HARPERCOLLINS ACQUIRES “THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL”
For Immediate Release – Debut novelist Soman Chainani has signed a deal with HarperCollins Publishers for a fantasy trilogy titled The School for Good and Evil, in which ordinary boys and girls are trained to become extraordinary fairy tale heroes or villains.
The three book series was sold by Jane Startz of Jane Startz Productions in a significant preemptive deal to Phoebe Yeh, an Editorial Director at HarperCollins Children’s Books. The first book is scheduled for global publication in Spring 2013. Startz executive Kane Lee discovered the series and Ms. Startz and her company are attached to produce the film adaptation of the books, which has already garnered studio interest.
The fantasy adventure series tells the tale of two girls, one fair and beloved, the other homely and reviled, who are kidnapped from their village by a charismatic storyteller who runs the legendary School for Good and Evil, where students prepare to become future fairy tale heroes and villains. Teeming with action, romance, and comedy, this exhilarating trilogy introduces us to a brand new generation of storybook characters who seek the truth between beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and life and death. But for all its thrills, twists, and mythic imagination, at its heart, The School for Good and Evil is the simple story of two girls who find true love in the deepest bonds of friendship.
“I was enamored with the freshness and originality of the characters, the cleverness of the concept, and the multi-layered appeal and reach of these stories,” says Phoebe Yeh, Editorial Director at HarperCollins US. “A new fairy tale in its own right, this series will turn everything you think you know about good and evil on its head.”
Harriet Wilson, Editorial Director at HarperCollins UK comments, “Like Phoebe, I was instantly captivated by the dazzling fantasy world Chainani has created and the unforgettable characters who inhabit it. We’re all looking forward to building this fresh and funny middle-grade series into a major global success.”
Soman Chainani, an acclaimed screenwriter, is a graduate of the MFA Film Program at Columbia University and the recipient of the school’s top prize, the FMI Fellowship. Recent writing credits include a feature in development for Aardman Animation, a dramatic television series commissioned by Tiger Aspect Productions, and the film Love Marriage to be produced by Tayrona Entertainment and Framework Pictures in 2012. Chainani’s screenwriting awards include honors from NewDraft, Big Bear Lake, the CAPE Foundation, and the coveted $100,000 Shasha Grant, awarded by a jury of international film executives. In addition, as a director, his short films have played over 150 international film festivals, won over 20 jury and audience awards, and secured theatrical and ancillary distribution in over 100 territories.
Before attending Columbia, Chainani graduated from Harvard University, summa cum laude, with a degree in English & American Literature.
Big News Coming! It’s been quiet at No Pressure, but only because Soman’s been hard at work creating and selling a top-secret new project. The good news is it’s found an amazing home, so look for an official announcement in late September.
Soman will be on the featured ‘Up Close & Personal’ Panel at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival this coming weekend. The panel will highlight the inaugural set of fellows and mentors from the CAAM Fellowship Program, a new initiative designed to spark Asian American film and television from within. The panel will be moderated by producer Karin Chien (THE MOTEL; UNDOING; CIRCUMSTANCE) and touch on topics like writing, directing, new media production, and development. Showcasing both a veteran and an “emerging professional” standpoint, mentors and fellows will share advice, best practices, and the ever-changing do’s and dont’s of the industry. Featuring: Anne Lai (Producer in Residence, feature film Program, Sundance Institute), Angela Lee (Producer, fellow), Soman Chainani (Director, fellow), Scotty Iseri (New Media Producer, fellow), Cindy Fang (TV Writer, fellow), Canyon Sam (Scriptwriter, fellow) Moderated By Karin Chien (Producer).
For more information, visit: http://www.asianweek.com/2011/02/28/center-for-asian-american-media-presents-new-directions/
Soman’s been chosen as a CAAM Fellow in the prestigious program which pairs breakout talent with established mentors in film and television to help guide their careers.
Soman takes on adapting the beloved children’s novel THE PUSHCART WAR for Jane Startz Productions (ELLA ENCHANTED, THE MIGHTY).
Soman signs on to create and write the dramatic television series WEDDING HOUSE based on his own original idea for acclaimed UK production shingle Tiger Aspect Productions (BILLY ELLIOT, SECRET DIARY OF A CALL GIRL).
