Carlo Fiorletta - DETOURS clips

Carlo Fiorletta & Deirdre O'Connell in DETOURS

I recently needed to put together a short video of Carlo Fiorletta's best scenes from DETOURS, and decided to share it here as well.  The first scene features the wonderful Deirdre O'Connell ; she is best known as a theater actress in NYC, and can be seen in Showtime's series "The Affair."  The second scene - truly one of my favorites -  is with the terrific Tara Westwood, who plays Carlo's daughter in the movie. 

You can see DETOURS on Saturday night July 16 at the Long Island Film Expo in Bellmore, Long Island and on Sunday September 18 at The Strand theater in Lakewood NJ. More screening dates coming (very!) soon.

DETOURS next screening: Sat July 16 at the Long Island Int'l Film Expo

Next up for DETOURS is the Long Island International Film Expo - we're thrilled to be an official selection. The festival takes place at the Bellmore Playhouse on Long Island; Detours screens on Saturday night July 16 at 9:40 PM.

The screening will be followed by a q&a with stars Tara Westwood and Carlo Fiorletta, shown at left in a scene from the movie.

Tickets are $8 each, and can be bought on line from the link below or at the door, subject to availability.

http://longislandfilmexpo.com/event/detours/

Paul Sorvino at the DETOURS Premiere

Mara Lesemann, Tara Westwood, & Paul Sorvino

It was wonderful to have DETOURS cast member Paul Sorvino join us and a wonderful full house at the Muvico Theaters for our premiere at the Sunscreen Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, FL. Paul is best known for his work in the classic mafia film Goodfellas and we love having him play charming coffee shop owner Joe DiMaria.  Tampa Bay Times' movie critic Steve Persall moderated a terrific question and answer session after the movie.

A great crowd turned out

DETOURS Premiere at the Sunscreen Film Festival

Gary Busey & Tara Westwood

DETOURS had a wonderful premiere this past Saturday at the Sunscreen Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, Florida!  We had the pleasure of shooting the climactic scenes of the movie in the area - including on Tampa Bay - and it was great to be back.

I traveled with our wonderful star and my fellow producer Tara Westwood; we were both thrilled with how well-organized and well-attended the festival was.  It helped that we were interviewed by the lovely folks at Tampa news station Bay News 9 - quite a few people told me that they came out because they saw the interview, which you can check out here:

We had an enthusiastic and near-capacity crowd for our screening at the beautiful Muvico theater in downtown Saint Petersburg - the movie looked and sounded fantastic.

Tara was on a terrific panel on acting with Oscar-nominated actor Gary Busey, who was at the festival with his new feature Candiland. We both had the pleasure of participating in a panel on Women In Film, which was moderated by Linda J. Brown, head of the Cinematography Department at USC and director of the wonderful documentary You See Me. 

It was a great weekend, and we've got more DETOURS screening news coming soon! 

Panelist on "Women in Film" at the Sunscreen Film Fest, Saturday April 30

I'm delighted to join the "Women in Film" panel on Saturday April 30 at 1:15 PM at the 11th annual Sunscreen Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, Florida! It takes place just hours before the world premiere of my new feature, DETOURS, at the festival - that's at 6 PM Saturday evening.

As a screenwriter and a producer, I'm well aware of the numbers -



Women had just 1/3 of the speaking roles in Hollywood movies in 2015.
Women were the protagonist in 22% of those movies, and the antagonist in 18% of them.

Women directed just 7% of the 250 top-grossing Hollywood movies  in 2014, and 15% of all movies. And wrote just 11% of the top 250 movies.

But movies with a female protagonist have done exceptionally well recently - think Star Wars - The Force Awakens or Mad Max Fury Road if you like action movies. And Pitch Perfect 2 or Room if you're looking for comedy or drama.

To quote Variety:  "Female driven movies make money, so why aren't move of them being made?"

I think there would be a lot more female driven movies if there were more women making the movies. I'm doing what I can to move us in the right direction. And I look forward to talking about it on the 30th!

Deirdre O'Connell - in DETOURS and The New York Times

One of the great things about casting a movie in New York City is that you have the opportunity to work with amazing actors who are more frequently seen on stage than on screen.  For Detours, one of the great actors who our casting director, Caroline Sinclair, reached out to was the wonderful Deirdre O'Connell. She plays Beth, the delightful woman who Dan Giraldi, played by Carlo Fiorletta, meets in a bar in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Deirdre currently stars in the Labyrinth Theater Company production of Mona Mansour's play The Way West. The New York Times ran a wonderful feature story about her this past week, which discussed her tremendous body of work in the theater, especially as what they call a "melancholy mom." The full article is available here.

As wonderful as that play is - I saw it and she's amazing in it - it's terrific to have cast her in a role where she is beautiful and charming and happy.  Click the link below to see some of it. Detours has its world premiere in April at the 11th annual Sunscreen Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

"Detours" to Premiere at Sunscreen Film Fest in Saint Petersburg, FL

DP Chris Eadicicco on Tampa Bay

I'm delighted that my new feature, Detours, will have its world premiere at the 11th annual Sunscreen Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

The climactic final scenes of Detours were shot in and around Saint Petersburg and Tampa Bay, so it's wonderful to return there for our first ever public screening.

The Sunscreen Film Festival takes place Thursday April 28 to Sunday May 1. I'll share the screening date, time, and location as soon as they are available.