Member Screening Series – Shorts Program

Member Screening Series – Shorts Program

Join us for this month’s NYWIFT Member Screening Series featuring comedic shorts. Featured NYWIFT

members are Nina Pratt (Casting);  Heidi C. Bordogna and Victoria Herbert (Exiled Out East);  Katrina Medoff (Home Invasion for the Holidays); and Bethany Jacobson and Flavia Fontes (Hotel Bleu). The filmmakers will be available for a Q&A immediately following the screening.

The screening series provides members with the opportunity to show their work in a theatrical setting. Screenings take place at Anthology Film Archives, followed by networking at a nearby bar.

Casting
Nina Pratt (Creator/Director/Producer)
2016, 17min

Casting is the real story of the world of a beloved/abhorred casting director trying to make everyone happy. In the world of New York City casting directors, Susie Goldstein is tops. Susie has earned the respect and often the ire of everyone in the business – with the support of her quirky staff, pharmaceutical, and lots of therapy. She is a master of managing egos, ever since her actor husband dumped her 20 years ago when he joined Scientology and became a household name. Susie was pregnant at the time, but suffered a miscarriage after someone suspiciously popped a Quaalude in her virgin bloody mary at an opening party for her ex’s first major film.

Nina Pratt, VP of Casting at Grey has cast hundreds of actors in thousands of commercials, including the famous E-Trade Baby. She has cast every type of actor from exquisitely trained NY Theatre performers to rising young stars and very established celebs. She also generously donates her time to support Hole In the Wall Gang Camp. Pratt was the casting director for six seasons at the inimitable Ensemble Studio Theatre where she is still a member, and had the opportunity to work with such playwrights as Romulus Linney, Paul Rudnik, Will Scheffer and David Mamet. She also did the casting for the award winning Off-Broadway play, and feature film, The Exonerated directed by Bob Balaban. Pratt received the Casting Society’s prestigious Artios Award for her work on the play. More recently she has done casting work on Bernard & Doris for HBO and Nicky Deuce for Nickelodeon. In addition to creating, directing & producing Casting, her new comedy web series, she is currently producing a true crime limited series entitled Pee-Shy.


Exiled Out East
Heidi C. Bordogna (Writer/Producer)
Victoria Herbert (Creator)
2016, 20min

Exiled Out East is a three-part female-centric, comedy series, about famed New York Party Planner, Vicki Darrow. When Vicki commits a very public ‘faux pas’, she’s exiled to her Southampton home and given one last shot to climb back up the social ladder, by planning a party for the Halitosis Prevention Foundation.

Heidi C. Bordogna is a film and TV producer/director/writer. She co-wrote and produced Exiled Out East, and recently produced the feature film, Asockalypse! and the short film, Pain and Suffering: A Legal Comedy. Her short film, Controlling Tourette’s Syndrome, can be seen on ABC NewsNow and her doc feature, Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler! screened at the Southern Screen Film Festival and the Nuits Cajun et Zydeco Festival. Her award-winning scripts have placed in The New York Television Festival and The Atlantic City Cinefest, among others. She began as an associate producer on the series, The Walkers Cay Chronicles, Jim Fowler’s Life in the Wild, and the special, Shark Island. For years, she was a camerawoman with the show Blue Man Group. In addition to production, she has taught at the University of Louisiana, New York University, Fordham University and others. Visit her production website

Exiled Out East is Victoria Herbert’s first comedy series as both creator and executive producer. She is executive producer for the feature Chez Upshaw, directed by Bruce Mason, and Fugue, a short by Cat Bird Pictures. She is the host of the talk show All that Buzz with Victoria on arts & culture and is also a comedic actress. Previously, she was CEO and Business Development Strategist of Chromacity.com, Inc., an online entertainment division of Pantone. She was responsible for all aspects of building the internal marketing and business operations, including alliances, partnerships, special events and creative content. There is a film treatment based upon her young adult graphic novel.

Home Invasion for the Holidays
Katrina Medoff (Actor)
2015, 8min

In the comedic short Home Invasion for the Holidays, a newly divorced mom and her college-aged daughter are nervous without a man in the house—and their worst fears come true when a burglar breaks in that night. But the burglar is more sensitive and dimwitted than he first appears, and the mother-daughter team might just be able to outsmart him with prescription drugs and excellent listening skills.

Katrina Medoff is an actor, writer and producer based in Astoria, NY. She plays Carissa in the comedic short Home Invasion for the Holidays, which has been screened at several film festivals. She acted in the short drama Confession on Pleasant Street, which premiered at the SoHo International Film Festival in 2016. Her short film Lovestuck, which she wrote, produced and acted in, is currently being submitted to festivals. She wrote and acted in the short romantic comedy Ms. Connections, and she was a producer for the short drama Dark Blue (both in post-production). She is also the editor-in-chief of BORO, a monthly magazine that covers Astoria, Long Island City and Sunnyside. Visit her website.

Hotel Bleu
Bethany Jacobson (Writer/Director/Producer)
Flavia Fontes (Editor)
2016, 26min

A down and out stand-up comedienne finds refuge at Hotel Bleu, where she meets a charismatic trumpet player half her age and gets her mojo back.

Bethany Jacobson began her career as a magazine photographer and video artist. After completing NYU’s graduate film program in the 90s, she worked as a producer/director/camera person on indie features, documentaries, and television series. Her work has aired on PBS, MTV, BBC and WDR. Her feature screenplay, The Electric Virgin received support from Euroscript and Media II. It was selected for the 2005 Berlinale Co-production Market and optioned by producer, Andrea Miller. Her feature screenplay forHotel Bleu was one of fifteen projects selected for the 2014 Maison Des Scenaristes at Cannes. She has taught at Brooklyn College, Pratt, Long Island University, NYU’s Graduate Film Program and is currently an Assistant Professor at LaGuardia Community College in the Media Studies Program.

Flavia Fontes has been making award-winning documentaries for more than 18 years. Fontes directed and edited Forbidden Wedding, which premiered at the Margaret Mead Film Festival, screened in more than 20 film festivals and was broadcast on The Sundance Channel. She directed and edited Living with Chimpanzees: Portrait of a Family (Screened at MOMA and internationally). Editing credits include Terror at Home (Lifetime Television), White Horse (Berlin Film Festival; HBO), and Du Bois In Our Time that was produced by UMass Museum of Contemporary Art. Fontes teaches film and video editing at The New School.

 

January 24 @ 7:00pm
7:00 pm — 9:00 pm (2h)

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue (at 2nd Street)

Pricing
$7 for NYWIFT Members
$9 for Students, Seniors, Members of Women Make Movies, IFP, AAWIC, ImageNation, DCTV, and Center for Communications
$12 for Nonmembers

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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

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