The Mayfield native is back in town for a new project.
SOURCE: Cleveland Scene | Emma Sedlak
June 29, 2021
Coming off of the success of her latest short film “Cake,” which screened at 38 film festivals and took home nine awards, director and Mayfield native Anne Hu is returning to Cleveland to shoot her new project, “Lunchbox.”
The inspiration for “Lunchbox” came when Hu came across a video titled “Lunchbox Moment” on her Facebook feed. A “lunchbox moment” can be described as a shared experience among Asian-American children who are judged or bullied for cultural foods brought to school in their lunchbox, often leading them to be ungrateful for their lunch’s cultural heritage. What made this video stand out to Hu was its conclusion. After participants shared their “lunchbox moment,” they reconciled with their parents, apologizing for pushing their heritage away and thanking them for their hard work.
SOURCE: Spectrum News 1 | Taylor Bruck
May 31, 2021
LAKEWOOD, Ohio – Lakewood native Lindsay O’Keefe started making movies around the age of 10, using an iPad.
“Every holiday, my cousins would come together. We would all make goofy films, you know, on my iPad would use iMovie, I would edit them,” O’Keefe said. “After realizing that it could actually make it into festivals, I kind of thought, oh, maybe this is a little more than a hobby.”
Hollywood movie producer Charles Band talks Tuesday about why he bought a Fairmount Avenue home in Cleveland Heights. Mike Cardew, Akron Beacon Journal
The house looks perfectly ordinary on a street lined with anything but ordinary homes.
Fairmount Boulevard is home to relics of a bygone era when the movers and shakers of Cleveland a century ago looked east for greener pastures and a place to build stately estates.
The homes look like something out of a movie with grand architecture and have relics of the bygone era when there were back staircases where servants could quietly move about and not disturb the owners.
Life is pretty quiet nowadays along the boulevard on the city’s edge in Cleveland Heights. Except for the occasional blood-curdling screams from one home that is about to become very familiar to fans of horror B movies.
CLEVELAND – The Cinemark at Valley View was anything but “A Quiet Place” Saturday evening after John Krasinski (The Office) surprised Northeast Ohio fans who had turned out for a preview screening of “A Quiet Place II.”
The actor took to social media Sunday afternoon to share clips from the surprise visit to Cleveland– including one encounter with two fans who didn’t quite recognize him when he attempted to sneak into their picture.
The stop is part of a nationwide tour to promote “A Quiet Place II,” written and directed by Krasinski. “The Office” actor also stars in the film, alongside his wife, actress Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns).
SOURCE: News 5 Cleveland | Mike Brookbank
May 19, 2021
CLEVELAND — Getting a shot to tell the stories from their community in the way they want them to be told. A new film co-op is giving women of color a chance to sit in the director’s chair.
“There’s just not enough African American women doing it. And not because we aren’t doing it, but because we don’t get a lot of opportunities,” said India Burton, film director.
It’s a rare opportunity that’s now helping redefine the role in film production.
Northeast Ohio native Brandon LaGanke co-directed feature film debut, “Drunk Bus.” (Courtesy of Brandon LaGanke)
SOURCE: Cleveland.com | John Benson
May 12, 2021
CLEVELAND, Ohio — It was an ironic twist of fate that considering the world over the last year was stuck at home living its own “Groundhog Day”-like experience, streaming services offered a number of loop movies where characters experience the same day over and over again before discovering some level of self-fulfillment.
Taking a different approach to the same feeling is Northeast Ohio native Brandon LaGanke’s new film “Drunk Bus,” which highlights the worst kind of literal loop — working a dead-end job with no end in sight.
Liam Neeson stars as “Jim” and Jacob Perez as “Miguel” in director Robert Lorenz’s THE MARKSMAN, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. (Credit: Ryan Sweeney / Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment)
SOURCE: Cleveland.com | Joey Morona
April 27, 2021
CLEVELAND, Ohio — What happens when your real life exceeds your dreams?
Ask Danny Kravitz. The screenwriter grew up in Pepper Pike and graduated from Orange High School. During the fall of 2019, he found himself on the set of “The Marksman,” his first produced screenplay. The movie starred Liam Neeson, one of his favorite actors of all time, and, as luck would have it, was being shot in Cleveland.
Daniel Kaluuya wins the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Judas and the Black Messiah.” CHRIS PIZZELLO POOL/AFP Via Getty Images
SOURCE: Mansfield News Journal | Lou Whitmire
April 26, 2021
MANSFIELD – A film made partly at the Ohio State Reformatory won two Oscars Sunday night, one for Daniel Kaluuya for best supporting actor and one for best song.
The bulk of the film, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” was made in Cleveland and filmed a few days in November 2019 at the Mansfield prison that was the backdrop for the hit movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Daniel Kaluuya, winner of the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, Pool)
SOURCE: Cleveland.com | Joey Morona
April 26, 2021
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Many popular movies have been shot in Cleveland over the years, from “A Christmas Story” to “Marvel’s The Avengers.” But outside of “The Deer Hunter,” the city’s film industry hasn’t produced many Academy Awards.
But that changed Sunday when “Judas and the Black Messiah” took two home Oscars. Daniel Kaluuya won Best Supporting Actor and H.E.R. won Best Original Song for “Fight for You.”
Judas and the Black Messiah received five Academy Award nominations. Photo: Glen Wilson
SOURCE: Architectural Digest | Mekita Rivas
March 18, 2021
When production designer Sam Lisenco found out that Judas and the Black Messiah had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, he happened to be on the phone with director Shaka King.
“The two of us just started screaming,” Lisenco tells AD. “And I was like, ‘All right, you have phone calls to make,’ and hung up on him. Crazy morning. I’m really happy—it’s a story that needed to be told.”
