Film News Roundup: Keith Carradine-Sondra Locke’s ‘Ray Meets Helen’ Gets Release
In today’s film news roundup, Keith Carradine’s “Ray Meets Helen” and the documentary “After Auschwitz” get distribution, and the “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” gets benefit screenings.
DISTRIBUTION DEALS
Alan Rudolph’s drama “Ray Meets Helen,” starring Keith Carradine and Sondra Locke, will be released nationwide by TriCoast Entertainment on May 4, Variety has learned exclusively.
The film also stars Samantha Mathis, Keith David, and Jennifer Tilly. Producers are Etchie Stroh of Moonstone Entertainment, who also produced Rudolph’s “Afterglow,” and Steven J. Wolfe of Sneak Preview Entertainment. Exec producers are Carradine, Locke, and Lesley Ann Warren.
Both characters are each stalled in mid-life, beset by profound material challenges, haunted by their failed or missed opportunities in their younger lives. Each undergoes a reversal of fortune, affording them unanticipated opportunities at self re-invention. But life strips away these newly adopted, external trappings and each unexpectedly falls for each other’s true selves as they are gradually revealed.
Rudolph’s other credits include “Breakfast of Champions,” “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” “Equinox,” “Trouble in Mind,” and “The Moderns,” which also starred Carradine.
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Passion River Films has acquired the rights to Jon Kean’s “After Auschwitz,” a documentary that follows six women after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps.
Following its North American premiere in Toronto on April 14, the film will have its U.S. theatrical premiere in New York City April 20 and then roll out to select theaters across the country, including Los Angeles and Miami.
In “After Auschwitz,” filmmaker Jon Kean examines the question, “What happens after surviving an unspeakable horror?” with six stories of remarkable women who survived the Holocaust and went on to build lives in the United States, but never truly found a place to call home. The women Kean follow became mothers and wives with successful careers, but never fully healed from the scars of the past.
“We normally learn about the Holocaust as if it started with Germany invading Poland, and liberation was the end of it,” said Kean. “Allied soldiers triumphantly told Jews in camps, ‘you’re free, go home.’ But what happened to survivors on the day after liberation? And the day after that? That’s the film I wanted to make. By seeing the world through the eyes of these amazing women, we not only hear unique female voices, we witness stories of resiliency and determination that audiences have never heard before.”
“After Auschwitz” won the audience award for best documentary feature at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, and the best of festival documentary feature prize at the 14th Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival.
“After Auschwitz” is written, produced, and directed by Kean and executive produced by Michael Berenbaum. David Charles and Marilyn Harran serve as co-producers.
BENEFIT
Fun Academy Motion Pictures and Variety – the Children’s Charity of Southern California are co-hosting the world premiere of “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” to benefit the charity and the Boys and Girls Club of Boyle Heights.
The premiere will take place March 27 at the Regal L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles. On March 28, Fun Academy and the charity will co-host benefit screenings in 14 cities across the U.S. and Canada.
“Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero” opens April 13 and is based on the bond between a young soldier and a stray dog who was the first dog promoted to the rank of Sergeant in the U.S. Army against the backdrop of World War I. Stubby is the most decorated dog in American history and is widely considered the forerunner to the U.S. Army’s working dog program.
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