We Are What We AreA FILM BY Jim Mickle

WORLD PREMIERE

100 MINUTES / USA / COLOR / 2013 / ENGLISH

SALES CONTACTS PRESS CONTACTMARK ANKNER NATHANIEL BARUCH / WME ADAM KERSH310.246.3161 BRIGADE MARKETINGmankner@wmeentertainment.com 548 W. 28th Street, Suite 670MEMENTO FILMS 917.306.9585 / 917.771.7021Nicholas Shumaker

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nick@memento-films.comShort Synopsis

A seemingly wholesome and benevolent family, the Parkers have always kept to themselves, and for good reason. Behind closed doors, patriarch Frank rules his family with a rigorous fervor, determined to keep his ancestral customs intact at any cost.  As a torrential rainstorm moves into the area, tragedy strikes and his daughters Iris and Rose are forced to assume responsibilities that extend beyond those of a typical family.  The most important task that the girls face is putting meat on the table— but not the kind that can be found at the local supermarket.  As the unrelenting downpour continues to flood their small town, the local authorities begin to uncover clues that bring them closer to the secret that the Parkers have held closely for so many years.          

In this reimagining of the 2010 Mexican film of the same name, director Jim Mickle paints a gruesome and suspenseful portrait of an introverted family struggling to keep their macabre traditions alive, giving us something we can really sink our teeth into.  

About the Film

After winning raves for their 2010 indie vampire thriller, “Stake Land,” writer/director JIM MICKLE and co-writer NICK DAMICI were mulling over what to do next. “There was a movie called ‘We Are What We Are’ that kept showing up at the same festivals ‘Stake Land’ was in,” Mickle recalls. “I never got a chance to see it. But it sounded awesome.”

The film, made by Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau, was about a family of cannibals living in urban Mexico City whose teenage members must take on the responsibilities of hunting for and providing ritual meals for the group, following the passing of their father. After optioning SOMOS LO QUE HAY from Jorge, the producers immediately though Mickle would be the ideal fit for the re-imagining. “They knew some of the producers at Belladonna Productions, a company I’ve worked with a bunch, and asked if I’d be interested,” he recalls.

But Mickle was not a fan of remakes, particularly of horror movies. “It just feels so manipulative and devoid of ideas, especially, as in this case, because it was a recent movie, and it was a foreign

movie.” Damici, who had also co-written Mickle’s previous film, horror thriller “Mulberry Street,” had similar feelings. “You can’t remake a film. You can only reinvent one,” he notes. “But when they said, ‘You guys can start from scratch,’ then I was interested.:

The two screened the Mexican film, and Mickle found ingredients that appealed to him. “It bit off a very specific – culturally-specific – chunk of it, so it felt like there was another movie that could be made, even with these pieces, without simply repeating the original. I didn’t want to just remake Jorge’s very filmmaker-driven movie, but rather do a sort of a companion piece. So we moved on it.”

On January 1st of 2012, just weeks after deciding to jump in, the two began their usual process of writing a script, which they completed quickly, in a month. “The way we do it,” Damici explains, “is I write, and then send it Jim, and he edits it. I’ll tend to go overboard, like killing somebody with a bulldozer, and he’ll pull me back. It works just fine.” Adds Mickle, “He starts an idea, telling me, ‘I’m just kind of playing with this,’ and I start to steer him. It’s a fun process.”

The first thing the two writers did was flip the family dynamics around, having the mother, not the father, die off early in the film. “The original takes place in Mexico City, and it’s very urban, featuring the poor slums of that city,” the director explains. “It’s the father who dies in the opening scene, and then it’s the brothers who remain, and they’re dealing with replacing the dad and being the man of the house, which I think has a lot to do with the male role and patriarchy in Mexican culture. Which felt personal to Jorge, because it’s his first film.”

Mickle, instead, wanted something that he could relate to. Says Damici, “We originally put it in New Orleans, but we quickly realized that neither of us knew much about New Orleans.” Mickle had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania, and had spent quite a lot of time in rural upstate New York. “It’s a place both Nick and I understand,” he notes.

