New Full Length Dramatic Feature Film "Favorite Son" Screening in Houston WorldFest April 23

April 11, 2009 - PRLog -- “Favorite Son” a full length dramatic feature film will be screening in the highly regarded Houston WorldFest film festival at the AMC Studio 30 Theaters, Theater B, in Houston on Thursday April 23, at 9:00pm.

Pablo Schreiber, soon to be seen opening on Broadway in “Desire Under the Elms” with Brian Dennehy, stars in Favorite Son as DAVID, a troubled adult whose new friendship with young  teen ROSS, is seen as suspicious at best, and possibly dangerous.

Connor Paolo, a regular on the CW’s “Gossip Girl” cast, plays the teenager ROSS.  Paolo has previously worked with Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood, and David Gordon-Green.


Houston WorldFest is the festival that discovered Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, John Lee Hancock, Randall Kleiser, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Robert Townsend, The Coen Brothers, Brian de Palma, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and David Lynch with their very first awards.

Pablo Schreiber (DAVID) also appeared in Reasons to be Pretty (by Neil Labute); Awake and Sing (TONY Nominee), Dying City (Lincoln Center Theater), The Wire (HBO), The Manchurian Candidate (Directed by Jonathan Demme); Woody Allen’s Vicki Cristina Barcelona, and Lords of Dogtown with Heath Ledger.

Connor Paolo (ROSS) is currently appearing in Gossip Girls (WB,) and has appeared in World Trade Center (Directed by Oliver Stone,)  Alexander (Directed by Oliver Stone,) Mystic River (Directed by Clint Eastwood), Snow Angels (Directed by David Gordon-Green,) and Gangs of New York (Directed by Martin Scorsese.)

Directed by Howard Libov, an Associate Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Madison Campus in New Jersey, the film is the story of loner David Paxton, 30, who returns to his hometown and becomes obsessed with childhood friend Joan and her troubled teenage son Ross, seeing them as a last chance for a "perfect" life.  David is rejected by Joan, but breaks through Ross's volatile, destructive nature and forms an unlikely friendship with the boy, making himself the object of suspicion and condemnation by the town.  Driven over the edge, David begins a dangerous descent, targeting town patriarch Bill Huston, the man who stands between he and Ross, and heading toward a final violent confrontation that will explode in the realization and revelation that David may be a most unlikely, and worthy hero.

Kellie Overbey as JOAN  The Coast of Utopia / Lincoln Center Theater (T. Stoppard),
Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen)


             

Howard Libov, Director

Howard Libov, a native of Baltimore, MD, graduated with a BFA in Film & Television from New York University and also garnered a Certificate in Directing from The American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies.  Favorite Son, Howard’s second feature film, is based on the award-winning short film Little Man, also directed by Howard Libov.  Little Man, co-starring Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle, played at more than twenty five film festivals, won the Best Dramatic Short Award at the World Festival of SportFilm, and the Silver Illumination Award at The Crested Butte Reelfest. Little Man is in national distribution with The Cinema Guild.

Howard Libov directed and co-wrote the feature film Midnight Edition, which won the Best First Feature Award at the Festival of Fantastic Film, played at the London, Dublin, and Hamptons Film Festivals, and was broadcast on HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime.  Midnight Edition was released on home-video by MCA/Universal.  Libov also directed the comedic short film, Men Will Be Boys, which starred members of Chicago’s Second City Theater and was syndicated nationally on PBS stations as a modern day companion piece to Paddy Chayefsky’s Oscar Winning, Marty.  Libov’s documentary Fourteen Stations, profiled Madison, New Jersey artist and resident Arie Galles, and his ten-year quest to complete a series of drawings he started out thinking would take him only a year to finish.  Fourteen Stations is also in distribution with The Cinema Guild.    


Michael Stewart, Co-Writer

Michael Stewart is a graduate of New York University’s film program at the Tisch School of the Arts.  He co-wrote the story for the feature film Bad Dreams, directed by Andrew Fleming and produced by Gale Ann Hurd, and co-wrote the screenplay for the feature Eye of the Storm with Yuri Zeltser, the director of the film, which was produced by Roland Emmerich.  Stewart also co-wrote, with Zeltser and Howard Libov, the screenplay for Libov's Midnight Edition.
   

Murray Attaway, Composer

Murray Attaway was a founding member of Guadalcanal Diary, noted for a sound that was at once melodic and rhythmically aggressive, with a decidedly literary and spiritual bent to the group's lyrics. Guadalcanal Diary was formed in 1981 by guitarist and singer Murray and lead guitarist Jeff Walls, who'd first met in 1977 when they both joined a punk band called Strictly American. Attaway chose the name Guadalcanal Diary from a book by Richard Tregaski about the U.S. campaign against Japan during World War II, enamored of the name's surface ambiguities and undertones of patriotism and warfare.  Murray went on to record as a solo artist for Geffen Records, with the release of
In Thrall.

--courtesy Pandora.com


Mike Mills, Composer

R.E.M. formed at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, in January 1980. Discovering they had similar tastes, vocalist Michael Stipe and guitarist Peter Buck began working together, eventually meeting bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry.  In April 1980, the band formed under the name Twisted Kites, playing psychedelic bubblegum, and punk covers in a converted Episcopalian church. By the summer, the band had settled on the name R.E.M. after flipping randomly through the dictionary.

--courtesy wikipedia.com


Brian Gonsar, Producer

Curently a producer at international advertising agency BBDO, Brian has had an expansive career producing commercials for clients such as GE, Bank of America, Domino’s, Jet Blue, Ford, and many others.  Brian is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University's film program.  His producer/director role while at the university led him to direct an indie music video for NY band Radio Mundial which played in seven different countries and rose to the top of the several music video program's playlists while his video for the NJ band Copperpot went on to win Best Music Video at the CU2 Video & Film Festival in New York City.  He has shot footage for Arista recording artist, Dido, the United States Golf Association, and the NY Redbulls soccer team.

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Director Howard Libov and other Cast and Crew Members
are available for interview by appointment.

Please contact:

Steve Thompson
Thompson Communications
580 Haddon Avenue; Collingswood, NJ   08108
609-386-0019
steve@thomcomm.net



Favorite Son is now in distribution with
PANORAMA ENTERTAINMENT
125 North Main Street; Port Chester NY 10573
914-937-1603


WorldFest
Houston International Film Festival
April 17 - 26, 2009

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