Italian filmmaker and actor, Alfonso Perugini came to New York City with a Cinema Studies background, but it was at the New York Film Academy’s hands-on Two Year Filmmaking Conservatory in that Perugini says he truly “perfected the technique of filmmaking.” In addition to honing his craft at the Academy, Perugini fell in love with the city that surrounded him.
NYFA grad, Alfonso Perugini
Two years after graduating from NYFA, Perugini completed his first major film, which will be screening at Laceno d’Oro, a prestigious international film festival held in Italy. This year’s festival includes films from famous directors such as Abel Ferrara, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. In fact, Perugini’s film, New York, will be screening right before Wenders’ on September 17th.
Perugini’s film is divided into five episodes—one dedicated to each borough in New York City—Staten Island, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. The protagonist is a photojournalist named Patrick Fawkes (played by Finnish Jarkko Mäkelä), who returns home after a four month trip in which he’s been reporting on US troops in Afghanistan.
His cast includes actors from all around the world. Two of the female leads come from South America, Venezuelan model Carla De La Hoz and NYFA acting graduate Sofia Negromonte from Brazil. American actor, Daniel Berkey, whose been in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, plays the father of the protagonist.
Of particular note is the film’s score from the unpublished repertory of the famous Italian composer, Piero Piccioni.
After New York’s Laceno screening on September 17th, the film will continue its tour at festivals and film events all over the world.
You can stream the film in its entirety on Vimeo-On-Demand or purchase the blu-ray at www.arecistudio.com/onlinestore.
Students gathered in the Welles Screening Room at the New York Film Academy Los Angeles campus to participate in a Q&A with renowned talent manager Joanne Horowitz, up and comer Scott Eastwood. The discussion was moderated by producer Tova Laiter and NYFA acting instructor Melissa Sullivan.
Talent Manager, Joanne Horowitz
The room was packed with NYFA actors eager to hear some tricks of the talent trade from one of the industry’s top managers (she was just honored as Manager of the Year by her peers), and Joanne was eager to share her wealth of knowledge with the students. One of the most resonating bits of advice for aspiring actors was to relish the audition process. Forget thinking of auditions as simply a means to an end, but rather take joy in it as an opportunity to act. Success will eventually only come to the actor who loves acting—not focusing on landing the role. Joanne also stressed the importance of keeping your spirits high in between auditions and during inevitable dry spells of work. She said having another passion in life, whether it be photography, playing an instrument, supporting a cause, etc., is essential. Acting is a difficult career path; be easy on yourself, and take a break from it if you have to.
Melissa Sullivan, Tova Laiter and Joanne Horowitz
Joanne spoke at length about her time representing Scott Eastwood, and her unlikely foray into management. Earlier in her career, Joanne worked at Studio 54 and was VP of publicity and marketing for Universal film studio doing PR for Alec Baldwin, Christopher Reeve and briefly Robert Downey Jr.
Joanne has concentrated her energy on fostering young, up-and-coming talent Scott Eastwood, whom she met while he was living in Hawaii, years before he decided to act. She stayed in contact with Scott and when he eventually moved to LA, Joanne put him in acting classes, insisting that nobody talk about his association with his famous father. Now Scott has made his way onto the A-list roster, having landed roles in movies like Fury and The Longest Ride. Some of Joanne’s other budding stars include Gavin Stenhouse (Allegiance) and Claudia Lee (Hart of Dixie, Kick-Ass 2).
In addition to managing, Joanne’s other passion is animals. A tireless advocate and organizer for animal rights, Joanne specifically focuses her efforts on protecting African elephants and rhinos from poaching. She received a standing ovation from like minded animal lovers.
We sincerely thank Joanne Horowitz for visiting NYFA and we wish her the best of luck in all of her management and animal rights endeavors!
The New York Film Academy Running Team joined the competitive Simi Valley Arroyo Creek 10K event, with a total of 167 participants, on Sunday, August 9th 2015. Our runners overcame the difficulties of this challenge with a vigorous, energetic and determined attitude, with memorable and remarkable results. Todd Lien, an MFA Acting student, proudly represented our Academy by finishing 5th place overall, running at a consistent pace of 6:59 minutes per mile and a total time of 43:15.4 minutes. Todd was also the winner of his age category.