While Grau’s film wasn’t specifically about cannibalism, and took a slightly more comical approach, Mickle says, he instead wanted to focus on the characters and what would drive their behavior. “We’re better at character dramas that make you want to be able to feel for these people. So we just kept asking ourselves, ‘Well, what would actually drive you to do this?’ But not do it in a way that would be so extreme that it throws you off the idea.”

The answer, for Mickle, laid in religion. “Religions often become corrupt from the places where they began. People often have an

incredible blind faith that drives them to do things simply because they’ve been done before, without ever really thinking about it,” he says. “It’s about the only thing think we could think of that convinces mass groups of people to kill one another and not feel guilty about it.” Adds Damici, “Religious extremism today says that, ‘If I kill, and God says that’s okay, it’s good.’

That gave the two a launching point. “It was interesting to explore,” says Mickle, “how something could actually convince you to do something so horrid. But if you grew up with it, and it’s the only thing you’ve ever known, and the people you trust are telling you that’s the way that it is, is that all that much crazier than any religion? So it was kind of fun to take that idea and stretch it, but try to keep it as realistic as possible.”

Since the original film provided no backstory on the family, Mickle and Damici realized they were free to create any kind of religion they liked, as well as invent its history, some of which is dramatized in flashbacks in the film. Says Damici, “We started to ask ourselves, ‘Well, how did this family come about?’ We came up with this history of a stranded family, as we see in the flashbacks to the 1700s. They have to eat meat, and their way of coping with the way they provide for themselves is they make it part of their religion. We thought, ‘Wow – imagine this guy whose religion is you eat people?’ The question then becomes, ‘How do you make that real?’”

One way was through the various pieces of the mythology of the religion, most of which is laid out through the treasured family book, which details both the history and procedures to which the Parkers must refer. “It’s not unlike any religion,” Mickle says. “Every religion has its signature book, which is sort of a manual, in some ways. In our case, it’s a cookbook.”

One of the things the book details is the procedure for carving up a freshly-killed neighbor for consumption purposes, as the girls must do with poor Mrs. Stratton. “That was a lot of back and forth, between Jim and me,” Damici recalls. “Jim gave me a book on butchering meat. He didn’t want to do a whole graphic sequence where we’re gonna cut the body and chop up the meat. He came to me and said, ‘How cool would it be if we just mark it out, the different cuts, the way butchers do it?’ And I said, ‘Okay, what if they do it with lipstick?’”

The other part of the myth involved the illness factor – tied to a real illness that cannibals in, say, tribal cultures in New Guinea actually suffer with from their activities. That illness, Kuru disease, a form of Prion’s disease, causes degeneration of the nervous system, due to continual consumption of human brain tissue. “It’s sort of a Mad Cow

Disease for people,” explains Mickle. “We were then able to use that in the whole faith idea – again, what would be a strong enough motivation, and still be realistic enough to drive the story forward? They believe that if they don’t continue carrying on the tradition, God will punish them with the disease,” which was apparently the case with Mrs. Parker.

The most important part of bringing this “religion” of Mickle’s and Damici’s to life is, of course, through the rich characters they created and the cast who portray them. At the center of it all is Frank, the family patriarch, portrayed by veteran actor BILL SAGE (“American Psycho”). Mickle is a longtime fan of director Hal Hartley, who has often used the actor. “When I fell in love with movies, it was through films like Hal’s ‘Simple Men’ and ‘Amateur,’ which Bill was in. But then he did this Texas cop drama a little later, ‘EvenHand,’ and I just thought, ‘Every time this guy pops up in a movie, he’s fuckin’ great!’”

Though casting director Sig de Miguel suggested Sage for Frank, Mickle still pictured the actor from his “American Psycho” image. “I thought, ‘He’s clean cut. Just totally not right.’” But Sage arrived for his audition ready in a grizzled Frank Parker look, and Mickle knew he had found his twisted family patriarch. “We just talked for five minutes, even before he did a scene, and it was, like, ‘Ah, this is the dude.’ He has so much range – he can kind of do whatever character he wants.”

