Flyer Art

Showtimes/Maps

Showtimes for EM at the Florida Film Festival

Saturday 3/28/09: 7pm at Regal Winter Park Villiage (click here for map)

Friday 4/3/09: 1:30pm at the Enzian (click here for map)

If you've never been to the Enzian before, you really must go. It's an experience you won't be able to find anywhere else in Orlando.

Cast

Nathan Wetherington - Josh Weathers

Nathan Wetherington was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the youngest of three siblings. His

family soon re-located to Boston. In high school, he played various sports most notably soccer for which he earned a scholarship to a small college in Oregon but declined in favor of attending school in Southern California. After switching majors several times he finally ending up majoring in sociology and fine art. He wrote his senior thesis on Beat Literature having spent an entire semester living in a boarding house in San Francisco studying the subject.

Nathan discovered acting during his final semester of college. He decided it might be fun to take an acting class. Two weeks after the semester ended, he went to an open call audition for the Off-Broadway sensation BLUE MAN GROUP to see what an actual audition might be like. He was as surprised as anyone when he got the job! While living in New York City to train for the show, he was discovered by Amy Herzig who was at the time the VP of Casting for CBS. She sent him to meet with a talent agent and soon he was featured in guest starring roles on such shows as “Law & Order,” “Law& Order: SVU” and the BRAVO reality series: "The IT Factor." During this time, Wetherington also flew to Skywalker Ranch to meet with George Lucas for the role of Anakin Skywalker and was cast as the male lead in the pilot of the Warner Brothers hit series, "The Gilmore Girls."

For the past three years, Nathan Wetherington has also found fame as a highly sought-after drummer. For the most part, he has worked with famed record producer, Linda Perry. Nathan has recorded drums with some of the biggest names in the music world, including: The Dixie Chicks, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Courtney Love, Vanessa Carlton, Ben Jelen, Sierra Swan, Danielle Powter, Celine Dion, and Sarah Brightman. And he is featured in the January 2008 issue of Modern Drummer magazine.

Stef Willen - Amanda "Em" Helms

Stef Willen was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. She first acted as a bush in an elementary school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” While attending the University of Colorado, she obtained a more demanding role when her roommate asked her to be the lead in her senior thesis short film. In 2001, Stef graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology and biology. She was planning on going to Africa to study apes or dig for ancestral humans, but her film was seen by a talent manager in Los Angeles who encouraged her to pursue acting. Stef moved to Denver and studied acting with Brian McCulley. Shortly thereafter, she was signed by an agent and moved to Los Angeles in 2003. There, she studied acting with Nina Kether Axelrod and improv at the Groundlings and ACME Comedy Theatre. She has since starred in many short films and works as an editor to a syndicated columnist. She is also an artist, freelance writer, and published author. This is her first feature film.

Producer/Composer George Gregson-Williams

Harry Gregson-Williams is one of Hollywood’s most sought after composers who has worked on a variety of high-profile projects, all infused with his unique musical talent.  He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score and a Grammy nomination for Best Score Soundtrack Album for his music to Andrew Adamson's epic fantasy The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, based on the classic C.S. Lewis novel.  He is presently completing scoring its sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

A child prodigy, Gregson-Williams had appeared as a soloist on over a dozen records by age thirteen.  He went on to graduate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.  Harry first started film composing with Hans Zimmer on such films as: The Lion King, Crimson Tide, Beyond Rangoon, K  and Two Deaths.  In 1995, Gregson-Williams moved to Los Angeles and quickly launched his career by scoring Billie August’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow.  He then worked on The Whole Wide World, The Rock, The Replacement Killers,  Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Antz and the critically acclaimed Chicken Run.  Harry Gregson-Williams was now a recognized and premiere film composer in Hollywood.  He then scored the Oscar winning Shrek, for which he received a BAFTA nomination and won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Score, as well as the Annie Award.    

In 2005, Gregson-Williams received the Hollywood Composer of the Year Award and composed the scores for Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Tony Scott's Domino.  He also garnered the Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement from BMI’s Film Music Awards and was nominated for a Classical 

Brit Award for his work on Kingdom of Heaven. Gregson-Williams’ other impressive and acclaimed credits include: Shrek 2 ; Shrek the Third, Man on Fire; Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason; Phone Booth, Veronica Guerin and Team America: World Police, Seraphim Falls, Déja Vu  and Gone, Baby, Gone, among many others.

Producer Jim Jermanok

A writer, director and producer of quality independent films, Jim Jermanok most recently made PASSIONADA, a romantic comedy that was released in 120 American cities in 2003 and in over 150 countries in 2004-2005 by Columbia Tri-Star. PASSIONADA was the prestigious closing night film of the Seattle Film Festival and received high praise from prominent American film critics. Currently, Jim is completing AGGANIS, a feature documentary he’s directing about Harry Agganis, a legendary New England athlete of years past.  It is narrated by Olympia Dukakis and will be released in 2009. 

For his next project, Mr. Jermanok has written a smart comedy, THE EX FACTOR, which he will direct with his brother and co-writer Stephen in the spring of 2009.  Alfred Molina, Lena Headey and Theresa Russell are attached. The story revolves around a psychologist who is the expert at relationships--except for his own.   Jim previously wrote and produced a highly praised thirty-minute film, CLEAR CUT, starring Calista Flockhart and Stephen Fry.  He has also written HIGH MOON, a full-length screenplay commissioned by the late Just Betzer, the Academy Award-winning Producer of BABETTE'S FEAST.  Jim Jermanok was educated at Cornell University and The London School of Economics. 

Writer/Director Toni Barbieri

"EM" is the third feature film from acclaimed writer-director Tony Barbieri, who is based in San Francisco. Tony was first hooked on filmmaking in the early nineties while living in Paris.  There, Barbieri studied under French visual artist Francois Matisse, who exposed him to the Italian Neorealists and the French New Wave, two film revolutions that continue to inspire and influence him. 

Tony then burst onto the independent film scene in 1998 when his film "ONE" appeared at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received tremendous critical acclaim (see below).  The film was also nominated for the Someone to Watch Award by the Independent Spirit Awards and for the Golden Starfish Award by the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Tony's second film, "THE MAGIC OF MARCIANO" also drew universal praise from well-known film critics in 2000 (see below).  The film features Robert Forster and Nastassja Kinski, in what Daily Variety called her "career highlight performance."  "THE MAGIC OF MARCIANO" won the New American Cinema Award at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2000.  It also won the Jury Prize at the River Run Film Festival and Best Director at the Wine Country Film Festival.  In addition, the film was nominated for the Crystal Globe Award by the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Synopsis

Everyone has that one love they can’t let go. For Josh Weathers, that love is Amanda “Em” Helms. The two experience an immediate and mutual attraction that results in two years of happiness, until an unexpected complication rears its ugly head. Josh learns that Amanda has been struggling with bipolar disorder the entire time, but is determined to work through it to save their relationship. She believes it would be best for both of them if he would move on with his life. Inspired by a real life relationship, the filmmaker seeks to paint a subtler, more realistic picture of bipolar disorder, outside of the Hollywood extreme.

EM has won several award on the film festival circuit and will have 2 showings at the Florida Film Festival in late March/early April.