NYFA Running Team
Our female runners finished strong as well. Olivia Ekelund, an AFA acting student, was the winner of her age category with an impressive solid pace of 8.16 minutes per mile and a total time of 51:24.4 minutes.
Congratulations to our runners for their exemplary spirit and achievement!
Coming off the success of the popular South African television series, 7de Laan, and the feature film Klein Karoo, New York Film Academy 8-Week Acting for Film graduate Donnalee Roberts has greatly expanded her role in the South African entertainment business. Not only does the hard-working South African enjoy the artistic gratification of acting for the camera, she also loves running a business and exploring the integrated marketing and networking that goes on behind the scenes of her films.
Her critically and commercially successful romantic adventure, Pad na jou Hart (Road to your Heart), in which Roberts played the lead actress and was co-producer and co-writer along with Ivan Botha, has been seen by over one million people thus far!
Her more recent award-winning film, Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling (Ballad for a Stranger), which stars Roberts as Carina, had its premiere in Australia and New Zealand and had a nationwide release in South Africa. Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling is a romantic thriller based on the popular South African television series from the eighties. Not only did the series have South Africans nailed to their televisions, the film was highly acclaimed and was both a critic and box office hit, earning Tempo awards for South African Film of the Year. Donnalee also won Best Actress of the Year for both Pad na jou Hart and Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling.
Roberts’ goal is to continue to provide original content to her native country, which has recently seen a resurgence in its film industry.
“We have a wonderful supporting audience in South Africa that is extremely loyal to local content,” said Roberts. “I would love to have this audience grow and also keep on motivating our existing audience. As a filmmaker and storyteller, my goal is to not only make South Africans proud of the films and stories that originate in our country but to also make films that are so universal in their themes that they transcend language barriers and move people from all over the world.”
As an independent filmmaker one knows the importance of marketing your film correctly in order to reach its full potential. That is why Roberts and her team started a marketing division within their production company which specializes in making marketing personal and creating a need for people to want to see their film.
“In a country where we speak 11 official different languages and where we are at all times directly competing against international blockbusters, marketing has become essential. The South African film industry, specifically the Afrikaans language market films, is literally bursting out of its seams, and as a young filmmaker it is so exciting to be on the forefront of this endeavor!”
Her upcoming film, Vir Altyd (Forever), which Roberts stars and also co-wrote and co-produced with Ivan Botha, was shot half in South Africa and half in Mauritius. Vir Altyd is a romantic adventure film that takes us on a journey through the seasons of love and the true meaning of what ‘forever’ means. Roberts and her team are currently busy with post-production and the feature film releases nationwide on February 12th, 2016.
Roberts advice to those who are pursuing acting, especially current students is to CREATE. “In this industry we are all creative beings. Create the world you want to play in, create the characters you want to portray. It takes long hours of hard work, commitment and passion to make your dreams come true. The 8-Week Acting for Film Program at the New York Film Academy inspired and motivated me even more. I thought, I can now do this by myself. I don’t need to wait for success to fall onto my lap.”
She strongly encourages actors to involve themselves more with writing and producing their own material.
“You should never stop learning and growing,” Roberts added. “Always have a spirit of growing.”
Donnalee Roberts and Blake Babbitt
Donnalee Roberts will be joining Blake Babbitt at the New York Film Academy’s audition and portfolio review event at the Davinci Hotel and Suites on Nelson Mandela Square in Johannesburg on September 5th at 18:00.
The Film Academy will also be holding auditions and portfolio reviews in Cape Town on Tuesday, September 8th.
Starting this Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 at the New York Film Academy Café on the corner of Lexington Ave. and 24th street in New York City, students, alumni and New York City performers are invited to showcase their talents at our first ever OPEN MIC SLAM!
Performances are open to live music, poetry or stand-up comedy!
Sign up starts at 7pm. Performances start at 8pm.
The first 25 people to sign up are allowed up to 4 minutes on stage to perform.
There is then a 5 slot waiting list for any extra time at the end of the show. Artists must bring their own music and props for their performances.
If you’re ready to showcase your talent, we’ll see you there!
If you have any questions, please email Calaine Schafer at [email protected].
Coming off the success of her award-winning short film, 7 Hours, which screened at over 30 film festivals across the world, New York Film Academy MFA Filmmaking graduate Farah Fuad ALHashem has a new film currently making the rounds at festivals around the world.
