After a wonderful festival run for the last year, culminated last week with a Special Mention at AFI Fest, Kangmin Kim's beautiful stop-motion animated short Deer Flower is nominated for an Annie for Best Animated Short Subject!!! Such an amazing honor!!!
See the full list of Annie Award Nominees HERE.
We are extremely proud to be part of this visionary gem of a film and can't wait to start working on Kangmin's next project.
Independent Spirit Awards 2017... HERE WE COME!!!
Thrilled and proud to announce that our feature SPA NIGHT was nominated for the Cassavetes Award for Film Independent's Independent Spirit Awards this morning! Congratulations to director Andrew Ahn, producers Kelly Thomas and David Ariniello, and our founders and producers of SPA NIGHT - Giulia Caruso and Ki Jin Kim!
Also congratulations to our director Andrew Ahn for his nomination for the "Someone to Watch Award" - and to all the other great films and filmmakers nominated!
See the full list of nominee on INDIEWIRE.
So proud to announce that our feature SPA NIGHT will have its LA festival premiere at Outfest in July as the US Narrative Centerpiece!!!
We shot SPA NIGHT entirely on location in Los Angeles, and we are beyond excited to finally bring the film home and share it with everybody who made this possible.
We are especially proud to return to Outfest, where we screened Myrna the Monster last year and where our director Andrew Ahn's short Dol won Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Narrative Short Film in 2012.
Screening on July 11th at 7pm at the DGA 1.
Tickets go on sale on Monday, June 13th.
Following the screening, a reception in the DGA Atrium, hosted by the Outfest Emerging Leaders Council.
Hope to see you all there!!
The 6th and last episode of our docu-series We've Been Around, CAMP TRANS, premiered today exclusively on TheAdvocate.com. The series chronicles the lives of a few transgender pioneers in history, often untold. In CAMP TRANS, amid the punk ethics of 1990’s identity politics, trans activists Leslie Feinberg and Riki Anne Wilchins spearhead a movement to protest the trans-exclusionary policy of a women’s music festival.
Check out this beautiful, important film that we executive produced with Rhys Ernst and Jelayne Miles of 11B Production, directed by Elliot Montague, produced by Christine Beebe and written by Rosie Haber.
History of transgender people, like many minority groups, is too often lost or overlooked by the mainstream. Even moments of protest within the LGBT space, like the advent of "Camp Trans," deserve to be remembered, and that can require transgender people telling their own stories, say the creators of the“We’ve Been Around” video series.
Riki Wilchins and Leslie Feinberg at CAMP TRANS.
We have TWO projects screening at Frameline this year!!! So proud - thank you to Desiree and the whole programming team at Frameline!
SPA NIGHT screens at the historic Castro Theatre, and the whole team will be there - come say hi!!! Our docu-series We've Been Around screens together with Rhys Ernst's Emmy nominated series This is Me, will follow an extended Q&A with director Rhys Ernst, producer Christine Beebe and Executive Producers Giulia Caruso and Jelayne Miles.
See you all in San Francisco!!
SPA NIGHT: June 23rd, Castro Theatre @ 6:30pm
WE'VE BEEN AROUND: June 21st, Roxie Theatre @ 7pm
So many exciting screenings coming up!!!
On June 25th, we will have our European Premiere at the great Edinburgh International Film Festival, amidst some great films. Second screening will be on June 26th, let your friends know!!!
On June 23rd, SPA NIGHT will screen at the historical Castro Theatre in San Francisco at Frameline, get your tickets!! The whole team will be there and we hope to see you all!
SPA NIGHT will have its NYC Premiere at BAMcinemaFest in Brooklyn on June 20th - director Andrew Ahn and star Joe Seo will be there! Honored to be part of such a great lineup!!! Buy your tickets today!
On June 12th and 13th, SPA NIGHT goes down-under for the amazing Sydney Film Festival!!! According to them Andrew is "a bold new talent".. proud of our movie!
On June 2nd, 3rd and 4th a busy SPA NIGHT weekend with some amazing screenings:
Seattle International Film Festival - June 2nd and 3rd (Andrew will be there!)
TLVFest, the Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival - June 3rd
From the TLV website: "In his film debut, director and scriptwriter Andrew Ahn brings to the screen a cinematic aesthetic that is rarely found in contemporary American cinema. The spa scenes, in particular, are reminiscent of the atmosphere created by Tsai Ming-Liang in his exemplary I Don't Want to Sleep Alone."
OUTFilm CT in Connecticut - June 4th (Joe will be there!)
On June 4th, our director and the producing team of SPA NIGHT will speak on a panel at LAFF about "Low Budget in LA" - register for the event HERE.
