Directed by Jeremiah Zagar ​ Starring Evan Rosado, Isaiah Kristian, Josiah Gabriel ​ Raúl Castillo & Sheila Vand

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL SCREENINGS Saturday, Jan. 20th at 12:00pm - Library Center Theatre - World Premiere *Sunday, Jan. 21st at 1:00pm - Holiday Village, Cinema 4 - P&I* Monday, Jan. 22nd at 9:00am - The Ray Wednesday, Jan. 24th at 6:00pm. - Salt Lake City Library Theatre Thursday, Jan. 25th at 1:00pm - Redstone Cinema 2 Friday, Jan. 26th at 3:00pm - Sundance Mountain Resort Screening Room Saturday, January 27th at 2:30pm - Egyptian Theatre

2017 / 90 mins. / Drama / USA / Color / English

Publicity Contacts Sales Contacts ​ PMK•BNC Cinetic Media Omar Gonzales/ [email protected] John Sloss / [email protected] ​ Sara Sampson/ [email protected] Eric Sloss / [email protected] ​ 212.373.6120 212.204.7979

LOGLINE

Us three, us brothers, us kings. Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through childhood and push against the volatile love of their parents. As Manny and Joel grow into versions of their father and Ma dreams of escape, Jonah, the youngest, embraces an imagined world all his own.

SYNOPSIS

Us three. Us brothers. Us kings, inseparable. Three boys tear through their rural New York hometown, in the midst of their young parents’ volatile love that makes and unmakes the family many times over. While Manny and Joel grow into versions of their loving and unpredictable father, Ma seeks to keep her youngest, Jonah, in the cocoon of home. More sensitive and conscious than his older siblings, Jonah increasingly embraces an imagined world all his own.

With a screenplay by Dan Kitrosser and Jeremiah Zagar based on the celebrated Justin Torres We the Animals novel, ​ is a visceral coming-of-age story propelled by layered performances from its astounding cast – including three talented, young first-time actors - and stunning animated sequences which bring Jonah’s torn inner world to life. Drawing from his documentary background, director Jeremiah Zagar creates an immersive portrait of working class family life and brotherhood.

About WE THE ANIMALS ​ In September 2011, author JUSTIN TORRES published a novel based around his personal experiences We The Animals growing up in upstate New York. Titled ​ ​, the book features three young boys, their Puerto Rican father and Italian-Irish mother, who began the family when they were teenagers, as was the case in his own family. It contains “All the hard facts of my life,” says the author, “but the incidents of the book are invention. I had wanted to write about a childhood similar to my own, and the slow, gradual process of individuation, of coming into your own.”

Meanwhile, from 2002-2008, documentary filmmaker and editor JEREMIAH ZAGAR was developing a film about his own family – his mother and his father, a renowned and quirky mosaic artist in Zagar’s In a Dream, native Philadelphia. The result was the ​ ​produced by a childhood friend of Zagar’s, JEREMY YACHES. The film went on to premiere at SXSW before being picked up by HBO and launched The Square Jeremiah into a robust documentary career. In 2012, Zagar lent his editing eye to ​ ​(Sundance Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, 2013), and went on to direct a documentary for HBO, ​ ​which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As his documentary efforts were taking off, Zagar was looking for a narrative film to craft, something he had always been driven to create.

One afternoon, Jeremiah popped into McNally Jackson, a bookstore on Prince Street in Soho (where, We The Animals incidentally, Torres had worked a few years prior). Zagar spotted ​ in the “We Recommend” display on the counter. “I picked it up,” he recalls, “and read the first page, and the first words of the book were ‘We wanted more.’ It was a mindblowing first page. I read the whole book right there in the store cafe. It just grabbed me. I thought, ‘I have to make this into a movie.’”

Zagar reached out to Torres. Justin had already heard from other producers expressing interest, but, the author notes, “They were all very vague. Most of it was ‘I want to buy the rights to this.’ Nobody said ‘I want to make a film out of this book, and here’s how we’re going to do it’ – until Jeremiah.” The two met at a bar and sat outside. “He just talked about the book, and he talked about it with real intelligence and depth,” continues Torres. “Jeremiah is smart about art and the aesthetic world. I could tell he knew In a what he was doing and had passion and motivation to do something great.” Notes Zagar, “Justin saw ​ Dream We The Animals ​, and could see the similarities to ​ ​: a brutal love of family and expression. So there was a kinship right away.”

To craft the screenplay, Zagar turned to Dan Kitrosser, a longtime friend and playwright.

As Kitrosser recalled, “[Jeremiah] told me about the scene at the lake, about this boy who was drowning, and then he swam. There was something really cathartic for him about that image.” The two began working on writing – even several months before signing the deal with Torres’s publisher – out of Zagar’s apartment on the Lower East Side. They continued for nearly four years, meeting two or three days a week, having lunches for four or five hours or walking around, having coffee and talking.

“Dan’s a great partner for me. I’m more of a myopic thinker, and he’s more of a global thinker with tons of ideas,” Zagar relates. The director would often expound on his visual interpretations of the story on their walks, after which, Kitrosser says, “It would be my job to put that into nuts and bolts words on a page that you could read and conjure that image yourself.”

Kitrosser also brought key elements of his personal experience to the writing , says Zagar. “Dan is gay, and I’m not. And it was very important for us to make sure that the gay perspective was authentic.” Kitrosser could easily relate to the story’s protagonist. “That was something that spoke to me from the very beginning,” he recalls. “I remember, as a kid, being so aware of everybody’s bodies constantly, and

what I shouldn’t look at and what I should. That was something very tied to my sexuality, and something that was really palpable in the book.”

Their adaptation was, as Zagar puts it, “a screen translation, not a rewrite of the book. We wanted to remain as true to the book as possible, while making sure it was applicable to the screen.” “A lot of the dialogue is from the book,” says Torres, “but there are also things people in my life would have said. It was uncanny to watch.”

There were a few important modifications, the most notable of which was keeping the protagonist at a young age throughout the story, rather than following him until he’s a teenager. The protagonist is also given a name, Jonah, in the film, whereas in the book he is an unnamed narrator, a quiet observer soaking in much more than he can handle, Torres notes.

Once the script had reached a solid stage, Zagar, Yaches and Kitrosser participated in the IFP [Independent Film Labs] in September 2013 and the SUNDANCE INSTITUTE Writers Lab the following year. “They really helped us figure out and synthesize what we really wanted,” Zagar says. The creative advisers also made an important suggestion, Kitrosser says. “One of the notes we got at Sundance was that they wanted to feel the difference between the boys. When we started, we wrote Jonah as the watcher, and all three boys were essentially the same. Their lines were interchangeable, because we were writing them as a unit.” As a result of the labs, Jonah and his siblings, became quite distinct.

Not long after, CINEREACH, with producers ANDREW GOLDMAN and PAUL MEZEY, came aboard to produce the project. “Andrew and Paul are really amazing with narratives,” Zagar says. Adds Yaches, “They brought so much to the process. They held our hands through the whole thing and were deeply involved..”

Rounding out the production team was CHRISTINA D. KING, who first started working with Zagar and Yaches in 2006, by helping launch In A Dream at SXSW. King brought production experience in ​ narrative film and scripted television to the largely non-fiction team.

Finding a Family

Casting began in 2014, with the search for the three boys taking the longest, spanning a full 18 months. NOELLE GENTILE, an acting teacher in the Albany area who helped with casting, and was the boy’s acting coach during production, describes the challenge the team faced. “It’s one thing to find one young person who just nails it,” she says, “but to find three boys who look like they could be brothers, have the chemistry and characteristics of each of those characters, and are the appropriate height and age, made it complicated.”

