Ryder Film Festival brings 1st of 12 movies in series 

Risha Kohli | IDS | Date: 9/18/2008

Nashville, Tenn., filmmaker Jon Russell Cring is taking his films on the road, and Bloomington will be one of his stops. He’s bringing his independent movie, “Bernee,” his first film in a series of 12, to the Ryder Film Series on Sunday. 

“Bernee” is part of the Extraordinary Film Project, something Cring and his crew developed to create 12 feature-length movies in 12 months. The director’s new mission is to bring the films to audiences, and he’s grateful the Ryder is willing to help the independent directors.

“There was a time in the ’70s when marketing independent movies was simpler,” he said. “You put your actors in the back of your car and drove around to little theaters and drive-ins and hope they’ll take a shot. We lost that with corporate Regal Cinema, but places like the Ryder across the country are still open to that.”

In this day and age Cring said, artists such as himself need to seek out their audience and stir up the change they want to see.

“It’s a grassroots thing,” he said. “You have to go out there and create the movement. It’s not going to move on its own.”

Cring said he tries to be different from current Hollywood, which he said is fixated on movies about extraordinary characters. He wants to rejuvenate the film industry by delivering stories about ordinary people who get caught up in the wheels of circumstance, he said.

Peter Polita, Ryder Film Series program director, said “Bernee” will be special because the director will come for a question and answer session after the film. 

In “Bernee,” a small-town waitress faces a series of mishaps after the people in her life ignite controversy. Her teenage daughter’s religious enthusiasm creates trouble at school. Meanwhile, her lesbian roommate is a constant target for the townsfolk and her boss tries to involve her in his get-rich quick scheme – selling synthetic marijuana. 

But as her life spins around her, Bernee stays true to herself, said actress Heather Horton, who played Bernee in her first leading role. 

“She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed,” she said, “but she’s been given some homemade advice and she tries to do right by everyone in her life.” 

Cring said his goal with “Bernee” was to go beyond entertaining audiences to inspire them as well.

“Bernee goes through what some people would call a living hell, but what she just calls her life,” he said. “After a series of adventures and misadventures, she comes out the other side of it. I hope the audience comes out of the theater feeling a little more hopeful than when they walked in.”


‘Bernee’
WHEN: 8 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Bear’s Place
MORE INFO: Tickets are $4. 

Movie: BERNEE coming to Sedona on Jan 12

Sedona, AZ - In the midst of a two-month stint to film their latest movie, Melvyn's Clock, the Extra/Ordinary Film Project is pleased to announce that they will be presenting one of its latest releases at the Dream Theater here in Sedona on Saturday, January 12th, 2008, at 11:00 AM, admission $5.

The feature will be BERNEE, a delightful and wacky comedy about a waitress battling the rigors of hormones and a young teen-aged daughter putting her through the paces as she struggles to balance a life of her own, a life with her daughter and a life bespeckled with some of the most interesting characters to come up the pike in a generation or so.

BERNEE is the winner of the Best Feature and Best Screenplay at the Top Ten Films in America and Best Actor for star Heather Horton. One critic described the movie as, "The Lucy Show if Lucy actually had the freedom to do and say everything she felt and wanted to do."

The Extra/Ordinary Film Project has set out to make twelve feature-length films in twelve months, premiering their ninth movie, Melvyn's Clock, at the end of February in Phoenix itself.

"We just saw a really wonderful opportunity while we were here in Arizona to take some of these films to area communities and premier them in front of new audiences," says Jon Russell Cring, director and co-founder of the company.

For more information, please feel free to contact (615) 715-1578 or to purchase tickets, log onto www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com and make use of the Paypal account.

BERNEE is rated PG-13 for adult situations and some adult language.

 

APPY FILM FESTIVAL: 'I'M TELLING HUMAN STORIES': Director Jon Cring Emphasizes Stories of Ordinary People
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Critic
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Welcome to a visual land where the “ordinary” becomes memorable. That’s the philosophy of Jon Russell Cring, Hendersonville, Tennessee, director and producer of F3 Films.
 
“One of the exciting things about my films is love them or hate them, people walk out the door and they talk about them,” Cring said during a telephone interview. “I’m telling human stories.”
 
Calling “everybody’s life a Ben Hur,” he explained viewers are “fascinated” about how you “got through” a challenge. And they nod affirmatively, “That’s just what happened to me” or “I’ve been in that situation before.” Thus, Cring ignores the spaceships and car crash popcorn crunchers in favor of films that closely resemble reality styled 1970s films , such as “Scarecrow,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” and “Chinatown.”
 
“If a movie is relatable emotionally, those movies last,” he said.
 
Two of Cring’s films, “Bernee” and “Lenders Morgan” screen at the Appalachian Film Festival which starts today, Thursday, April 19, 2007, at the Keith Albee, and continues through Saturday. “Bernee” screens at 3:45 p.m. Thursday and “Lenders Morgan” rolls at 6:45 p.m. Friday.
 
Cring, whose wife Tracy serves as technical director and associate producer, has special excitement about the inclusion of “Bernee,” which is one of the films made during what he calls “the extraordinary film project,” where he and his crew intend to make 12 films of entirely different genres in twelve months.
 
“We shoot it in ten days, we edit it in ten days and we do post production which includes scoring and color correction [in ten days].”
 
F3 Films recently premiered “Ought,” which tells the story of a hit and run driver from the driver’s perspective. Over the course of four years, the film follows how the driver “injects himself into the lives of a family … just so he can be close to the boy he hit.”
 
Cring will speak to a gathering of Marshall students today at 6 p.m. in Smith Hall Room 621.
 
“What I like to talk about is how I make them. Here are my tricks of the trade. Here’s the way that I get things for free. This is how you can break down the process of making films. I get sick of people making it difficult on people so they will not do it. I want to encourage people to make films. I want it to be an easier process so more of those independent stories are being heard by people.”
 
Instead of approaching the goal of twelve films in twelve months from the broad perception, Cring starts with simplicity: “I have to get eleven garbage dumpsters. I take it one piece at a time.” In fact, he laughed that “the making of one of my movies will be much more interesting than the movie itself. That’s one of the great things about independent filmmaking.”

 

 

BERNEE Coming to Sedona

 

On Saturday morning, January 12th, 2008, at 11:00 A.M., Sedona's very own Dream Theater, 6615 Highway 179,  will be the hosting location for the presentation of the award-winning independent film, BERNEE, produced by the Extra/Ordinary Film Project, headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee, a production house which has set a goal to create and premier twelve feature-length films in twelve months.