2009 Festivals and Awards - and THANK YOUs

2009 has flown by, and I have gained elite frequent flier status! Though we are not done screening at festivals, it's only appropriate to take a breath at the end of this whirlwind experience and take stock. First of all, there are people to thank. Mickey Cottrell, our publicist at Inclusive PR, who helped us launch the film in Los Angeles. Leslee Scallon at Dances With Films, who has become a close friend and runs a wonderful fest. Producers Jared Parsons, Sam Mestman, and Massoumeh Emami -- who went the extra yard and travelled with me (on their own dime) to the fests. Mom and Dad, for working that St. Louis publicity! Cliff Froehlich and Chris Clark, who do an amazing job putting together one of the best festivals in the midwest -- and the other filmmakers I was lucky enough to meet in the New Filmmakers Forum. Kelly Williams at Austin Film Festival, for believing in our film. Melissa Irwin, for working with me on the design for the website and promotional materials. All of the musicians who contributed their amazing songs: Ari, Dom, Joe Stickley, and (of course) Kaki. And finally Circus Road, our sales agent -- for fighting the good fight. We hope to have good news sometime early in 2010 regarding distribution.

If you helped with this film: THANK YOU. If you helped keep me sane: THANK YOU.

AWARDS (2009):

Dances With Films - Grand Jury Award: Best Narrative Feature Honorable Mention
Oxford International Film Festival - Special Jury Award: Emerging Filmmaker for Joe Leonard
St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase - Best Narrative Feature by St. Louis Film Critics Association
Acefest NYC - Best Feature Film
FirstGlance Philadelphia Film Festival - Best Feature Film and Best Director
Big Apple Film Festival - Emerging NY Actor Award for Aaron Stanford
Big Easy Film Festival - Jury Award: Best Drama Feature, Best Screenplay
St. Louis International Film Festival - New Filmmakers Forum finalist
Red Rock Film Festival - Grand Jury Award: Best Narrative Fiction Feature
Moondance International Film Festival - Seahorse Award for Best Narrative Feature
Columbus International Film Festival - Chris Award for Best Narrative Feature


PUBLICITY:

“Writer-director Joe Leonard aspires to make a generational statement about the young Gothamites whose dreams and illusions were dashed in the wake of 9/11. As nicely enacted by Fishel and Stanford, the relationship between the two characters has a core integrity… The visually polished pic achieves the desired contrast between the hustle-and-bustle of New York and the characters’ countryside idyll.”
–Variety 7/8/09

“This movie had us at Rosemarie DeWitt.”
–Austinist 10/26/09

“The quick, 87-minute run time makes for a seamless flow from start to finish. This is a charming, buzzworthy film that’s worth all the noise.”
–Philadelphia Citypaper 10/22/09

“Leonard puts a unique, admirably understated spin on material that could easily descend into cliché or worse. How I Got Lost’s subtle sound design, surprisingly spare dialogue and game cast (Nicole Vicius and Mad Men’s Rosemarie DeWitt co-star) give Leonard’s graceful, affecting tale an intimate quality that could only spring from personal experience.”
–Cincinnati Citybeat 7/29/09

“How I Got Lost begins with hip New York 20-somethings, sexy and stubbly in their rumpled suits, awash in ennui. They are drunken and sad and look as much like hell as possible while remaining fuckably urbane. They are burnt out. You worry for a moment that you’re about to see a movie about the bullshit worries of bullshit young people of means. But How I Got Lost is better than that. This is a film about the way life tends to rip people out of their poses, and the hip young people of How I Got Lost spend the whole movie getting ripped out of theirs.”
–Palm Beach New Times 4/21/09

“How I Got Lost is a bittersweet and intimate drama about discovering happiness in the midst of turmoil…cleverly and meaningfully book-ended by two significantly traumatic dates for New Yorkers in the aughts (September 11, 2001 and August 14, 2003).”
–Smells Like Screen Spirit 10/20/09

“Though the falling Twin Towers initiate the action in Joe Leonard’s new film, How I Got Lost, it’s not quite accurate to call it a 9/11 film; it’s more of a Northeastern blackout of 2003 film, and the resolution is brilliant.”
–St. Louis Magazine

Austin Film Festival!

I am listening to "Rubber Soul" over and over -- and except for "Michelle" (too syrupy) and "What Goes On" (too twangy), it is pretty much perfect. I mean every single song makes absolute complete total sense to me, to a disturbing degree.

I am amazingly excited about going to Austin this weekend! I'll be flying in Thursday, checking in, and wandering around town and trying to make friends until our screening on Saturday at 4pm at the Texas Spirit Theatre. Believe it or not, after that I'll be winging it off to Philly for the FirstGlance Film Festival!

"How I Got Lost" at Austin Film Fest
Saturday, 4pm at Texas Spirit Theatre
Monday, 7pm at Arbor Cinema

Apple Movie Trailers - HOW I GOT LOST!

Check it out! It's fun to get to see our little independent flick next to the trailer for District 9 on its opening weekend!

Apple - Movie Trailers - HOW I GOT LOST

Emerging Filmmaker Award at OIFF! Best Narrative Feature at SLFS!

Lots of good news! First of all, many, many thanks to the Oxford International Film Festival for showing our film in Cincinnati at the Esquire Theatre. It's an amazing honor to be awarded the Emerging Filmmaker Award! (And thank you, Dad, for accepting it for me since I couldn't be there!)

For those of you who attended the St. Louis Filmmaker's Showcase, thank you thank you thank you!!! It was overwhelming to show the film back home at the Tivoli in a packed 400 seat theatre -- wow. The film has officially been invited to the St. Louis International Film Festival in November and awarded Best Narrative Feature of the showcase by the St. Louis Film Critics Association!