The production originally saw young professional actors, but quickly realized that would not work. Says Zagar, “The most important thing was that they needed to be real kids. We weren’t asking somebody to be somebody they weren’t. We were casting young people who were comfortable in their own skin and who were really already almost the characters that we needed them to be, and who had something ineffable.”

Casting associate MARLENA SKROBE was “resourceful and tenacious,” King says. “She set up any and every auditions at schools, going to ​ Latino and Puerto Rican Day parade or community group, Police Athletic Leagues’ summer programs – trying to pinpoint any kids that just had that magic in them.”

Most of the scouting took place in New York City and surrounding boroughs, though eventually the search moved north, to the town of Amsterdam, which has a high Latino population. “Marlena would walk up to a parent and say, ‘Does your kid want to be in a movie?’ Because that’s just crazy, it took a very long time, seeing anywhere from 5 to 10 kids at a time – and we eventually saw over 1000 kids.”

Gentile employed a a non-traditional casting process to evoke the best from children who had never acted before. Instead of having them sit in a room reading the script, Gentile set up exercises to explore the natural storyteller in the boys, to see what their range might be. “We also needed to see if they could handle long hours on a set, and stay in character,” she explains. “Once we were narrowing down our search, we spent long days together, trying out scenes, both improv and using the book.” Adds King, “Noelle would go to work on these kids and she would find the actor in them. It was amazing, to watch some of these kids transform or be able to cry on cue.”

In addition to testing their potential as actors, Gentile and Zagar also needed to see if groups of boys could play as brothers. “There was a lot of chemistry pairing, says King. “We would go to the park and just play football for the afternoon, just to see if they felt like brothers.” ”

As for looking like real brothers, that’s no coincidence, says Yaches. “We made sure they all had the same haircut, all dressed a certain way, even dyed their hair. All of our departments came together to make them true brothers.”

ISAIAH KRISTIAN and JOSIAH GABRIEL (Manny and Joel, respectively) were found relatively early in the process, having responded to printed flyers put up in schools and community centers. Finding Jonah took a great deal more time. “We initially wanted to shoot in the summer of 2015, but we just didn’t have our main character,” Yaches explains. Fortunately, Cinereach was supportive of us waiting another year,” The film ending up shooting the following summer.

For Jonah, says Gentile, the actor needed “to have this really beautiful, quiet, natural, raw honesty about him – but then also had to be explosive.” They found such a person in EVAN ROSADO, first spotted by Skrobe at a Puerto Rican Day parade. “He literally has an ethereal quality to him, which kind of blows my mind,” relates Zagar, who describes Evan as “incredibly easy to be with, and comfortable around people, and, at the same time, always in his own world. You are always looking at him and asking, ‘What is is this boy thinking? Where is he off to?’ He’s a dreamer – he ​ that young dreamer kid.” Adds SHEILA VAND, who plays Jonah’s mother, “He just has this energy to him and this sensitivity. There is so little you really need to do when you’re acting opposite him. You can just look at that sweet face and feel a million things.”

Once all three were decided upon, Gentile ran the three through an additional 6 to 8 months of acting exercises. “You could see these kids had incredible work ethic and dedication, says Zagar. “You could tell they were ready for everything,” adds Kitrosser. “They had the emotional depth and maturity to handle the work it takes to deliver these performances.”

As a result of the careful casting and preparation, the brothers kinship comes through, as does the chasm between the older boys and Jonah.“As a younger brother,” says Kitrosser, “you walk through the world with others who have already stepped through. Paths are already carved, whether or not it’s the path that you want to walk through.” Jonah tries to fit in and follow, as his older brothers are shoplifting or fighting or making trouble, “But it’s not innate for him. And Evan Rosado, his eyes tell that story of somebody who’s wide-eyed and receiving everything, and then also taking small steps of his own agency which feel outside the track.”

Casting the roles of the boys’ loving, but volatile, parents wasn’t quite as challenging, but no less key. For both Ma and Paps (pronounced “Pops,” and derived from the Puerto Rican “Papi”), Zagar explains, “We had to find people that were likeable, despite their flaws. Actors who made these characters real, instead of caricatures. We so often want to demonize people who do terrible things, but these parents are not monsters; they had to be people.”

When it came to casting Paps, Zagar remembers RAUL CASTILLO’S audition being “fantastic”. But Looking despite Castillo’s fame on the hit HBO show ​ ​, it was actually Raul’s performance in a small, independent short film that intrigued Zagar the most.

Castillo, raised in South Texas with parents from Tamaulipas in northern Mexico, had moved to Boston at age 17 to study acting, arriving in New York in 2002, where he has worked since. “I come from a family of non-artists, where we didn’t necessarily always express our feelings, and jumped into a craft where that’s actually a requirement,” the actor states. “So I understand about being an expressive person in a family where that’s not necessarily always encouraged. It’s the modus operandi in a lot of families.”

When he first read the breakdown for the character, Castillo didn’t think he would end up getting the part. But after digging into the script and reading Torres’s book – “I realized I was seeing a world that was so complex, more than I had at first understood it to be. By the time I finished reading the script, I fell in love with it.” The sensitivity – and reality – of the family “was clearly done with such care. I wanted to go in and read for the role, and see who’s telling this story.”

Present at his audition, unbeknownst to Castillo, was Torres, himself a great fan of the actor. “Raúl’s photo came up,” he recalls, “and there he was in front of us!” It was quickly clear, he notes, “Raúl got Paps.” The actor soon began digging in, wanting to know more. “We had a few phone conversations after he was cast. He called me and wanted to talk, to ask me questions about my real father, as well as the father in the book. He just knew him. It didn’t take any kind of translation.”

Another interaction helped push Zagar into choosing Castillo. “He actually came to my house and spent a day with my first-born child,” says Zagar. “We shot some scenes of Asher with [Raul] in the bathtub, which, for me, is very emblematic of the intimacy necessary for the film. It felt so organic and so real immediately with him, doing that, it was clear to me that he was the right person for the role.”

Paps, Castillo describes, “is a very charismatic, charming guy. As quickly as he can blow up and be this authoritarian, violent person, he’s also incredibly loving and warm and charming and dynamic. He’s incredibly fun to be around, I think, when he’s in a good mood.”

“Paps is a kid,” explains Kitrosser. “He got three kids way too fast, and couldn’t stay with the family structure” – both his and Ma’s parents tossing the teens out of their family homes upon learning of the first pregnancy when Ma was 14 and Paps 16, forcing them to move upstate to raise their children. “He’s an out of place New Yorker, who now lives in upstate. He doesn’t have a pack – so his kids are his pack.” Notes Castillo, “I think the relationship between a mother and her children and a father and his children are vastly different. Our fathers are the first male figures that we see and we compare ourselves to, as boys growing up. And for better or worse, Paps is these boys’ first encounter with manhood.”

Veteran casting director, Ann Goulder auditioned over 350 actresses, before finding the perfect spouse for Paps, just three months before start of production. “Once we had Raúl,” says Zagar, “we had to find somebody with whom he had a sexual, emotional and visceral chemistry. And someone who could play a mom, but also play a child at the same time. It was not an easy role to cast.”

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night Actress Sheila Vand, (​ ​, TNT’s Snowpiercer), read the script and, she says, “I knew I was obsessed with the role.” Though she avoided reading the book until she actually got the part, once she did, she says, “I was so moved by the brutal honesty of it, and how rich and complex the characters were.” She felt similarly comfortable with Zagar’s approach,“that he was very open in the way he shared about his own family, and his very intimate storytelling style. So I knew this was going to be a really meaningful experience that I wanted to be a part of.”

