The people of South Carolina are buzzing about the Hollywood film thats setting up shop right in their local towns. Gospel Hill directors have been scouting locations in and around the Charlotte area for production that plans to start filming later this month. Heres the story:
Dorene Watts is executing a Hollywood assignment.
Watts, Rock Hill's MLK Task Force liaison, is looking for individuals with knowledge of and experience in the civil rights movement for the feature movie Gospel Hill.
The $6 million film, starring Danny Glover, Angela Bassett and Julia Stiles, will be shot in York County this summer. Written and directed by Giancarlo Esposito, the movie tells the story of a former civil rights activist and a local sheriff revisiting the grave of another activist 30 years after his death. It is the first feature film produced by Deco Entertainment.
Originally attracted to the area to take advantage of state tax credits for filmmakers, Watts said the group soon learned about the Friendship Nine's lunch counter sit-in at a Main Street five-and-dime store 46 years ago, and it wet their appetite.
"Once they got here and found out all the history here, they wanted to know more," Watts said. "It's become a grass-roots effort to learn about it."
Anyone interested in working as an unpaid extra in “Gospel Hill” is invited to attend one of two casting calls in either Charlotte or Rock Hill.
The first casting call is from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday at the Talent Link training studio at 3010 Monroe Rd., Suite 205. Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., there will be a casting call at Freedom Temple Ministries at 215 E. Main Street in Rock Hill.
Potential extras are asked to bring a pen and a current photo or 8x10 headshot with a resume stapled to the back. Those without photos can have a Polaroid photo taken for $2.
For more information, contact Talent Link at (704) 335-0027.
Toussaint
Danny Glover continues to feel pressure from Venezuela and Haiti due to his historical epic, Toussaint. Unfortunately the pressure doesnt stop there, Americans have also started showing their disapproval of Glover and his friendly ties to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Heres the story:
Actor Danny Glover has agreed to make two movies financially backed by the Venezuelan government, but U.S. officials are calling the deal "tainted."Meet the Browns
The Venezuelan National Assembly is giving the national production company, La Villa del Cine, $19.7 million to make the two films. The first, which Glover will direct, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint-Louverture, a Haitian independence leader (Angela is set to play his wife in the upcoming film). The second is a film adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, "The General in His Labyrinth," about Simon Bolivar.
Both movies will be filmed in Venezuela.
"I think that [Glover is] just a pawn in Hugo Chavez's propaganda machine," Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) told Cybercast News Service. "It's sad. What I don't get is why a well-known American, let alone any American, would be part of a propaganda machine with Hugo Chavez, and that's clearly what he's doing.
"They'll live in this country and enjoy the freedoms that we all enjoy," Mack said. "We have men and women around the world fighting for and defending our freedom, yet they'll go and support a communist dictator in Venezuela."
The films, Mack added, "are just part of that overall plan to try to paint the West or the United States in a bad light."
Mack noted that Glover has "long been a supporter of Chavez's radical left-wing policies. He is also a member of the board of the television network TeleSur, a Chavez-funded network that has teamed up with Al-Jazeera to spread anti-democratic messages across Latin America."
The congressman lashed out at Glover for turning "to an avowed enemy of the United States - and someone who in his own right has snuffed out dissent and free speech - for movie financing smacks of radicalism and opportunism run amuck," Mack said. "That's [$19.7 million] he could spend on helping the people of his country get out of poverty."
Glover, 60, has supported Chavez's political revolution since he was first elected in 1998, and backed the 2006 creation of Villa del Cine the anti-US Chavez regime said would go up against "the Hollywood film dictatorship."
Venezuelan Culture Minister Francisco Sesto defended the joint film project with Glover, saying in a published letter of his own: "The funds earmarked for this movie will be invested exclusively in Venezuela ... creating jobs and providing excellent experience for our national film industry."
He also called it "naive" to think the movie industry would be out of 18 million dollars, since the money did not come from Villa del Cine's operating funds but were part of an "additional credit."
Tyler Perry has just disclosed the official synopsis for his film adaptation of his play, Meet the Browns. The story-line proves to be very far from the stage plays' plot, instead of gearing all the focus on the wacky Brown family the attention is mainly given to Angela's character, the down-on-her-luck, single mother, Brenda.
We're not totally sure if Angela will be playing the main character (one source says shes signed on to do the film for sure, another source says nothings official yet). The good news is this most recent source says Angela will be starring in Meet the Browns alongside Dreamgirl diva, Jennifer Hudson.
No matter what the outcome, the new story-line and focus for Meet the Browns makes this role ideal for Angela. She'd be leading her own film again and she'd be able bring all the drama she can muster up to the role! Its perfect and heres the story:
Tyler Perry's reuniting with Lionsgate for the fifth time with Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. Perry will play Madea and Uncle Joe in the film which is based on his stage play.All four of these movies (including the Robert Townsend flick, Of Boys & Men) plan to hit theaters next year. It looks like 2008 is going to be Angela's comeback year. BassettHounds stay tuned, we'll keep you updated!
Production is expected to begin on Meet the Browns this summer in Atlanta. Lionsgate plans to release the film in early 2008.The Official Synopsis
A single mother living in inner city Chicago, Brenda has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street.
But when she's laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time - until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she's never met.
Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral. But nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father's fun-loving, crass Southern clan. In a small-town world full of long afternoons and country fairs, Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed...and finds a brand new romance that just might change her life.
3 comments:
I CAN'T WAIT for "Toussaint"! I studied Caribbean history in college, so this is a must-see for me!
For me, the jury is still out on the Tyler Perry flick, though. I still respect his work, but his stage work is much more interesting and consistent than his film work.
Also, I'm still holding out hope that Ms. Bassett will make her way back to Broadway some time soon! Instead of looking at Beyonce for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", they should be looking in Angela's direction!
Get the heck out of here, Coco! They're trying to get Beyonce for that role?? Come on, no way! Shes a great entertainer but I wouldnt put her on Broadway (where you need to ACT) for nothing.
Plus, Laurence Fishburne and Angela were wanting to do a Broadway rendition of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" or "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" Now they would take those plays to a whole other level!!
Gospel Hill should be awesome... the script is well-written and pretty solid.
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