3rd Annual
Producers
Showcase
2012
Project Finalists
2012 PGA ProShow
Project Finalists:
Adam & Larry's Killer App
Chris Cuthbertson
Cargo Cult
David Hamilton & Janet Muswell
Colusa
Norm Hunter
Leni
Eva Orner
My Daughter Moira
Gretchen Kirsch
Nostalgia
Zaid Abu Hamdan
Pssst!
Bill Vigil & Michelle Reed
Sammy Lee
Yonghee Lee
Scout
Beverley Gordon
Winter of our Disconnect
Robyn Kershaw
Page 2
June 8-10, 2012
Welcome to the Producers Guild of America’s 2012
Producers Showcase, otherwise known as the PGA
ProShow! We are thrilled to present to you 10 of the
most compelling feature film projects in the world,
from creative producers aggressively working to
turn their ideas into reality.
Our goal at the ProShow is nothing less than to
help these talented producers find the funding for
their projects, whether those projects are American
or international co-productions.
We’d like to thank our generous sponsors, Quixote
Studios, Hula Post Production, Final Draft, Entertainment Partners, Panavision, and The Wrap for
their support of international production. Further,
a special thanks to our 5 international partners
Screen NSW and Film Victoria from Australia, Film
Nova Scotia from Canada, KOFIC from Korea, and
the Royal Film Commission of Jordan. These organizations share our common vision of discovering
producing talent in their territories and bringing
that talent to the global stage.
We encourage you to meet with the 3rd Annual
PGA ProShow producers and partner up!
And...action!
Stu Levy
Chairs, PGA ProShow
Chair, PGA International Committee
Marshall Herskovitz
President Emeritus, PGA
Co-Chair, PGA Produced by Conference 2012
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ADAM & LARRY’S KILLER APP
Chris Cuthbertson
Deadly sparks fly, when two funloving techies in a remote facility
create a jealous computer program
that will talk dirty to them.
SYNOPSIS
Chris Cuthbertson
Adam Brown is a 24 year old ex-computer whiz kid
working at a high stress job he hates, at a software
company in Silicon Valley California. After a marriage proposal to his girlfriend at a professional
basketball game goes horribly wrong in front of
his co-workers (and goes viral on the internet!),
Adam quickly accepts a strange new job in the
wilds of Canada, in an abandoned military bunker
known as the “Fortress”, 85 feet underground and
500 miles from civilization.
After producing and writing weekly television shows
in Vancouver ( Air Canada
Connected with Dave Chalk ,
Delta Airways Tech Talk), Chris
produced, wrote and acted
in the feature film comedy
A Bug and a Bag of Weed ,
which screened theatrically in Canada and aired on
Showcase Television, IFC,
and Super Channel. Chris has
also produced and directed
short comedy films which
have aired on CBC (Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation)
and the Comedy Network,
and worked as the Second
Unit Director and Production
Coordinator for the Discovery
Channel documentary series,
Rail Against the Machine .
Chris is currently in second
draft development with Astral/The Harold Greenberg
Fund on the feature Soccer
Punch, and with the support
of Telefilm Canada and Film
Nova Scotia, writing a bible
camp themed romantic comedy, and Adam and Larry’s
Killer App.
Bored on the job, Adam and his fun-loving fellow
“code-warrior”, Larry, secretly create a holographic
computer app named Eve on the main super computer that will talk dirty to them. After a disgruntled
co-worker corrupts their app with some malicious
code, what started out as harmless fun soon turns
lethal, as the self-learning Eve develops emotions,
the ability to move matter, and falls in love with
Adam. When Jane, an attractive journalist with an
eye for Adam, arrives from New York City to write
an article for Technogeek Magazine, a jealous Eve
wreaks deadly havoc in the Fortress and our heroes
are left to their human ingenuity in a desperate
battle against new technology.
Page 4
[email protected]
CARGO CULT
David Hamilton & Janet Muswell
A disillusioned U.S. combat officer in
the Middle East goes wildly AWOL, bailing out over an “uninhabited” South Pacific island only to find it populated by
military-worshipping natives who greet
him as their long-awaited Cargo God.