“She was up for the same level of intimacy that Raúl was,” Zagar says “She had an emotional quality that was key for the role.” Castillo agrees. “We had a lot of good actresses come in and read for the role. But Sheila came in, and just had this wildness to her that was so evidently Ma. There was an ease, the way we related to one another. She was easy to love, easy to fight with and easy to be vulnerable around. Both Jeremiah and I were really excited about the way she came in and threw her kid gloves off and was ready to get down and dirty. She was a force of nature. It was great to have somebody like that to play off and try to contain. And she didn’t let me off the hook easily.”

It didn’t hurt that, by chance, Vand happened to look uncannily like Torres’s own mother at that age. “I was traveling in Germany with some friends when I got her video,” he recalls. “I showed my friends Sheila’s audition, and they all went, ‘Wait – what’s going on? That’s your mother!’”

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night Unlike her character in 2014’s Sundance Film Festival title ​ ​, who was fairly reserved and quiet, Vand was getting to play a character who had layers of complexity, something which had immediate appeal. “She’s very complicated. Something I got from the book, that I definitely wanted to maintain in the performance, was how volatile and fragile Ma can be. She’s both fragile and tough, both open and guarded. Justin would talk about how she can really swing hard between emotions. You see it in the film – she can be screaming one moment and feel joyful the next. And she goes from being catatonic to making jokes. So I had to be on my toes, emotionally at all times in the process, so that I had access to all those places she goes, emotionally.”

Vand took advantage of both the book and the presence of its author on the set, during filming, reading the chapter each evening for the scene being filmed the following morning. “It was nice to have it, as a kind of instruction manual on Ma. And Justin was there on set every day and was an open resource for any questions we might have. If I ever felt any doubt about a certain choice, I could get some definitive guidance.” Her portrayal was not locked into the character strictly described in the book, however. “Because of his background in documentary, Jeremiah always said he wanted me to make Ma my own. He really wanted to capture something that felt authentic to me, versus me putting a character ‘on.’ So she’s a combination of some real life details with parts that resounded most in me.”

Ma and Paps’s simmering relationship is based on one core fact. “She is madly in love with him,” Vand states. Even when Paps is rough on her and leaves home – and then returns, she notes, “It’s not that Ma lets Paps back in because she’s weak or doesn’t get it, she lets him back because she wants it to work. Because she’s madly in love with him. And Justin and Jeremiah embrace those complexities – they’re not afraid to go into the gray area of the way we love each other. It’s not a black and white thing.”

The pair have a wild sexual chemistry, Kitrosser explains. “They’re loud, they’re pushy, they’re volatile. And they’re trapped together. They’re isolated from family and friends, they’re exhausted from work and from not working, and from the constant stress of putting food on the table, which doesn’t feel like a given every day. So there are times when the only power they can exact from the world is upon each other. But that never calls into question the love they have. It just makes it that much more difficult.”

When that frustration does come out, it sometimes does so violently. “I think violence and abuse come in

cycles,” Castillo says. “Paps may be the byproduct of a similar kind of abuse he suffered, and one which he enacts on his own family.” The actor was keen to avoid judging his character as a simple ruffian. “I tend to think there are no good or bad people – there are people who do good and bad things. It’s my job, as an actor, to try to understand where he’s coming from and why he does the things that he does – why he treats the people that he loves the most the way that he does.”

In this family, Zagar says, it’s not so simple. “The kind of love I understood growing up was complicated – a hug and a scream weren’t as different as you’d want them to be. The lines are very gray - and Justin expresses that nuance beautifully.”

Observing violence between parents as children, as the boys do, increases the likelihood that the “infection” will continue, though it’s up to the child if that will be the case. “When you’re young,” says Zagar, “you see violence differently than when you’re older. When you’re young, you don’t exactly understand it. The movie’s trying to grapple with what violence means, and what it’s going to mean, and how they’re going to translate that violence.” The way the boys view their father’s abuse changes throughout the film. “At first it’s unclear. And as it becomes more and more clear, you either decide to embrace that violence or step away from it. You may see that violence in yourself, and that may scare you. You may see it in others. And you may embrace it or you may not.” Adds Kitrosser, “We’re watching these kids, in slow motion, become their father. They tap into rage as a shortcut to processing whatever they have going on.”

What makes Jonah different from his brothers, though, is that he begins to translate those realities. Zagar says, “Rather than just perpetrating violence, he begins to process his violence. And by processing and interpreting it, he begins to understand that he doesn’t need it.”

“If this movie was all brutality, it wouldn’t be an accurate depiction of life,” Zagar states. “Life is filled with joy and love and pain. And in our deepest moments of pain come our deepest moments of love. And this family lives in extremes.”

One thing that is evident, regardless of the family’s propensity for mayhem, is the presence of love, even in terrible times. That was incredibly important to Torres. “I was always insistent that this not be a kind of ‘poverty porn.’ I didn’t want it to be about domestic violence in this way, that is just easy cliché. I didn’t want it to be about this kind of miserable Dickensian existence, in which there isn’t grace or love or beauty. Cause I don’t think that’s honest – not in my experience of most of the working poor that I know.”

Torres adds “It was incredibly important to me – and, always, to Jeremiah – that the film portrays a family where the members are all deeply in love with one another,” he says. “There is an abundance of love – and there’s also an excess of emotion, and an excess of passion. There’s incredible economic pressure and of race and culture, all bearing down on them. And they fuck up, all the time. And I think that’s life.”

Making We The Animals ​ WE THE ANIMALS was shot in the summer over a 27 day period, from 7/11/16 - 8/13/16. The team returned to the location in February 2017 for another 6 days of shooting for a very specific purpose. “We wanted to see the boys grow up onscreen,” Zagar says. “I wanted their aging to be literal, not acted,” and to observe a true passage of time. (Inserts for the journal were created a few months later, and additional

pickups were filmed in December 2017.)

The film was shot by director of photography ZAK MULLIGAN, with whom Zagar, Yaches and King had worked on commercial shoots for Zagar and Yaches’ production company Public Record, as well as Always a Fire shooting Zagar’s 2012 short,, ​ ​. “Zak was the only person we considered for this film,” says Yaches. “Jeremiah is very comfortable with him – they had a rhythm.”

“Jeremiah and I share a similar aesthetic, which has its roots in vérité documentary, but mixes with more constructed, stylized elements,” the cinematographer states. “That particular style, of handheld shooting with wide lenses close to the subject, has really grown on me. That technique is used throughout the film to give the audience a sense of being among the characters, and not just watching them.

The movie was shot almost entirely on 16mm film (the team used the RED Weapon digital camera system for nighttime and low light photography). Zagar had always wanted to shoot on film for an important aesthetic reason. “This film takes place in the 90s,” Yaches says, “and when you want to convey that kind of nostalgia, it’s hard to get people in that frame of mind when you’re watching it not through a really crisp digital image that you know is ​ ​ 90s.” “It was a big part of the look we were going for,” says Mulligan. “We tested several formats, but really felt that film was right for this project. We were using the visual language of the period, with the emotional immediacy that close up handheld photography provides. But the format is timeless, giving a distant feeling, like a memory. It was perfect.”

We The Animals The presence of a documentary filmmaker behind the camera paid off in spades for ​ ​, Zagar bringing a true handheld cinema vérité style to his storytelling. We’re not watching a film about a family – we’re watching a family. “It’s very much a reference to the early films of Ken Loach of the 1960s,” the director states. “We wanted to combine that kind of social realism with a more poetic Ratcatcher language, but also a more commercially-minded language,” drawing on films like 1999’s ​ ​, by The Tin Drum British filmmaker Lynne Ramsey, and Volker Schlöndorff’s 1979 Oscar winner, ​ ​.” Zagar had the entire film storyboarded prior to production – with every single shot hand-painted by an artist named Hugo Costa, a Portuguese architect and watercolor artist with a huge following. Costa happened to be in the States at the time and “thought it might be a fun thing to do,” says Yaches. “I don’t think he quite realized what he was getting himself into.” The artist was brought up to location during scouting, painting his watercolor masterpieces at the actual locations, even providing various angles Zagar hoped to capture. “We then took those specific images and tried to shoot them to make it feel like an old Ken Loach movie,” he says.

