Gotham Alumni On Screen: July 2024
by The Gotham Staff on July 8, 2024 in Alumni on Screen
Welcome to Alumni on Screen, July 2024 edition! To champion and signal-boost our Gotham-supported projects, at the top of each month we’ll have a rundown of alumni making their way into the world on screens both big and small.
In Theaters Nationwide | July 19
At a remote estate in upstate New York, newlyweds Leah (Ella Rae Peck) and Shane (Rigo Garay) celebrate their honeymoon, but a pall hangs over their union. She works for the publisher who will be releasing his debut novel, a lightly autobiographical examination of family trauma, alcoholism, and the immigrant experience. Barely suppressed tensions over family trauma would be enough kindling for a blowup, but Leah and Shane’s marriage is truly tested by the appearance of two weirdos with entrepreneurial zeal and a half-baked blackmail plot: John (John Speredakos) and Rose (Lorraine Farris). They’re looking for investors for John’s latest invention, a culinary breakthrough called the Crumb Catcher — and they won’t take no for an answer. A gonzo home invasion thriller from Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix that pummels the American Dream into just desserts, Crumb Catcher is a striking directorial debut from Chris Skotchdopole.
Written and Directed by Chris Skotchdopole.
Gotham Alum: Crumb Catcher is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – U.S. Features in Post.
In Theaters Nationwide | July 26
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Written and Directed by Sean Wang.
Gotham Alum: Dìdi is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – U.S. Features in Development.
Museum of the Moving Image | Saturday, July 13
Followed by a Q&A with Writer-Director-Star Isabel Sandoval and critic/author Caden Mark Gardner
“Lingua Franca contains the rarest of onscreen trans depictions: a genuine romantic melodrama in the vein of Fassbinder and Wong Kar-wai. Writer-director Isabel Sandoval stars as Olivia, a trans woman and undocumented immigrant in need of a green card and caught in the red-tape of outmoded trans documentation. A home-care worker for Olga (Lynn Cohen), an elderly woman suffering from dementia, Olivia becomes romantically involved with Olga’s grandson Alex (Eamon Farren), a recovering alcoholic trying to get his life back together. They may seem doomed for disappointment—due both to historical struggles and former on-screen representations of cis/trans romantic relationships—but Sandoval’s film presents their courtship in a gently expressive and sensual manner that makes it one of the strongest trans narratives of recent years.” —Museum of the Moving Image
Written and Directed by Isabel Sandoval.
Gotham Alum: Lingua Franca is an alum of 2016 Project Market – Fiction Features.
SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED
Rooftop Films | Thursday, July 11
Followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Isaac Gale & Ryan Olson and afterparty featuring a live performance from Swamp Dogg
Hidden away deep in the suburban San Fernando Valley, legendary cult musician Swamp Dogg, alongside housemates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, has transformed his home into an artistic playground. Together, they navigate the tumultuous waves of the music industry, and forge a wonderfully bizarre and inspiring path across time and space.
Directed by Isaac Gale & Ryan Olson.
Gotham Alum: Swamp Dogg is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs.
Streaming on PBS POV | July 1
Silvia Del Carmen Castaños & Estefanía “Beba” Contreras tell their own coming-of-age story inHummingbirds, a punk-rock portrait of the last summer of their youth on the Texas-Mexico border. Together they transform their hometown of Laredo into a cinematic wonderland of creative expression and activist hijinx. Winner of the Berlinale Generation Grand Jury Prize, Hummingbirds celebrates the power of friendship, laughter, and joy as tools of survival and resistance.
Directed by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños & Estefanía “Beba” Contreras.
Gotham Alum: Hummingbirds is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs.
If your project is an alumnus of The Gotham programs and is being released this month, and you do not see it listed here, please contact us at [email protected]