Sage found the project instantly appealing. “Both the story and the character hit me – from the inside and from the outside,” he says. “From the inside, I just felt I had the facility to do it. And on the outside, I appreciated it because of where we are as a country now with religious zealotry. When I finished reading the script, it was during the Republican primary, and I had just listened to something Rick Santorum was saying – he got a little too close for comfort. Everything’s so black and white about religion in this country. So it appealed to me on that level, as well.”

That played into what Sage saw in Frank. “Frank’s about as fundamental as you can get, taking a religious tradition quite literally. The tradition might have begun as something to help these people survive, but, like so many things, it became twisted simply into a way to justify some kind of horrific behavior. It’s backed up by something fundamental, eating of the flesh on a particular day of the year, on Lamb’s Day. He just takes it literally.”

Damici agrees. “Frank was born into it – he’s a victim, too,” the writer says. “He’s not a wicked man – he’s a righteous man. At least

that’s how he sees himself. Our script doesn’t have a bad guy. He’s a misguided, twisted guy, just dealing with what he’s been dealt.”

Sage embedded Frank with a history of misery and pain. “My intention was not to make him dark, but err on the side of ‘Oh, he’s a grieving father,’ because I could really feel for him that way,” a fine line the actor skillfully walks, Mickle notes. “That’s something that Bill does really well. He has to handle all the stuff about suddenly having to deal with some of the domestic duties and things that suddenly single dads do their best at, but screw up. But he also has to be a monstrous character. So it’s a balance of doing all those family things, but also having to stay strong for his kids, which Bill did without turning the audience off by being a crybaby, but not being so monstrous that they get turned off, as well.”

For Frank, it’s simple, Sage says. “The family has to stay together. Lamb’s Day has to be observed. And that’s the way it is.”

Sage, like all great actors, built the character from the inside out. “He really dove in and created so much for the character,” says Mickle. The actor arrived a week before filming began in May 2012 in rural Bovina, NY, to absorb some of the local speech. “It’s an Appalachian area, and Frank is definitely stuck in another time – one foot in a pre-industrial age and the other in a post-industrial age,” says Sage. “And there’s a very discernible dialect of northern Appalachia up there. I found one guy whose family had been there for a long time, and I kind of based it on him He almost sounded like he was chewing on his words. It sounds a bit Southern, but it’s not.”

“He did a lot of little things that just made Frank whole,” says Damici. “He made a point of not cleaning under his fingernails, which was perfect. That wasn’t in the script. And, when he arrived, Bill actually had a tooth infection. He just added that into the character, kind of sucking on the tooth and touching it, which you’ll see throughout the movie. He’s amazing.”

Frank also smokes – something Sage had long given up – but which added another layer to the character. “He’s flawed,” the actor states. “And he’s haunted by his imperfections, even while espousing a kind of perfection he cannot live up to.” Adds Damici, “It’s part of a rebellion, in a way. He’s just like the girls – he wants to get out of it. They all want to get out of it. So he’s kind of saying, ‘I’ll smoke ‘til I die.’”

Being an ex-smoker himself, Sage had to make due. “I used these marshmallow cigarettes I’d seen Al Pacino use, because I was afraid I’d start up again.”

The bottom line for Frank, grieving father or not, Sage says is simple: “He’s a killer. There’s no doubt about that. He is a predator, whether he likes it or not. When he kills Deputy Anders, I wanted it to be, ‘Oh, he’s a grieving father, protecting his daughter,’ but - uh-uh. He’s a predator, and he’s good at it.”

The characters of the girls, Iris and Rose, were also very carefully drawn out, lest they throw the audience off track. “They’re two sisters who have both been shielded from the world,” Mickle explains. “They’re both very isolated, but I didn’t want them just like weird ‘Addams Family’ girls, but simply people who haven’t quite seen the outside world.” But make no mistake about it, they’re cut from the same cloth as their father. “I wanted the audience to spend the first half of the movie with them, and feel for them because of their loss and what they’re going through. But then we throw this curve ball, and you realize they’re monsters from a monstrous family – but you still keep your sympathies with them and see them as much as victims as anything else.”