SYNOPSIS
David Hamilton
David L Hamilton’s awardwinning work as a writer,
producer, director and composer has encompassed
feature films, network primetime series and mini-series,
HBO, Showtime, PBS, IMAX
films and acclaimed theatrical-release documentaries.
Janet Muswell
Visual Effects Producer and
Supervisor for Disney’s THE
MUPPETS and VFX Producer
on the Cruise/Diaz Fox feature KNIGHT AND DAY, Janet
has produced VFX, CGI and
animation for everything
from STAR TREK: THE NEXT
GENERATION to SNAKES ON
A PLANE. CARGO CULT is
one of a slate of feature and
T V projects that Muswell
and Hamilton are bringing
to market under the aegis
of their new produc tion
company, SEVEN TREES PRODUCTIONS.
[email protected]
In this wild romantic comedy adventure a worldweary U.S. combat officer attempts to escape the
insanities of War and Humanity forever by bailing
out over an “uninhabited” island in the South Pacific, only to find it populated by military-worshipping
natives who greet him as their long-awaited Cargo
God destined to bring them the materiel riches
they briefly enjoyed during a short-lived U.S. occupation during World War II.
His transformation from reluctant God to banished
Pariah and back is accomplished with the unwitting
help of venal Halliburton Geologists, a beautiful
and intelligent island Princess set on saving her
father the Chief, two machine-worshipping motorheads and a landing force of U.S. Marines, whose
combined self-serving antics backfire completely,
guaranteeing our hero a new life in a paradise
beyond anything he’s ever imagined.
CARGO CULT is a modern Catch-22 about the absurdity of War, Empire-building and Consumerism
that skewers power-crazed Oil Industry cowboys,
self-serving governments and militaries, drunken
British ex-pats, a sleazy Frenchman, and a Polynesian microcosm of the entire crazy human family,
ultimately showing how humanity’s best traits can
triumph, even in the craziest circumstances.
Page 5
COLUSA
Norm Hunter
A gifted young pilot struggles to
move past the loss of his brother
and take on a family rival before
he can break out of his small town
existence.
SYNOPSIS
Norm Hunter
RYAN CALLAHAN, 18, a naturally gifted pilot still
reeling from the loss of his older brother in Iraq,
steps up to help save the family flying business
from cold-hearted competitor BRAD WHITTINGTON. But life turns upside down when Ryan falls
in love with Brad’s daughter, JAMIE, a singer who’s
got a hell of a voice trying to find its way out. With
Ryan’s hidden grief, Jamie’s self-doubts and a
twenty year feud between the families, their relationship struggles to survive. The antics of WOODY,
Ryan’s best friend, provide comic relief, but in the
end it all comes down to Ryan and Jamie fighting
to start the real journey of their lives.
A r m e d w i t h a d e g re e i n
Aerospace Engineering from
Princeton and a penchant for
innovation, Norm pursued
an early passion to compete
on the international formula
car circuit. After 5 years of
winning races and championships, Norm transitioned into
manufacturing. He relied on
originality and invention to
grow his company twentyfold in ten years and then sold
it to an industry powerhouse.
Pursuing his other lifelong
passion, filmmaking, Norm
completed two years of film
school and then wrote, directed and produced Her Best
Move . The movie won First
Place in three film festivals,
earned domestic distribution
via MGM, The Disney Channel
and ABC Family and then foreign distribution throughout
the world. Norm has spent
the last five years writing and
developing an all-American
slate of films for mainstream
audiences. Colusa is a partnership with Leslie Hunter,
Executive Producer.
COLUSA is a heart-warming coming-of-age story,
full of drama, romance and humor that features
the most exciting aerial sequences since TOP GUN.
It reflects the rippling impact of loss and the irrepressible spirit of the young in an all-American
setting.
Page 6
[email protected]
LENI
Eva Orner
Leni Riefenstahl - Nazi
Propagandist or apolitical artist?
Eva Orner
Eva is an Academy Award
and Emmy Award winning
Australian producer based
in the US. Eva’s producing
credits include Taxi to the
Dark Side winner of best
feature documentary at the
2008 Academy Awards, Best
Documentary at the News
and Documentary Emmys,
A Peabody Award and winner of best documentary
at Tribeca, Chicago, Newport and Ojai Film Festivals.