The documentary film, Breakfast in Beirut, recently screened at the Lebanese Film Festival in Sydney, Australia and is currently circulating around the Arab world with screenings coming up at the Alexandria International Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries 2015 (September 2nd-8th, 2015 in Egypt). In November, it will screen at the Cairo International Film Festival as well as screenings in Paris, Venice, Beirut and Dubai.
The documentary film’s experimental direction examines Beirut as a chaotic city and its inhabitants’ relationship with it. But underneath this chaos, the heart of Beirut is waiting to be discovered.
After writing 17 different versions of the script, with script supervisor Rachel Vine in Universal Studios, Hollywood, writer and filmmaker Farah ALHashem kept changing the storyline until her arrival in Beirut, where she ended up shooting a completely different version of the script.
For more information about the film, you can visit the Facebook Page. Also, have a look at the trailer below!
New York Film Academy MFA Documentary student Kai Lu’s ‘Year One’ film, The Cost of Love, recently won the 2015 Indie Fest Award of Merit and is an official selection of the 23rd San Francisco Global Movie Festival. Lu is currently in negotiation to distribute the film through MUBI, a popular site for global film lovers.
Lu’s film tells the story of a husband and wife who must leave their children in their village in rural China to live and work in Beijing. It is the only way they can make enough money to support their family because jobs and opportunities are very limited outside the big cities. In the past two decades, millions of Chinese have flooded into the urban centers seeking a better life — often leaving their children behind to be raised by their elderly grandparents.
photo from ‘The Cost of Love’
For Kai Lu the issue hit home; Ai Yin, the wife of the couple he profiles in The Cost of Love is his father’s cousin. While Ai Yin and her husband Zhou work hard selling tomatoes in a Beijing marketplace, seven hundred miles away, her parents struggle to raise the couple’s three children. Her parents have health problems and their children feel resentful and abandoned. The film beautifully portrays the heartbreaking cost of love.
Lu is currently completing his thesis film and his MFA Degree in Documentary at NYFA Los Angeles. Upon graduation in September, he hopes to get a job at the CCTV Film Channel in Beijing and devote himself to Chinese non-fiction.
“My ultimate goal,” he says, “is to help an original Chinese film win the Academy Award.”
Students gathered in New York Film Academy’s Los Angeles theater to screen the hit Bollywood film Tara: The Journey of Love and Passion and participate in a Q&A with the movie’s star, Rekha Rana—who is currently studying acting at the New York Film Academy—and director/producer Kumar Raj. The discussion was moderated by NYFA LA’s Events Manager and directing instructor Robert Cosnahan.
Tara: The Journey of Love and Passion is an epic saga about an illiterate Indian gypsy woman, brewing liquor illegally to survive, who after being accused of adultery by her husband when she becomes pregnant, is faced with a choice — be a victim of patriarchal society or take her life into her own hands. The film has a strong, positive, and refreshing message of female empowerment. The movie paints a gut-wrenching portrait of life’s hardships, especially for women, in the poorest areas of Indian. The film played for an astounding 52 weeks in a 650 seat theater in India and has received over 40 awards worldwide in many International Film Festivals.
Rekha Rana holds nothing back in her portrayal of Tara, a woman forced to deal with life’s most trying of circumstances. It’s impossible to not feel her anguish as despair thunders through her, or to feel hope when her radiant smile lights up the screen. She was rewarded recently for her outstanding performance in Tara when she received the Best Actress award at San Francisco’s Festival of Globe Film Festival.
Rekha gave alot of praise for NYFA’s acting program, stating that it has improved her performance skills immensely. She can’t wait to apply what she’s learned here in future Bollywood and U.S. films. Rekha said that NYFA is “one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
After the event, director/producer Kumar Raj graciously donated a copy of Tara to NYFA’s library. Rekha is currently working on her upcoming film Yahan Ameena Bikti Hai also produced and directed by Kumar Raj.
Rekha Rana is a Bollywood actress, theater artist, and winner of the Miss Delhi, Photogenic Face and Beautiful Smile title in 2007. She is the brand ambassador for a South African NGO, ‘Star NGO,’ and the ‘Save Our Women’ Campaign.’ Her first movie, Ab Hoga Dharna Unlimited, which is inspired by Anna Hazare’s Dharna, was released on April 13th, 2012. Rekha won the Best Actress Award at the Singapore Film Festival in 2010 for her performance in a short film called Take Care. She has performed over 200 stage shows worldwide. As she is interested in humanity work, she has joined women’s helmet promotion, started on March 8th, 2010, at International Women’s Day to make awareness among women wearing helmets.
