Wednesday, August 27, 2003

All About The Palindromes

According to the August 12th edition of The Daily Freeman, Todd Solondz is shooting his latest film, titled in this article as The Palindromes (emphasis added), at Bard College, in the Mid-Hudson region of New York state. They're working with a budget of just $500,000, with about 70 percent of the 50-person crew made up of local film students. Said producer Mike Ryan, "We have college students doing jobs which are normally done by professionals. That's scary, but at the same time, the Bard kids have a very good base of learning and they've taken to it really well."
Even more enlightening is their description of the article: "Solondz's shoestring budget film, which stars Ellen Barkin and Jennifer Jason Leigh, chronicles a young runaway's road trip from the suburbs of New Jersey, through Ohio to the plains of Kansas and back. …The Palindromes employs multiple characters of both sexes and different ages to play the film's protagonist, a 13-year-old girl."
"This is a very experimental film," said Ryan, who put up all of the film's funding along with co-producer Derrick Tseng. "He is doing something that has never been done before. And in Hollywood it's a big problem when somebody wants to push boundaries. But Todd is somebody who makes films for himself, not for money or career."
Ryan added that The Palindromes could be released early next year, most likely in a limited run. "It's challenging material told in a challenging way. That just means that it won't be in the malls."
Finally, The IMDB has added information about another Palindromes cast member: Stephen Singer, who'll play Dr. Fleicher (who's also played doctors in Don Juan DeMarco and the Douglas family vanity affair, It Runs in the Family), is pictured below:

stephensinger.jpg (15071 bytes)