FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Artemis Shaw
Tel: +1 212 998 4792
Email: ags502@nyu.edu
New York, NY –– December 1, 2021
5 New Films Join NYU Production Lab’s Slate
The NYU Production Lab has revealed its 2021 picks for its slate of supported projects.
Since 2015, the NYU Production Lab has helped to launch the careers of a new generation of filmmakers by supporting exceptional first features from throughout the NYU community including Chloe Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Michael Larnell’s Cronies, Cathy Yan’s Dead Pigs, and A.B. Shawky’s Yomeddine (Cannes Main Competition 2018, Egypt’s submission to the Academy Awards). As a creative content incubator, the Lab has served as a bridge for students navigating the transition from an academic classroom to the professional creative industry.
The Lab supports its filmmakers through in-kind support and financial investments, giving filmmakers actual experience working with financiers. It prioritizes filmmakers who have received little to no prior industry exposure prior to joining the Slate. Zhao has gone on to write and direct the internationally acclaimed The Rider and Oscar-winning Nomadland. Larnell’s second feature Roxanne, Roxanne (about the life of Roxanne Shante) premiered at Sundance in 2017 and was released by Netflix. Yan directed Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment’s 2020 Birds of Prey.
Yan, who helped found the Production Lab as a graduate student, says: “As [a staff member] I oversaw the first year of the Lab, and I really got to see how impactful and helpful it was to the filmmakers we chose to support. Then on the side, I was developing my own first feature, Dead Pigs, and when it was ready, I brought it back to the Lab to be part of the slate of supported projects.”
The Lab supports its filmmakers by by connecting artists throughout the NYU community. Joseph Sackett whose film Homebody joined the Slate in 2019, recently premiered at OutFest where he won the award for Breakthrough Director. Sackett says, “Filmmaking is such a team sport, and the real benefit of the Production Lab is that you expand your team to include more capable folks who are always going to be in your corner, which is priceless.”
These five films represent some of the most captivating and original stories made by the next generation of talented filmmakers. From a documentary set in the Lower East Side of New York, to a family drama brewing in rural Argentina, this year’s Slate offers heartfelt, human stories.
The five films selected by the Production Lab are: Elizabeth Nichols’ Flying Lessons, Tim Delaney’s the Plutonians, Adrian Cardenas’ El Cuento de la Ballena, Inés Gowland’s Calma Chicha, and Jarreau Carrillo’s The Last the Survive in America.
NYU Production Lab’s 2021 Slate
Flying Lessons: Elizabeth Nichols, Director; Alik Barsoumian, Producer
Flying Lessons tells the story of punk artist Philly Abe’s intimate journey of social, artistic, and spiritual transformation in the face of New York City’s cultural crisis.
The Plutonians – Tim Delaney, Writer/Director, Shao Min Chew Chia, Producer
When the scientific definition of the word “planet” threatens to exclude Pluto, an insecure Pluto expert swoops into a chaotic international astronomy conference to save it by any means necessary.
The Story of the Whale – Adrian Cardenas, Writer/Director; Maria Altamirano and Juan Pablo Molina, Producers
A fable set in a contemporary Cuba: a down-on-his-luck fisherman nets a humpback whale and works to cement his newfound popularity by storing the enormous skeleton inside his remote town’s tiny museum, but a fast-approaching hurricane threatens the preservation of this rare event and challenges his place within his community.
Calma Chicha – Inés Gowland, Writer/Director; Joy Jorgensen, Producer
Calma Chicha is a fast-paced comedy about a gay agronomist who puts her coming-out plans on hold when she discovers that her machista mother is being scammed by her favorite son to sell the family’s historic cropland in rural Argentina.
The Last to Survive in America – Jarreau Carrillo, Writer/Director; Julius Pryor and Marttise Hill, Producers
In a hilarious and heartfelt family dramedy, a 31-year-old mama’s boy is thrust into the role of the provider for his family when his mother unexpectedly passes away and they are evicted from their home.