Soman signs on to write the feature musical MUMBO JUMBO for Aardman Animation (WALLACE & GROMIT, CHICKEN RUN), to be directed by Sam Fell (FLUSHED AWAY, TALE OF DESPERAUX). For more information on Aardman Animation Studios, visit www.aardman.com.
Dear Friends,
Just want to invite you to a full staged reading of my feature script LOVE MARRIAGE on Saturday, June 6th at 5:15pm at the School of the Visual Arts Theatre. The reading is held by New Draft, a competition the project won last year. It’s a terrific cast, and it’ll be your chance to hear the script come to life in advance of it heading into production in 2010.
Here’s all the information you need:
LOVE MARRIAGE
A Staged Reading
Saturday, June 6, 5:15–7:15pm
School of the Visual Arts Theater (23rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenue)
Synopsis: Dueling weddings — one for love, one for money — divide an Indian family. Winner of over 20 international script honors, LOVE MARRIAGE is an unabashed celebration of love that bridges between east and West, inspires laughter and tears, and heralds the wedding film to end all wedding films.
Cast: Maulik Pancholy, Nina Mehta, Brian Leider, Sakina Jaffrey, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Geeta Citygirl, Rajiv Varma, Sam Ghosh, Eliyas Qureshi, Swann Gruen, Paul Knox and Margaret Champagne
Tickets: Available through NewFest for $12. Here’s the website address:
http://filmguide.newfest.org/tixSYS/2009/filmguide/Title/NN
Hope to see you all there!
KALI MA won the prestigious Rosebud Grand Prix at Verzaubert this weekend — a prize given by a jury administered through a swing of four German festivals, including Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, and Kohl. For more information on the prize, please visit http://www.verzaubertfilmfest.com/.
LOVE MARRIAGE has been invited as one of only 15 projects to participate in the IFFI Film Bazaar in Goa, India this week. Producer Ophira Dagan will represent the project to hand-selected distributors and financiers from all over the world. Please visit http://www.nfdcindia.com for more information on the IFFI Film Bazaar. Look for more upcoming news on LOVE MARRIAGE, which will shoot in 2009 in the United Kingdom.
LOVE MARRIAGE has been named a finalist in the Big Bear Lake Screenwriting Competition, a popular LA-based competition that has yielded acclaimed winners in the past, including the writer of FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA. The winners of the competition will be announced September 11–14th at the Big Bear Lake Film Festival.
LOVE MARRIAGE was announced as a winner of the NewDraft Screenplay Competition last night at NewFest’s Closing Night in New York City. For its win, the script of Soman’s first feature will receive a full staged-reading in the fall in New York City. Stay tuned for more details.
Soman’s been nominated for Brink of Fame Artist in the NewNowNext Awards, hosted by LOGO on June 7th. To learn more about the awards and vote, visit Logo Online.
LOVE MARRIAGE was named one of the five finalists in the NewDraft Screenplay Competition and will have a staged reading at the Filmmakers Forum the weekend of June 14-15th in New York City. The two winners will go on to a public staged reading later in the year. For more information on LOVE MARRIAGE, visit http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt1134668/.
Quick update on the going’s on at NPP. Soman’s hard at work on development of the LOVE MARRIAGE script in preparations of shooting in the late fall or early spring of ’09. In the meantime, KALI MA is wrapping up its festival run before its DVD release this fall, while DAVY AND STU continues to sell strong on Strand Releasing’s BOYS LIFE 6. Look for more from No Pressure Productions this summer, including a slew of new project announcements.
Soman’s new short script, FAIRY TALES FOR BOYS, an electric romance set against a real-time school shooting, has just been named one of the finalists for the Berlinale Today Award. He’ll pitch to a panel of German producers in Berlin this February with the opportunity to win a production deal for the short as well as a residency in Brandenburg this summer. Soman will also be at the Berlinale Talent Campus in February presenting his first feature script, LOVE MARRIAGE. For more information on the Berlinale Talent Campus, visit www.berlinale-talentcampus.de.
