Loren Cass

Infobox Film
name = Loren Cass
director = Chris Fuller
producers = Frank Craft
Chris Fuller
Kayla Tabish
writer = Chris Fuller
starring = Kayla Tabish
Travis Maynard
Lewis Brogan
Jacob Reynolds
Mike Glausier
Din Thomas
Blag Dahlia
Keith Morris
original music = Jimmy Morey
cinematography = William Garcia
editing = Chris Fuller
production company = Jonesing Pictures, Inc.
released = 2006
runtime = 83 minutes
country = United States
language = English
website = http://www.lorencass.com
budget = Unknown
imdb_id = 0464098
amg_id = 1:408884

"Loren Cass" is a feature-length motion picture, directed by 21-year-old independent filmmaker Chris Fuller, about adolescents coming to terms with their lives in St. Petersburg, Florida after the 1996 riots there. The film took 10 years to complete.

The story follows three central characters (Nicole, Jason and Cale) and several secondary ones (The Suicide Kid, The Punk Kid, and The Fight Kid, among others) through the aftermath of the '96 rebellions, and features several notable St. Petersburg landmarks including the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the St. Petersburg Pier, and the house where Jack Kerouac lived prior to his death in 1969. The film has been noted for its sequence on top of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and footage of the Budd Dwyer suicide.

It stars Kayla Tabish, Travis Maynard, Lewis Brogan, mixed martial artist/UFC veteran Din Thomas and Jacob Reynolds with narration by Keith Morris (of the band The Circle Jerks) and Blag Dahlia (of the band The Dwarves). The film also includes a live performance by New York punk band Leftover Crack, which was the first show that included drummer Brandon Kolling in the lineup, who died shortly after filming.

In February 2006, independent filmmaking consultant Robert Hawk joined the film's crew to oversee its release effort. Bob Hawk is best known for discovering Kevin Smith's 1994 comedy Clerks.

In 2006 & 2007 the film was screened at Dennis Hopper's CineVegas Film Festival and was selected as one of only 2 non-studio American independent films to screen at the 60th anniversary of the Locarno International Film Festival where it was called "the discovery of the festival" by ARTE Television. Screenings will also be held at the Helsinki International Film Festival, the Viennale, the Ljubljana International Film Festival, the Gijon International Film Festival, and the Starz Denver International Film Festival.

Also in 2007 the film was nominated for an IFP Gotham Award for "Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You" and won the One+One Music Award for use of music in a feature film at Janine Bazin's EntreVues Film Festival.

It has received uniformly rave reviews and was referred to in Variety as: "A starkly radical film debut of uncommon power and artistic principle, Chris Fuller's "Loren Cass" announces a genuinely original filmmaking talent who literally pulls no punches in his depiction of teen angst and racial warfare on the streets of 1997 St. Petersburg, Fla. Suffused with pessimism and an overarching sense of the loneliness of modern American life, the pic affirms a vital alternative to the usual adolescent drama, making even Larry Clark look tame by comparison."

References

* [http://www.lorencass.com Official Loren Cass Web Site]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464098 Loren Cass at IMDB]
* [http://cinevegas.bside.com/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=22114671 Loren Cass at the CineVegas Film Festival]
* [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933901.html?categoryid=31&cs=1 Loren Cass Variety Review]