LOVELESS a Film by Ramin Serry

Streetlight Films presents

LOVELESS a film by Ramin Serry

92 min ⎮ Color ⎮ USA ⎮ 2011

Shot on the RED camera. Exhibited on HDCam.

LOVELESS premieres in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center Feb. 11 and Feb. 13 and OPENS in NYC at the reRun Theatre Feb. 18-24

www.lovelessthemovie.com Press Contact: Shauna Lyon, Streetlight Films 917-770-2585 [email protected] LOVELESS

LOGLINE Andrew, a commitment-phobic New York City bachelor on the wrong side of 40, finds his prized independent lifestyle in crisis when faced with a demanding, jilted ex-girlfriend and a sexy young woman who comes with an absurdly obsessive, cult-like family.

SHORT SYNOPSIS "Loveless" is a darkly witty urban comedy about Andrew, a New York City commitment- phobe stringing along his ex-girlfriend while he chases younger women. When he meets the sexy, secretive Ava, Andrew becomes entangled with her bizarre, cult-like family. Comedy and pathos collide as the family’s absurd obsessions leave Andrew doubting his sanity and safety.

EXTENDED SYNOPSIS "Loveless" is a darkly witty urban comedy about Andrew (Andrew Von Urtz), a wryly hilarious commitment-phobe enjoying the single life in New York City. By day, at his crappy desk job, he tortures his droll co-worker Kendra (Kendra Hurley) with sarcasm and teasing, and gets reprimanded by his beleaguered boss Sabin (Sabin Streeter), an old friend who cuts him endless slack. By night, he is a self-proclaimed “writer-director” with no credits to his name, who tries to pick up girls by offering them roles in his dubious film projects.

At a party thrown by his married friends, Ramin and Shauna, he avoids holding their baby and then runs into his ex-girlfriend, Joanna (Cindy Chastain), a smart, beautiful woman who knows Andrew well enough to see through his schtick, but loves him anyway despite her better judgment. He soon leaves to meet up with his slick, rich friend Tad (Gary Wilmes) to discuss possible financing for one of Andrew’s films. When Andrew spots the feisty, sexy young Ava (Genevieve Hudson-Price), he follows her to her home, where her clannish family is holding a birthday party for her odd, overprotective brother Ricky (Scott Cohen). Ricky is suspicious of Andrew and his intentions̶until he finds out that they have something in common: both of their fathers are dead.

Things start to get bizarre when Andrew discovers that Ava and Ricky hold full conversations with their dead father. Weirded out, Andrew turns to Joanna and they cautiously rekindle their relationship. But Andrew finds that he can’t shake Ava’s family, who are now stalking him. Comedy and pathos collide as Joanna’s demands escalate, and Ava’s family’s absurd obsessions leave Andrew doubting his sanity and safety.

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DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

In 2007, Shauna and I were working on a script about a New York City doorman. We wanted to attach a name actor and seek financing, a process which can take years. During that time, I met the filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, who inspired me to make a much lower budget film using my friends. All I had to do was to pick someone in my life who I thought would be an interesting subject. The first person who came to mind was Andrew Von Urtz.

Andrew and I went to film school together, and we’ve been friends for nearly twenty years. A nonprofessional actor who has never appeared in a film before, Andrew is known among his friends for being an incredibly witty and charming yet frustratingly elusive personality. Although the story for “Loveless” is fiction, Shauna and I based much of it on Andrew’s life, and he plays a version of himself that is very close to the real thing.

In the film we learn that Andrew has written a film script, but we never quite find out what that script is about. In real life, Andrew wrote a screenplay called “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” about a young man in downtown New York and his encounters with a Russian prostitute. The opening scene describes the young man sorting through the possessions of his recently deceased father. I knew that Andrew never knew his own father, so when I read this scene I felt that it might offer some insight into Andrew’s otherwise elusive personality. The idea of lost fathers and their impact on people’s personalities and relationships helped form the basis for the story of “Loveless.”

The characters of Ava and Ricky have also lost their father, but, unlike Andrew, they deal with it in a very open way̶a way which he sees as foreign and absurd. Andrew clings to his prized independence, while Ricky and Ava cling to familial bonds. These basic character contrasts dictated how the film was written, cast and directed, and inspired us to develop “Loveless” as an experiment in contrasting tones.

Andrew’s world, for which we sought to create a naturalistic tone, is populated by nonprofessional actors playing versions of themselves. Cindy Chastain, who plays Andrew’s ex Joanna, is Andrew’s real-life ex-girlfriend. Kendra, Andrew’s office-mate, and Sabin, his boss, are both played by his close friends. One exception is that Gary Wilmes, a professional actor, plays the character of Tad. Reality and fiction come together, though, when the real-life Tad makes a cameo, as a banker who, in one scene, is seated next to the fictional Tad.