Storyboards for Jonah Kisses Ma scene

Jonah’s Journal

One of the most important – and most unique – narrative tools Zagar uses in the film is Jonah’s journal. In a family where complex emotions simply don’t get talked out.. “It’s a device we use to help you understand the private space of this young boy and how he’s processing what he sees,” the director explains. “And in this family, in a house that intentionally has no doors – just curtains – there is no privacy. They all live together, they all hear everything. They all feel everything. And even though Jonah desperately wants a private, secret world, the reality of him actually having that is very, very difficult. So under the bed was our place where he could achieve that private world.”

In Torres’s novel, the journal only appears in the last part of the book, when it is discovered by his family. But Zagar and Kitrosser wanted it there to illustrate Jonah’s journey throughout the film. “”“We wanted to create a device where you understood that Jonah was slowly separating from his family,” Zagar explains, “and the journal was how he was slowly separating.”

He not only writes in it, but draws, as well – everything from depictions of his near-drowning, his budding sexuality, the violence between his parents, and how he sees his escape from all of it – all in ways that are fun and creative, while, at the same time, potentially disturbing. “It’s a catalog of desire, and a lot of desire that’s really messed up and angsty,” Torres explains. “That’s what journals are. It’s a place to dump a lot of stuff that’s inside of you that you don’t quite know what to do with. And you’re writing for a private audience of one – and not even for any purpose of being read again later by you or

anyone else. Because if they did, they would think, ‘Oh, my God – this is disturbed ramblings of somebody with real problems.’”

How to depict the journal – and, more importantly, the things going through Jonah’s mind – was a fun creative challenge for the filmmakers. “We talked about what to do with the journal a lot,” explains Torres. “He’s younger than in the book, so it was tricky to determine what level of sophistication you could have.”

In the scenes where Jonah is writing and drawing, what he creates sometimes transitions to or from live action images from the film . Such an approach was innate for a documentary filmmaker who loves to “ In a Dream work in a variety of media, as Zagar does. ​ ​In ​ ​, there were layers to understanding the character (in that case, my father), where one layer would be the actions that you saw him expressing onscreen. That’s how the work came to life. The duty of the filmmaker is to bring those words and drawings to life for the audience, so that you can feel the imagination of the young man, and feel how that person might process what they’re seeing.”

The team began thinking about “who could do that kind of kid line drawings, and make them feel honest, and not like they’re pretending to draw as a kid,” King says. King recommended an artist she had been following on Instagram, MARK SAMSONOVICH (www.loveistelepathic.com), who was known for murals and installations featuring simple line drawings . “We worked on creating a language that was different from Mark’s, that could be Jonah’s language, but that was a different kind of animated language than you’d seen on film,” Zagar explains. “They’re sort of like moving scratches, is how we thought of it.”

Samsonovich came to set in February, acting as “journal wrangler,” creating whatever images would be needed to depict a particular scene, sometimes starting a figure, so Rosado could then be filmed as he filled Samsonovich’s image in with color. The background Jonah draws on is mostly text. “We said, ‘Let’s just transcribe the entire book,” Zagar recalls. “So it’ll be like another layer. It’s nothing you ever We The Animals see or can read. But that’s ​ ​, every page.” With Zagar and Samsonovich sharing a room during the February shoot, it wasn’t long until King began hearing, “What if we animate this?” “They were conspiring and that little journal turned into 3,000 hand-drawn pages of animation,” says King. 15 animated shots appear at the beginning of the film and six more appear elsewhere. A Home Away From Home

Zagar had a very specific vision of the house he wanted in which to set the story. The idea was that a split-level home on a large piece of land could play for the 90s, with no renovations needed – and with no other adjacent house visible. “It had to just be its own little oasis,” King explains. “We found many houses that fit the split level profile, on a piece of land, not too far out in the country – but they were falling down.”

The book takes place around Syracuse so the producers, at first, began looking near Amsterdam, where Zagar and Yaches did early scouting. “It’s on the river, and has this incredible ‘forgotten industrial town’ feel,” King informs. The team made dozens of scouting trips, going up and down every street throughout half of upstate New York, expanding radially out from Amsterdam, but came up empty-handed.

One winter day King and Yaches were speeding down a long road outside Utica, NY, and, out of the corner of her eye, King spotted the perfect house. After a U-turn and quick inspection, they left a note,

and eventually received a call back, returning with Zagar to meet the family who lived there. “It turns out, they were mixed-race, like our family – the father was Puerto Rican, the mother was white, and they had four children,” says the director. “It was surreal.”

Uticaserved the film well, even offering a location for Ma’s workplace, the historic Saranac Brewery, formerly the F.X. Matt Brewing Company, one of the oldest breweries in the United States. “Utica is one of those places that really has an energy of its own, its own character,” Vand notes. “You don’t have to suspend your disbelief. It was so nice to be away from New York City and away from our lives and out in nature, and be given the time and space to just immerse ourselves in it.”

The town also offered a glimpse into the world Ma and Paps faced. “The more rural areas you go to in upstate New York, there are very, very few people of color or Puerto Rican people,” Zagar says. “The reality of grappling with that identity is always an undercurrent. No matter what, you’re an outsider. Our family is not Puerto Rican, and they’re not white. They are not of this community, they are not rural people, and they’re not city people. They are only their family. And it isolates them further and further from the world. They are in a cocoon.”

Eight other houses were rented in Utica, taking advantage of the off-season rates in the college town, to house the cast and crew, whom, Zagar wanted to house together as much as possible – particularly the cast. “There was an intense intimacy in his book that I wanted to capture,” the director explains. “And I didn’t think it had to be specific to the words. It was about a feeling.”

The crews were housed by department with Zagar, Torres, and Zagar’s long-time collaborator/the film’s editor KEIKO DEGUCHI sharing one house so Jeremiah could give notes on the edit, while not shooting. The experience was far different than the usual location shoot, with everyone in a different hotel room. “All the houses were pretty close to one another, so there was a lot of hanging out,” King says. Zagar’s young family even joined the shoot, with his wife catering healthy, high-end French food for the crew - unusual for a small independent film to say the least.

Castillo and Vand lived in their own house which allowed the two to develop a genuine chemistry, something Vand says offered great benefit to the film. “The idea of putting two actors together for six could weeks, when they have to also be working together, ​ easily go awry,” she laughs. “We just lucked out that we clicked so well. We supported each other through whatever would go on on set – he was really like a rock for me. It was nice to have someone to just process things with, who was going through the same experience.”

The two would return to the house each night and wind down, usually watching movies. “I tend to obsess over a project and my performance. So it helped living with another person, and just turn that off.”

The boys lived together in another house, along with their parents, something that hastened their getting to know one another. “It turned them into a tight little unit. They even starting fighting like brothers, really quickly, because they were actually all sharing a room!” explains King. “And those things would carry over onto the set, for sure. I definitely saw takes where something I knew was going on in the house with the kids - good or bad - showed up in the scene. But it did work.”

Back before shooting began, the “family” had spent a night together in the location house, something which further built the relationship, Castillo says. “We spent a night there, hanging out, as a family. And I think that helped Sheila and me earn the trust of the three kids. We built a dynamic which carried over to the set.” Though the boys got a chill from ghosts stories told around a campfire that night. “I was staying in the room next to the boys, and I could tell they were scared from the ghost stories and couldn’t

sleep,” Vand recalls. “So I went in to read to them.” The boys snuggled up to her, falling asleep, one at a time. “It was a moment just between me and the kids, and was very meaningful to me. It’s not a thing you’d ever get in regular rehearsals.”