Excited to partner with Strand for our North American release of Spa Night!
We are thrilled to be partnering with Strand Releasing for the distribution of our feature, Spa Night, in North America. Strand has been distributing daring independent films for over twenty years, championing great directors such as Lucrecia Martel and Apitchatpong Weerasethakul - and we are proud to be part of this wonderful group of filmmakers.
Check out the press release out of Berlin on Variety.
Follow our Spa Night Facebook Page for updates on our upcoming screenings!!!
Film Independent announces today the 30 fellows of the 2016 class of Project Involve - see the full list on Indiewire.
Congratulations to our very own Giulia Caruso who was selected in the producing track and will be producing Terence Nance's new short film as part of the program!
L-R: EP James Kuan, Producers Kelly Thomas and David Ariniello, EP Mattia Bogianchino, Producer Giulia Caruso, Director Andrew Ahn, Producer/ DOP Ki Jin Kim
Spa Night premiered on January 24th, 2016 at the Library Theatre in Park City to a full house. It was a beautiful, moving, overwhelming, exciting, stressful, exciting, amazing moment to share the film for the first time with an audience. To hear them laugh, see them tear up.
To all the Sundance programmers who believed in our movie: THANK YOU!!! (Special thanks to Kim Yutani who introduced the Premiere!)
Sundance programmer Kim Yutani and director Andrew Ahn at the premiere of Spa Night.
To everybody who was there in the audience, thank you for being part of this moment. To all of our cast & crew who made it all the way to Park City and through the snow: we could not have done this without you, your talent, your hard hard work.
Special thanks to Kickstarter for hosting our crazy Karaoke party, to Dan, Jessica, Alex, Brady and the whole staff who made this THE BEST PARTY EVER.
See the full calendar of their events at the Kickstarter lounge HERE.
Here are some photos!!!
L-R: Joe Seo (David Cho), Haerry Kim (Soyoung Cho), director Andrew Ahn
And party-time!!!
Cast&Crew of Spa Night at our Premiere Karaoke Party at the Kickstarter lounge!
Andrew (and many friends) singing the night away!!! So much fun!!!
Elijah Wood shaking it off at our Karaoke party!!!
U.S. Dramatic Competition selection - BOTTOM RIGHT: Spa Night
We are beyond excited to announce that our film Spa Night, Andrew Ahn's debut feature that we produced and shot last June, will premiere at Sundance in January in U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION!!!
With the risk of sounding repetitive, we would like to thank once more all the people out there who made this possible, who believed in us. Our amazing cast, our hardworking super-talented crew, our investors, our Kickstarter backers, the places that donated food, opened their house for us to shoot in, let us borrow their cars... THANK YOU, to each one of you.
A special thank you to our director, Andrew Ahn, who decided to go on this journey with us, and the producing team: Giulia Caruso, Ki Jin Kim, David Ariniello and Kelly Thomas - for never giving up. We have been working on this film for a long time now, since it was just an idea... we laughed, we cried, we laughed, we yelled, we sweated... Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was tough, sometimes it was brutal, something exhilarating. We can't say how proud and humbled we are to be taking Spa Night to Sundance and we can't wait to share the movie with you all!!!
See the Sundance press release HERE.
For any inquiries related to Spa Night, please email us at: giulia.caruso@nonethelessproductions.com
Myrna arrives at the screening!
OMG!!! We had a wonderful screening of our short, Myrna the Monster, last night at William Morris Endeavor - a huge thank you to everybody who made it to the screening and a very special thank you to our sponsors:
SOVEREIGN BRANDS for their delicious wine, rose and champagne, BLUE ICE for the wonderful vodka ...that together with REED'S amazing ginger beer made for some outstanding Moscow Mules!!!
Here is to many more of these events!
Myrna and producer Giulia Caruso at last night's screening - what's so funny?
Follow her today on Snapchat @MTV and see what happens when she meets Morgan Evans..!!!
Myrna on the @MTV Snapchat today!!!
Ok, so running our Kickstarter campaign was tough. Extremely satisfying, exciting, depressing, exciting - a pure rollercoaster of emotions. So much work and passion went into it and so many of you were amazing and pushed us to the goal and beyond to have an AMAZINGLY SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN -- and again, THANK YOU FOR THAT!!!
Check out this Creator Hangout with director Andrew Ahn, talking about Spa Night and the campaign and more!
PS: the story about the Good-Karma yell-outs and the crying at the Griffith Observatory is very true...
After 3 weeks on set we are proud to announce that we just wrapped production on Andrew Ahn's debut feature Spa Night.
What a ride.