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For the absurdly comic world that Andrew encounters̶represented by Ava’s family̶we cast professional actors. Ricky is played by Scott Cohen, with whom Shauna and I have been friends for years. Ricky’s younger brother Paul Jr. is played by Scott Cohen’s son, Liam. And Ava is played by Genevieve Hudson-Price, the daughter of the novelist and screenwriter Richard Price; we found Genevieve on an audition tape through our friend Meredith Tucker, who is a casting director.

Shauna produced the film out of our apartment, all the actors wore their own clothes and all the locations were donated by friends. Our daughter, Lily, plays herself in the film. It was truly a labor of love. -Ramin Serry

ABOUT THE FILM:

“Loveless” is based on that well-known urban figure: the indecisive adult American male. Andrew is a man who uses his wit to deflect responsibility and navigate urban realms. A hybrid of reality and fiction, “Loveless” addresses its characters' gnawing emotional terror with a mix of humor, pathos and suspense as Andrew struggles to cling to a phase of life when everything was exciting and possible. He’s grappling with the anxieties faced by all Gen X-ers as they face a looming confrontation with middle age.

Set in New York City, “Loveless” is director Ramin Serry’s second feature film. It stars feature newcomer Andrew Von Urtz, a nonprofessional actor with a flair for comic improv. Andrew carries the film with a rare combination of wit, intelligence and emotional complexity. He is supported by an accomplished cast including Scott Cohen (“Kissing Jessica Stein,” "Gilmore Girls," “17 Photos of Isabel,” opposite Natalie Portman), Gary Wilmes (Michael Winterbottom’s “A Mighty Heart"; the acclaimed Elevator Repair Service play "Gatz"), and another newcomer, Genevieve Hudson-Price (“The Wire”).

Stylistically, the film takes an intimate approach, with the camera following characters on their adventures through the dwellings and night clubs of downtown New York City. The film was shot on location in New York City and Long Island, and the city’s brooding presence is the perfect setting as events begin to swirl elusively beyond Andrew’s control.

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CAST BIOGRAPHIES

ANDREW VON URTZ (Andrew) “Loveless” is Andrew’s feature film debut.

CINDY CHASTAIN (Joanna) Cindy began her film career as a camera assistant in Hollywood after studying film and theater at Northwestern University, where she won several awards for her short experimental films. She eventually moved to New York and earned an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University. While at Columbia she produced Kimberly Peirce's first short film "The Last Good Breath" and worked as a cinematographer on a variety of projects, including Shari Berman and Bob Pulcini's "Last Days of Chasens." Currently, she is writing two screenplays and working as a Creative Director at R/GA, a digital advertising agency in New York City. “Loveless” is Cindy's feature film debut as an actress.

GENEVIEVE HUDSON-PRICE (Ava) Genevieve made her film debut in “Freedomland," and she has also appeared on “The Wire.” She earned her BFA in Theater from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

GARY WILMES (Tad) Gary has appeared in Michael Winterbottom’s “A Mighty Heart,” “Salt,” “Birds of America,” and “Almost in Love.” His theatre credits include Elevator Repair Service’s acclaimed “Gatz,” and his Obie Award-winning performance in Adam Rapp’s “Red Light Winter.”

SCOTT COHEN (Ricky) Scott’s numerous film credits include the upcoming “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” (with Mel Gibson), “Love and Other Drugs,” Don Roos’s “The Other Woman” (with Natalie Portman), and “Kissing Jessica Stein.” He was a regular on the beloved television series “Gilmore Girls” as well as “Law and Order: Trial by Jury,” “Street Time” and “NYPD Blue.”

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CREW BIOGRAPHIES

RAMIN SERRY, Director “Loveless” is written and directed by Ramin Serry, following his critically acclaimed first feature, “Maryam” (2002), which Roger Ebert called “Extraordinary, powerful and very moving.” Ramin is a professor of screenwriting at Columbia University and Hunter College.

SHAUNA LYON, Producer Shauna Lyon, co-founder of Streetlight Films, produced “Loveless” on a shoestring budget, acting not only as producer and actor but also as costume designer, production designer, and location manager. Shauna also produced Ramin Serry's first feature film, "Maryam." Shauna is an arts editor at The New Yorker.