The house location helped the cast with their performances, as well, , Castillo relates. “We were in an environment close to the place where Justin grew up, where the novel takes place. It very much felt like we were immersed in the world, in his world, as opposed to just trying to simulate it on a soundstage. On a stage, you’re guarded from the elements. We were in upstate in Utica, NY, dealing with mud and rain storms. We were immersed in it.” Vand agrees, “It’s surrounded by woods, so you get this feeling like you’re isolated in the way that the family’s isolated, as well.”

“On a soundstage, at the end of the day, you wrap, you go home,” Castillo says. “We were all staying together, having our meals together, hanging out on weekends together. It was nice not having the luxury of going home at the end of the night, to your own pad, but actually diving in. That’s such a rare opportunity. Not every film needs that, but I think this film really did.” Acting Like a Family

We the Animals The naturalistic performances in ​ ,​ and the realness of the family dynamics, were key to Zagar’s vision for the film. “That was something Jeremiah made us conscious of from the get-go,” says Vand.

“Jeremiah was always transparent about the process and how he wanted to approach it,” says Castillo. “And he approached Sheila and me like partners, not just like hired actors. We were all jumping in this together. And he created an environment where we were free. With this story, there’s gotta be a wildness, and a looseness to the storytelling. But we were also well taken care of, which allowed us to get wild and be honest.” That carried over to the boys, as well, Castillo continues, “He created an environment for those kids to come in and speak their truths, and not feel like these precious little child actors, but that we were building a family and using the powers of imagination. That’s so rare.”

An important step in building closeness between the actors was bonding exercises Noelle Gentile created for the cast in Brooklyn, prior to start of production. This was particularly useful for the boys, who had not acted before.

One exercise involved sharing timelines of each of their personal lives, and then zooming in on a minute the actor wanted to explore, and then writing about that experience and sharing it with each other, Gentile explains. “Then we went through that process again, picking a moment in the character’s life and writing and sharing. It was a really special emotional experience that set off the work they were going into together.”

There were also tableaus – creating a statue of someone in a moment of a feeling, and then bringing that statue to life, “and then asking them what’s the character’s thoughts in that moment,” she explains.

Gentile had been working with the boys the six months prior to shooting, doing workshops in the city with them on weekends. Once on set, she would often provide one-on-one coaching, particularly for sensitive or emotionally-demanding scenes. “We would do some meditation work and focus work, and some envisioning and imagining,” she describes. “We would go through a guided meditation, imagining what was happening the moments before the scene each kid was about to walk into.” Each boy was different. “They were all dynamic in their own ways. Each of them would want support in their own way, to help them get to the heart of the scenes,” sometime using role playing or maybe even just hearing

music before a take.

She and Kitrosser traded off such duties while filming, one of them on the set each day, sharing the experience of the previous day’s shoot, to inform the other of “Who might need some extra love that day, who was going to do a really intense scene,” she notes.

The days would start by processing the work of the day before, with the boys passing around compliments on each other’s work. “Then we would talk about what the day was going to be like. Depending on what was needed - we would try to create the head space for what the day was going to look like.” Scenes with a Family

Adding to the film’s authenticity and intimacy, some “flashback” footage is draw from Zagar’s own family archives. For the depiction of Manny’s birth, he reveals, “That’s actually the birth of my son, Asher,” on March 13, 2015, more than a year before principal photography began. Knowing such a scene would be needed for his upcoming film, Zagar asked Yaches and King to have a Sony Alpha A7S II camera on the expected date, so he could shoot the birth – though, as births sometimes go, it didn’t happen quite on schedule. “Asher came a week early,” says King, forcing the producers into a scramble down to B & H Electronics at dawn to purchase the camera and bring it to the hospital. Asher also plays the young Jonah, as Raúl Castillo plays with his young son. And Josiah Gabriel’s parents provided footage of their young boy, portraying shots of a young Joel.

In one scene, the boys go for a swim with their parents at a nearby lake. Jonah doesn’t know how to swim, so Paps attempts to remedy the situation by bringing his son out into the middle of the lake – and then dunking him underwater, where he nearly drowns, rising up only in the last moments to save his own life. “That’s Paps’s idea of parenting,” informs Torres, employing the masculine idea of “sink or swim.” “One of the lessons that Paps is trying to impart is that the world is going to be incredibly mean to you, that there’s no space for weakness or vulnerability. Paps sees it as his job to toughen the boys up. And it’s wrong.”

The scene was shot at Lyons Falls, along the Black River, about 35 miles to the north of Utica. “That was not always supposed to be a really creepy lake,” imparts King. “Jeremiah wanted it to feel like ​ a fun day at the lake. He wanted it to feel a little intimidating.”

The underwater shots were filmed in a pool after the location shoot was over – though that made it no easier to film for Evan, the young actor. The boy spent downtime between the summer and winter shoots training with a scuba coach, and learning how to take air from a hookah underwater. “He had to learn to trust himself, to stay calm sitting at the bottom of the pool. It was hard for him, but he had an incredible support team in his acting coach, Noelle. She had never actually trained with underwater gear, but at the last minute Evan wanted her to be with him, so she got a two minute lesson, geared up and held his hand as they went down. They kept eye contact the whole time and what was so beautiful, is that, sensing her Noelle’s fear, Evan actually calmed down to make ​ feel better. It was an amazing bond they had,” adds King.

The scene – and what it represents, was among the first, and most important, which stood out to Zagar when he read the book, and ended up using it as an important motif in the movie for Jonah. “He’s experiencing terror,” the director explains, “And it’s necessary for a young person to experience terror, in order to transcend terror. There’s not much difference between drowning and soaring – they’re extremes that actually feel close to each other. It’s only possible for you to soar if you understand what it’s like to drown – to understand that if you don’t escape, you’re dead. You can never transcend or extricate

yourself from a situation that is impossible.” Adds Torres, “When you survive, and rise again to the top, it’s like rebirth.”

Zagar uses the imagery of Jonah being underwater any time he’s on the cusp of breaking through or making a change, such as when he realizes his attraction to the teenage Dustin and decides to kiss him. He’s terrified, and then takes the leap. “Jonah’s sexuality functions as yet another place where he is going to break the family cycle,” Kitrosser notes. “He takes a step forward and can still survive.”

A scene involving a different kiss from Jonah involves one with his mother, as she implores him to stay young and never abandon her. “Ma has created another cocoon within the cocoon of the family – of just her and this boy,” Zagar explains. “He’s her emotional confidant, her emotional parallel. In this group of boys, he’s like the only thing closest to a girl to her. And for him to leave would be devastating for her. And he desperately needs to leave her, to extricate himself, to grow up, but she desperately doesn’t want him to go.”

Adds Vand, “Justin talked about, in one of our conversations before I started filming, the idea of ‘the golden cage.’ – that Ma wanted to just live in this golden cage, where she could be in a cocoon with her family. And, to her, it is a golden cage, it’s not just a rusty trap. It’s a beautiful bubble. But it also contains the family, and the energy gets too much and creates a lot of chaos.”

When Ma is begging him not to grow up, Jonah suddenly kisses her – but in a way that forces her to push him away. “There’s definitely an uncomfortable closeness of sexuality in that scene,” the director explains. “It’s a gray area that we’re trying to approach in the film. There’s a line you can cross, that she crosses with him in that scene, and one that he reacts to. And one that she’s probably crossed for his entire life. So his reaction is, ‘I, too, can hurt you.’”

Her message is also too much to bear for the young boy. “To have this mixture of desperation and a sensuality,” Vand explains, “is too much to put on a kid, to be put in this position where all the responsibility to comfort her is on him. It’s loving a child to the point of suffocation. It’s really a great scene, so complex, with 15 layers to it.”

