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About The Film A “starkly radical film debut of uncommon power and artistic principle,” Chris Fuller’s "Loren Cass" is a vivid tale of troubled youth that “makes even Larry Clark ("Kids") look tame by comparison” (Variety). Utilizing a small cast of unknowns (including writer/director Fuller, under the name “Lewis Brogan”), acutely detailed 16mm photography, and “extraordinary sound work” (The New York Times) that mixes disembodied voices ranging from Charles Bukowski to French poet Robert Desnos with graphic news footage of the American Dream turned nightmare, "Loren Cass" conjures an authentic and menacing emotional landscape shared by three young people in contemporary suburban Florida. Though scripted by Fuller in the aftermath of the 1996 St. Petersburg riots when he was just 15 years old, this “lyrical portrait of angry, disaffected teens” (Village Voice) evokes the unquenchable need, psychic pain and seething rage of disenfranchised youth from any era. Jason (Travis Maynard), a pierced and inked skinhead, takes impulsive and self destructive chances with everyone and everything around him, while his garage mechanic friend Cale (Fuller) embarks on a fleeting, benumbed romance with Nicole (Kayla Tabish), a promiscuous diner waitress. “A tour de force of mood and milieu” (The New York Times), Jason, Cale, and Nicole’s coolly hypnotic, realistic journey to nowhere reveals the bruised young underbelly of a new American century. The Making of "Loren Cass" Written by filmmaker Chris Fuller in 1997 at the age of 15, the reality of "Loren Cass" began with a sustained effort to arrange the necessary financing and with the incorporation of Jonesing Pictures, Inc. in the Fall of 2002. Financing and planning would consume the next 2 years and bring the filmmakers to a downtown hotel where they lived and prepared their coming work, a dark tale of adolescence set just after the nationally-publicized 1996 St. Petersburg rebellions. "Loren Cass" was filmed entirely in St. Petersburg, Florida over the course of 14 days in early Summer 2004 with a bare-bones crew and hard-earned budget. Starring Kayla Tabish (The Girl Next Door), newcomers Travis Maynard and Lewis Brogan, Jacob Reynolds (Gummo), street poet Mike Glausier, and Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Din Thomas, the film also featured audio contributions from Blag Dahlia, Keith Morris, Winky Wright, Charles Bukowski, Robert Desnos and others. A rare special appearance was made by New York punk band Leftover Crack along with a highly acclaimed soundtrack featuring artists Stiff Little Fingers, Hayden, DJ Shadow, Don Caballero, Choking Victim, Propagandhi, Billy Bragg, and others. Produced by Frank Craft, Chris Fuller and Kayla Tabish, editing began immediately following principal photography. The editing and sound design process would last for the next year and a half. Needing finishing touches, Fuller and a two-man crew returned to the streets of St. Petersburg in 2005 for 3 additional shooting days. Scraped together with borrowed gear and leftover film stock, the new footage would be cut in to the film in a makeshift Tampa editing room and the grueling sound mixing process stretched on for the remainder of the year. 2006 saw continued sound work and technical refinement culminating in the first official screening in rough-cut form at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival in Georgia. This was followed by a hometown premiere in St. Petersburg, Florida to a standing-room-only crowd. With the arrival of 2007, "Loren Cass" began a global film festival tour that wouldn't see its end for years to come. Beginning with the Bradford International Film Festival in England, the film was finally completed and ready for its United States premiere at the invitation of Dennis Hopper's CineVegas Film Festival in June. The film was received with full theatres and a rave review in trade publication Variety. An international premiere came next in the prestigious Filmmakers of the Present Competition at the Locarno International Film Festival in Locarno, Switzerland. Shown in a packed 3200 seat auditorium, the Fevi, an international audience responded to "Loren Cass" with a standing ovation. 2007 also saw "Loren Cass" named to Variety film critic Robert Koehler's Best of 2007 list and 2 votes for Best Undistributed Film in the annual IndieWire Critic's Poll. With festival screenings in countries such as Finland, Hungary, Austria, Spain, France and others, "Loren Cass" garnered wide critical and audience support on it's way to a 2007 IFP Gotham Award nomination for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. Called everything from "brilliant" to "commercially toxic" to "the most dangerous film in America", the film was rewarded with a coveted screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Awards also came in the form of an Emerging Filmmaker nomination at the Starz Denver Film Festival, a win in France at Janine Bazin's EntreVues Film Festival for the use of music in the film, and several others. In 2008 the film screened theatrically in Los Angeles, Sarajevo, Budapest, and as the only American film in