Mickle originally had a different actress set to portray 17-year-old Iris, the older of Frank’s two daughters, but, after a schedule change, began searching anew for the family’s new matriarch, just weeks before shooting. “AMBYR CHILDERS’ agent sent over a scene she had taped for something else, and it totally floored me – there was something that she did with very little, which was exactly what Iris is.”

The 24-year-old actress, married with a young daughter herself, was in Cannes with her husband when she received word from her agent that a director wished to speak with her. “I read the script, and just thought, ‘Hm, this is a mouthful,’” the actress, recalls. “I had never really done a character that was both introverted, yet dying to express herself, but never could because of her upbringing. And projects with little dialogue are challenging for an actor – but it also communicates even more to the audience watching the movie.”

Childers also understood Iris’s plight. “She’s forced into the role of filling her mother’s shoes. I think being a young girl that’s put into that situation, where the mother passes away, and she’s left with two younger siblings, as well as a father who’s not present and has to carry on the tradition by himself, is a tough spot to be in. I think that even though the father really wore the pants in the family, the mother really had to have great strength. And I think that’s where Iris gets all her

strength to follow through and complete the tasks she needs to and take care of the family.”

The actress also had another connection to her character. “I was raised in a Mormon family,” something she no longer practices, she says. “So my upbringing was similar in a lot of ways to Iris’s. I didn’t have any friends growing up. I grew up in a very conservative home. I had my sister as my friend, just as Rose is in the movie. You just kind of stick together as a family. Also, like Iris, I began to question the things I had been taught as a child, and eventually moved away from the religion to find my own way. So that really helped me be in the right headspace for the film.”

Childers, a veteran of nearly 140 episodes of “All My Children,” as well as recent appearances in “The Master” and the upcoming Showtime series, “Ray Donovan,” made a big impression on co-star Bill Sage. “She’s a hard worker,” he notes. “I noticed in her notes, she does something really great, which is make sure, before doing a scene, to figure out, in detail, where she’s coming from and what she’s doing, like when she’s coming up from the basement or something. Those kinds of things really ground you in a place, and it’s something I appreciated in her work.” Mickle adds, “She’s one of a few actors I’ve seen who can look at herself in playback from a previous scene to help gauge where she needs to be, emotionally – that’s something particularly helpful when we’re not shooting in continuity, and not everybody can do that.”

Playing Iris’s younger sister, Rose, is 18-year-old JULIA GARNER, who had appeared previously as Sage’s daughter last year in “Electrick Children.” “Julia’s been acting for a couple of years, but she’s still a kid, which is great,” Mickle says. “She still has this child-like wonderment in so many ways, and so many things just come to her so naturally.”

“I’m very picky with horror films, because I have a hard time watching them,” the young actress admits. “But I thought the dialogue was so good, and it had a really interesting story. And it was great to get to work with Bill again.” Recalls Sage, “Julia’s a lot of fun, and she’s very cinematic. I’d take her driving, teach her how to drive. And we’d go shopping for stuff in a store, and I’d tell her, ‘Get in the cart!’ We had a good time. They’re both real pros.”

Garner’s character, Rose, begins to question the family’s centuries-old tradition of human butchery after the death of her mother, when she and her sister begin to partake in their mother’s “chores.” “In the first half of the film, she’s always planting the first

little seeds of doubt,” Mickle explains, “and it’s always Iris that’s sort of shutting it down. A lot of the families I grew up around in rural Pennsylvania would do that. Families have their way, and it’s always the younger ones who start to wonder if there isn’t something else or different.”

It is after the killing of Mrs. Stratton that the reality of what they’re expected to do begins to sink in. “It’s women’s work,” says Damici. “The mother has taken the brunt of it. These kids have never had to kill anybody or see it. They just eat the food.” To them, as children, it was simply a ritual holiday. “But now that she’s gone, they have to step up.” Adds Mickle, “It’s kind of like you’ve been enjoying Thanksgiving all the time, and then one year, you’re asked to actually kill the turkey and carve it up. They’re ritual ceremonies that we do regularly in life and just take for granted. It’s a big turning point for the girls, and I think Ambyr and Julia just played it beautifully.”

After the killing, says Garner, “You see us crying in the shower. They’re confused and just numb. That’s the turning point for both of them, and especially Rose. She says, ‘I’m never doing this again,’ and she stops wearing her hair braided and starts to everything around the house.” Notes Damici, “To me, after that, I think it becomes Rose’s story.”

The killing also has a deep effect on Iris, particularly as she begins to explore her short-lived relationship with Anders. “She’s 17 years old,” says Childers. “She’s exploring her sexuality, and then this young deputy, who’s obviously really good looking, comes into her life. She just wants to find something she can call her own. She’s poking at real life – she wants to get a taste of it so bad, but she’ll always come home for dinner.”

The two come across the corpse of a baby deer lying in the leaves, causing Iris to shudder. “She sees herself in this creature. She sees a baby who got separated from her mother and didn’t make it. And she’s wondering if she will suffer the same fate.”

When Anders begins to flirt with her and treat her like a woman, she’s unable to let it in. “He has this idea of who she is, but he doesn’t really know what goes on behind closed doors. She can’t let the secret out, so she pushes him away.”

Adds Damici, “They just want to be normal kids. But they’re not. They are who they are. And she knows. There’s no denying it.”

Seven-year-old JACK GORE plays the youngest of the Parker clan, Rory, who, when “supper” is served, gleefully digs in as if he has just been given the prize drumstick on Thanksgiving. So how did the lad feel about playing a cannibal? “He read the script, but I think he didn’t catch on to the clues,” Mickle recalls. “We talked to his parents and asked them, ‘How much do you guys want us to explain, and how much do you want to explain?’ They were just happy to say, ‘He knows as much as his character does, so just let him go with it.’”

Playing the kind-but-nosy neighbor, Marge is KELLY McGILLIS, of course known best for her appearances in “Top Gun” and “Witness,” but unfortunately not seen often enough by audiences today. “She actually did ‘Stake Land’ for me, and then we brought her back for this role, which was kind of saddled with so much darkness and heaviness,” Mickle explains. “I gave her a call and said, ‘We have a movie for you. It’s not a horror movie – I know you don’t like horror movies.’ She read it, and said, ‘Yep, great! I’m comin’!’ It was fun for her.”

Marge has a unique relationship with Frank, completely unaware, of course, of what goes on downstairs in his nearby shed. “She lives on his property in a trailer, but she’s not the typical ‘poor white trash,’” the director explains. “She’s there by choice. She’s downsizing her life, much like Kelly actually has, who now lives in a small town, which I think made for an ‘in’ for her. Marge is probably a woman who’s made her own mistakes. She sees Frank in these horrible moments that he doesn’t even let his own family see, of him grieving and what-not, and because she’s seen some of it, she feels that connection. And then he gives her a brooch.”

Says Sage of the scene, “I played it as though I had a thing for her and feel guilty about it. I’m almost ashamed that she had seen me vulnerable.” The actor also experimented with the scene in one take. “We did one where I gently put my teeth on her arm when she’s comforting me – that’s not scripted. Jim wanted that to go further, and told me, ‘Now lick her arm.’ For Frank, that’s affection.”

Sage also got to share the screen with another favorite actor of both his and Mickle’s – MICHAEL PARKS, who portrays Doc Barrow, and whose career spans back to the days of classic 1960s television – everything from “Ben Casey” to “Perry Mason.” “Most people know him today from ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Then Came Bronson,’ but he started popping up again in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ and Robert Rodriguez films like ‘Grind House,’” Mickle says. “I just love him. We wrote the part as sort of a bit older version of Frank, and right away, I was, like, ‘Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could get Michael Parks?’ I wrote him a respectful fan letter and sent him the script. And one of the first things

he said to me was, ‘I think one of the greatest lines in all of modern cinema is, ‘Did you eat my daughter?’ I said, ‘Awesome – you get it!’”

