- Type: Panels and Workshops
- Year: 2016
Join us for a reading from The Burning Season, one of the winning scripts on the 2015 Athena List. A determined primatologist brings her teenage daughter to a remote region of Madagascar intent on proving her theory on endangered lemurs. But as complications arise their relationship and safety are soon at risk.
Based on Laura Van Den Berg’s short story, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, the film will be directed by award-winning Australian filmmaker Claire McCarthy (The Waiting City, The Turning). Emmy-nominated producer Kate Sharp (Behind the Mask, Madame Bovary, The Hallow) is producing with Jenny Halper, who adapted the story.
Cast: Hope Davis, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Laila Robins, Elena Kampouris, Brandon Michael Hall and Alex Hernandez.
Casting by Rebecca Dealy.
Director, writer, producer and visual artist, Claire McCarthy has a diverse slate of feature film projects at various stages of development. As a directing graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (2001), she also holds a Bachelor of Design / Communications (Hons) from the University of Technology, Sydney. Her feature film The Waiting City, starring Joel Edgerton and Radha Mitchell, released in North America after premiering at TIFF 2010, and has sold to over 40 territories world-wide. Most recently she adapted for the screen and directed a segment of Tim Winton’s The Turning, starring Rose Byrne and Miranda Otto. Her segment won Rose Byrne an ACTAA Award for Best Actress in 2014. Claire is represented by CAA in the States and RGM in Australia, and divides her time between both countries.
Jenny Halper is a Director of Production and Development at Maven Pictures, Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray’s production company, and has worked as development executive on films including The Kids are All Right, The Whistleblower, Bernie, Ten Thousand Saints, and the forthcoming American Honey. Jenny is Executive Producer on Trudie Styler’s directorial debut Freak Show, currently in post, as well as The Mothers, an adaptation of Jennifer Gilmore’s acclaimed novel of the same name, which is currently in development with Rachel Weisz to star. She will serve as co-producer on Bruised, Michelle Rosenfarb’s MMA drama which Jeremy Podeswa is attached to direct. Jenny’s fiction has received an Our Stories Emerging Writer Award and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize among other awards, and her story collection was a 2015 finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Prize. Jenny was listed as one of The Independent’s one to watch 2015, and her adaptation of Laura Van Den Berg’s story What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, now titled The Burning Season, which was a 2015 Athena List Winner. She is producing it with Kate Sharp, and Claire McCarthy (The Waiting City, The Turning) will direct.
Kate Sharp is an Emmy nominated producer who has produced short form content for companies such as Showtime, MTV, Verizon, Funny or Die, Braun, Evolve Media and Coca-Cola. For five years, Ms. Sharp was an executive at Occupant Entertainment, serving as Vice President of Development and Production for the last two. Ms. Sharp’s feature film credits include: Associate Producer on Better Living Through Chemistry, which starred Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Michelle Monaghan and Jane Fonda; Co-producer, Madame Bovary, starring Mia Wasikowska, Academy-Award Winner Paul Giamatti, Ezra Miller and Rhys Ifans; and Executive Producer on The Hallow, an Irish shot horror film which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Sharp also serves as an Executive Producer on the Emmy nominated, Hulu original TV series, Behind The Mask, which recently premiered its second season on the streaming service. Sharp is a graduate of New York University where she received a B.F.A. in film.
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2PM
Location: Glicker-Milstein Theatre, Diana Center LL200
