Have you heard the buzz about the new restoration of Kelly Reichardt’s debut film River of Grass? Check out some of the reviews, including an AV Club interview with Reichardt. It is now available for streaming on Fandor! 

From Screen Daily:

By Jeremy Kay

EXCLUSIVE: The director of Sundance selection Carnage Park has unveiled the cast on his fifth feature, which recently wrapped principal photography.

Ashley Bell, Angela Trimbur, Mark Kassen, Ivana Shein, and James Landry Hébert (pictured) have joined previously announced Jeremy Gardner, Helen Rogers, and Larry Fessenden.

Keating wrote and directed Psychopaths, which follows several serial killers over the course of a single night.

Jenn Wexler produced alongside William Day Frank, Keating, and Cam McLellan and Al Lewison for Bad Camal. Fessenden serves as executive producer for Glass Eye Pix.

Keating’s most recent film Carnage Park premiered in Park City in January and is sold internationally by Content Media. The film-maker’s credits include Ritual, Pod, and Darling.

You may have seen Larry Fessenden (I Sell the Dead, Wendy and Lucy, Habit) and James Le Gros (Living in Oblivion, Girls) on the red carpet of the Independent Spirit Awards, among other places. Where you won’t see them is on HAP AND LEONARD where you’ll hear them instead. (They guest star in the radio play to which Uncle Chester is listening in Episode 102.) Learn more about Fessenden’s and Le Gros’ longtime collaboration below.

Q: You two worked together on Larry’s feature The Last Winter. Is that how your collaborative relationship started?

LF: Yeah, that’s definitely our first film together… We were in a very remote part of Iceland for half of the shoot, and for the other half we were in Reykjavik, which was fun too. It was a really great adventure. That’s when I met James. Friends for life. Then we made a film called Bitter Feast together… That was about the time we made Stake Land with Jim Mickle and Nick Damici [HAP AND LEONARD’s co-creators].

Q: How did you and Mickle meet?

LF: When I was younger, Mickle wrote me a letter. He worked at Kim’s Video in New York City, which was a great video outlet. He wrote me a letter and said, “Dear Mr. Fessenden, I would love to serve you coffee or whatever other needs you have.” And so we kept up, for years, and then eventually I thought of him when I got the opportunity to make a series of low budget movies. And what he brought to Stake Land was outstanding. That was a big hit for Glass Eye Pix. I still have the letter somewhere.

Q: Nick Damici has appeared on your podcast, Tales From Beyond the Pale, which critics have called the best audio-only horror out there. How would you describe Tales to the uninitiated?

LF: Well we do them with Glenn McQuaid, who’s another director in my circle. He made a wonderful movie called I Sell the Dead. And it’s ironic we’re having this conversation, because we were driving to visit the set of Stake Land and I had my young kid in the back of the car and we were listening to audio plays. And at that moment, we turned to each other and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do audio plays with Glass Eye Pix? We know so much talent, everybody’s waiting on a film to get financed…. Why don’t we do that? It’d be a lot cheaper than making a movie.”

Q: How long’s it been around?

LF: We’ve now done three seasons. James here has been in every season, often acting with Vincent D’Onofrio.

JL: And his progeny! I did one with his daughter.

LF: So it’s this community of artists and actors and filmmakers, that’s what Glass Eye Pix is… I’ve been in Mickle’s subsequent movies after Stake Land and the audio plays have been a really special way to keep working together. And so I think Mickle wanted to give a nod to that when he realized he needed some audio component to HAP AND LEONARD… We did the second season [of Tales] live, and that was a great experience. That means you’re listening to a single take of the piece and the sound effects were on the stage. It was really….

JL: Old school. Old school.

LF: The other thing that comes to mind about this little collaboration is, it’s funny, because Nick Damici and I have always joked about playing Sherlock Holmes and Watson on the stage. Just as long as we’ve known each other, we’ve sort of teased each other that that would be great fun. So when this came out, it just seemed so much in the wheelhouse of our conversations. Then Nick couldn’t actually act in it for one reason or another, so I said, “Well, we’ve got to get James in on it.”

Q: Who plays the show-within-a-show’s announcer?

JL: Larry’s the announcer!

LF: It was in my contract. I have to have more roles than James Le Gros. I counted the lines!

JL: Larry is always lead tambourine player in any band we’re in.

Q: Why a Sherlock Holmes parody? Damici apparently wrote the script. It’s a very dignified conversation between Holmes and Watson, and then Holmes’ story takes this bizarre turn about a husband throwing his dentures at his wife.

LF: Dude, I have the same question. When I knew I was going to be doing a little snippet with James from Sherlock Holmes I was very excited, and I thought that we’d get into one of those [classic Holmes monologues] where he’s figuring out, like, because of a little dirt under your shoes you’ve been down this or that road… None of that comes into play. It’s the most peculiar script that he’s got. And I don’t know if Nick had a hangover or how this came about… You’re going to have to get an exclusive interview with Nick Damici to reveal that information. We’re just pawns in this game, James and I.

JL: But a poor player who struts and frets his hour on the stage.

LF: Signifying nothing!

JL: A tale told by Nick Damici.

