Edgy Mama

…plus see the film while drinking champagne.

From director Chusy Jardine:

ANYHWERE USA, the LOCALLLY PRODUCED, SUNDANCE AWARD-WINNING FILM will hold a ONE-NIGHT-ONLY, CHAMPAGNE SCREENING FUNDRAISER, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2008 , AT 8 PM AT THE FINE ARTS THEATRE. TICKETS ARE $50.00 PER PERSON and can be purchased at the box office.

The film Quentin Tarantino suggests “reduces audiences into a delighted, giggling mob” will be shown one night only at the Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Asheville to raise funds for its makers to attend festivals and promote their film far and wide. Champagne will be served and a Q & A with the director will follow the film’s screening.

We’ve been accepted to one of the ne plus ultra festivals in Europe the British Film Institute’s LONDON FILM FESTIVAL. It is our best and last chance to showcase our film before distributors from the and and for them to see the impact it has on collective audiences. Our presence is imperative to drum up interest, make ourselves available to sales agents and to attend the question and answer period afforded the filmmakers.
ANYWHERE, USA is a comedy of manners in three parts. It won the SPECIAL JURY PRIZE for singularity of vision and spirit of independence, in a jury led by Quentin Tarantino at the 2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. The film will screen next in Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, The United Kingdom, Sweden and will be the opening night film of this year’s Chicago Underground Film Festival.

For more information, visit the website.

Here’s my story for Mountain Xpress about the film after it won the Sundance Award.

I wrote this week’s cover story for Mountain Xpress on the making of Anywhere, USA. Read all about. I’ll let you know when and where you can see the movie–and me in it!

Yep, our hilarious little film won the Special Jury Prize Dramatic and the Spirit of Independence Award: “Chusy Haney-Jardine, for Anywhere USA, easily the funniest movie of the festival that skewers NASCAR and pistachio nuts with oddball aplomb.”

Great news, and I assume, news that increases the film’s chances of being picked up for distribution. Hurrah!

Here’s a list of the Sundance prize winners.

Here’s the description of Anywhere, USA, from the Sundance Film Festival website:

“At 2:00 p.m. every Tuesday, Tammy beats Gene with a tennis racquet. It’s his penance. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about the pistachio nut. Meanwhile, Pearl is having doubts. An orphaned eight-year-old in the care of her uncle, she has unwittingly eaten pot brownies and begins to suspect that the tooth fairy isn’t real. Finally, there’s Ralph, a man of privilege who, somewhere between bites 23 and 27 of his steak, comes to a startling revelation: he doesn’t know any black people. Don’t be alarmed. It’s just another day in Anywhere, USA.

Told in three parts (”Penance,” “Loss,” and “Ignorance”), Chusy Haney-Jardine’s wildly original snapshot of du jour America is such an audacious, personal expression of vision that you occasionally feel as if it’s being projected directly from his brain. Haney-Jardine delights in theatricality, burlesque images, and wonderfully mismatched devices (rednecks frolicking as Puccini blares or an entire story line narrated by two women gossiping at a tanning salon). And for all its humor, the film observes life with tenderness and humanity, finding an emotional center in Pearl and her uncle.

Here’s a film that takes real risks and reaps the rewards ten-fold. Shot in Haney-Jardine’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, edited in his garage, and featuring an almost entirely non-professional cast (his daughter, Perla, is the sole exception), Anywhere, USA, wears its independence like a battering ram that gently knocks at your door.”

That’s more information in one place about the film than I’ve seen about anywhere else. The film is being screened at least five times at the festival, and let’s hope it gets major kudos and is picked up by a distributor. Chusy and Jennifer deserve it. They’re putting up a daily blog with film clips from the festival here. Now that the movie’s website’s been updated, it rocks!

I cannot WAIT until the film is screened here. I’m still assuming I’m in the film, as it would be difficult to cut me out of Ralph’s pivotal scene where he finally meets a black guy.

I actually had a wacky plan to try to go to Sundance, but it was dependent on a number of factors that didn’t come together, including having a free place to stay at a nearby ski resort. As this will probably be the only time that my face graces the big screen at Sundance, I’m bummed I couldn’t get out there. But I’m still psyched about the whole huzzah! Go Anywhere, USA!

Will Asheville: the movie ever be finished? Hard to tell. In typical Ashvegas fashion, Asheville: the movie stars freaks, hippies, assorted non-actors and even includes an Edgy Mama cameo. It’s taken years to make. The director keeps promising it’s coming, and according to the movie web site, he may be about to deliver.

we hope to have a few test-screenings/fund-raisers in the early fall. people who’ve seen the film have laughed, cried, and been mesmerized…

the editing of our film is completed!!!! we are currently working on our preliminary sound mixes at echo mountain recording with the multi-talented bruce sales…

we are preparing the film for festival runs and actively seeking representation (sales agents, producer reps). when we were looking for help with the marketing of this film we had the gall to contact one of the greatest graphic designers working today. he lives in london and his name is si scott.

So what is the movie about, you ask? Well, it’s described on the web site as “an autobiographical film in three parts: penance, ignorance, and loss.” Here’s more from the web:

these three parts are, for all intents and purposes, independent short films that when watched together gain in meaning and scope. each film was designed and conceived so that the viewer senses that three different authors were at work, that three different teams came together to make the films. to that effect, we shot each one differently, with different stylistic slants and executions. the performances in each segment are also all different, deliberately so.

the first film, PENANCE, is the most overtly comedic. IGNORANCE is an example of masterpiece theatre gone awry. LOSS starts off as a comedy and if you’re not crying at the end of that segment you’re a sociopath or worse.

One other note. The director, Chusy Jardine, says on the web site that a number of cool musicians, including the Avett Brothers, contributed to the soundtrack. Coolness!

Edgy has pimped this film before, so we’re anxious to see the final product.