Rekha Rana with director/producer Kumar Raj (photo by Drew Hughes)
Kumar Raj started his career in the shipping industry and is an arbitrator in the India and London Council of Arbitration. He was inspired to begin working in the Indian Film Industry (also known as Bollywood) 6 years ago because his intense passion and love for cinema. In these 6 years, he has made four films, his latest being Tara.
We sincerely thank Rekha Rana and Kumar Raj for screening their wonderful film at the New York Film Academy and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors!
Recently, movie and video game writer Patrick Hegarty dropped by New York Film Academy’s Business of Screenwriting class to share his remarkable journey of how this one-time professional NFL football player went on to become a professional screenwriter and video game scribe.
Hailing from Orange County, CA, Hegarty attended the University of Texas at El Paso, where in addition to playing football on a scholarship, he earned himself a Bachelor of Arts in English. However, in 1989, he was recruited by the Denver Broncos and ended up becoming the back-up quarterback to John Elway and Gary Kubiak.
After 2 years in the NFL, Hegarty attended the University of Colorado Denver and attained his masters in English. The initial plan was to become a novelist, get his PhD, and teach. And for a while that’s what he did, teaching high school English and writing books, including the semi-autobiographical tale, “The Dazzle of the Light” (Wexford College Press), about a troubled man coming to terms with the untimely death of his brother. “The problem with books is that they take a lot of time. A lot of time,” Hegarty smirked.
However, a unique opportunity came for Hegarty when a friend working in the video game sphere needed a writer to generate announcer commentary material for a new football game they were producing called NFL GAMEDAY, and recruited Hegarty to write the play-by-play dialogue. “I guess they thought, given my experience, I could do it. I’m really glad they did. It opened up a lot of doors.”
Before long, Hegarty immersed himself in video games, writing the scripts for over a dozen titles for Playstation 1 and 2, including, MLB 2002, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning and Eragon, becoming a Senior Writer for Sony Computer Entertainment.
“The great thing about writing video games is they give you the parameters, the plot-points, but you have a lot of freedom within those confines to make it your own,” Hegarty remarked. Hegarty soon became an acclaimed video game writer. He was a finalist at the 13th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (Best Adapted Story for Ghostbusters video game); and a finalist at the 10th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (Best Story – Kids’ Title for The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning video game). NFL news used on this page source of nflbetting.us via NFL Betting. More recently, he was the Voice Director and Writer for Battleship, and wrote on Wipeout: The Game, NBA 2K15 and NCAA FOOTBALL 14.
But writing in the gaming world isn’t all Hegarty has in his satchel of acumens.
HIs first screenplay, Flower of Fire, won the prestigious Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition and garnered some industry attention. Soon, managers came clamoring, and he signed with Madhouse Entertainment, where he’s still represented.
Another action feature script S.T.E.A.L. — about an American hiding in Brazil who is blackmailed back into his life of crime to steal back loot from ‘The Sao Paulo Seven’, a multi-national gang of expert thieves — placed on the Hit List in 2010, an industry insider’s list of the best specs screenplays in Hollywood, before selling to Fox International. It is currently in development there, with early 2016 as the scheduled start of filming.
Hegarty has been writing TV and film projects in addition to video games ever since.
On writing, Hegarty remarked, “You have to treat it like your day job, even when you have a day job, you have to always keep writing. I know it’s cliche, but I write every day. Maybe it’s from my discipline developed in football, but I make it my daily routine.”
Hegarty also talked about his process, “I’m not the biggest outliner. I do it, but I don’t like to have my characters pigeon-holed into a pre-existing plot. I like them to take me to unexpected places. To let them surprise me. Sure, I’ll know the general shape of a story I’m working on, but I don’t let an outline rule the screenplay once I start writing it.”
Hegarty advised the students to find the process that works for them. “Don’t be afraid to try it your own way. Look at Blake Snyder. His unique way of looking at things became a best-seller. And wear different hats. Many hats. Learn editing, copywriting, video game writing, directing — it’s all part of that same creative muscle. But never, ever stop writing.”
Currently, Hegarty is working on a one hour drama pilot as well as several feature concepts. He is represented by Madhouse Entertainment and yes, he can still throw a mean spiral.
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