Jack Black Boards ‘Gianna’; Best of NFMLA Winners; ‘How To Rob’ Acquisition – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Jack Black has boarded Gianna, a horror comedy short written, produced by and starring his School of Rock co-star Rivkah Reyes, as an associate producer.

Also starring Emmy nominee Margaret Cho (Fire Island) and Elizabeth Faith Ludlow (Peacemaker), the film follows the newly sober and recently single Gina (Reyes), who is faced with the literal devil herself, after her sliding-scale therapist (Cho) suggests spending time with her inner demons. Kait Schuster served as director, with Jarad Schwartz and Brando Crawford among the EPs on the short, which premieres at Inside Out Festival and will also play the Palm Springs Shorts Festival.

“I loved the perfectly twisted queerness of the story and script and I had to get involved,” said Cho of the project. “Rivkah is The Gay Future!!!!!”

Part of the cast of Uni’s recent box-office smash The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Black will also reunite with Reyes later this year as part of a 20th anniversary reunion for the beloved 2003 comedy School of Rock. He is represented by Ocean Avenue and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

EXCLUSIVE: Good Deed Entertainment’s Cranked Up Films has picked up North American rights to the crime drama How to Rob, starring Silo and A Good Person‘s Chinaza Uche, with Nicely Entertainment taking international. Further details as to the release plans have not yet been disclosed.

In How to Rob, which marks the feature debut of writer-director Peter Horgan, the lifelong bond between the two-man Boston stick-up crew of Sean Price (Uche) and Jimmy Winters (Josh Koopman) is put to the test when they rob the wrong bookie and go on the lam from a couple of killers hell-bent on retribution. 

Caitlin Zoz (Silo) also stars in the pic produced by Horgan, Koopman, Uche, Samantha Brindisi, Vera Teixeira, Becca E. Davis, Rio Contrada, Sara Franzman, Andrew Gerzon and Caitlin Zoz, on which Sammie Astaneh (Exile) served as exec producer.

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EXCLUSIVE: 2x Emmy nom Corbin Bernsen (Psych), Tony Award winner Eric Nelsen (1883), Spencer Breslin (The Kid), Katie Sarife (Annabelle Comes Home), Cassie Scerbo (Make It or Break It) and Trevor Larcom (True Detective) have signed on to star in Happy Endings Funeral Parlor, a new buddy comedy short from Two Harbors Productions and TeamWriteWay.

The film directed by Kevin Boston follows two luckless brothers managing a failing funeral parlor for their eccentric uncle Nicky. Set against the backdrop of rural Iowa, everything that can go wrong does. Pic’s producers and stars Kyle Ricchetti and Zachary Roozen adapted the script from a feature-length version by Ricchetti and Anthony Theodorakos which is in development at the studio level.

Bernsen is repped by A3 Artists Agency and Randy James Management; Nelsen by TCA Mgmt and The Boothe Group; Breslin by Kjar & Associates; Sarife by Innovative Artists and LINK Entertainment; Scerbo by The Park Agency and Strong Management; Larcom by Eris Talent Agency; Ricchetti by MJB Talent Agency; and Roozen by CESD and Schumacher Management.

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EXCLUSIVE: NewFilmmakers LA has today unveiled the winners of its 11th annual Best of NFMLA Awards, recognizing up-and-coming filmmaking talent. 

The list includes Gabriela Garcia Medina (Best New Filmmaker), Alana Waksman’s We Burn Like This (Best Feature Film), Juliana Curi’s UÝRA – The Rising Forest (Best Documentary Feature), Emory Chao Johnson’s “F1-100” (Best Short Film, Documentary), Robin Wang’s “Wei-Lai” (Best Short Film, Comedy), Nicole Mejia’s “Mancha” (Best Short Film, Drama), Romain Dumont’s “See You Garbage!” (Best International Short Film, Comedy), Marilyn Cooke’s “No Ghost in the Morgue” (Best International Short Film, Drama), Bára Anna Stejskalová’s “Love is Just a Death Away” (Best Short Film, Animated), Aube Perrie’s “Megan Thee Stallion – Thot Shit” (Best New Media & Experimental), Ice Mrozek & Independence Hall’s About him & her (Best Screenplay), How to do Sh!t with Guido Gagootz‘s Sandro Iocolano (Best Performance, Comedy), Ousmane‘s Issaka Sawadogo (Best Performance, Drama), Drifting‘s Joewi Verhoeven (Best Cinematography), Last Weekend‘s David Codron (Best Film Editing), Bertie the Brilliant‘s Carlos Sanches (Best Sound Design) and UÝRA – The Rising Forest‘s Nascuy Linares (Best Score).

In conjunction with their award winners, NFMLA has disclosed the appointment of two new members to its Board of Directors: development and production executive Georgina González Rodríguez, who currently serves as Director of Programming at Universal International Studios, and casting director Kim Williams, who most recently served as Vice President, Casting at Disney Television Studios. The pair jones current NFMLA Board Members Danny De Lillo, David Quan, Margaret Wu and Varda Bar-Kar, with outgoing Board Members Demian Lichtenstein and Franco Sama joining NFMLA’s Advisory Board, and Noree Victoria and Steven J. Wolfe closing out their long-standing service.

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EXCLUSIVE: Jacob Cooney (The Frolic) has been tapped to direct the beauty-industry horror film Forever Beautiful for Patricia A. Beninati’s Centerboro Productions.

Set in present-day New York City, Forever Beautiful tells the story of a struggling cosmetics company using stem cells extracted from death row inmates for a new anti-aging cream. Those who apply the product soon find themselves haunted by the spirits of those whose stem cells were used.

Beninati (Hubble: 20 Years of Discovery) conceived, developed and wrote the pic with Jason White (Scarecrow). Centerboro Productions will produce alongside Beninati, White, Ram Paul Silbey and David Gere, with production to kick off later this year. Cooney is repped by Wonder Street and Myman Greenspan Fox; Beninati by attorney Marilyn G. Haft.

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EXCLUSIVE: George Larkin has set his latest film, The Exchange Girl, to screen at the Pasadena Film Festival, The Brooklyn Film Festival and DocFest in San Francisco, as well as the forthcoming SCMS Conference.

The docu short written, directed and edited by Larkin, which he produced alongside Elizabeth Amery, draws on early film footage and archival photos to examine the dangerous conditions faced by women working in post-production during the dark, early days of filmmaking. It specifically hones in on the story of editor Margaret Booth, who began her career editing for D.W. Griffith in 1915 and later became the supervising editor at MGM Studios, a position she held until 1969.

Currently a professor and chair of filmmaking at Woodbury University in Burbank, Larkin began his indie film career working on the early titles of David O. Russell, coming to develop an interest in the transition to sound at the end of the silent film period given his own experience of the transition from film to digital. He also notably mines the subject with the book Post-Production and the Invisible Revolution of Filmmaking, which he published with Routledge.