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Exclusive: Artists First has signed actor Brandon Micheal Hall for management.

Hall is perhaps best known for his breakout role opposite Alia Shawkat in the acclaimed TBS/HBO Max series Search Party, created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charlies Rogers and Michael Showalter, which ran for five seasons.

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During the course of that dark comedy’s run, he also led the Humanitas Prize-winning CBS drama God Friended Me from EP Greg Berlanti, as well as ABC’s half-hour comedy The Mayor exec produced by Jeremy Bronson, Daveed Diggs and Jamie Tarses.

Hall is a graduate of Juilliard, the British American Drama Academy, and the South Carolina Governor School of the Arts and Humanities,...

Outfest has unveiled the dates, venues, and lineup for its 39th film festival, which is returning to in-person screenings more than a year and a half after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival will be held this year between August 13-22.

The 2021 edition of the nation’s leading LGBTQ festival kicks off with an opening night screening of Jonathan Butterell’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. The screening, which is being put on in concert with Cinespia, will mark the fest’s first-ever outdoor gala, taking place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Screening at the Orpheum Theatre on August 22, the closing night film is Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about the female rock band of the same name, which was the first to release an album with a major label.

Nearly 200 films will screen at this year’s festival, including 50 international features...

The Geena Davis-led Bentonville Film Festival announced the 2021 selections for its narrative, documentary, short and episodic film competition.

“We are proud to offer audiences an inspirational line up celebrating diversity and inclusion on screen and behind the camera, to demonstrate the power of intersectional equity in entertainment media. Through our unique inclusion qualifiers, we are giving voice to directors who are 71% Female, 75% Bipoc or Aapi and 33% Lgbtqia+,” Davis said. “We were excited last year to see our audience grow globally as a result of our virtual component. Come to our Festival this year, in person or virtually, and be transported into stories that can change the world.”

The Bentonville Film Festival will run Aug. 2 to 8 in Bentonville, Ark. and online. It will combine virtual and in-person activations, including premieres, conversations, awards and events to provide a hybrid experience for attendees.

This year’s festival will feature a 30-year anniversary...

Management firm Lasher Group has promoted Julian Ramirez and Lauren Feinstein to managers.

Ramirez began his career working production at the Kennedy Center before shifting his focus to talent in the casting department at Manhattan Theatre Club. He started working at The Lasher Group in 2015 as an assistant working on the accounts of clients Viola Davis, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Luna Lauren Velez, Nora Arnezeder, and Veronica Falcon. He represents Gil PerezAbraham, Meghan Leathers and co-manages Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer with Lasher. He is a collective member of The Sol Project where he advocates for the production of Latinx Theatre.

Feinstein began her career as an intern at Scott Rudin Productions, CBS Public Relations, and worked alongside fashion and celebrity photographer, Andrew Werner. In 2015, she segued into representation at Lasher Group as an assistant providing support to clients Alan Arkin, Connie Nielsen, Alfred Enoch, Katja Herbers, and Peter Friedman. Her budding roster of clients includes Cecil Blutcher,...

Eight female filmmakers have been selected to take part in an inaugural development program as part of Geena Davis' Bentonville Film Foundation, the organization said Wednesday, as part of an initiative to foster voices from underrepresented groups.

The See It, Be It Filmmaker Fellowship, a joint program between Bentonville and the Coca-Cola Foundation, offers a yearlong program for eight Bentonville Film Festival alumni, who will receive resources from the industry.

The selected filmmakers — ​McKenzie Chinn ​(​Olympia​), ​Jenna Laurenzo ​(​Lez Bomb), Amber McGinnis ​(​International Falls)​, Diane Paragas ​(​Yellow Rose​)​, ​Ursula Taherian ​(The Brownlist​), Emily Ting ​(​Go Back to ...

Thanksgiving — the angsty precursor to Christmas and the first “at bat” for the family get together. What to do when you need to break some delicate news about your personal life when you face a family where everyone is caught up in their own dramas and not listening very well? Filmmaker Jenna Laurenzo’s new film Lez Bomb is a sweet and joyous romp of a film that deals with a serious issue and takes the sting out of it in a most artful and touchingly funny way. Coming out to your family is a tough one for so many, […]

The post Lez Bomb exclusive: Jenna Laurenzo interview about the holiday film you need right now appeared first on Monsters and Critics.

The holidays wouldn’t be special without a few surprises.

Cloris Leachman and Bruce Dern star in Lez Bomb, a new holiday comedy about a young woman, Lauren (Jenna Laurenzo), who goes home for Thanksgiving with a bombshell revelation.

The film follows Lauren as she attempts to come out to her parents and extended family — only to send mixed messages as her male friend is mistaken for her boyfriend. People has an exclusive first look at the comedy’s trailer.

“When am I meeting the boyfriend?” her mother, Rose, asks her, to which Lauren replies, “Soon.”

Unbeknownst to her mother,...

Lez Bomb, Hide & Seek on roster.

Edward Noeltner’s La-based Cinema Management Group (Cmg) has boarded sales on horror thriller The Shed from A Bigger Boat Productions as part of its slate for the upcoming Afm.

New titles include Lez Bomb starring Cloris Leachman and Bruce Dern, who just replaced the late Burt Reynolds on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Locarno premiere Hide & Seek.

