On June 6th, 2000, UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE was the Opening Night Film at the Nashville Independent Film Festival in Nashville, TN. Our lead actress Jordan Bayne who happens to be a Tennessee native, and some of our other principal cast including Frank Vincent, Dominic Chianese, Careena Melia, and lead actor Michael Rodrick were all there to support the film. The film received so much local support and so much media that we were all amazed. It was truly a great experience, and our deepest thanks goes out to everyone there, especially Festival Director Michael Catalano. UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE won the "Regal Cinemas Dreammaker Award" and "Best Film" at the Nashville Independent Film Festival. The "Dreammaker Award" is a one-week theatrical run in a Regal theatre in LA County which makes the film eligible for Academy consideration. But Regal executives were so impressed with UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE that they have set up a nationwide release for the film in Spring 2001. Stay tuned..... Two months later, UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE won numerous awards at the Narrowsburg Independent Film Festival, including "Best Film, "Best Actor" for Michael Rodrick, "Best Director" for Michael Sergio, and "Rising Star Award" for Brian Vincent. That was very cool. In November 2000, UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE screened at the Atlantic City Film Festival, and won "Best Supporting Actor" for Dominic Chianese, and the film won the "People's Choice Award". The top critic from the local newspaper in Atlantic City called UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE ".....a bridge well worth crossing." (check out critic Scott Cronick's review of the film in Press Buzz ) Later in the month, the film screened at the Exground Filmfest in Wiesbaden, Germany, and unfortunately nobody from our cast could attend. In fact, neither the Producer Isil Bagdadi, nor the Writer/Director/Producer Mike Sergio (who have both been to every festival the film has ever been invited to) could attend. Instead we sent Chris Sergio (our still photographer and designer for our posters) to the festival. He had a great time at the festival, but had a nightmare of an experience at Customs in France while trying to hand carry our film print on to the plane going to Germany. Let's just say we all had a very long night trying to get him the hell out of there. In January 2001, UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE had its Florida festival premiere with two sold-out screenings at the Sarasota Film Festival in beautiful Sarasota, Florida. ABC-TV called the film "well directed," and the acting "impressive". Michael Rodrick and Brian Vincent were there (they truly were the hit of the festival) to support the film. Again, we'd like to thank all the people who supported us and the film at the festival, especially everyone at Channel 40 (ABC-TV) and Rock station 105.9 who gave us so much coverage. Below are some fun pictures from some of these wonderful film festivals we've been to. Enjoy!
UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE premiered at the 5th Avignon/New York Film Festival in late April(1999) and was the only selection to screen to a sold-out crowd. The film made a splash at the 23rd annual Montreal World Film Festival in Montreal, Canada in late August as part of the World Cinema section. It proved so popular that a fourth screening was added to allow audiences access to the film. In September 1999, UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE screened twice at the Independent Feature Film Market (IFFM) at the Angelika Film Center in New York City, and received rave reviews, including write-ups in the Daily and Weekly Variety (Please see Press Buzz ).
