By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Sundance 15 Buy: HBO Docs Learns How To Dance In Ohio

Posted Wednesday, January 14th, 2015 - Comments Off on Sundance 15 Buy: HBO Docs Learns How To Dance In Ohio
Be Sociable, Share!

HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS ACQUIRES U.S.  TELEVISION RIGHTS TO “HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO” PRIOR TO ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT THE 2015 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

NEW YORK, January 14, 2015 – HBO Documentary Films has acquired U.S. television rights to HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO. Directed by Alexandra Shiva (Stagedoor, Bombay Eunuch), the film will have its world premiere Sunday, January 25 at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and will debut on HBO later this year.

A first kiss, a first dance. These are the rites of passage of American youth that hold the promise of magic, romance and initiation into adulthood.  For kids from all walks of life, these first steps toward intimacy are at once exciting and terrifying.  For some teenagers and young adults on the autism spectrum, the transition can be nothing less than paralyzing.  In HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO, director Alexandra Shiva follows a group of young people in Columbus, Ohio, with an array of developmental challenges as they prepare for an iconic event – a spring formal dance.  They spend 12 weeks confronting and practicing their social skills as they prepare for the big event, to be hosted at a local disco.  Working with their trusted psychologist, they deconstruct fear and larger-than-life social anxiety one step at a time by picking dates, dresses, and, ultimately, a King and Queen of the Prom.  HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO is a story of the universal human need to grow, connect and belong as uniquely dramatized by individuals facing the deepest struggle toward social survival.

Shiva states,  “A domestic broadcast on HBO will ensure that this film reaches the widest possible audience throughout the country and I am excited to be working with them to do that.  This is a film not only for the many whose lives are touched in some way by autism, but also for anyone who can relate to the fraught experience of growing up and trying to understand adulthood.”

The deal was negotiated by Andrew Herwitz, President of the Film Sales Company, on behalf of the filmmaker with HBO.

In 2001, Shiva directed & produced her first feature documentary BOMBAY EUNUCH, awarded Best Documentary at NewFest and the Special Jury Award at Florida Film Festival, followed by a 6-week theatrical run.  Her second documentary STAGEDOOR premiered at SXSW in 2005, and in 2006 screened at New York’s Film Forum and on the Sundance Channel.  HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO is her third feature documentary.

Jason Blum of Blumhouse is executive producer.  Previously, Blum worked with HBO on the Emmy and Golden Globe winning The Normal Heart and the upcoming The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.

HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO is an HBO Documentary Films presentation of a Gidalya Pictures film in association with Blumhouse Productions; Produced and Directed by Alexandra Shiva; Executive Producer, Jason Blum; Producer, Bari Pearlman; Editor, Toby Shimin; Cinematographer, Laela Kilbourn; Composer, Bryan Senti.

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on Sundance 15 Buy: HBO Docs Learns How To Dance In Ohio

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon