Company To Produce and Fully Finance New Film From Academy Award® Winning Filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and Executive Producer
Gus Van Sant
February 19, 2009 – It was announced today that indie production and finance shingle Werc Werk Works has come on board to produce and fully finance “Howl,” starring James Franco. The project is helmed by Academy Award® winning writer/director/producers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman of Telling Pictures and produced by Werc Werk Works CEO Elizabeth Redleaf and President Christine Walker. Multiple Academy Award® nominee Gus Van Sant (“Milk,” “Good Will Hunting”) serves as Executive Producer with Redleaf. The announcement was made today by Elizabeth Redleaf and Christine Walker.
The producing and financing agreement for “Howl” marks the third production for Werc Werk Works, which launched in August 2008 and is producing and financing Todd Solondz’s upcoming feature tentatively titled “Forgiveness” (a follow up to “Happiness”), which is currently in post-production, as well as Bella Tarr’s “The Turin Horse,” which is now in production.
“Howl” is a feature film about the obscenity trial of Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem, and the young poet who gained fame as a result. The filmmaking duo of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman wrote the screenplay and will jointly direct as well as produce alongside Redleaf and Walker.
Principal photography for “Howl” is slated to begin on March 16th in New York City.
“Howl” is a genre-expanding feature-length exploration of the courtroom drama of the obscenity trial over Allen Ginsberg’s poem, as well as an animated re-imagining of the poem making even more vivid Ginsberg’s extraordinary delivery of the poem. The film weaves three central themes (courtroom drama, context and creation, animation and performance) into an innovative dynamic narrative in which the events and images give viewers a visceral and completely unforgettable experience of the poem, the man who created it and the (still) reverberating after-effects of its birth. Ginsberg’s own words, drawn from interviews, journals and essays, narrate the story of his early years.
James Franco stars as Allen Ginsberg. Animation for the film is designed by illustrator Eric Drooker and the Animation Director is John Hays. Jawal Nga will also Executive Produce.
Said Redleaf, “‘Howl’ represents the breed of edgy and sophisticated film that we are concentrating on here at Werc Werk Works. When you have a gifted cast telling a remarkable story, the results are usually favorable for a wide audience. When the opportunity to bring this film to life arose, we knew we had to get involved. From the onset, there has been a great sense of collaboration between Rob, Jeffrey and Gus on this picture.”
About Werc Werk Works:
Werc Werk Works is an independent film production and finance company founded by Elizabeth Redleaf and Independent Spirit Award nominated producer Christine Kunewa Walker (“American Splendor” “Factotum”) and is dedicated to the production and financing of high caliber, story-driven films with wide appeal.
The company strives to be a consistent supplier of commercial projects for both the studios and strong independent distributors worldwide. Current productions include Todd Solondz’s upcoming feature (a follow up to “Happiness”), “Howl” – the feature film about Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem, and Bella Tarr’s “The Turin Horse.”
In addition to traditional film production, Werc Werk Works is set up to take advantage of digital convergence in the entertainment arena and become a vertically integrated film production, distribution and financing operation.
For more information, please visit www.wercwerkworks.com
About Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
In 1987 Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman set up an office in a former convent and Catholic girls’ school in San Francisco and started Telling Pictures. Rob had already established himself as one of the filmmakers of the landmark documentary “Word Is Out,” and with his Oscar-winning documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk;” Jeffrey had been working as a film editor and was now editing a piece that Rob was producing for PBS. Their creative styles clicked, and they decided to make a film together. Their first collaboration was another Oscar-winner, “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt.” All told, they have produced four non-fiction feature films and numerous documentaries for television and corporate clients including the Emmy Award winning “The Celluloid Closet” for HBO and “Paragraph 175,” winner of the directing award at Sundance 2000. Between them they have received two Academy Awards, multiple Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Fellowship.
In addition to their feature doc credits, Jeffrey and Rob have produced a variety of programs and segments on such diverse topics as gay comedians, marijuana buyers' clubs, and a strip-club peep-show establishment owned and operated by women (for ABC, MSNBC and HBO, respectively). They have also produced films for such corporate clients as NASA, Stelsys Biotechnology, Citibank and San Francisco's Saint Mary’s Hospital. Rob and Jeffrey’s fiction work includes writing and directing three short film for the series Inside/Out, produced by Alan Poul for Propaganda Films and the Playboy Channel. They have served in a consulting capacity on a number of documentary projects.
Jeffrey and Rob are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for which Rob also serves on the Board of Governors. Epstein and Friedman are represented by Craig Kestel of the William Morris Agency and Paul Brennan of Sloss/Eckhouse/Brennan Law Co.