Soman has been invited to the ultra-prestigious Berlinale Talent Campus in February 2008 as a screenwriter/director. He’ll join a group of up and coming filmmakers in a week-long film lab and creative summit in Berlin, Germany. Visit http://www.berlinale-talentcampus.de/story/15/2515.html for more information on the Berlinale Talent Campus.
LOVE MARRIAGE has won the uber-prestigious Shasha Grant, given out by the Abu Dhabi Film Fund. Soman pitched against 5 other filmmakers in a competition judged by a panel of top film executives, including Ashoke Armitraj of HydePark, David Thompson of the BBC, and renowned Asian producer Nansung Shi. For more information on the competition, view the Press Release in the PRESS section.
LOVE MARRIAGE, Soman’s debut feature, has been selected for the uber-prestigious finals of the InCircle Pearl Grant as part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Soman will be flown to Abu Dhabi on Thursday, October 11th to compete in a one-week pitch competition where the winner receives $100,000 and has their first feature funded for production. For more information on LOVE MARRIAGE, e-mail nopressurefilms@gmail.com. For more information on the Pearl Grant, visit www.meiff.com.
DAVY AND STU and KALI MA have both been nominated for the prestigious Iris Prize, which will be presented to the winning filmmaker on October 6th in Cardiffe, Wales and include a $25,000 package that will allow the production of a new short film in the UK. For more information on the Iris Prize, visit their website at www.irisprize.org.
No Pressure Productions is proud to announce that LOVE MARRIAGE has received a generous grant from the Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation. The film remains on-track for a 2008 spring production in London and will be produced by Framework Pictures. For more information on LOVE MARRIAGE, please e-mail Alecia Brooks at info@frameworkpictures.com.
KALI MA has just picked up its third major award in five festivals, winning the coveted Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Philadelphia International LGBT Film Festival, the largest festival of its kind on the East Coast. KALI MA won over more than 100 other films, and added to its collection of recent prizes, including the Audience Award for Best Short Film at NewFest, and the Jury Prize for Best Short at the Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival.
No Pressure Productions is pleased to announce the completion of a new feature script, THE ADVENTURES OF CAMERON CARPENTER. Soman is currently in L.A. shopping the script to both television and feature film producers, as the script has been written as both a full-length fiction feature and a 30-minute single camera, original comedy pilot. Fore more on THE ADVENTURES OF CAMERON CARPENTER, please visit PROJECTS.
KALI MA has exploded onto the international festival scene, booking spots in over 30 events in its first month alone, and will be featured at the Palm Springs International Festival of Shorts, one of the top shorts film fests in the world. This is the second year in a row that we’ll have a short at Palm Springs, after DAVY & STU played to a crowd of over 600 last year. Palm Springs joins a growing list of cities for the KALI MA World Tour, which includes Milwaukee, Madrid, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Mumbai, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pikes Peak, Austin, and Raleigh among others.
KALI MA has won the Jury Award for Best Short at the 18th Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival. It is the second award that KALI MA has picked up in two events, after winning the Audience Award for Best Short at NewFest. For more on KALI MA’s awards run, visit the PROJECTS page.
KALI MA has won the Audience Award for Best Short at NewFest out of more than 150 short films in the 19th incarnation of the popular New York City festival. To see the awards press release, visit PRESS. For information on future KALI MA tour dates, visit the KALI MA World Tour page, and for more information on the film, visit the PROJECTS page.
No Pressure is partnering with Sholay Productions to present the New York City Premiere of KALI MA. The film will screen on June 9th at NEWFEST, at AMC/Loews 34th St. Theater. It’s screening as part of the ‘Best Mates’ program, starting at 1:00pm, followed by a Cocktail Reception from 3:15pm–5:30pm afterwards at Local Cafe & Bar. To purchase tickets for the film, visit www.newfest.org.
KALI MA continues to be one of the most buzz-heavy shorts of the coming summer film festival season, having booked a slew of international events based on the work-in-progress cut. The latest additions are Outfest in Los Angeles, Provincetown International Film Festival, and the world-famous Seattle International Film Festival, the largest fest in the U.S.. For more information on specific screenings in Honolulu, San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia, Provincetown, Los Angeles, or Seattle, please visit the KALI MA World Tour page.
