FILM
PORT AUTHORITY (2019) BY DANIELLE LESSOVITZ - PREMIERING AT CANNES 2019 UN CERTAIN REGARD
PRODUCERS: RT Features, Sikelia Productions, Madeleine Films & Zachary Kislevitz
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Martin Scorsese
CASTING DIRECTORS: Kate Antognini & Damian Bao
CAST: Fionn Whitehead, Leyna Bloom, McCaul Lombardi, Jari Jones and newly discovered talent
IMDB: Port Authority (2019)
Port Authority is a love story set in New York's kiki ballroom scene, and follows Paul, a 20 year old midwesterner, who arrives at the central bus station and quickly catches eyes with Wye, a 22 year old girl voguing on the sidewalk. After Paul seeks her out in secret, an intense love between them blossoms. But when Paul discovers Wye is trans, he is forced to confront his own identity and what it means to belong.
PRESS:
“The prestigious Cannes Film Festival will host the premiere of the film Port Authority this year as a part of its Un Certain Regard competition. he Martin Scorsese-backed project, which stars Leyna Bloom in her first major acting role, will mark the first time that a film with a trans woman of color as lead actress premieres at the event in the festival’s 72-year history.” - OUT Magazine
GOLDIE (2019) BY SAM DE JONG, STARRING SLICK WOODS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Vice & 20th Century Fox
CASTING DIRECTORS: Kate Antognini & Damian Bao
NOMINATIONS: Crystal Bear Award / Generation 14Plus Best Film / Berlin Film Festival 2019
IMDB: Goldie (2019)
Goldie, a precocious teenager in a family shelter, wages war against the system to keep her sisters together while she pursues her dreams of being a dancer. This is a story about displaced youth, ambition, and maintaining your spirit in the face of insurmountable obstacles.
PRESS:
Deadline - ‘10 Must-See Films at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival’
IndieWire - ‘Model Slick Woods Delivers a Breakout Debut in a Scrappy New York Story — Berlinale’:
“The fact that Woods has already made it (and with an incarcerated mother of her own) only adds to the perfection of her casting; even without the meta elements, which underline the extent to which America’s disenfranchised look to pop culture as a pipeline to salvation, her performance is beautifully expressive and open to the world. She wears all of Goldie’s desires and frustrations, and radiates the same conviction when she’s talking about her dance skills as she does when she’s begging a pharmacist for access to an inhaler so that her asthmatic sister can breathe again. The movie rises with her hopes, sags when they deflate, and holds its head up with the same take-no-shit approach that she throws to anyone who gets in her way."