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.

From the SundanceTV Website:

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.

producers Jacob Jaffke and Peter 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

From the folks who brought you STAKE LAND, director Jim Mickle and writer Nick Damici comes Joe Lansdale’s HAP AND LEONARD, Wednesdays at 10PM on the Sundance Channel.

Tonight, episode 2 features a very special cameo for Glass Eye Pix fans… Keep eyes and ears open…