Official Competition at Mexico's FICCO event. The year was capped off with South American showings in the Brazilian cities of Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. In early July of 2009 "Loren Cass" was acquired for theatrical and DVD release by Kino International, one of the few remaining truly independent feature film distributors. At the end of a 12-year effort to bring the film to audiences, "Loren Cass" had its theatrical release opening at the Cinema Village in New York City on July 24th, 2009. That was followed by theatrical runs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Miami and Tampa Bay, expanding to other major markets from there. A DVD release is scheduled for late November of 2009. "Splice" Filmmaker Chris Fuller and "Loren Cass" will be featured in the upcoming book "Splice" to be released by Phaidon Press in the Fall of 2009. Following the successful formula of previous Phaidon "10x10" titles, this new book in the series will present 100 of the world's most exceptional emerging film directors, selected by internationally prominent festival directors including Frederic Maire/Locarno, Piers Handling & Cameron Bailey/Toronto, Sergio Wolf/Buenos Aires, Wieland Speck/Berlin, Kim Dong-Ho/Pusan, Korea, Marco Muller/Venice, Michel Ouedraogo/Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Li Cheuk-to/Hong Kong. Arranged alphabetically by film director, the book explores the work of each director through the close analysis of one key film per director featured on 2 spreads, providing the reader with detailed information about each film and its author both in words and pictures, including film stills, on-set photographs, posters, and more. In addition, each festival director-curator will present one seminal film, which has influenced his understanding of contemporary cinema. Each curator will write an essay about the film director and the selected film. For each film, the reader will learn about the plot, the cast, the full credits, the film location, the budget, the release date, the nominations and awards, as well the genesis, the production and post-production elements. Each film will be illustrated by sequences of films stills as well as sketches, location scouting shots and storyboards. Finally, at the end of the book, each curator will select one cultural reference from varying genres and media to illustrate the context in which film directors operate today. The book will include a short biography for each film director and each curator. The result is unique source book, a fresh and up-to-the-minute collection of the best global and regional cinematographic creations in all fictional genre - drama, crime, horror, fantasy, science-fiction - around the world. Criteria for selection: each curator (nominators) will select ten film directors and one long feature film which the director made, produced and distributed in the last five years. Each selected film must be a long feature film and should be his or her first, second or third film. Acclaim For "Loren Cass" "...one of the best and boldest films of the year...remarkable. Some people keep diaries to deal with trauma. Others make art. A select few start careers of singular, exquisite promise." -Nathan Lee, NY Times "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. Sure to be deemed commercially toxic, the pic deserves a brave distrib that knows how to work the angles. Major fest berths are a lock." -Robert Koehler, Variety "Loren Cass is one of the most radical, most courageous and most impressive films of the year." -FM4 (Austria) "Quite an achievement for a first-timer behind the camera, self-taught about cinema through public library collections and the kind of self-made-man confidence only raw talent can exude." -Steve Persall, The St. Petersburg Times "Set against the backdrop of racial unrest in 1996 St. Petersburg, Florida, Fuller's striking debut feature presents a trio of disaffected, angry, and frequently bored teens who yearn for change but mostly just drift and hook up in lonely diners and nocturnal parking lots in this 'dirty, dirty town by a dirty, dirty sea.' Precisely shot and sound-designed, Loren Cass fully evokes a state of aimless frustration and barely suppressed rage that extends its relevance far beyond its particular period setting." -Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) "One of the best American indies released this year...nihilistic to the extreme...though comparisons to Larry Clark and Harmony Korine are inevitable, Fuller’s singular vision and sense of genuine immediacy transcend the overplayed existential-teen-angst genre. In terms of low-budget filmmaking aspiring past its limitations, Loren Cass is the real deal." -Andrew Grant, Time Out New York "...powerfully unsettling...a starkly lyrical portrait of angry, disaffected teens in the racially tense wake of the actual 1996 St. Petersburg, Florida, riots...Fuller's in-your-face artistic precision makes this a radical film. Loren Cass wants to blow your head off." -Aaron Hillis, Village Voice "A genuine indie: an elliptical, eccentric, grungy, low-budget portrait of growing up in a racially polarized Florida in the late '90s." -Geoff Andrew, Time Out