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Chekhovian
TYPE: Hybrid Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Production
LOGLINE
A daring NYC ensemble's visceral year-long descent into Chekhov's masterwork explodes the boundaries between art and reality, exploring the fragile divide separating process and product.
SYNOPSIS
Chronicling an NYC underground theater ensemble's tumultuous, year-long journey to mount a daring production of Chekhov's The Seagull, two documentarians explore the increasingly tenuous boundaries between truth and fiction, persona and self, art and reality through a meta-layering of parallel narratives continuously refracting and destabilizing perception and identity.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
We aim to create a dreamlike cinematic experience dissolving the boundaries between narrative fiction and non-fiction filmmaking; immersing into the paradoxes of performance, identity, and reality at the heart of this theatrical ensemble's year-long process; inviting viewers to become symbiotic participants in this quixotic journey towards an elusive expression that perhaps can only be grasped when the notions of reality and fiction dissolve into a more transcendent unified field.
KEY CREW
Meg Case - Director / Producer
Meg Case is an NYC-based filmmaker exploring alternative visual forms over the last decade, including feature films, shorts, music videos, and interdisciplinary theatrical productions. She also collaborates with Brad Porter as Case & Porter, co-creating and directing short films using an experimental and explorative approach prioritizing process over result. Their work has screened and been awarded at festivals and events around the world including Les Femmes Underground, NoBudge, VideoArt and Experimental FF, Imagine This Women's FF, and more. Their most recent in-production collaboration “Chekhovian” was awarded a NYFA New Work grant. (caseandporterprojects.com)
Brad Porter - Director / Producer
Brad Porter is an NYC-based filmmaker with 15 years experience as a director and cinematographer of feature films, experimentals, commercials, and interdisciplinary theatrical productions. He received his MFA from Chapman University and has taught filmmaking to undergraduate students at universities in Michigan and England for eight years. Most recently, he's collaborated with his partner, Meg Case, as Case & Porter co-creating transportive and transformative films which explore a personal and immediate cinema. Their work has screened and been awarded at festivals and events around the world including Les Femmes Underground, NoBudge, Video Art and Experimental FF, and more. Their most recent in-production collaboration “Chekhovian” was awarded a NYFA New Work grant. (caseandporterprojects.com)
Ryan Czerwonko - Associate Producer / Actor
Ryan Czerwonko is the artistic director of Adult Film, where he acts, directs, and teaches. With guest starring and recurring roles on NBC's "The Endgame", "Chicago Med", and "Chicago Fire", Ryan has also appeared in "Cherry" (AGBO Films), "Paint" (IFC Films), "The Deuce", and "Watchmen" (HBO), among others, working with directors like The Russo Brothers, James Franco, Nicole Kassell, and Roland Joffe. Recently, he was in Ariana Grande's music video for her song "Yes, And?", and has worked on stages across the country at George Street Playhouse, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, First Folio Theatre, and more. Upcoming: "The Electric State" (Netflix), directed by the Russo Brothers. (www.adultfilm.nyc)
Peter Rinaldi - Associate Producer / Actor
Peter Rinaldi is an award winning filmmaker based in New York City. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts and studied at the legendary Actors Studio in a special program for directors. He has been a consulting editor and assistant cinematographer for Manfred Kirchheimer’s last 7 documentaries and Caveh Zahedi’s cult hit series The Show About The Show. His own short films have screened around the world from Anthology Film Archives to the Max Ophuls Festival in Saarbrücken Germany. He continues his passion project, Back To One, a podcast he produces and hosts for Filmmaker Magazine where he has in-depth conversations with actors (such as Ethan Hawke, Juliette Binoche, Ruth Negga, Clive Owen) about their craft. He is about to release his 300th episode.
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