Ma similarly puts the responsibility for what to do on her boys when they are alone in the truck, after she leaves Paps, suggesting they go, perhaps. . . to Spain, eventually yelling at them, “Tell me what to do! You think this is easy?” One of the scenes Vand auditioned with, she notes, “Ma was 14 when she first got pregnant and her family disowned her. She just doesn’t have that many options. What do you do when you want what’s best for yourself and what’s best for your kids, and you feel that helpless? It sheds a lot of light on people in that socio-economic place. They can’t just leave.”

Returning to shoot the ending of the film after a 5 month hiatus was a unique experience for the cast. “That was the first time I’ve shot the bulk of a film, and then come back to it months later and gone back to the material, after months being away from it,” Castillo relates. “The story had gotten under our skin. We had left so much of our own personal journals up in Utica, that when we got back in that environment, it was like slipping right back into a familiar old suit.”

The boys, too, had changed. “By the time we got to that day,” says Gentile, “we’d had an entire summer together. Evan was a different kid by the time we were working in February than the boy we had auditioned. He understood himself, as an actor now, in a different way than in the beginning of the process. It was really something to see.”

One of the important scenes shot in this period features Jonah, gleefully returning home only to find that

his family has found his journal – they sit dumbfounded in the living room, its sacred pages spread across the floor. He is enraged at the affront to his privacy.

The family has no idea what to make of this immense volume of verbiage and, in some cases, shocking imagery. “It’s a peek into Jonah’s inner life, and into his burgeoning sexuality,” Castillo explains. “I don’t know that anyone in the family is ready to really grapple with what the journal means. I think they all have to step back and assess what they’re learning about their son, their younger brother.” The pages are not just about his awakening sexuality though. “It’s also the awakening of a consciousness, the forming of this young mind. And that’s really the moment when the family has to step back and really think about who he is. And I don’t think they’re ready for it.”

It’s probably the hardest on Ma. “She’s shocked and scared,” says Vand. “She doesn’t know this kid that she thought she knew so well. She sees all this expression of emotion and feels incredible guilt – ‘Oh, my God, have I not been listening this whole time? What does it mean?’”

The book describes everything he’s seen every one of them do, from simple misbehavior to violent attacks, now visible for all to see. “Why it’s so problematic for the family,” Kitrosser notes, “is that he’s holding up a mirror to this family that never processes what they do. And how their behavior, over time, is a pathology.”

Jonah’s reaction is one of incredible pain. Kitrosser adds, “Here’s someone who has found a secret world. Now he feels, ‘I had a secret world, where I was in control, and you just tore open that secret world, and I have no power.” In his rage, he turns to biting himself. “It’s like, ‘I’m gonna destroy whatever I can. I can’t destroy the family, fine, I’m gonna destroy myself.’ He taps into the rage of the family.”

To prepare for the scene, Evan had to learn to develop one very important tool: he didn’t know how to scream. “He had never had that experience in his life before, where he raged out, the way he was going to have to in that scene,” Gentile explains. “He had to get past a lot of obstacles for this film. Evan has a beautiful stillness to him on camera. He’s so captivating, and he’s such a beautiful soul. So yelling and activities like that meant really exploring territory that was outside his lived experience.” It was a long, emotionally taxing day for the family, staying in that intense moment all day, to get all the coverage needed. “But he hung in there, take after take. By that point, he was a seasoned actor.”

Jonah has broken out of the cocoon. “It’s a beautiful metaphor that I think we all experience,” Zagar says. “All of our families are essentially cocoons. What the movie is about is breaking free from that cocoon. And there’s a necessity to break from it, but also to honor that cocoon. And to celebrate it.”

The move forward is one of slowly going out into the world and finding another tribe. “The movie, as does the book,” says Torres, “starts with him speaking of himself as ‘we,’ but it ends in ‘I’. And it’s a lonely ‘I’.”

ABOUT THE CAST

“ ” Evan Rosado was born on September 24, 2006 in Bronx, NY. He EVAN ROSADO (​ ​JONAH​ ​) ​ lived in the South Bronx for most of his life until he moved to Salisbury Mills where he attends Washington Middle School and is in the 6th grade. He is he son of Carolyn Ramos and Ivan Rosado. He was a twin brother named Ivan and an older sister, Ivana.

His favorite pastimes are playing video games (especially Minecraft!), basketball, and acting. He was discovered at a Puerto Rican Pride Festival by street-casting director, Marlena Skrobe for his professional debut in We The Animals. ​ ​ Following filming, Evan went on to play Scott in his school’s production of “Dear Edwina” and starred in a short film. He hopes to work on his favorite TV show, “Stranger Things”. (PHOTO OF EVAN)

ISAIAH KRISTIAN (“MANNY”) Born Isaiah Kristian Allen on June 28, 2004, on Long ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Island, New York, Isaiah is currently an 8th grade student at Valley Stream North High School. He is the son of Kyle Allen and Elina Vainio-Allen. Isaiah is big-brother to four siblings: sisters Seraia, Erika, Emilia, and brother Nooa Allen.

Some of his favorite pastimes include playing sports, namely football and basketball, listening to music, acting, dancing and spending time with friends and family. He also enjoys collecting sneakers and traveling to Finland to visit extended family and embrace his Finnish culture due to his Finnish-American heritage.

His favorite actors are Adam Sandler, Bradley Cooper and Idris Elba, favorite movies are American Sniper and Lovely Bones and his favorite singers are Ed Sheeran, Adel, 21 Savage and Lil Uzi. His favorite food is chicken and broccoli. (PHOTO OF ISAIAH) ​ JOSIAH (SANTIAGO) GABRIEL (“JOEL”) was born on April 24, 2005, in the Bronx, New ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ York. Josiah is on the Honor Roll in the 7th grade at Theatre Art Production School, also known as TAPCo. Josiah is the son of Avidan Santiago and Joseline Orfanos, both of Puerto Rican descent. Aris A. Orfanos is his younger sister.

Josiah is making his professional debut in We the Animals in the role of “Joel” and has ​ supporting roles in two other Sundance 2018 films: Night Comes On as “Chief” and Monsters ​ ​ and Men as “Victor”. ​ Josiah’s pastimes are acting, singing, playing drums, jiu-jitsu and playing video games on his Xbox and Playstation. He also enjoys Football and Basketball. Josiah is fluent in English and Spanish and also understands elementary Greek. He's inspired by Michael Jackson and Denzel Washington. His favorite foods are bacon cheese burgers and his mother’s “Arroz con Habichuelas with chicken and tostones..”

He takes private voice lessons and was honored to sing in a selected children’s choir alongside Jennifer Hudson at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Josiah’s singing can be heard in the opening and closing credits of We The Animals. ​ ​ Josiah thanks God for this opportunity and to his family for their endless support. (PHOTO OF ​ JOSIAH)

“ ” RAUL CASTILLO (​ ​PA​ ​) ​An actor in film, television, and theater, Raúl Castillo is best known Looking for his portrayal of the charming Richie on the acclaimed HBO series ​ ​, which concluded Looking: The Movie with a telefilm, ​ ​, co-written and directed by Andrew Haigh. For his work on the show, Castillo earned the award for Best Comedic Actor from the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and received the Lupe Award from the National Variety Association of Latino Independent Producers. In 2015, ​ included him on its coveted “10 Latinos to Watch” list.

Unsane This year, Raúl filmed Steven Soderbergh’s innovative iPhone film, ​ ,​ the award-winning Limbo El Chicano live-action short ​ ​, and the indie film ​ by new director Ben Bray with Joe Unsane Carnahan and Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing. ​ is set to premiere in theaters on March Limbo Permission 23rd, 2018 and ​ is currently available to stream on Vimeo. ​ ​, an independent film from director Brian Crano, is set to premiere on February 9, 2018. Raúl is also a lead in the Seven Seconds new Netflix ensemble series ​ which will be available on the streaming service in 2018.