DOUG EMMETT, Director of Photography Doug is currently at work shooting his seventh feature film, “Refuge.” He was the director of photography on Whit Stillman's latest film, "Damsels in Distress," starring Greta Gerwig, and Lee Kirk’s “The Great Mechanical Man,” starring Jenna Fischer, Topher Grace, and Malin Akerman. Doug's feature film credits also include "Monogamy," directed by Dana Adam Shapiro, Matt Ross's "But Beautiful," and Annette Apitz's "Fighting Fish." A graduate of NYU, Doug shot the student Academy Award nominee "Bye Bye Burger," and Doug won Best Cinematography at NYU's First Run Film Festival.

ERIC KAHLE, Editor Eric began working on music and films in 2005 as a studio engineer and production sound mixer. Soon after, post production became his passion, with his primary focus in sound design. Some of his early credits include the feature film “Rise of the Dead” (Lions Gate, 2007) and a short film, “Boy Toy,” which made its debut at Cannes Film Festival that same year. From there, Eric transitioned to film editing and opened Tradigital Media, a boutique post production house, at which he has edited commercials, industrials, short films, documentaries and TV pilots. He has also designed and animated all the motion graphics for several Morph and Throw commercials. “Loveless” is Eric's first editing credit for a feature film.

AHRIN MISHAN, Composer Ahrin has written for numerous documentary and feature films including “Birds of America” (directed by Craig Lucas), “Moving Midway” (directed by Godfrey Cheshire), “Maryam” (directed by Ramin Serry) and “Claire Dolan” (directed by Lodge

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Kerrigan), for which he won the Georges Delerue Grand Prize for Best Music at the 1998 Flanders International Film Festival (shared with Simon Fisher Turner). His television credits include “Ed” (NBC/Viacom), “Whoopi!” (NBC), and “Fling” (Paramount).

TEI BLOW, Music Born in Japan and raised in the US, Tei Blow is a Brooklyn-based artist whose recent projects include interactive video sets for Steve Burns and the Struggle, sound designs for Natalie Green, Stacy Spence, Other Shore, Deganit Shemy & Company and Big Dance Theater, and touring video for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna. As a musician, he performs with the bands Perfect Shapes and Frustrator! Most recently at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT, Dance Theater Workshop, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the Movement Research Festival in NYC. An archive of his projects can be found at www.sciencecompany.org.

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PRESS FOR RAMIN SERRY’S “MARYAM”

“TWO THUMBS UP!” -EBERT & ROEPER

“An extraordinary film...I left the theater admiring the movie not only for its ideas (it urges us to see people, not labels), but also by its artistry: In a time when most movie teenagers are bubbleheaded pawns in sex comedies, here is a teenager with brains and courage, who doesn’t simply rebel against her parents but wants to understand them, and who doesn’t collapse into weeping victimhood but depends on her mind and values. 'Maryam' is powerful, important and very moving.” -Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

“Serry has put together a talented cast, principally Mariam Parris…Ms. Parris, a quicksilver young talent who projects common sense, is a real find. And Mr. [Shaun] Toub is just as good.” -Elvis Mitchell, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“An assured feature writing and directing debut…what shines is the Armin’s strong, sustaining sense of family, exemplified by Mary’s lovely and wise mother [played by Shohreh] Aghdashloo…Parris, Ackert and Toub give complex, sharply defined portrayals.” -Kevin Thomas, LA TIMES

“Enthralling and evocative…Serry is a young director with a filmmaking voice that is original and timely.” -Jonathan Curiel, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"'Maryam' is a searing reminder of the relevance of recent history and of the timeless power of fiction to humanize people and crystallize sweeping events into personal drama." -Loren King, BOSTON GLOBE

“Mr. Serry weaves all of this together in a way that is moving and powerful without ever edging over into vitriol or rhetoric.” -Tom Maurstad, DALLAS MORNING NEWS

“Sensitive and moving…Serry perfectly captures the peculiar climate, creating uncanny echoes with today’s situation.…Shaun Toub and Shohreh Aghdashloo are extremely convincing as Maryam’s parents… Parris and Ackert strike its deepest notes in exploring Ali and Maryam’s growing relationship.” -Leslie Camhi, VILLAGE VOICE

“Played beautifully by Mariam Parris…the writer-director keeps the story buoyant…and he ultimately succeeds in gracefully depicting a troubled time.” -Bruce Diones, THE NEW YORKER

“A delightful debut film…marvelous…it’s the work of an artist, one whose view of America, history and the awkwardness of human life is generous and deep.” -Andrew O’Hehir, SALON.COM

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Written and Directed by Ramin Serry

