Dark Matter

the film

 

I grew up during the Cultural Revolution in Hunan, China, at a time when the performing arts were strictly for propaganda, much of it anti-American.   When the political climate shifted, I was able to support myself singing Elvis Presley songs in Mandarin.  I longed to come to America, and finally had the opportunity in 1987. When I arrived here, I experienced the sense of dislocation and culture clash—sometimes humorous, sometimes heart breaking—felt by many young Chinese who come to this country, and by this film's protagonist, Liu Xing.  I see Dark Matter as an opportunity to explore the mysterious and powerful forces unleashed when a young Chinese immigrant strives to make his mark in a culture that is at once seductive and impenetrable.

The Chinese students who came to America in the 1980s and early 1990s were the cream of the crop.  Only the very brightest—one in a million—were allowed to pursue their Ph.D.'s in this country.   One of them, named Lu Gang, went on a shooting spree at Iowa University in 1991.  The American media reduced this incident to the boilerplate story of a social misfit driven off the deep end by competitive pressures.  I knew there was more to it than this.  This promising young student was my peer; I wanted to explore in greater depth the forces that gave rise to such violent behavior.  

I asked writer Billy Shebar to start with two premises: there is no villain, and the murderer is not insane.  I wanted Shebar to make both Liu Xing and his American mentors well-rounded characters with the best intentions.  The tragedy lies in their failure to connect, despite all their intelligence and good will. 

In directing Dark Matter, I wanted to create a cinematic landscape in which ideas and reality never intersect.  The film will freely alternate between Liu Xing's Technicolor dream of American life and the stark realism of his situation.  Liu Xing’s correspondence with his parents in China is a narrative thread in which America is painted in the saturated colors of a hand-tinted post-card.   At the other extreme are naturalistic scenes portraying the competitive, workaholic life of a Chinese graduate student at a large American university.  This clash of visual elements will produce the atmosphere of kinetic and comical strangeness out of which Liu Xing's terrible act of violence arises. 

As an opera director, I work intensively with designers and performers to evoke a powerful emotional response within the four walls of the theater.  I have always been excited by the possibility of breaking out of those walls, and telling a contemporary story of life and death on film.  Dark Matter is a story of operatic proportions played out in the real world.  Only film can move fluidly through the many strata of Liu Xing's experience in America and his family's life in China. I hope to create the cinematic equivalent of a Chinese scroll painting, depicting Liu Xing's comedic rise and tragic fall against a richly-textured American landscape.

To many Chinese students in the early 1990s, Lu Gang was a hero.  These students had shrunk their American dreams to fit American realities, but Lu Gang refused to compromise.  So it is with the protagonist of Dark Matter.  Liu Xing's illusions are his life's blood; when they die, he dies with them. 

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MERYL STREEP (Joanna)

Meryl Streep's empathy for her characters and the diversity of women she has chosen to portray have distinguished her work in film, television, and theatre for almost three decades. For these achievements, she has received an unmatched thirteen Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar twice. She won the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actor’s Guild awards for playing four roles in Tony Kushner’s highly acclaimed epic Angels in America on HBO, and she received the American Film Institute’s 32^nd Lifetime Achievement Award, joining the five women (and twenty-six men) who have been so honored. In 2006 she appeared in Ben Younger’s Prime opposite Uma Thurman, Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, and the film adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada.

Streep was a co-founder of Mothers and Others, a consumer advocacy group that worked successfully for twelve years to change the way toxins in the environment were regulated, and to promote what has become easy access to organic and sustainably grown food. She continues her advocacy work with the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, Scenic Hudson, the Children's Health and Environmental Coalition, and Equality Now, a campaign for the rights of women and girls worldwide. She has been married to sculptor Don Gummer for twenty-seven years; they are the parents of four children. 

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LIU YE (Liu Xing)

A rising star in China, Liu Ye has acted in eleven movies.  Almost all of his films, including Postman in the Mountains, Lan Yu, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, The Lover from the Heavens, and Purple Butterfly, have been nominated for awards at international film festivals.