Sweets Raul also completed production on the independent films ​ ​, directed by R.E. Rodgers and iGilbert Ricky with Dascha Polanco directed by Adrian Martinez. Castillo currently appears in ​ Gervais’ Special Correspondents opposite America Ferrera, Joe Swanberg’s anthology drama Easy Atypica series ​ ​, and ​ ​l, created by Robia Rashid and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, all currently available to stream on Netflix.

Variety Castillo made his feature film debut in 2007 with Amexicano, in which ​ praised his performance as “pitch-perfect.” He earned an honorable mention at AFI Fest in 2012 for his Narcocorrido work in the Student Academy Award-winning short film ​ ​. Additional film credits Cold Weather Don’t Let Me Drown My Best Day The Girl Bless include the SXSW favorite ​ ​, ​, ​, ​, Me and Ultima Nurse Jackie Blue Bloods Law and ​, ​. His television guest appearances include ​ ​, ​ ​, ​ Order Riverdale Gotham ​, ​ ​, and ​ ​ as the DC Comics villain Eduardo Flamingo. Also a playwright, Castillo is a proud member of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York Between You, Me and the Lampshade City. He authored the plays ​ ​, which premiered in April Knives and Other Sharp Objects 2015 with Chicago's Teatro Vista, and ​ ​, which premiered in Death and the Maiden 2009 at the Public Theater. His theater acting credits include ​ ​, alongside Adoration of the Old Woman Fish Men Sandra Oh (at the Victory Gardens Theater), ​ (Intar), ​ A Lifetime Burning School of the (Goodman Theater/Teatro Vista), ​ (Primary Stages), and ​ Americas ​ (LAByrinth/Public Theater). Born and raised in Texas, Castillo studied theater at Boston University's School of Fine Arts. He currently resides in New York City.

“ ” Sheila appeared in the 2017 Sundance hit XX in a segment directed by SHEILA VAND (​ ​MA​ ​) acclaimed musician/artist St. Vincent (nee Annie Clark), released by Magnolia Pictures and recently co-starred opposite Corey Hawkins and Jimmy Smits in the Fox series24: Legacy. ​ ​ Sheila co-starred opposite Tina Fey and Margot Robbie in Paramount’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, ​ ​ starred in Ingrid Jungerman’s indie caper Women Who Kill (TRIBECA Award winner 2016), ​ co-stars in the Spectrevision thriller Camino opposite Nacho Vigalondo and Tarantino muse Zoe ​ Bell, starred in the comedy Jimmy Vestvood opposite Maz Jobrani, and has a showy appearance ​ in 68 Kill for director Trent Haaga. ​ ​ Sheila starred as “The Girl” in the multi-award-winning cult hit A Girl Walks Home Alone at ​ Night (Sundance 2014; New Directors/New Films @ MoMA, INDIE SPIRIT AWARD nominee, ​ GOTHAM AWARD winner, etc.), after earlier garnering rave reviews playing “Sahar” in Ben Affleck’s Academy Award-winning Warner Bros feature Argo. She starred on the NBC series ​ ​ State of Affairs opposite Katherine Heigl, recurred on Minority Report for Fox, in the ​ CBS/Shawn Ryan pilot Beverly Hills Cop opposite Eddie Murphy for director Barry Sonnenfeld, ​ ​ and in the miniseries The Red Tent opposite Minnie Driver and Rebecca Ferguson. ​ ​ Sheila made her Broadway debut opposite Robin Williams as “Hadja” in Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Sheila starred in the Disney Hall's 10th ​ ​ ​ Anniversary LA Philharmonic staging of Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels for Esa Pekka Salonen, her ​ original performance piece Sneaky Nietzche was mounted at LACMA, and she co-created the ​ award-winning visual art series MILK: what will you make of me? with TED fellow Alexa ​ Meade, currently touring Europe (www.alexasheila.com).

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Born to hippie artists, Jeremiah grew up in JEREMIAH ZAGAR (Director/Screenwriter) ​ South Philly spending most afternoons in a dark movie theater or wandering the aisles of his local TLA video store. Later, on trips home from Emerson College, he started filming his parents, resulting in the documentary, In A Dream, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival ​ ​ and screened theatrically across the US and in film festivals around the world. It was broadcast on HBO, shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two Emmy nominations, including “Best Documentary.” ​ ​

His next feature-length documentary Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart premiered in ​ competition at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to much fanfare in 2014. Other notable output includes the pilot episode for Showtime’s 7 Deadly Sins, and commercial work ​ ​ for GE Capital, Pedigree and New Balance. His latest project is the feature We The Animals— ​ ​ based on the best-selling novel—which was selected for the Sundance Directing & Screenwriting ​ ​ Lab fellowships. We The Animals will debut at this year’s 2018 Sundance Film Festival. When ​ ​ ​ he’s not working, Jeremiah spends his time swimming in New York City's finest public pools. ​ ​

Dan is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, DANIEL KITROSSER (Screenwriter) ​ whose plays include The Mumblings, Dead Special Crabs and Tar Baby (Scotman's First Fringe ​ ​ ​ ​ Award, Amnesty International Citation).

For the screen, Dan co-wrote We the Animals (dir. Jeremiah Zagar) and was the script consultant ​ on Night Comes On (dir. Jordana Spiro), both premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2018. ​ He is currently a TimeWarner 150 Fellow for his television series The Move, about West Philly ​ ​ in the 1980s and is the Artistic Director of Writopia Lab's Worldwide Plays Festival, a festival of plays by young playwrights from all across the country now in its 8th year.

Dan currently splits his time between New York, where he is on faculty at the New School for the Performing Arts, and Portland Oregon, where he lives with his fiance Jordan and their pit-lab Daisy.

Jeremy is a producer and co-founder of Public Record, a JEREMY YACHES (Producer) ​ production company that specializes in film, TV, branded content, and commercials.

His films include the award-winning documentary In a Dream which has screened all over the ​ world and was broadcast on HBO, as well as the Netflix original doc Voyeur, which premiered at ​ ​ the 2017 New York Film Festival.

Jeremy also produced the pilot for 7 Deadly Sins on Showtime, executive produced the ​ forthcoming Sidelined for A&E/Lifetime. ​ ​

An enrolled member of the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma, CHRISTINA D. KING (Producer) ​

Christina’s work spans commercials, documentary, film, and television with a focus on human rights issues, civic engagement through storytelling, and democratizing filmmaker opportunities for minority voices.

King’s films include This May Be The Last Time (Sundance 2014), which explores the origins of ​ ​ Native Mvskogee worship songs in Oklahoma, as well as the POV documentary Up Heartbreak ​ Hill. King is currently in post-production on the film Warrior Women for ITVS, which follows ​​ ​ ​ Lakota activist Madonna Thunderhawk and her daughter as they fight for indigenous rights from the 1970’s to today.

Cinematographer Zak Mulligan’s narrative feature ZAK MULLIGAN (Cinematographer) ​ Obselidia premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in the Dramatic Film Competition where he was honored with the Excellence in Cinematography award for his work. Obselidia ​ also took home the Alfred B. Sloan award and was honored with two Independent Spirit Awards nominations. Mulligan was was also included in Variety magazine's 2015 list of Cinematographers to watch.