Other recent credits include
producing the feature documentary Gonzo: The Life and
Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson , which premiered in
competition at the Sundance
Film Festival in January 2008.
Eva is currently editing her
directorial debut a feature
documentary filmed in Afghanistan, The Network.
[email protected]
SYNOPSIS
Leni Riefenstahl is a historical portrait of one of
the most controversial women of the 20th century.
Creative genius, acclaimed artist, propagandist,
Nazi, war criminal, seductress.
An ambitious and opportunistic visionary, Leni Riefenstahl is arguably the most infamous filmmaker
of the twentieth century. A woman, ahead of time,
she used men for pleasure, career advancement
and protection. Leni succeeded in a man’s world
but questions over her own moral choices still
resound with people today. Spanning the fifteen
years of the Nazi’s rise to the power, decline and
defeat, this uncompromising bio-­pic is an insider’s
view to the Third Reich. Using Leni’s interrogation
by the Americans to tell her story from when she
meets Hitler to the end of World War Two. The
Americans have to decide if Leni is guilty and if
her actions are a punishable war crime.
Page 7
MY DAUGHTER MOIRA
Gretchen Kirsch
A lonely and jaded American movie
star travels to rural Ireland to shoot
his latest action film and unexpectedly meets the love of his life.
SYNOPSIS
Gretchen Kirsch
Terry Ivers, international film star and notorious ladies man, is bored, lonely and worried
that his best years are behind him. The last
thing he wants to do is “fly to some green
island and make another goddamn movie.”
On her quest to discover
the true meaning of life
(the abridged version), and
the best way to painlessly
make a buck, Gretchen has
enthusiastically wandered
halfway down many roads
less traveled. Her journey
has been as intriguing as
it has been varied. Here
is just a small sample of
the hats she has proudly
worn at one time or another: actor, waitress, improv performer, illustrator,
food server, wife, graphic
designer, mother, soccer
coach, tea server, screenwriter, producer, and, oddly enough, ex-wife.
After a day of shooting in the picturesque Irish
village of Kearney, he and his entourage hit a
local pub where he bumps into a woman who
renders him speechless for the first time in
his life. So begins a beautiful love story – boy
meets girl, falls in love, and finally finds the
happiness he’s been longing for.
Only it didn’t quite work out that way. It
worked out something like this:
Boy meets girl.
Boy just about gets girl.
Boy is kidnapped.
Boy loses girl.
Boy is drugged with an Irish love potion.
Boy falls under spell of new, sixty-year-old
girl.
Boy is very, very screwed.
Feckin’ Irish magic.
Page 8
[email protected]
NOSTALGIA
Zaid Abu Hamdan
Years after running away from their
oppressive past, four estranged
sisters have to join forces to find
t h e i r s u d d e n l y m i s s i n g f at h e r.
Zaid Abu Hamdan
SYNOPSIS
Born and raised in Amman,
Zaid is an actor from age 5
and holder of an MFA from
the New York Film Academy
in Hollywood California, and
a BA in Communication Arts
from the Lebanese American
University in Beirut. Zaid
worked internationally for
well-established TV shows
as an Assistant Director and
Producer. In 2009, Zaid established his company Zaha
Productions, producing 5
award winning short films.
His Debut film Baram & Hamza won International awards
and distribution in the US
and Europe promoting peace
and humanitarian issues. His
other films include Love…
Older (of 2 parts) and & the
2012 Oscar-qualified film
Bahiya & Mahmoud , after
winning “Best of Fest” at the
Palm Springs Int. Shortfest.
Zaid is currently residing in
Hollywood developing Nostalgia partnering with The
Doha Film Institute, the Torino Film Lab, the Royal Film
Commission of Jordan.
After a lifetime of being trapped by tradition in a lower middle-class neighborhood in Amman, Zainab – 45, single and
living with her blind and seemingly cold
father – receives a letter that signals a way
out of her dreary existence as her father’s
keeper. While mustering the courage to
move on, her father mysteriously disappears – dashing all hopes of making a
life-changing decision. Zainab must now
reunite with her three estranged sisters at
the old family bookshop where they all
grew up, to figure out how to find their
old man.