Liu won for best actor at the Golden Horse Film Festival awards in 2001 for his portrayal of Lan Yu, a homosexual college student enamored with an older businessman.  His fan base and box office success extends beyond China to Korea, Japan, and even France, where Lan Yu was nominated for a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.

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AIDAN QUINN (Reiser)

Aidan Quinn started his acting career on the Chicago stage and went on to play the title role in the modern-day Hamlet directed by Robert Falls.  In New York, he starred on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Off Broadway in Sam Shepherd's Fool For Love and Lie Of The Mind. Most recently, Quinn was seen Off Broadway in Salome directed by Estelle Parsons with Al Pacino and The Exonerated, which he also performed this year on London's West End.

Quinn's television credits include the ground-breaking drama An Early Frost, for which he received an Emmy nomination, See You In My Dreams based on the short stories of Sam Shepherd opposite Marcia Gay Harden, the Independent Spirit Award-nominated Cavedweller, and HBO's Empire Falls opposite Paul Newman and Ed Harris.  He most recently starred in the critically-acclaimed Book Of Daniel in the title character for NBC.

Quinn has starred in more than 25 feature films, including Desperately Seeking Susan, Avalon, At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, The Playboys, Benny And Joon, Avalon, Legends Of The Fall, Michael Collins, and The Assignment.  In Ireland, he produced and starred in the much acclaimed This Is My Father, written and directed by brother Paul Quinn and filmed by brother Declan Quinn, an award winning cinematographer.    Also in Ireland Aidan starred in Song For A Raggy Boy for which he was nominated for Best Actor at the Irish Film Awards.

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BLAIR BROWN (Hildy)

Blair Brown starred in John Caird's production of Humble Boy with Jared Harris for the Manhattan Theatre Club.  In 2002 she played Prospera in The Tempest directed by Emily Mann at the McCarter Theatre and starred in Mark Brokaw's acclaimed revival of A Little Night Music during the Kennedy Center's Stephen Sondheim Festival.  Brown won the Tony Award for her performance in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen directed by Michael Blakemore in 2000.  Other Broadway credits include Sam Mendes' and Rob Marshall's Cabaret for the Roundabout Theatre; Richard Nelson's James Joyce's The Dead with Christopher Walken for Playwrights' Horizons; Tom Stoppard's Arcadia directed by Trevor Nunn for Lincoln Center Theatre with Billy Crudup and Robert Sean Leonard; David Hare's The Secret Rapture and Richard Foreman's The Threepenny Opera for Joe Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. 

Brown’s favorite film credits include Lars Von Trier's film Dogville starring Nicole Kidman, Clint Eastwood's SPACE COWBOYS; Victor Nunez's A Flash Of Green with Ed Harris and Richard Jordan; The Astronaut's Wife with Johnny Depp; Ken Russell's Altered States with William Hurt; Michael Apted's Continental Divide with John Belushi; Stealing Home with Jodie Foster; David Hare's Strapless with Bruno Ganz and Bridget Fonda and Loverboy directed by Kevin Bacon.  In television she is best known for the title role in The Days And Nights Of Molly Dodd created by Jay Tarses for NBC and Lifetime Television for which she received 4 Emmy nominations and the Cable Ace Award. Recent television appearances include the NBC dramas ER and Law  & Order: SVU, the WB series Smallville with John Glover , the CBS drama CSI: Miami and the WB pilot Dark Shadows produced by John Wells.  She most recently appeared in The Sentinel with Michael Douglas.  She recently made her New York directing debut with Lovely Day Leslie Ayvazian at The Play Company.

Brown is on the board of People for the American Way and served with Christopher Reeve as co-president of The Creative Coalition, an educational and advocacy group made up of people in the entertainment industry.

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CHEN SHI-ZHENG

Director

Chen Shi-Zheng is a director, choreographer, singer, and actor. He was born in Changsha, Hunan, China in 1963.  As a teenager, he studied with some of the great masters of Chinese opera and became a leading traditional opera actor, performing in many productions throughout China.  Chen immigrated to the United States in 1987 and has worked to create a new expression that crosses the boundaries between music, opera, theatre, and dance, and between nationalities.  In 2000 he received the title of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government.

