The Glamorous Lie Screens at Slamdance!

Jan. 18, 2013 - PRLog -- The documentary film THE GLAMOROUS LIE has faced a tumultuous road since it started making the rounds of film festivals last fall.  The feature documentary, which chronicles the life of YaVaughnie Wilkins and her eight and a half year relationship with Infor CEO, former Oracle executive and Obama economic advisor Charles E. Phillips, Jr. was buffeted by Phillips’ lawyers efforts to quash festival screenings of the film. Now, following a brand-new cut, Slamdance has selected THE GLAMOROUS LIE to screen out of competition at the 19th Annual Slamdance Film Festival January 18, 2013 at 9:45PM at the Treasure Mountain Inn, 255 Main Street, Park City, Utah 84060.

The documentary made its world premiere at the Harlem International Film Festival September 20, winning the Audience Award for a documentary (www.harlemfilmfestival.com). Despite legal threats that pressured festivals to cancel screenings at three festivals, the film went on to screen at the Bel-Air Film Festival and the LA Femme International Film Festival in October, and made its international debut at the Oaxaca Film Festival in November. Bel Air’s full-throated support was a bellwether for the film; THE GLAMOROUS LIE took home both the Audience and Jury Awards for Best Documentary.

THE GLAMOROUS LIE tells a story that would make for a fantastic fictional drama: high-placed boyfriend caught cheating; scorned girlfriend seeks very public acknowledgement. Billboards throughout the country showing a very literal picture of couple, with the message “you are my soul mate forever” posted larger than life over the streets of New York, Atlanta and Silicon Valley.   But this was no fictional drama: it was, and it is, real. Wilkins and Phillips’ break-up played out in newspaper and television outlets around the world, but it was always characterized as a story of the wrath of a woman scorned and the height to which she had gone to call out her cheating boyfriend.  But that was only part of the story.  The public knew little about Wilkins, the woman behind the billboards, and less still about how far Phillips would go to cover up the truth about their relationship. THE GLAMOROUS LIE tells Wilkins’ account of the years leading up to, during and after the relationship.

THE GLAMOROUS LIE both sets up the drama of the relationship with Phillips and follows Wilkins many months after the infamous billboard incident as she tries to move on with her life, starting her home products business ReJuvenescence and other businesses while she continues to struggle with her troubled past.  (www.getrejuvenescence.com )

Phillips’ lawyers not only threatened the festivals that made THE GLAMOROUS LIE an official selection; they sent “background materials” to media in order to mute press coverage of the film.  The Slamdance screening will let the hundreds of media—as well as the public—gathered in Park City see the film for themselves.

Wilkins says, “[Phillips], his associates and his legal team know they can't intimidate me so they have resorted to threatening everyone associated with me, including the film festivals and theaters who, before receiving the threatening cease and desist letters, had enthusiastically accepted THE GLAMOROUS LIE as an ‘Official Selection’ screening.”

She continues, “I am not afraid of people finding out who the ‘real’ YaVaughnie Wilkins is; I’ve put it on screen and paper for all to see.  Phillips cannot say the same.  We are looking forward to each festival screening and stand ready in each case to blunt Phillips’ attempts to quash them.”

The film’s ongoing drama—Wilkins, family members, friends, businesses associates and even casual past acquaintances remain victims of ongoing surveillance and intimidation—makes the final chapter of THE GLAMOROUS LIE a softer than cliff’s edge, with another chapter perhaps yet to be written.

Check out The Glamorous Lie video trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPB4ckd-BNA