping up a given year in film – and the cornerstone signs are that when you’re running a quality fest is when you look back at the previous editions and take inventory of the gem discoveries that were offered.

As film critics we can’t help but continually rank, sort, classify the films we see… so this juror gig doesn’t come across as unfamiliar terrain, but its definitively a privileged position when you care about film and the filmmakers the way we all...

South by Southwest (SXSW) is just one of many film festivals, we here at Sound On Sight cover yearly. The fest, which takes place every spring in Austin, Texas, began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. The fest announced the first wave of films back in early January, and the lineup included some highly anticipated films such as The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Evil Dead, Downloaded and Spring Breakers. Now the full lineup has been announced, and it just might be one of the best lineups the festival has ever programmed.

SXSW takes place March 8-16 in Austin Texas. Here are just some of the films we are excited about.

Narrative Feature Competition – This year’s 8 films were selected from 1,191 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.

Awful Nice

Director/Screenwriter: Todd Sklar, Screenwriter: Alex Rennie

Estranged brothers Jim and Dave must travel to Branson together when...

Some of the best films of the 2012/2013 calender year from Richard Linklater, Harmony Korine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Andrew Bujalski, Jeff Nichols, David Gordon Green, Shane Carruth and Joshua Oppenheimer are among the headliner names for the 2013 edition of the South by Southwest Film Festival. With a little over 100 plus film line-up (a whopping 2000+ titles were submitted), almost 70 are world premieres: there is the highly anticipated sophomore film (that has been on our radar since it first went into production) with M. Blash’s (The Wait), Joe Swanberg who makes SXSW his second home will premiere Drinking Buddies, veteran indie filmmaker John Sayles saddles in with Go For Sisters, and rounding out the Narrative Spotlight section we’ve got The Bounceback from Bryan Poyser, Loves Her Gun from Geoff Marslett along with titles we thought might break into Park City, but found an Austin home instead with Jacob Vaughan’s Milo and...

A few weeks ago, the opening night movie at SXSW, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone — plus a handful more choice titles, such as Spring Breakers and the Evil Dead remake — were announced, but today the full line-up was unveiled. As ever, there’s a ton of titles here by directors we know little or nothing about — SXSW is a true discovery festival — but there’s also a fair amount here that grabs the attention straight away. In the narrative competition section, there are new films from Todd Sklar, Chris Eska (August Evening) and former “25 New Faces” alum Destin Daniel …...

Now in its 20th year, the South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival is set to invade Austin, Texas between March 8-16. The fest’s organisers have sent out the list of movies that will feature and it includes some doozies, with screenings of Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, not to mention the world premiere of both Evil Dead and the new Steve Carell/Jim Carrey magician comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.With 69 world premieres among the 109 movies showing, including 68 from first-time filmmakers, the festival is known for finding hidden gems and giving other movies a welcome boost.The narrative feature competition this year includes Todd Sklar’s Awful Nice, Carlos Puga’s Burma, Improvement Club from Dayna Hanson, Licks directed by Jonathan Singer-Vine, Chris Eska’s The Retrieval, Short Term 12 from Destin Daniel Cretton, Ruben Amar’s Swim Little Fish Swim...

AFI Fest 2012 presented by Audi, a program of the American Film Institute, today announced the remaining sections and films that will screen in the festival.s World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight and Shorts programs. AFI Fest, which annually presents the best of world cinema in the movie capital of the world, will take place November 1 through 8 at the historic Grauman.s Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

World Cinema showcases the most anticipated and prize-winning international films of the year, Breakthrough highlights work discovered only through the submission process and Midnight.s selections are always haunting. Both World Cinema and Breakthrough feature a number of films making their North American or U.S. Premieres, including The Angels. Share, Greatest Hits, Laurence Anyways, Nairobi Half Life, Pieta, White Elephant and Zaytoun.

Two of the shorts in competition are from AFI Conservatory.s recent class of...

Today, AFI 2012 announced its complete lineup, after previously debuting its New Auteurs, Young Americans, Galas and Special Screenings we finally get a look at the Midnight, Breakthrough, Shorts, and deliriously good World Cinema Selections.