Recently, he has worked on a modern opera Mercury Light for the Berlin Festival; a new theater works My Life as a Fairy Tale for the Hans Christian Andersen bicentennial celebrations in Denmark, 2005. Future projects includes Monteverdi’s opera cycle- Orfeo, The Coronation of Poppea, The Return of Ulysses plus Vespers for English National Opera premier in Spring 2006 and Journey to the West, a circus spectacle for Theatre du Chatelet in Paris Sept 2006.   

Recently Chen has completed the last piece of a trilogy of Chinese theater works: Peach Blossom Fan for the Center for New Theatre at the California Institute of the Arts, presented at REDCAT, the theatre in the new facility designed by Frank Gehry in downtown Los Angeles, in April 2004.  The other two pieces are Orphan of Zhao (Lincoln Center Theater & Lincoln Center Festival, July 2003), and Snow in June (American Repertory Theatre, November-December 2003). Among Mr. Chen’s other recent directing projects were Monteverdi’s Vespers with Handel & Hayden Society in Boston; Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman for the Spoleto Festival USA; Night Banquet, a chamber opera by Guo Wenjing co-commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris, Kunstenfestival des Arts in Brussels, Hebbel-Theater in Berlin, and the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, at the Lincoln Center Festival in summer 2003; and a documentary film Cultural Warriors of The Revolution for TV France 3.

The year 1999 marked the premiere of his 19-hour staging of Tang Xianzu’s complete Peony Pavilion as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.  This production has subsequently been presented at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, at the Perth International Arts Festival, at the Aarhus Festival in Denmark, at Berlin Festival, Vienna Festival and at the Esplanade Centre in Singapore.  It has been filmed for home video distribution by RM Associates.

Chen’s other credits as director and/or choreographer include Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at the Aix-en Provence Festival and at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris; Dido and Aeneas for the Spoleto USA Festival; New York City Opera’s production of Turandot (1991-97); A Small Delegation at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays; Kindness with Richard Tuttle at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe; The Child God by Bun Ching Lam for Bang on a Can Festival, New York; and Chinoiserie by Ping Chong for the Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music. His 1996 production of Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae, performed by China National Beijing Opera Company, attracted wide acclaim and toured to the Hong Kong International Festival of the Arts in February 1998 and the Athens Festival in the summer of 1998.  That same year, he directed Alley, a new opera by Jack Body for the New Zealand International Festival for the Arts. 

As a performer, Chen appeared as a principal in Meredith Monk’s Atlas (ECM) for Houston Grand Opera, which toured widely throughout the world. Other performances include leading roles in the ritual opera Nine Songs (CRI), and in Marco Polo (Sony) by Tan Dun, which premiered in Munich Biennale International Festival and toured to the Holland Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and New York City Opera. He has performed as solo vocalist at Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York, Théâtre Odeon in Paris, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and other major venues throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Chen earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hunan Arts School in Changsha, China with Honors in 1981.  He has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Performance Studies from New York University / Tisch School of the Arts.  Mr. Chen resides in New York City.
 

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BILLY SHEBAR

Writer

Dark Matter is Billy Shebar's first produced screenplay.  In 1998, his 50 Ways To A Better Memory won the Grand Prize at the 1998 CineStory Screenwriting Competition and was given a reading at Nuyorican Poets’ Café’s acclaimed Fifth Night series.

In 1995, Shebar wrote and directed the 16mm comedy Guts, starring Kristen Johnston.  The film won Best Short Film at the Long Island Film Festival, was selected for the Goteborg International Film Festival, and was broadcast on public television’s New York Independents.  In 1999, he created two short films for on-stage projection in Meredith Monk’s Magic Frequencies, which premiered at New York’s Joyce Theater in 1999, and toured the U.S. and Europe in 2000.

An Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, Shebar has written, directed, and photographed films for such PBS programs as Currents, The Eleventh Hour, Edge (a BBC co-production), Media Matters, and In The Life.  His documentary Endangered Species (2000), about street prostitutes in San Francisco, was featured on Salon.com and on Oprah.

In addition to his work in film, Shebar has written numerous articles for Life, Harvard Magazine, and Theater Week.   His 1987 article for Life on nuclear disarmament won an Olive Branch Award for outstanding journalism on issues of war and peace.  Shebar is also a published poet, whose work was selected by Ted Hughes for inclusion in the Arts Council of Great Britain's prestigious New Poetry series and read on BBC Radio.

 
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JANET YANG

Producer

Janet Yang has recently been named President and COO of American Sterling Productions -- a new initiative created with CEO Larry Dodge under the auspices of his American Sterling Group – to finance and produce movies and television. DARK MATTER is their first film.  They are currently launching production of its second project – I CHOOSE FREEDOM – a documentary based on the true-life story of a high-profile Soviet defector under the Stalin regime, and the son he had with a beautiful American socialite. 

Throughout her career, Yang has distinguished herself by working with some of the most formidable directors in the world, discovering unique and often unheard voices and stories, and bringing them into the mainstream.

Prior to American Sterling, Ms. Yang produced films under her banner, The Manifest Film Company.  Among them are Carl Franklin’s High Crimes, a military courtroom thriller starring Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman and Jim Caviezel (20th Century Fox), and The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow’s tale of murder and betrayal, starring Academy Award-winner Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Sarah Polley and Catherine McCormack (Lion’s Gate Films).

Previous Manifest productions include the critically acclaimed films Zero Effect, starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller, and Savior, starring Dennis Quaid, Nastassja Kinski, and Stellan Skarsgard.  .

From 1989 to 1996, Yang served as president of Ixtlan, the company she had with Academy Award-winning writer/director Oliver Stone, spearheading all aspects of the company’s development and production. At Ixtlan, she produced The People vs. Larry Flynt, which won the 1996 Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Actor. Starring Woody Harrelson as the renegade publisher, rock star Courtney Love as his wife, and Edward Norton as the lawyer who won Flynt’s landmark Supreme Court case, The People vs. Larry Flynt was directed by two-time Academy Award-winner Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus) for Columbia Pictures.

Yang served as executive producer of the groundbreaking film directed by Wayne Wang, The Joy Luck Club, based on the best-selling novel by Amy Tan.  She is also recipient of both the Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Made for Television Movie for Indictment: The McMartin Trial  starring James Woods and Mercedes Ruehl.

Prior to her association with Oliver Stone, Yang worked closely with Steven Spielberg and his Amblin Entertainment as a production executive at MCA/Universal. In 1986, she served as Spielberg's liaison in China, facilitating the historic production of Empire of the Sun (Warner Bros). While at Universal, she also initiated the project DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY. 

From 1985 to 1987, she functioned as a link between major Hollywood studios and China. Representing Universal, Paramount, and MGM/UA, Yang brokered the sale of the first American studio movies sold in the Chinese market.

Before joining MCA/Universal, Yang was president of World Entertainment in San Francisco, a domestic distributor of films from Hong Kong and China. World Entertainment was the North American distributor of early works by now internationally prominent Chinese filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige.

Janet Yang holds a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese studies as well as an M.B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, and the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans. She also has taught production and filmmaking at the Sundance Institute and the Independent Feature Project.

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ANDREA MILLER

Producer

Andrea Miller was Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Co-production at Sony Wonder, the children’s television division of Sony Music from 1998 through 2000.  In this capacity, she was responsible for all television revenues based on current and inventory sales, both domestic and international, as well as for finding co-production partners and financing the company’s new slates each season.  In 2000, she helped engineer the sale of her division to the German company, TMO. 

Prior to this, Miller spent seven years in Asia as Head of Programming for TNT and Cartoon Network and as the first General Manager of Cartoon Network Japan.  As the only Time Warner executive with creative experience in Asia, she served as an advisor on numerous endeavors, including feature production, for Warner Brothers and Turner Pictures.

