NewFilmmakers 
Los Angeles 

Screenings Every Wednesday, 
at CINESPACE 
6356 Hollywood Boulevard @ Ivar

This Week Program Begins
at 7:00PM With Our Short Program 

Our New Schedule

   


The CINESPACE dining room/theater  is designed for optimum movie viewing.  Built on slightly graded levels like a movie theater, each booth is positioned to provide you with the clearest view possible.  The equipment in the dining room and throughout the restaurant is state of the art. The dining room offers Dolby Digital theater-quality sound and an 18x8 viewing screen. 

Henry Turner, the Executive Director of New Filmmakers Los Angeles, is an award winning independent filmmaker of long standing whose five feature films and numerous shorts have played at film festivals internationally.  For six years he was Slamdance head of Filmmaker Relations, coordinated Short Film Programming and hosted the Filmmakers’ Lounge at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.  

Henry is a professional writer who attends the Professional Writers’ Workshop run by internationally renowned author John Rechy . He is publishing a recently completed novel and has a script being produced which is generating excitement from A-list talent in the Hollywood community.  


CALL FOR ENTRIES!

Send in your movie. Any length, any year of production. Films without distribution only. No entry fee. Keep the press kit to a minimum, synopsis, director’s bio, one production photo. All films will be digitally projected--dvd discs are the preferred medium. If selected, your film will be programmed several months in advance; you’ll get all the details and publicity information well in advance of your screening.  

The continued success of the New York NewFilmmakers Series shown weekly at Anthology Film Archives has inspired us to provide the same opportunity on the West Coast.  Every Wednesday evening a feature film and two shorts will be presented at CINESPACE, the new state-of-the-art theater/supper club on  Hollywood Boulevard.  

Unlike a festival, New Filmmakers provides maximum emphasis on individual filmmakers and their films, offering every opportunity to interest industry professionals and distributors in the Los Angeles area.   

Send films to

NewFilmmakers
P.O. Box 48649
Los Angeles, CA. 90048

e-mail: mailto:henry@newfilmmakers.com

.

FILMMAKERS PLEASE NOTE: WE SCREEN MINIDV, NTSC VHS, & DVD IN LOS ANGELES.  

WE DO NOT SCREEN 16MM, 35MM, & BETASP


THIS WEDNESDAY
March 26th

Evening begins at 7:00PM 



Scene From Our Feature Lethal Force


SHORTS:


REAPER MADNESS

Writer/Director: Robert Snyder
Producer/Editor: Philip Snyder
Cast: Ralph Edsell (Rick); Robin Lilley (his Girlfriend); Robert Snyder (the Grim Reaper)
Year of Production: 1998
Running time: 7.5 minutes

Rick, an over-the-hill punk rocker, and his girlfriend enter a graveyard in the dead of night with plans to party and instead encounter the Grim Reaper. One scene from a feature-length script, "Reel Blood", about low-budget horror-filmmaking.

H.R. PUKENSHETTE

Director: Steve Herold
Cast: Joe McClean, Kevin Kolack, Sabrina Gennarino
Running Time: 10 minutes
Year of Production: 2001

A man's plan to drink himself to death is interrupted by an unlikely Guardian Angel.

FEATURE:  

LETHAL FORCE

Director: Alvin Ecarma
Cast: Frank Prather, Cash Flagg, Jr.  
Running time: 70:00 minutes.

No offense to John Waters, but one of the best Baltimore-set cult films in years comes from an upstart filmmaker hailing from the Washington suburbs. Alvin Ecarma's Lethal Force radiates as much self-confidence as any debut feature in recent memory, regardless of genre, and as a low-budget romp through the cult-film canon, it's a psychotronic triumph of the highest order. Ecarma's movie includes crafty references to B-movie icons such as Jack Hill, Bruce Lee, James Glickenhaus, and Ray Dennis Steckler. Thankfully, Ecarma's hilarious script and strong cinematic sensibility turn what could have been a disjointed parade of pastiches into a tight and memorable entertainment.

Suburban gangster Jack (Frank Prather) returns home to find his wife dead and his son Patrick (J. Patrick Collins Jr.) kidnapped by wheelchair-bound crime lord Mal (Andrew Hewitt). In exchange for sparing Patrick, Mal demands that Jack lure his best friend and hit man of choice, Savitch ("Cash Flagg Jr."--a Steckler homage), into a fatal trap. Meanwhile, Patrick remains in captivity, protected from creepy pedophiles by Mal's No. 1 black-and-beautiful henchwoman, Rita (Patricia Williams). If Savitch manages to escape Mal's clutches, how will he settle his score with Jack?

Clearly, Lethal Force finds its center in cartoonish '80s action-revenge flicks like Commando; it's replete with Ah-noldesque one-liners and a blood-soaked body count. In parodying this material, Ecarma shows savvy by essentially making an earnest '80s action-revenge flick and letting the genre's dated conventions parody themselves. At appropriate moments, he grafts onto his spartan plot flourishes borrowed from blaxploitation classics, spaghetti westerns, and Hong Kong cinema old and new (the last abetted by professional-looking action choreography by Eric Thornett).

Although Ecarma's movie won both the Jury and Audience awards for Best Feature at last year's MicroCineFest, it would be doing Lethal Force a disservice to dwell on its miniscule budget and cheapo production values. For laughs and excitement, Lethal Force compares favorably to most of Hollywood's bloated output. By setting his sights on drive-in classics and late-night cable fodder, Ecarma knows he doesn't need to provide polish--just blood, guts, and giggles.

Review By Eric Allen Hatch