Mulligan's TV work includes Ava Duvernay's CBS TV pilot, For Justice and 2nd unit work on ​ the 2nd season of Netflix's House of Cards. Mulligan's documentary Open Heart about ​ ​ ​ Rheumatic heart disease in Africa was nominated for an Academy Award in 2013. Open Heart ​ went on to premieree on HBO and in in select theaters throughout the world. Other feature film work includes Tribeca Film Festival premier, Bleeding Heart (Jessica Biel and Zosia Mamet, ​ Dir. Diane Bell), The Sisterhood of Night (Kal Penn, Kara Hayward, Georgie Henley and Laura ​ ​ Fraser, Dir. Caryn Waechter), Future Weather (Dir. Jenny Deller) which premiered at Tribeca ​ ​ Film Festival, Blumenthal (Dir. Seth Fisher) and I'm Not Me. Custody directed by James Lapine ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ and starring Viola Davis, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Hayden Panettiere and Ellen Burstyn premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

Mulligan's extensive commercial client list includes Google, Nike, Reebok, Samsung, and American Express. His work on the General Electric funded short documentary Always A Fire ​ was featured on Vimeo's top 12 of 2012 staff picks. Mulligan has shot music videos for artists such as Passion Pit, Cults, Mute Math, Flying Lotus, and Woodhands (his video for "I Wasn't Made For Fighting" was an official selection of Slamdance 2009 and The 49th Annual Krakow Film Festival).

Bio for Nick to be added here. NICK ZAMMUTO (Music) ​

KEIKO DEGUCHI Keiko Deguchi is a film editor of narrative and documentary films (Editor) ​ based in New York City. The narrative films she has edited include Susan Seidelman’s The Hot ​ Flashes; Steven Shainberg’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Jonathan Parker's ​ ​ ​ (Untitled); and Bette Gordon’s Handsome Harry. Her documentary film credits include ​ ​ ​ award-winning films such as Jeremiah Zagar’s In A Dream, Linda Hattendorf’s The Cats of ​ ​ ​ Mirikitani, Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk, and Todd and Jedd Wider’s God Knows Where I Am. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

The over thirty feature length films that she has edited show how she brings her sense of narrative structure to documentary films and her creative use of footage to narrative films. We ​

The Animals is her third collaboration with the director, Jeremiah Zagar, after In A Dream and ​ Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart. ​ ​

KATIE HICKMAN (Production Designer) Katie is an Arizona native who years ago moved to ​ New York to study Film and Philosophy at Vassar College. After graduating, her first film job was assisting Josh & Benny Safdie on their second feature Daddy Longlegs, which got her ​ ​ hooked on filmmaking, specifically focused on production design.

Her debut feature as designer was Ben Dickinson’s First Winter (Tribeca ‘12), followed by ​ ​ features including Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot (Grand Jury Prize winner SXSW ‘12), Shannon ​ ​ Plumb’s Towheads (New Directors/New Films ‘13), and Dustin Defa’s Person to Person ​ ​ ​ (Sundance ‘17). Katie’s forthcoming projects include Peter Brunner’s To The Night starring ​ ​ Caleb Landry Jones, and the web series #Wargames directed by Sam Barlow, a reboot on the ​ ​ ​ 1983 Matthew Broderick hacker thriller.

Other art department credits include working as Set Decorator on location in Ghana for Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation (Venice Biennale ‘15) and Art Director on Sian Heder’s ​ Tallulah (Sundance ‘16). ​

She now continues to focus on work as designer, as a member of IATSE Local 829 and represented by Gersh.

We the Animals has been one of Katie’s absolute favorite films to design and she is so proud to ​ be a part of such a talented team behind such a heartfelt and dynamic story.

(Art Direction) Lance hails from Detroit, Michigan where countless LANCE MITCHELL ​ trips through urban wreckage inspired an aesthetic that sees beauty in decay, wisdom in age, and uniqueness as a high goal. Whether working on films, television , or commercial, he tries to leave his signature buried in the texture of each set he makes or designs. He loves traveling and loves traveling for work even more. He is currently living and working in New York City as as Production Designer and Art Director.

VALENTINE FREEMAN (Costume Design) Valentine Freeman is a Cannes-awarded creative ​ director, writer and designer. This is her first costume design work in film.

MARK SAMSONOVICH (Illustrator) Mark Samsonovich (@loveistelepathic) is a painter and ​ designer based in NYC. His illustrations and paintings occasionally go viral and his work has been featured in Vice Magazine for doing so. Samsonovich's creative forays have led him to sell ​ ​ product at Colette, design award winning hotel lobbies, and most recently, design animation for We The Animals. ​

is a Brooklyn-based production and entertainment company whose film, PUBLIC RECORD​ ​ television, and commercial work is grounded in truth. After their Emmy-nominated documentary, In A Dream, premiered in theaters and on HBO, co-founders Jeremiah Zagar and ​ ​

Jeremy Yaches—friends since middle school—teamed up with long-time collaborators Nathan ​ ​ ​ ​ Caswell, Cassidy Gearhart, Julian King & Galen Summer, to start a company that would unite their shared passion for filmmaking. This versatile group of storytellers is tasked by agencies, brands and studios to produce stunning, meticulously crafted, emotionally resonant work, that touches hearts and expands minds.

CINEREACH is an independent film company dedicated to vital, artful filmmaking. As a ​ philanthropic organization, Cinereach helps expand its films’ creative potential by offering adaptive development, financing, production, and other support models that align with the unique vision of each supported filmmaker. Cinereach also strives for a more sustainable film industry through targeted initiatives and strategic partnerships. Recent Cinereach productions MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. and We the Animals are official selections of Sundance 2018, ​ alongside Sorry to Bother You, which Cinereach co-financed after providing early development ​ ​ support. Among the 200 films Cinereach has produced, financed, and supported across the globe are recent titles Beach Rats, Brimstone & Glory, The Florida Project, Strong Island, Last Men in ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Aleppo, The Fits, and I Am Not Your Negro. Young Jean Lee, Barry Jenkins, Terence Nance and ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ other filmmakers have received Cinereach fellowships, and Karin Chien, Heather Rae, and Shrihari Sathe are among the recipients of Cinereach producing awards. Current not-for-profit collaborators include Sundance Institute, Court 13 Arts, and Borscht Corp.

CINEREACH is an independent film company dedicated to vital, artful filmmaking. As a ​ philanthropic organization, Cinereach helps expand its films’ creative potential by offering adaptive development, financing, production, and other support models that align with the unique vision of each supported filmmaker. Cinereach also strives for a more sustainable film industry through targeted initiatives and strategic partnerships. Recent Cinereach productions MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. and We the Animals are official selections of Sundance 2018, ​ alongside Sorry to Bother You, which Cinereach co-financed after providing early development ​ ​ support. Among the 200 films Cinereach has produced, financed, and supported across the globe are recent titles Beach Rats, Brimstone & Glory, The Florida Project, Strong Island, Last Men in ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Aleppo, The Fits, and I Am Not Your Negro. Young Jean Lee, Barry Jenkins, Terence Nance and ​ ​ ​ other filmmakers have received Cinereach fellowships, and Karin Chien, Heather Rae, and Shrihari Sathe are among the recipients of Cinereach producing awards. Current not-for-profit collaborators include Sundance Institute, Court 13 Arts, and Borscht Corp.

CREDITS

Directed by: Jeremiah Zagar

Written by: Dan Kitrosser and Jeremiah Zagar

Based on a novel by: Justin Torres

Staring: Jonah: Evan Rosado Manny: Isaiah Kristian Joel: Josiah Gabriel Ma: Sheila Vand Pa: Raul Castillo

Production Company: Cinereach, Public Record

Produced by: Jeremy Yaches, Christina D. King, Andrew Goldman, Paul Mezey

Executive Producers: Philipp Engelhorn, Michael Raisler

Director of Photography: Zak Mulligan

Production Designer: Katie Hickman

Costume Designer: Valentine Freeman

Editors: Keiko Deguchi, Brian A. Kates

Music by: Nick Zammuto

Animation by: Mark Samsonovich

Sound Design: Ruy Garcia

Casting by: Ann Goulder