In New York from 1984 - 1992, Miller produced numerous television series and documentaries.  Under Mary Salter at Comedy Central and HA!, she produced more than 100 half-hours of comedy including Indecision ‘92, Random Acts Of Variety, The A List and a pilot for HBO.  She was also the show runner on two pilots made by MTV Productions for ABC.

Miller served as supervising producer on two seasons of the Emmy-award winning Pee Wee’s Playhouse and the original Shining Time Station.  She began her producing career as a writer/production manager on documentaries and ultimately produced the daily shows Everyday with Joan Lunden and The Media Beat for CNBC.  With an M.A. and M. Phil from Harvard, she has also helped numerous documentary filmmakers find financing and serves on the executive boards of Musical Theaterworks, a non profit incubator of new musicals, and PS 122, an organization dedicated to performance art, in Manhattan.

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MARY SALTER

Producer

Before founding SALTMILL with Andrea Miller in 2001, Mary Salter served as Executive Producer for MTV for four years.  Prior to this term, Salter had a production deal with Paramount Television where she developed Lateline for NBC.  From 1989 until 1993 she was Vice President for Production at Comedy Central.  While at Comedy Central she supervised more than twenty series including talk shows, sketch comedies, documentaries and stand-up.  She was executive producer for twelve of these series as well as numerous specials.  Most notable during her tenure was Comedy Central’s seminal coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign, Indecision ’92.  These thirty-four hours of live, multifeed comedy coverage were praised by the press, admired by the major networks that were the competition and whole-heartedly enjoyed by the politicians who served as subjects, victims and comedians.  While at Comedy Central, Salter received twelve Cable Ace nominations, the Monitor Award and two Broadcast Design Awards for the shows she herself produced.

In the late eighties, Salter worked exclusively with Broadway Video.  During this period, she produced two prime-time comedy specials for CBS; Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special and Superman: A Celebration Of The Man Of Steel.

As Film Producer for Saturday Night Live, Salter served as line-producer and creative producer for both Mr. Michaels and Mr. Ebersol from 1979 through 1987.  She received a Golden Lion from the Cannes Film Festival for the parody commercials produced at SNL.

During her early career, Salter produced rock videos and music specials for many group including The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, The Pretenders, Randy Newman and Linda Ronstadt.  During her first years in entertainment, Salter worked as assistant film editor, directed and produced industrials and short documentary films, served as production manager on the cult hit Swamp Thing and assisted Karel Reisz on French Lieutentant’s Woman.

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KIRK D’AMICO

Executive Producer

Kirk D’Amico is President of Myriad Pictures, one of the major independent film companies today with offices in Santa Monica.  Myriad specializes in financing, producing and distributing motion pictures and television programming for the worldwide market.  As well as serving as Executive Producer and Producer on a string of successful theatrical feature films, D'Amico oversees and manages all aspects of this dynamic and rapidly growing company.

Since D’Amico founded the company in 1998, Myriad has produced or represented more than 30 feature films, including highlights such as: award-winning Kinsey staring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney released by Fox Searchlight Pictures; The Good Girl starring Jennifer Aniston, also released by Fox Searchlight; People I Know starring Al Pacino, released by Miramax Films; Van Wilder: Party Liaison starring Ryan Reynolds and Tara Reid, released by Artisan Entertainment and Jeepers Creepers 2, the sequel to the highly successful original, that opened at No.1 at the US box office when released by MGM/UA in 2003.

The most recent titles executive produced by D'Amico include the acclaimed drama Little Fish starring Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving; the romantic drama Death Defying Acts starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Guy Pearce; the drama Dark Matter starring Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn and Factory Girl starring Sienna Miller set to be released through The Weinstein Company.

Additionally, D’Amico produced the ensemble comedy Eulogy, starring Ray Romano and Debra Winger.  Lions Gate released the film in 2004 following its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. 2004.