The Shorts section, with almost too many to count, features new work from Nacho Vigalando, Nicolas Provost, and even Shia Labeouf (Cannes selected), among many others. The four Midnight titles all played in Tiff 2012’s Midnight Madness selection, and here we see John Dies at the End making a stop here after originally premiering at Sundance. They’ve nabbed three North American premieres in their Breakthrough section, including Kid from Fien Troch, Nairobi Half Life from David Tosh Gitonga, and Oh Boy from Jan Ole Gerster. But AFI has managed to really impress with it’s World Cinema selections. Just as they nabbed Cannes premiere Holy Motors for their Special Screenings, they’ve nabbed several high...

Filly Brown director Youssef Delara and his wife agreed to have their photo taken by me in the shuttle from Salt Lake to Park City…even after they had been traveling for the last 24-hours. They were complete champs and Youssef didn’t even seem all that tired. He kept up with all my annoying questions, and was excited and eager for Filly Brown‘s premiere today.

Friday morning was the perfect mix of snowy but not too cold, and still quiet before the masses arrived in Park City for the 2012 festival.

Sundance Channel Headquarters promotes tagging your message.

Welcome to the New York Lounge in Park City! Enjoy free bagels, coffee, and conferences on distribution, film financing, marketing, and production. Hosted by the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture & Television Development, the lounge was one of the most popular spots for filmmakers and moviegoers on Main Street…...

Ken Jacobs' Seeking The Monkey King, Alexis Dos Santos' Random Strangers and the Cannes winning Nash Edgerton's Bear are part of the shorts program which this year is comprised of 64 films selected from a whopping 7,675 submissions. Among the titles that have caught our attention we find actress Brie Larson getting behind the camera for The Arm, The Safdie brothers continue what they do best which is an output of films in all lengths (The Black Balloon), we have one fourth of Kyle Henry short film collage in Fourplay: Tampa and also in the U.S. Narrative section of 32 we have one of our 2010 American New Wave 25 selected individuals who brings The Fort to the fest (see pic above). Other new shorts worth noting come from Lucy Walker who visited Japan's devastated zone coming up with the short docu The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, we have Don Hertzfeldt...

Barring any late additions or surprises, the full lineup for the 2012 edition of the Sundance Film Festival (January 19 through 29) is now complete. We've seen the the Competition and Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, Next <=> and New Frontier lineups, the Premieres and the Documentary Premieres. Today's the festival's unveiled its Short Film program. Once again, straight from the release:

U.S. Short Films

This year's 32 U.S. short films were selected from 4,083 submissions.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (Director: Todd Sklar, Screenwriters: Todd Sklar, Alex Rennie) — Jim and Dave are brothers who haven't spoken in years and don't like each other very much, but are forced to come together for a week when their dad dies in Kansas City. A limited edition 1992 Skybox Series Alonzo Mourning rookie card is a point of contention.

The Arm (Directors and screenwriters: Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis) — In an...

Below are the titles selected to screen in the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

See films in competition. See films in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, Next and New Frontier sections. See films in Premieres section.

64 films have been selected from a record 7,675 submissions (up 16% from last year).

This year the shorts program will be presented by Yahoo!. Part of their sponsorship includes featuring a select group of shorts from this year on their premium video destination, Yahoo! Screen during the fest. There you will be able to vote on your favorite and the winner will be presented with the Yahoo! Audience Award at the end of the fest.

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival takes place Jan. 19-29.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (Director: Todd Sklar, Screenwriters: Todd Sklar, Alex Rennie) — Jim and Dave are brothers who haven’t spoken in years...

For our Fall 2008 issue we highlighted Missouri filmmaker Todd Sklar, who embarked on a Diy road trip with his film Box Elder and three others, screening at arthouses and colleges throughout the midwest.

Sklar is now in production on his next feature, Awful Nice, through his Range Life Entertainment company.

Shot in Branson, Missouri, the film follows estranged brothers Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (Alex Rennie) as they return to Branson to renovate the vacation home that their recently deceased father left them.

Sklar co-wrote the script with Rennie. Shooting begins in Branson next week and will end in mid November.

Sklar recently wrapped on a short film version of the story titled ’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (the card is behind one of the brothers’ fights) that he hopes to screen in festivals before locking picture on Awful Nice. “One thing I noticed at a lot of festivals over...