Story by Ramin Serry and Shauna Lyon

Produced by Shauna Lyon

Andrew Von Urtz

Cindy Chastain

Genevieve Hudson-Price

Gary Wilmes

and Scott Cohen

Executive Producer Cyrus Serry

Director of Photography Doug Emmett

Casting by Meredith Tucker

Editor Eric Kahle

Post-Production Services provided by Tradigital Media

Music by Ahrin Mishan

songs by Frustrator!

additional songs Complete Portion Control

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CAST (in order of appearance):

ANDREW Andrew Von Urtz JANE Hannah Beck KENDRA Kendra Hurley SABIN Sabin Streeter RAMIN Ramin Serry TOBIAS Tobias Perse ALBE Albert Krause LILY Lily Serry SHAUNA Shauna Lyon JOANNA Cindy Chastain TAD Gary Wilmes BARTENDER Celene Lee AVA Genevieve Hudson-Price GIRLFIGHTER Aziza Dyer PAUL JR. Liam Cohen RICKY Scott Cohen ANTHONY Mark Cirnigliaro CHARLES Paul Romero ISABELLA Emma Tapley KATHLEEN Kathleen Cholewka SYLVIE THE DOG Sylvie Floridis MIKE Andrew Bradﬁeld KEVIN Tad Floridis PAUL SR. Victor Arnold PARTY GUESTS Ethan Basche Peter Coates Joy Goodwin Heidi Goar Ellen Killoran Andrea Russell

Line Producer Julie Christeas

Unit Production Manager Sheila Shah

Production Coordinator Gian Mazcour First Assistant Director Stefan Bozydaj Second Assistant Director Shane McHugh

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First Assistant Camera Dave Jacobson Second Assistant Camera Jeff Peixoto Gaffer Alexander Engel Key Grip Jeremy Conley Best Boy/Swing Josh Allen Additional Electric/Swing Patrick Murray Additional Grip Dylan Crawshay-Williams Swing Stephen Cannella Brian MacLean G & E Interns Aquiles Matt Braunsdorf Charlie Ceraso Bill Stark Sound Mixer Josh Neal Boom Operator Steve Letizia Locations Manager—Brooklyn Arliss Coates Wardrobe Consultants Nancy Brous Andrea Russell Art Director Tasha Pope Script Supervisor Justin Reichman Hair and Makeup Rebecca Hickey Additional Hair and Makeup Cassi Hurd Additional First Assistant Director Jonathan Blitstein Key Production Assistant Cory McArdle Production Assistants Joshua Ballinger Jeff Beebe Sarah Blue Brigman Shaun Dozier Jaimee Lee Fedden Noemi Feliz Scott Friedman Jeth Graziano Celene Lee Mark LePatner Georgia Maghici Timothy Margolin Jon McMahon Anders Nelson Carl Owens Martin Peterson Nate Smith Jodi-Ann Willis Nancy Wolfe

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Interns Kathy Diaz Deshawn Jackson Melyssa Rodriguez Caterer Jacob’s Ladder Catering Dog Wrangler Letitia Lyon Additional Editing Derek Haager Colorist Jason Crump

THANK YOU Armin Amiri Ramin Bahrani Nancy Brous Roger Cabello Felicia Donahue John Donohue Levi Finkelstein Ben Greenman Sarah Larson Andrew Lund Andrea Russell Teresa Salﬁ Sarah Schenck Andrea Scott Michelle Stark Brad Strong, Chipotle Emma Tapley Dewey Thompson Dennis Vasquez Carl Wiseheart New York City Department of Parks & Recreation New York City Mayor’s Ofﬁce of Television and Radio

SPECIAL THANKS Dianne Belfry Tei Blow Andrew Bradﬁeld Arliss Coates Peter Coates Scott Cohen Tad Floridis Patricia Garcia-Gomez Joy Goodwin Albe Krause

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Susan Leber Letitia Lyon Joanna Milter Ahrin Mishan Jennifer Moore Kurt Nelson Tobias Perse Anastasia Traina Derrick Tseng Meredith Tucker Mark Ward

SONGS

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Director: Ramin Serry Writer: Ramin Serry Story: Ramin Serry and Shauna Lyon Producer: Shauna Lyon Run Time: 92 minutes Category: Narrative Feature Genre: Dark Romantic Comedy Official Site: www.lovelessthemovie.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Loveless/180764835286562 Trailer: http://www.lovelessthemovie.com/LOVELESS/LOVELESS-TRAILER.html Photos: http://www.lovelessthemovie.com/LOVELESS/LOVELESS-GALLERY.html

For more information contact: Shauna Lyon, 917-770-2585 [email protected]

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