Mongrel Media

Presents

THE SWELL SEASON

A Film By Nick August-Perna, Chris Dapkins & Carlo Mirabella-Davis 90 min., USA/Ireland, 2011 Languages: English

Distribution Publicity

Bonne Smith 1028 Queen Street West Star PR Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1H6 Tel: 416-488-4436 Tel: 416-516-9775 Fax: 416-516-0651 Fax: 416-488-8438 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] www.mongrelmedia.com

High res stills may be downloaded from http://www.mongrelmedia.com/press.html - Synopsis- In 2008, and Markéta Irglová captivated audiences and earned two Academy Awards for their musical collaboration in the film Once. As their fictional romance blurred with reality, they fell in love, recorded an album, and embarked on a world tour. Fueled by two years of exhilaration, performance, and psychological turmoil, The Swell Season is much more than a music documentary. It is a volatile and intimate portrait of a romance that fractures in the face of life on the road and personal tragedy. As Glen and Markéta’s relationship unhinges, ultimately music prevails as their enduring connection.

- Cast - GLEN HANSARD MARKÉTA IRGLOVÁ

- Credits -

Presented by: Elkcreek Cinema In Association with: Overcoat Records A Film by: Nick August-Perna, Chris Dapkins, Carlo Mirabella-Davis Produced by: Carlo Mirabella-Davis Cinematography by: Chris Dapkins Edited by: Nick August-Perna Sound recording: Nick August-Perna, Brett Hammond Music by: The Swell Season, Iron and Wine, Bill Callahan

- Cast Bios -

Glen Hansard is the Academy Award–winning principal songwriter and vocalist/guitarist for Irish group and one half of folk rock duo, The Swell Season. He is also known for his acting, having appeared in the BAFTA winning film The Commitments, as well as starring the film Once. His song "" from Once, co-written with Markéta Irglová, won the Academy- Award for Best Original Song in 2007, and between 2007–2008 earned him no less than ten other major nominations or awards altogether.

Markéta Irglová is a Czech songwriter, musician, actress, and singer. She collaborates with Glen Hansard as The Swell Season. They released an eponymous album, The Swell Season (album), on Overcoat Recordings in 2006. In 2007, she co-starred with Hansard in the indie movie Once, written and directed by . Hansard and Irglová wrote all but one of the songs featured in the film. The movie won the World Cinema Audience Award for a dramatic film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. As of 2010, she resides in New York City. - DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES-

Nick August-Perna is a New York-based filmmaker working with Elkcreek Cinema. He most recently co-directed and edited The Swell Season, a feature- length documentary about Academy Award-winning musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. He has worked for PBS's award-winning documentary series Wide Angle, Bloomberg TV, and recently traveled to Haiti to film a story for Human Rights Watch. He has also written and directed several short films and documentaries. Nick got his masters degree at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2007.

Chris Dapkins In 2005, Chris Dapkins was invited by the Tribeca Film Institute to participate in the Tribeca/ Marrakech Filmmaker Exchange with Martin Scorcese and Abbas Kiarostami in Marrakech, Morroco. His short film from Morocco, A Weak Signal premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. As a Director of Photography, he has shot a select group of fiction films such as Knife Point (Sundance '09). Most recently he photographed and co-directed The Swell Season featuring Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.

Carlo Mirabella-Davis was raised in the mountains of East Meredith, in upstate New York. He co-founded Elkcreek Cinema, a collective dedicated to films involving the upstate area. He has a BFA from Tisch NYU Undergraduate Film School and recently completed his Masters Degree at Tisch NYU Graduate Film School. Mirabella-Davis wrote and directed the short film Knife Point, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, aired on ARTE-TV, and for which he won “Best New Director” at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. Carlo co- directed and produced the feature documentary The Swell Season. His feature screenplay On Evil was chosen for the 2011 Sundance Script Lab.

- Social Media - Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XA6Xe_sCGs

Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Swell-Season- Movie/179335752108328?v=wall

Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/swellseasonfilm - Press - http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/musical-couples-of-all-kinds- in-the-spotlight-at-tribeca-festival/ http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/features/TFF_11_Viewpoints.html