Before we pass out for a couple of weeks, we want to thank all of you who made this possible and wonderful: our amazing cast (some of whom came all the way from Korea), our hard-working talented crew who endured the hardships of independent filmmaking with us and poured their passion into this project, all the extras, location owners, grocery stores, everybody who let use their place, donated food to our production, came all the way to set at 1am to be an extra in a scene at the Korean Spa... THANK YOU.
Thank you to our investors, all the organizations that supported us through this journey (Sundance Institute, Film Independent, Cinereach, Panavision, CAAM, Visual Communication, Pacific Arts Movement) and our Kickstarter backers. Each and every one of you who believe in us. This would not be happening without you and we could not be more grateful: YOU ARE MAKING OUR DREAMS WITH US. It doesn't get more special than that.
We have so many stories to share with you all, and most of all cannot wait to share the finished movie.. but for the time being follow us on our Facebook PAGE for all updates!!!
Not really sure where to start, so many things we want to share, so many emotions... On June 14th we started shooting Andrew Ahn's debut feature, Spa Night. We started working with Andrew on the story at the very beginning of Nonetheless, two years ago, and we have been together ever since through the development and fundraising process, through the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, the Film Independent Screenwriting and Directing Lab, our Kickstarter campaign. Wonderful producers Kelly Thomas and David Ariniello joined our producing team and we put everything together and... here we are!!! IT'S HAPPENING!!! It's suddenly so real.
We couldn't be more grateful to all the amazing humans (and non-humans) who made this possible and supported us in many different ways. Our investors, our backers, our crew, our cast, our interns, all the organizations who gave us grants and all the brands that donated to the project... We wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you.
We can't wait to share Spa Night with you.
Follow our Instagram @spanightfilm and our Facebook Page through the shoot for BTS photos and more!
If you have any questions email:
spanightfilm@gmail.com or giulia.caruso@nonethelessproductions.com
Our lead actor, Joe Seo, alias David Cho
Myrna the Monster is coming to LA this Summer!!!
First, for its LA Premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival on THURSDAY June 11th at the Regal Theatre DTLA!!! Read all about it in this interview with Ian for Film Independent!
Myrna, Giulia and friends at our LAFF screening
On June 15th, the amazing band YACHT - who did the soundtrack for the movie - is organizing a "Myrna Moondisco Party", also in DTLA, with a Spaceship/Moon themed bounce house!!! See details here and come Moon Bounce with us!!!
Myrna & YACHT Party-time!!!
Ian, Myrna and Chris
Giulia scaring Myrna away (trying to at least).
Last but not least, in July Myrna will be playing at OUTFEST on July 10th and July 14th -- see all info here.
WE HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL THERE!!!!
June is gonna be crazy! A quick update for the Myrna-lovers, hoping that you can make it to one of the screenings!
Myrna will be playing at:
NORTHSIDE FILM - not to miss according to The L Magazine
Awesome Lineup from Northside - see you there Brooklyn!
Myrna is playing at LAFF this June!!!
"Funnily enough, I think there's something very humanizing about feeling like an alien"
More great news from Myrna the Monster's festival run! We are thrilled to announce that Myrna won BEST SHORT at the Victoria TX Indie Film Fest and our director Ian Samuels won the Filmmaker-to-watch Award at the Atlanta Film Festival!
Here are some of our upcoming screenings:
CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL - FRI, Apr 3rd @ 3:15pm (From Dusk till Dawn Shorts Program)
THE ALHAMBRA THEATRE FILM FESTIVAL - FRI, Apr 3rd @ 2:15pm and SAT, Apr 4th @ 6pm
More coming soon……!
Myrna the Monster wins Best Narrative Short at Big Muddy Film Festival 2015
Amazing!!! We are really grateful to all the programmers, jurors, staff and audience at Big Muddy Film Festival for screening our movie! Humbled and honored to be awarded "Best Narrative Short"!
Women In Film PSA Program 2015
Every year, the Women In Film PSA Production Program selects 4 or 5 PSAs in the US to receive a probono PSA produced by WIF. In a very competitive night, different teams pitch their proposal to the WIF committee. Our producer Giulia Caruso teamed up with director Carina Tautu and writer Emily Manthei - and was assigned to produce the PSA for Socal Crossroads, a non-profit 501c(3) organization that was created to assist under privileged individuals who come from low income families in violence plagued communities.
SoCal Crossroads
The PSA will shoot in the Summer in co-production with Nonetheless Productions, who is offering services probono for the cause.
Good luck to Giulia and her team - we'll keep you posted as the project develops, in the meantime learn more about WIF and SoCal Crossroads.