London "A surrealistic Southern drama sympathetic to the plight of young white rebels without a clue." -Kam Williams, NewsBlaze.com "Chris Fuller’s debut film, Loren Cass, is a dark portrait of St. Pete youth set in one of the city’s bleakest times, the period following the ’96 riots. The film chronicles the coming of age of three St. Petersburg adolescents, their lives tied to the cycle of violence, suicide and destruction that surround the city post-rebellions. Cale (Lewis Brogan) and Jason (Travis Maynard) drive the streets while Nicole (Kayla Tabish) keeps falling for the wrong men. On a chance encounter, Cale meets Nicole at his job, starting a fruitless relationship, while Jason spirals more out of control. Although Fuller has no formal training in filmmaking, Loren Cass is hardly sophomoric; it has the persuasive acting, stellar soundtrack and quality look of a studio production." -Alex Pickett, The Weekly Planet "Aggressively rough-edged and in-your-face chronicle of disaffected youth in St. Petersburg, a coastal Florida city perhaps best known for being the place where Jack Kerouac died in 1969. Just under three decades later, the area was the site of race riots which made national headlines; Loren Cass is set in the immediate aftermath of these events, pungently evoking a volatile environment where violence is seldom far away. Amid this downbeat moodiness, writer-director Fuller (who also pseudonymously stars) inserts a lightly-sketched, laconic, nocturnal romance which is all the more convincing for being so casual and unforced. Dialogue is sparse and terse, while the 'plot' is a jagged, fragmentary, episodic affair which "samples" various 'found' audio and visual material (including a spectacularly messy real-life suicide, captured on live TV). Fuller's stylish technique occasionally gets out of hand, resulting in some moments of affectation here and there - but this is an impressively surly and uncompromised debut from a confident, promising young filmmaker." -Neil Young, UK film critic (rating 7/10) “A moody portrait of St. Petersburg during a defining era in the city’s history. Call it ‘sunshine noir’, perhaps. A mature film, very interesting.” -Jon Wilson, The St. Petersburg Times “Totally fresh and original. Reminded me of the first time I saw Nina Menkes’ film The Bloody Child. Awesome work.” -Julian Goldberger, director of Trans and The Hawk is Dying “A strong sense of place, a dreamlike pace and feel. Really captures the dark side of Florida. It almost seems as though the viewer is visiting the lives of the characters in a dream rather than following a plot in the traditional sense. We are examining them in their own stillness and subconscious entrapment. This movie is different. Different is very good.” -Jesse Michaels, front-man for punk rock legends Operation Ivy “Very raw and very real…disturbing.” -Mike Vallely, professional skateboarder "Brilliant!" -Ronna B. Wallace, executive producer of Reservoir Dogs and Bad Lieutenant "The most nihilistic movie I've ever seen." -Robert Hawk, producer of Chasing Amy and The Slaughter Rule "The most dangerous film in America." -Hudson Valley Film & Video Festival Watch "Loren Cass" In Theatres: On DVD:  On iTunes:  On Amazon VOD:   Historical References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg,_FL_Riot_1996 St. Petersburg Times - Photo Gallery http://sptimes.com/2006/webspecials06/raceriots/index.shtml Carnegie Mellon - "Brutality and Rebellion in St. Petersburg" http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pshell/gammage/testimonies/st-petersburg.html The Independent - "Death sparks race riots in Florida" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/death-sparks-race-riots-in-florida-1360220.html Washington Post - "State of Emergency Declared in St. Petersburg Following Riots" http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-801761.html CNN - "St. Petersburg quiet as leaders assess riots" http://www.cnn.com/US/9610/26/st.pete/ NY Times - "City Struck by Riots Will Get Federal Aid" http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/19/us/city-struck-by-riots-will-get-federal-aid.html St. Petersburg Times - "96 riots: After national shame, did city change?" http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/21/Neighborhoodtimes/_96_riots__After_nati.shtml St. Petersburg Times - "Officers primed to quell uprising" http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/22/news_pf/Tampabay/_Officers_primed_to_q.shtml External Resources http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464098 "Loren Cass" at the All Movie Guide: http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:408884 "Loren Cass" on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lorencass "Loren Cass" on Facebook "Loren Cass" on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Cass Jonesing Pictures YouTube Channel: Jonesing Pictures Dailymotion Channel: Technical Details Running Time: 83 minutes Film Format: Super 16mm Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Language: English Country: USA Production Company: Jonesing Pictures, Inc. Copyright Holder: Kino International
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