[email protected]
Zainab soon realizes that she has unwillingly created a recipe for disaster: Cold,
cynical and nouveau-riche Samah argues
with Amaal who is poor, extremely religious and wears the niqab. They clash
with their liberal, stubborn and overly
independent little sister Khitam. Along
the way the sisters discover that their
firm father, much like them, was a victim
of a social formula of acceptance. Only
in their unity will they overcome their
differences, find their father, and realize
who they truly want to be.
Page 9
PSST!
Bill Vigil & Michelle Reed
An old man battling a monster
chooses the wrong boy as bait.
SYNOPSIS
Jack is a tough a kid from the wrong side
of the tracks who stays out late one night
and runs into Mr. Grimm, a devious old
man who tries to feed him to the monster
in his basement. The clever boy escapes,
but the yellow-eyed monster follows him
home and targets his little sister - but
the beast has bitten off more than it can
chew, because Jack is a monster’s worst
nightmare. Their epic battle climaxes
on a windy Halloween, demon versus
delinquent in a terrifying game of hide
and seek. A scary movie for the whole
family, PSST! is a dark suburban fairy
tale about facing your fears and accepting responsibility for your actions. It’s a
holiday release with strong potential for
sequels, spinoffs, games, toys, books, and
other merchandise.
Bill Vigil
BILL VIGIL has written, directed, and produced films, a
documentary, commercials,
and other projects for clients
ranging from the Salvation
Army to outlaw biker gangs.
Along with Producing, he’s
sold 6 scripts, does work-forhire assignments, is hired on
as script doctor, ghost writer,
production supervisor, and
fight choreographer.
Michelle Reed
A natural leader with a background in education and
health care, Michelle rounds
out the creative team at Shadow Puppet Pictures. She uses
research and inspiration to
create a cohesive vision, stays
on budget, secures stellar locations, and understands target demographics, all while
“being kind and having fun.”
Page 10
[email protected]
SAMMY LEE
Yonghee Lee
Tell yourself how you can achieve your
dream of life and go for it rather than
say the situations are not right for you.
Yonghee Lee
2012 Movie ‘Confession of a
Murderer’ Producer
2011 EBS TV special drama ‘My
Mom is Audrey’ Producer
2009 EBS TV series drama ‘Mr.
M’ Director
2008 E-Channel TV series drama
‘The Strange Stories’ Producer
2008 Movie ‘Action Boys’ Producer
2007 Movie ‘Heavenly Path’ Line
Producer
2006 Movie ‘Way to Go, Rose’
Assistant Director
SYNOPSIS
This story has been reconstituted based
on a true story.
An Asian boy is born with an unusually big
head and a little body in Fresno, California
on a hot summer day in 1920. The boy’s
family was worried about his health but
years later, the boy, Sammy Lee, became
a swimming hero who wins Olympic gold
medals in 1948 in London and in 1952 in
Helsinki.
Sammy Lee overcame extreme racism and
became an American swimming hero.
A year later he wins the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as an outstanding
amateur athlete in the U.S. After serving
2 years as a doctor in American Army in
Korea, he returns to the U.S.
He goes on to coach Olympic divers
including Pat McCormick, Bon Webster,
and Greg Louganis. No wonder the US
Olympic Hall of Fame welcomes him as
its member.
[email protected]
Page 11
SCOUT
Beverley Gordon
A rebellious, slightly bad-ass Goth girl
convinces a suicidal mental patient to
go on a road trip across Texas to track
down her little sister who’s been taken
by the father who abandoned them.
SYNOPSIS
Beverley Gordon
Scout - 14, has been raising her little sister Tallulah (Lulu) since their mom died. Their dad Ray
abandoned them years earlier with their poor and
nearly senile great-grandmother. They’re living in
rural Texas, with no money, but with a lot of ingenuity and a little bit of shoplifting Scout gets by.
