THE PASSING SEASON, Featuring Stage Stars, to Premiere at RIIFF
By: TV News Desk Aug. 12, 2016
Starring Tony nominee Brian J. Smith (Sense8, Quantico, The Glass Managerie - Broadway), Gayle Rankin (Cabaret - Broadway, The Meyerowitz Stories - dir. Noah Baumbach), Patrick Murney, Elizabeth Alderfer and Nick Choksi, THE PASSING SEASON premieres this week at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the same week during which its director Gabriel Long moves back to his home state via Brooklyn, NY.
Accompanying Gabriel will be his wife and producer Rebecca Atwood who fell in love with both the director and his home state, inspiring the recently wed couple to make the move together.
When Sam Alden's professional hockey career comes to a sudden end, he returns to his hometown and reconnects with a group of buddies who never left rural Rhode Island. Picking up where he left off after high school, he tries to leave his failed career behind and return to a simpler, more exciting time in his life. But recapturing innocence turns out to be more complicated than he imagined, and the harder he pursues adventure and escape, the wider the rift becomes between his youthful dreams and his adult reality.
The Passing Season screening info:
Sun, Aug 14, 4:30 PM
Aurora
276 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903
401.272.5723
*Gabe Long and and several cast and crew will be there for a Q&A after the screening.
Largely filmed in Gabriel's coastal Rhode Island hometown, The Passing Season captures a quintessentially New England sense of place and time. "If you grow up in a beautiful place, there's a seductive quality to your hometown. You think about the magic of that beauty and think about the sense of possibility that you felt riding around with your high school crush. It's tempting to think that by returning to the place you can return to that feeling." That seductive allure proves dangerous for Sam as he gets pulled into thinking that by returning to his hometown he can recapture a sense of hope and promise. "The reality," states Gabriel, "is that those feelings are about being young, and being in the place where they happened isn't going to bring them back. That's something I've struggled with, and it's what Sam struggles with in the film."
THE PASSING SEASON team
Gabriel Long (Writer/Director/Producer)
Gabriel makes his feature film debut with The Passing Season. He directed Danielle Brooks & Uzo Aduba's music video "Jolly Christmas Medley," which was featured on Buzzfeed, New York Magazine, Elle, The Huffington Post, and Slate. Other writing/directing credits include: In No Place (a short documentary about Guantanamo detainees and the civil rights movement), and The Drawing (a narrative short that played at NewFest, Inside Out Film Fest, and on PBS). He was a recipient of the Cinereach Film Fellowship. He is a graduate of Cornell University and was born and raised in Rhode Island.
Rebecca Atwood (Producer)
Rebecca has spent the last decade as a producer and talent manager in New York, where her clients included stars of Tony-award winning musical Hamilton, upcoming film The Birth of a Nation, and television series including Orange Is the New Black, How to Get Away With Murder, Scandal, and upcoming Netflix series The Get Down.
Matthew-Lee is a writer on Showtime's Masters of Sex. He wrote and starred in the one man show Handbook for an American Revolutionary," about which Time Out said "Sizzling with its creator's energetic humanism, Handbook...insists that we respond," and The New York Times called "revelatory and surprising." Bruce Mason (Producer)
Bruce has an extensive background in PR and marketing. Formerly the director of publicity for Miramax Books and PenguinPutnam, Bruce is now a media consultant with a client list that includes The Weinstein Company, Lionsgate Films, The Tribeca Film Festival, BAM and This American Life.
Brian J. Smith (SAM) star of the hit Netflix series Sense8, Tony nominated star of The Glass Managerie. Additional television credits include Quantico, GOSSIP GIRL and the Syfy series Stargate Universe.
Gayle Rankin (TESS) Cabaret on Broadway, The Taming of the Shrew with The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, Noah Baumbach's upcoming film The Meyerowitz Stories. She will next star opposite Oscar Isaac in Hamlet at the Public Theater. Interview Magazine recently profiled her: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/gayle-rankin/
Patrick Murney (EDDIE) TNT's PUBLIC MORALS opposite Ed Burns, feature films James White, God's Pocket, Bluebird, Todd Haynes' upcoming film Wonderstruck, and the upcoming Netflix series The Get Down.
Elizabeth Alderfer (LINDSEY) Television's Orange is the New Black, The Good Wife, Unforgettable, and the upcoming feature film Game Day.
Nick Choksi (NICK) television's Happyish, feature film Violet & Daisy. He will soon make his broadway debut in Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812.Videos