KALI MA is already booking festivals for its summer tour. It will World Premiere in Hawaii at the Honolulu Rainbow International Film Festival before it hits New York City for NewFest and San Francisco for Frameline 31. For more information on specific tour dates and screening times, look for the KALI MA Summer Tour page later this month.
KALI MA will have its first big-screen showing at the Columbia University Graduate Film Festival, as part of Shorts Program A:
MONDAY, APRIL 30TH
5:30PM
IFC CENTER
Tickets are available at www.ifccenter.com or www.movietickets.com. Come see the film before it begins its summer festival tour, that kicks off in Honolulu with the World Premiere on May 26th.
Austen Rachlis’ spec script for THE SHIELD has won the Dramatic Teleplay Competition of the 20th Columbia University Film Festival and will be included in both an upcoming reading of the winning scripts and a showcase for industry. For more information on the industry showcase or on how to obtain a copy of the spec script, please contact nopressureprods@gmail.com.
KALI MA, the latest short from No Pressure Productions about an Indian mother who takes on her son’s vicious bully, will have its World Premiere at the Honolulu Rainbow International Film Festival over Memorial Day weekend. HRFF is a familiar home for No Pressure Productions, as DAVY & STU launched its hugely successful 5-continent, 55-festival run with a World Premiere last May at the Rainbow Fest, and we’re incredibly excited to return to start the life of the new film.
CINE announced yesterday that DAVY & STU has won the Grand Jury Prize as the Best Student Short of 2006. Earlier this year, DAVY & STU won the coveted CINE Golden Eagle award, and the Jury Prize was chosen from the Eagle winners. The CINE Golden Eagle awards, distinguishing excellence in film, are recognized internationally as symbols of the highest production standards in filmmaking and videography. Since its founding in 1957, CINE has been dedicated to discovering, rewarding, educating, and supporting established and emerging talent. Among great talents whose first major awards included the CINE Golden Eagle are Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and great documentarians like Ken Burns, Charles Guggenheim, Stanley Nelson, Albert Maysles, and Frederick Wiseman. For more information, visit www.cine.org.
CINE is proud to announce the winners of the 2007 CINE Special Jury Awards. Chosen by a panel of members of CINE’s Board of Directors, the CINE Special Jury Awards recognize the elite among the winners of the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award. This year’s recipients include productions from independent and student filmmakers, as well as such distinguished organizations as CNN, A&E, National Geographic, American Movie Classics and Discovery Communications. (Special Jury Press Release)
We’re happy to announce that LOVE MARRIAGE, will be produced by Framework Pictures, with Soman writing and directing for a likely 2007/early 2008 production. For more information on LOVE MARRIAGE, please contact Alecia Brooks at info@frameworkpictures.com, or visit our PROJECTS page.
After a celebrated festival run that took it to 5 continents, 43 events (and counting), and over 50,000 audience members, DAVY & STU has completed sales worldwide, ensuring it is now available for exhibition in every international territory. North American distribution will be handled by Strand Releasing, German-language territories by Salzgeber GmBH, and the rest of International distribution by Ouat Media out of Canada. For more information on DAVY & STU’s distribution, please visit our CONTACT page.
DAVY & STU has been acquired by Strand Releasing and will be distributed as part of BOYS LIFE 6, the next installment in the most successful series of gay shorts in history. For more information on BOYS LIFE 6 and release dates, visit www.strandreleasing.com.
KALI MA wrapped principal photography on December 9th. Post-production begins this week in Upstate New York with the target premiere date of May 1, 2007 in New York City. Please visit the PROJECTS page for production stills and www.kalima-movie.com for the latest information on the release of KALI MA.
KALI MA has begun its 11 day shooting schedule in Orlando, Florida, and will wrap photography on December 10th. For information on KALI MA, visit www.kalima-movie.com.
AMERICAN SHAHS, Soman and Austen’s original single-camera pilot about an Indian-American family, has made it to the last 50 in Slamdance’s prestigious Teleplay Competition. It’s now in the running for a major network deal with Fox21. For more information, visit www.slamdance.com.