Watch new episodes of HAP AND LEONARD every Wed. at 10/9c.

producers Jacob Jaffke and Pete Phok flank writer director Ti West; West, Ethan Hawke and Jason Blum

Fessenden, Hawke, Ti West

KELLY REICHARDT: No! I’m not miserable, but I can’t not be angry. As I’m talking to you, I’m looking at the window and can’t understand why there are six hundred thousand SUVs here in this little town. No one can even move. Why doesn’t everyone just get out and walk? Or just the fact that I’m really thirsty, but I don’t want to drink that bottled water. I just want water from the faucet. I’m not beyond enjoying anything. Waking up and having a project to work on is one of life’s great pleasures.

Read the full article here

Filmmaker Eliza Hittman moderated the Q&A with Reichardt and Fessenden at the IFC Premiere
of the restored RIVER OF GRASS, March 11, 2016. Photo by John Vanco

RIVER OF GRASS continues to screen at the IFC through Thursday 17 March.

Three Goons: Toby Huss, Fessenden and Tommy Nohilley play Harris, Roy and Tubby in the Ti Western
IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE, which enjoyed its World Premier at SXSW on March 12, 2016
Numerous Glass Eye pals worked on the film:
Peter Phok, Jacob Jaffke, Jeff Grace, Neal jonas, Graham Reznick, Tom Efinger…
A family affair… And now the Critics weigh in:

“In a Valley of Violence’s story is minimalist to the point of Monte Hellman, who also tackled the permanent existential threat of the Old West in Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, but West infuses this tale of vengeance with a nasty sort of realism. Violent death is both a terrifying reality and a laugh-out-loud joke. Forget Lenny Bruce, this is the sick humor of Ti West. Kudos aplenty to indie horror Renaissance man Larry Fessenden for the terror and to John Travolta (as a wooden-legged Marshal) for the empathy in another brilliant and barely recognizable performance.”
—Austin Chronicle

“As the violence escalates, an absurdist dose of humor is added to the mix, injecting the film with a distinctly modern sensibility that is welcome and does not let up. The audience at the film’s SXSW premiere ate it up, hooting and hollering at every gruesome development.”
—The Guardian

“Walking a fine line between charming lark and smirking goof, Ti West’s “In a Valley of Violence” is a Western homage that has its heart in the genre, but not so much in the story. Stripping its gunslinger plot down to the most essential pillars, the film has plenty of incidental pleasures to offer: a few chuckles, some typically Westian explosions of violence, a deliriously fun score, and a pair of perfectly solid performances from Ethan Hawke and John Travolta.”
—Variety

“A bloody Western about a deadly man who’s sworn off violence until his beloved dog is threatened, Ti West’s In a Valley of Violence plays like a grim, Eastwood-style genre revival before some conspicuous Tarantino-influenced humor infects its climactic showdown. Ethan Hawke is excellent as the gunslinger in question”
—Hollywood reporter

UNTIL DAWN, the successful Sony Playstation 4 Video Game produced by the UK’s Supermassive and penned by GEP pal Graham Reznick and Fessenden with producing duties Stateside handled by Peter Phok and Jacob Jaffke and featuring music by longtime GEP collaborator Jeff Grace, nabs nominations for BEST BRITISH GAME, BEST STORY, BEST GAME INNOVATION and BEST PROPERTY.

read about it here and here

Reichardt’s ‘River Of Grass’ Reissued: A First Film At A Fast Pace

By Ella taylor

… The weapon ends up in the woefully incapable hands of Lee Ray Harold, a wastrel played with hilariously insufficient menace by the horror auteur Larry Fessenden, who also edited and co-produced River of Grass. Given the pervasive pauses for inertia and gross incompetence, you may not be shocked to hear that Cozy, Larry and the gun are fated to meet in a bar, that the gun will go off, that there may or may not be a murder, which may or may not be solved. For this Bonnie and Clyde, just getting on the road is a logistical nightmare.

River of Grass is very funny, but in a more somber key it also test-drives what will become Reichardt’s specialty: the transformation of cheerless wastelands into backdrops for journeys of the parched soul. Her subsequent films are sadder, more freighted with the pain and alienation of an America that, one way or another, has put so many of its inhabitants out on the roadside. Reichardt invariably speaks for the dispossessed, and all her films must be seen. But River of Grass is her vital firstborn juiced by the fresh, untidy vitality of a newbie filmmaker doffing her cap to B-movies and the French New Wave. In that film she gives life’s castaways the gift of merriment, and an ending that holds up half the sky.

see the full review

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women,” the company announced Wednesday.

Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams and Laura Dern star in the drama based on short stories written by Maile Meloy, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film is slated for a late 2016 theatrical release.

Neil Kopp, Vincent Savino and Anish Savjani of filmscience produced the film, alongside executive producers Todd Haynes and Larry Fessenden.

From A.V.Club: The director of Old Joy made her debut with terrific outlaw saga River Of Grass

… Reichardt subverts expectations at every turn, while simultaneously painting a vivid portrait of southern Florida (the title refers to the Everglades, and the film goes back and forth between Broward and Dade County) in all its sun-drenched seediness. She gets an invaluable assist from Fessenden, a notable director in his own right (Wendigo, The Last Winter); he co-edited River Of Grass in addition to co-starring, and his jumpier sensibility, both onscreen and off, blends with Reichardt’s observational instincts in fascinating ways. If one were to watch this jagged, restless movie with no knowledge of who made it, guessing that it sprung from the same mind that created Old Joy or Meek’s Cutoff would be impossible. Intuiting that this gifted novice filmmaker would go on to bigger and better things, however, would be child’s play.

Visit the IfC website for tickets