Prior to founding Myriad Pictures, D’Amico served as Executive Vice President at Village Roadshow Pictures where he was responsible for the worldwide sales and co-productions of all theatrical and television product. Also as Vice President of International at the Samuel Goldwyn Company from 1994 to 1996, D’Amico was responsible for international theatrical, video and television sales.
 

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LINDA CHIU

Executive Producer

A graduate of the University of Southern California’s prestigious School of Cinema Television with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmic Writing, Linda Chiu began her entertainment career in the traditional way, as an assistant to Robert L. Friedman, President of AMC Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group.   In 1994, AMC led the world in the exhibition arena as the largest multiplex theatre chain.  The Motion Picture Group’s focus was to foster solid ties with producers and studio executives in order to gain and maintain an inside edge for upcoming theatrical product.  Under Friedman’s tutelage, Chiu learned the ropes of the theatrical distribution business for the domestic and international markets.

In 2000, Chiu branched out to the talent side of the business, joining the leading talent management and production firm, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment and working directly for the Chairman and CEO Brad Grey.   Brillstein-Grey’s clientele included Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Bob Costas, Jennifer Aniston and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.  Under Grey, Chiu discovered an innate skill for managing artists while learning the nuances and dynamics for navigating successfully in the talent world.  During her three-year tenure, she worked closely with the various divisions under the BGE moniker, including Brillstein-Grey Management, Brad Grey Pictures and Brad Grey Television.  Productions of note included the Robert DeNiro headliner City By The Sea, HBO’s bona fide hit The Sopranos, and the award-winning 9/11 documentary In Memoriam:  New York City with Mayor Giuliani. 

With a growing interest in the nuts and bolts of independent film production, Chiu joined Myriad Pictures in 2003, working for the President Kirk D’Amico.  Myriad has established itself as a producer of eclectic fare, focusing on idiosyncratic stories with star-driven casts.  Myriad’s titles include The Good Girl starring Jennifer Aniston and Bill Condon’s Kinsey starring Liam Neeson; forthcoming titles include Agnieszka Holland’s Copying Beethoven starring Ed Harris and Factory Girl starring Sienna Miller. 

Chiu has established a reputation as an executive with a discerning eye for bold material – content that disarms, content that surprises, content that travels globally.  With her story sense and marketplace savvy, Chiu nurtures projects every step of the way, working intimately with producers, writers and directors in putting together a strong creative package that will attract financiers and excite buyers.  

Of the films she has shepherded at Myriad, she is especially proud of these three:  Little Fish, a contemporary thriller that marked Cate Blanchett’s return to Australian cinema; Chen Shi-Zheng’s Dark Matter, a heartbreaking drama that is inspired by a true story and stars Meryl Streep, Chinese star Liu Ye and Aidan Quinn; and Gillian Armstrong’s Death Defying Acts, a curious love story about Harry Houdini and a mysterious psychic which will star Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

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American Sterling Productions – Producer, Financer

Led by CEO Larry Dodge and President and COO Janet Yang, under a new initiative ASP now also finances and produces independent feature films, documentaries, and television. ASP is a division of the American Sterling Group, a privately held enterprise with operating divisions in banking, insurance, real estate, entertainment and technology. The American Sterling Group supports ASP in arranging financing, joint partnerships and revenue sharing arrangements. Consistent with the American Sterling values, ASP is interested in material that contributes to the enrichment of the global community. 

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Myriad Pictures – International Sales

Based in Santa Monica, Myriad Pictures is involved in financing, production and worldwide sales of major motion pictures and television programming.  Helmed by Kirk D'Amico, the company has risen in the ranks as one of the top independent entertainment companies and holds an impressive and diverse library of filmed programming, including acclaimed dramas The Good Girl, Kinsey and Little Fish.

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Saltmill Productions, LLC - Producer

Saltmill LLC is a New York based development and production company dedicated to realizing films that reflect significant historic, political, or cultural experience. Principals Mary Salter (Viacom, Paramount, MTV Networks) and Andrea Miller (Sony Wonder, TNT & Cartoon Network, MTV Networks) share an interest in discovering directors and writers who bring new energy and perspective to the cinematic medium. This is the company's first film.

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