Cmg handles international sales on The Shed (pictured) from producers Peter Block and Cory Neal, which just wrapped principal photography in upstate New York.

Frank Sabatella directs the feature from A...

NewFest, the New York-set Lgbtq film festival that is celebrating its 30th year, has unveiled its full linuep of movies ahead of its run October 24-30. As previously announced, the fest opens with Yen Tan’s AIDS drama 1985 starring Gotham‘s Corey Michael Smith, The Gifted‘s Jamie Chung, Aidan Langford, Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis.

This year’s slate includes the New York Centerpiece screening of the Matt Smith-starring Mapplethorpe; the Telluride-bowing Boy Erased starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges as the U.S. Centerpiece; and the International Centerpiece Rafiki, Wanuri Kahiu’s pic that has been banned in its native Keyna for centering on a relationship between two women.

Also on tap is the Documentary Centerpiece film Dykes, Camera, Action. The fest will close with Robert Clift and Hillary Demmon’s Making Montgomery Clift.

This year’s lineup features programming from 32 countries, with 46 feature films,...

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Lez Bomb, written and directed by and starring Jenna Laurenzo and executive produced by Bobby Farrelly. The pic, financed and produced by Sprockefeller Pictures, won a jury award when it world premiered at the Bentonville Film Festival, and now will hit theaters and on-demand platforms November 9.

The pic centers on a young woman (Laurenzo) who comes home for Thanksgiving with life-changing news. Little does she know, the eccentric cast of characters that make up her extended family have their own stirring surprises, with the ensuing events forcing the family to come together in what amounts to the most unceremonious of holidays. The ensemble cast includes Cloris Leachman, Bruce Dern, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Kane, Steve Guttenberg, Elaine Hendrix, Caitlin Mehner, Brandon Micheal Hall and Rob Moran.

The pic is a follow-up to Laurenzo’s 2015 short Girl Night Stand.

“I wanted to create a broad,...

Exclusive: Having reunited with Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll co-star Denis Leary for his USA Network pilot Erase earlier this summer, Elaine Hendrix is now joining Fox’s Proven Innocent.

The midseason replacement legal drama from Empire co-creator Danny Strong and writer David Elliot will feature Hendrix in the recurring role of Susan Andrews, I’ve learned. In a cast that includes Kelsey Grammer and Rachelle Lefevre, The Parent Trap alum’s character is a shameless self-promoting TV pundit who has the pull to sway public opinion with her proclamations of guilt or innocence.

Now, I’m not saying Nancy Grace, but you get the general idea that Strong and Elliot are aiming for here, right?

A somewhat fictionalized telling of the Amanda Knox saga, by Strong’s own admission at TCA last month, Proven Innocent sees Lefevre as a crusading lawyer leading a criminal defense team that seeks to free the wrongful convicted.

Geena Davis' Bentonville Film Festival, which champions women and diverse voices in media, on Saturday announced its 2018 award winners.

The ceremony was hosted by The Real’s Loni Love, and presenters included festival co-founders Davis and Trevor Drinkwater and actress Stephanie Beatriz, with performances by Martina McBride and the Latin X Theater Project.

Actor and filmmaker Natalie Morales was presented with the fest's first See It, Be It Award, recognizing her rising and influential voice in the landscape of diversity and inclusion in media.

Jenna Laurenzo's Lez Bomb took the best narrative film jury award, best documentary honors went to Emanuel from director...

Exclusive: Lez Bomb is Jenna Laurenzo’s directorial debut and her follow-up to her short film Girl Night Stand, which went viral online, garnering well over 2M views on Youtube, then was translated into other languages by lesbian fans from around the world and ended up, surprisingly, having a big Chinese following. The multi-generational story about two women coming out stars Cloris Leachman, Bruce Dern, Kevin Pollak and Steve Guttenberg and is exec produced by Bobby Farrelly. Watch an exclusive clip above.

The project started in earnest when Laurenzo was on the festival circuit with Girl Night Stand and Farrelly saw her short and read Lez Bomb and wanted to come aboard. The comedy is about a young woman (Laurenzo) who comes home for Thanksgiving with some life-changing news. Little does she know, the eccentric cast of characters that make up her extended family have their own stirring surprises as well.

Bobby Farrelly has spent a quarter century in comedy, and the co-director of films like “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary” says the world’s sense of humor has become increasingly touchy.

“People are very thin-skinned about a lot of subjects,” he said, speaking at Idaho’s Sun Valley Film Festival, held March 15-19. “You can’t even joke about them. These aren’t the days of Lenny Bruce, when you could try a bunch of different things and break rules. Now, people are sensitive. But I think it’ll change. It’s a cyclical thing. Someone will come along who’s doing it differently, a modern-day Joan Rivers who can make people laugh about being sensitive.”

Read More: How Two Brothers Directed One Film With a Singular Vision

Another change Farrelly noted is the shrinking number of names that matter as comedy box office draws. It...

Sprockerfeller Pictures will produce Lez Bomb, an upcoming comedy from writer and director Jenna Laurenzo (Girl Night Stand), who will star. A family ensemble comedy, Lez Bomb is about a closeted young woman who brings her girlfriend home for Thanksgiving, only to have her coming out plans thwarted by the unexpected arrival of her male roommate. Also starring are A.B. Farrelly (Treading Yesterday), Brandon Micheal Hall (Search Party), Elaine Hendrix (Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll)…...