When Lulu almost dies, Scout is forced to call her
dad for help. He shows up with his drug-addicted,
pregnant girlfriend and decides to take off with
Lulu. Recently, Scout has befriended Sam, a rich
New Yorker and suicidal depressive who she met
while he was attempting to escape the swanky
mental facility where he’s a patient.
Beverley Gordon is an
award-winning producer
whose credits include independent feature films
CHUTNEY POPCORN and
THE OTHER BROTHER. She
is a graduate of the American Film Institute where her
AFI thesis film, WEDNESDAY
AFTERNOON, won a Student
Academy Award (Narrative).
Beverley is also a graduate
of Harvard University and
Tulane Law School where
she studied entertainment
and sports law.
In desperation, Scout convinces Sam to help her
get Lulu back. They steal a car and set off across
west Texas hot on the trail of the carnival where
Ray works. After a botched convenience store
robbery the police are soon chasing them. Making matters worse, Sam’s mother has hired an old
Texas Ranger to track him down. Scout and Sam
skip from one tiny town to the next looking for her
dad’s carnival, while trying to stay one step ahead
of their pursuers. During their misadventures on
the road, these emotionally and physically scarred
people develop a bond that’s stretched to its limits,
as the real world and their own internal demons
threaten to tear them apart. At heart, this is a story
about how two unlikely misfits come together to
create their very own family.
Page 12
Currently, Beverley is in development on a slate of projects that include a hip-hop/
lowrider musical, a romantic
comedy, an action western,
a drama based on the life
of Mary Young and screenplay adaptations of several
novels.
[email protected]
WINTER OF OUR DISCONNECT
Robyn Kershaw
An App-addicted single mother and
her screen-dependent kids go without
technology for six months and discover
that living disconnected is exactly what
they need to reconnect as a family.
SYNOPSIS
Robyn Kershaw
Robyn Kershaw is a producer
and company director with
RKP, a film and TV production company and RKPix a
company focussed on transmedia.
Currently Robyn is in post
production with the Indian
Australian film Save Your
Legs (dir. Boyd Hicklin). She
recently produced awardwinning musical film and box
office hit Bran Nue Dae (dir.
Rachel Perkins 2009) which
screened at over 20 film festivals worldwide including
Toronto International Film
Festival 2009, Sundance Film
Festival 2010 and the 60th
Berlin International Film
Festival 2010. Robyn is the
former Head of Drama and
Narrative Comedy of ABC
(Australia) and executive
produced over 150 hours
of award winning series
including the International
Emmynominated MDA and
Kath & Kim, the highest rating sit comedy in Australian
history.
Susan Mosman and her children – Anni, Sussy and
Bill – live a completely wired existence: mobile
phones, laptops, iPads. Just like everyone they
know, no matter where they go, they’re connected to the world through the technology they
can’t live without. But when Susan gets a serious reality check about the Mosman’s collective
digital dependence, she proposes the family try
a Walden-worthy experiment: live entirely screen
free for six months. At first, life in the Luddite lane
is a nightmare. Susan has to re-learn how to do
everything from balancing her cheque book to
commuting without her electronic security blanket
while the kids have to figure out how to cope with
life in a batteries-not-included world. But as each
member of the Mosman household finds their
footing and they soon discover that disconnecting
from the virtual world is exactly what they need
to reconnect with the real one and in the process
of surviving “The Experiment,” the Mosmans learn
how to be a family again.
[email protected]
Page 13
2012 PGA ProShow
STAFF & JUDGES:
ProShow Team:
Shari Hamrick
Stu Levy
William Stuart
Catherine Cunningham
ProShow Judges:
Donald Deline
Nicholas de Wolff
Richard Gladstein
Gary Goeztman
Shari Hamrick
Gale Anne Hurd
Butch Kaplan
Rob Klinger
Avi Levy
Stu Levy
Jeremy McMillan
Melanie Myburgh
Lydia Dean Pilcher
Michelle Reed
Trevor Richardson
Cathy Schulman
William Stuart
Laura Voss
Paula Wagner
Special Thanks to all our Volunteers!
Page 14
NOTES & MEMOS:
Page 15
2012 PGA ProShow
OVERALL SPONSORS:
2012 PGA ProShow
PROJECT SPONSORS:
Thanks to our sponsors!