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General News: Film by Local Producer Wins Acclaim
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| Actors Rory Caulkin and Emma Roberts play teens whose lives are intertwined. |
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| Jill Hennessey and Alec Baldwin play a couple whose marriage is falling apart. |
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| Barbara De Fina produced LymeLIfe. |
September 24, 2008
A film produced by local movie producer Barbara De Fina has been awarded a top prize by international critics at the Toronto Film Festival, which was held earlier this month.
The film, LymeLife, is an examination of first love, family dynamics and the American Dream in late 1970s Long Island, as seen through the innocent eyes of 15-year-old Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin). It is the story of two families whose lives are set on end after Lyme disease infects one man and destroys his family's balance.
Barbara De Fina says that when she first read the screenplay, written by brothers Derick and Steven Martini, the good writing and compelling characters drew her in. She felt is was a project that she wanted to produce.
De Fina knows a good film when she sees one. She has served as a producer or executive producer on dozens of films over three decades, including The Color of Money and Good Fellas, which she made along with her former husband Martin Scorsese. De Fina says perhaps her two favorite major Hollywood productions are Cape Fear and The Grifters.
She also says that she likes low-budget movies such as LymeLife and You Can Count on Me, produced in 2000, that appeal to a broad group of people, from teenagers to grandparents, who find something real and truthful in the characters portrayed on the screen.
As the producer of Lyme Life, De Fina’s main role was to raise money to produce it but she also went on location when the film was shot in Bergen County, New Jersey and out to Los Angeles where the final cut was edited. Martin Scorsese is listed as the film’s executive producer and De Fina says he attached his name to the film to help support it and attract funders.
As the head of her own movie production company, De Fina always has a lot of projects in various stages of development. One of those is a film about Father Damien, the so-called leper priest whom many in the Catholic church hope to have named a saint.
Despite her frequent contact with the big names of Hollywood, De Fina is a woman who also values the sense of community that she finds in Cornwall-on-Hudson. She first came here on weekends, then settled in full-time two years ago and occasionally appears at village trustee meetings, just to listen in.
“The village is very special and I am interested in what’s happening and what’s proposed, the politics and whose running things,” she says. It is perhaps this sense of a community of people who make small decisions that ultimately shape their lives that attracts her to films like LymeLife, where the characters are the driving forces.
LymeLife also features Alec Baldwin, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon, Jill Hennessey and Kieran Culkin. De Fina is currently negotiating with distributors for the movie’s release. You can get a full list of De Fina's movie credits here.
Comments:
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You go, Barb!Congratulations! Lis
posted by Elisabeth Hellwege on 09/24/08 at 8:02 PM
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Congratulations, Barbara! We'll have to do a special toast to you at one of our garden parties!
-Jacqui
posted by Jacqui Lunchick on 09/25/08 at 8:15 AM
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