And in other news, we've been accepted into three festivals (so far) this fall! Moondance Film Festival in Boulder and Kansas International Film Festival in September, and FirstGlance Philadelphia in October! Hope to see some of you out at the fests!!!

How I Got Lost NYC Premiere at Acefest SOLD OUT!

The New York City premiere of "How I Got Lost" on Friday, July 10 is SOLD OUT. We are very excited to screen the film in the city where the movie started.

Countless thanks and endless gratitude is due to all of the amazing NYC cast and crew. It will be terrific to see you again!

-Joe

How I Got Lost on NETFLIX!

"How I Got Lost" is listed on Netflix -- click "save" to be notified when it is being released on DVD! Also, you can rate and review the film!

How I Got Lost NETFLIX page

VARIETY Review: Mixed

It's not all good, not all bad. And it's *&^%ing Variety. So it's sort of a coup.

VARIETY Review: "How I Got Lost"

Los Angeles Times article

Dances With Films: A festival that is decidedly independent
There was an article in the Los Angeles Times today about Dances With Films screening this Saturday! (9:30PM, Lammle Sunset 5)

How I Got Lost screening at the Lammle Sunset 5 on Saturday, June 6 at 9:30

We would like to invite you to a pre-screening party at Sushi Dan (8000 W Sunset Blvd, at Crescent Heights) on June 6, 2009 at 8:30pm. There will be Sushi. There will cans of PBR.

HOW I GOT LOST will screen at 9:30pm at the Lammle Sunset 5 next door. Tickets are available at the Dances With Films website. Tickets are $10 now, $12 at the door. You can buy them in person at the Sunset 5 anytime this next week. Looks like we're gonna sell out, so don't wait too long!

Getting lost...

For me, making a movie is about asking a question and then searching for it, trying to find it through the process -- learning about it through the people you work with and through the places it takes you.

On September 11, I was a senior studying film at NYU. I remember the call from my mom. I remember finding my friends. I remember shutting off my camera because the people walking uptown were looking through me. I remember that Fall, very well. For two years I didn’t want to leave -- and it was in that time that I wrote the first draft of “How I Got Lost.” I was 23 years old and living in the East Village, sitting in the Life Café heartbroken scribbling in notebooks. When the lights went out on an August afternoon in 2003, I was walking down the street. That night there was a bonfire in Tompkins Square Park – people dancing, singing, taking off their clothes. And we started over, all of us. The next day it was a different New York City.

I didn’t think I was writing about that time until five years later, on draft nine or so. Every six months I’d pull out the pages, mark them up, and write something new. I read “The Sun Also Rises” around that time, and it seemed like it had just been written. And I started collecting postcards of Edward Hopper paintings, drawn in by their loneliness and heartache.

The journey of the production was the journey of the film. We went through it as a crew. The actors went through it, working each day in a different place. My producers were my closest allies: Massoumeh Emami, Jared Parsons, Sam Mestman and Chris DeAngelis. All of us were in New York on 9/11, all about the same age, all trying to make a movie that captured what we had experienced. My director of photography Chris Chambers was my closest friend during the shoot. We lived together, walked to set together, got sick of each other, and continued each day to make lists and find inspiration.

Early on we decided that we were going to try to shoot with this new toy, the RED One camera -- a terrifying but worthwhile risk. For filmmakers like us, it was catnip. But when FedEx lost it two weeks away from principal photography, we all aged a few years. It showed up eventually, and when it did we didn’t ask questions.

After principal photography ended, my DP and I were driving through Illinois shooting highways surrounded by fields when we were suddenly pulled over by a State Trooper for driving 20 MPH on a state road with a speed limit of 60 MPH. I explained to the trooper that I had been looking at the sky.

“Lookin’ at the sky? Lookin’ at the SKY?” He stomped his feet and shook his head, and wrote me a ticket for being an insane filmmaker.

Then we wrapped.

LA Premiere!

HOW I GOT LOST Los Angeles Premiere

Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 9:30pm
Lammle Sunset 5 - 8000 W. Sunset Blvd (at Fairfax)

Tickets are available at the Dances With Films website. You can also purchase them in person at the Lammle Sunset 5.

HOW I GOT LOST Trailer

"Sometimes you have to get lost to figure out where you're going..." This is the full trailer for the upcoming independent feature film HOW I GOT LOST, shot in New York and St. Louis in 2008. Starring Aaron Stanford, Jacob Fishel, Rosemarie DeWitt, Nicole Vicius and Lily Holleman (among many others). Written and directed by Joe Leonard. Produced by Massoumeh Emami, Sam Mestman and Jared Parsons. Music by Kaki King. Trailer edited by Sam Mestman. Made possible by the NYU Richard Vague Production grant, as well as generous investors and selfless volunteers (thank you!!!). Shot on the RED One camera. Currently screening at film festivals this summer! Check howigotlost.com and join our Facebook group for screenings and updates.

In the random things category...

DEATH BY..., a short documentary I made 2 years ago which played at the Austin Film Festival, is being released on DVD with the horror feature "Sick Girl." What is the connection you may ask? Leslie Andrews. I've seen the film, and in the first 10 minutes or so she kills an entire bus of Catholic schoolgirls. They totally had it coming...

Sick Girl DVD to be released in August

First Review for "How I Got Lost"!

Reviewer Brandon K. Thorp reviews "How I Got Lost" and two other films for the Palm Beach International Film Festival!

Palm Beach on Film

"How I Got Lost" Festivals!!

"How I Got Lost" is premiering at the Newport Beach International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 29! And we've already gotten our first review for our Palm Beach screening!

Newport Beach Film Festival
Wednesday, April 29 at 4pm at the Edwards Island Cinemas in Newport Beach, CA
For tickets, click here.

How I Got Lost TEASER