Frank and Barrow are essentially two sides of the same coin, the director states. “They’re both dealing with loss and tragedy, and one of them, Barrow, turns it into a positive and pushes forward and uses it to fuel his live, while the other, Frank, winds up being the demise of his entire family because of it.”

Nick Damici himself, interestingly, originally pictured himself as Barrow – an idea quickly shot down by his writing partner. So he said, ‘What about Sheriff Meeks? You can beef it up if you want.’ I told him, ‘No, you can’t beef that up. I’ll play it like it is.’ It’s a little part. It’s fine.”

Making We Are What We Are

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE was filmed mostly on location in the Catkills region of upstate New York, near the towns of Margaretville and Bovina, over a five week period beginning late May 2012. “I love the Catskills,” says Jim Mickle. “I spent a lot of time there and have a place there and edited there, and I really wanted to capture the feel of the region. I think we’re all big fans of sort of timeless movies, where, other than a cell phone that might pop up, it could take place in any decade. That’s something we wanted to embrace.”

Mickle engaged production designer Russell Barnes, who shared the director’s vision. “We originally had in mind to create an ethereal, almost magical look,” he notes. “But then, once the film was cast, that changed, because the looks of the actors were all so striking.” Adds Mickle, “Russell and I spent a lot of time identifying the textures and shapes we wanted to have onscreen. And that included building a movie around the two girls, to sort of use them as production design, in a way, because they both have such awesome and extreme looks. Julia, especially, with her braided hair and her skin, is like a Chinese lantern. They’re both like porcelain dolls.”

The region had been battered by a hurricane the year before, and was still attempting to recover, a look that was included, but not exploited. “We were trying to avoid the ‘Winter’s Bone’ downtrodden, ‘trailer trash’ look that is pretty common in the area,” Barnes explains.

The house used for the Parker home was an 1890s-era farmhouse located in Bovina, one which had been used the previous year in a sci fi film, “Another Earth.” “Oddly enough, I had actually

stayed in that house five years earlier,” Barnes states. “We were trying to find a farmhouse that had enough space for us to move around in, with the camera and crews. This one had been suggested to us initially, but I didn’t want to use it, because it had been used recently in the other film. But we weren’t able to find one that fit our needs, so I took another look at it and just made some changes.”

Barnes put up wallpaper, which he had the crew distress, and had curtains made, as well as created the pedestal in the kitchen, and populated the house with appropriate set dressing. “We wanted to do a mixture of different time periods, but give hints of modern-day life there. So there are wooden and glass utensils in the kitchen, and an older CRT television. And our set decorator, Daniel Kersting, went out and found all these bargains for the furniture, as well as did did a lot of dumpster diving, mostly for wooden items.” Adds Mickle, “We made sure there weren’t books in the house, there’s an old record player with old record albums, and the TV is always tuned to the news. We did everything we could to paint this insular world.” Even Doc Barrow still uses his old cassette recorder to do his autopsy notes – nothing has changed for quite a while.

The girls’ costumes similarly recall another era. “Our costume designer, Liz Vastola, has them in dresses that are totally out of fashion. Yet they find a way to still blend in, which I thought was really cool,” Mickle says.

The dungeon in which the family stores and preps its victims was actually built as a set in an existing barn located on the house property. “It was full of junk – it actually took us some time to empty it all out,” Barnes recalls. “We wanted the dungeon to have the appearance of having been used over the ages by the family, giving it a timeless look, as though all the materials used to make it were scavenged from around the house. I researched some old mining shafts and bunkers, and ended up using some nice wood, which was rough, but with almost decaying skin and bark, along with reclaimed materials, like a door and some burlap, to give it an organic, dirty feel.” Acquiring the right kind of wood, which would create appropriate shadows and gaps between pieces, was a simple matter. “There was a local farmer who actually gave us all of that lumber in exchange for a case of beer!”

The dungeon is accessed both by a hatch in the floor of Frank’s shed, using an old submarine ladder (borrowed from producer Linda Moran), allowing Frank to lower down the victims, as well as by a tunnel, which leads from the basement of the house. The 65 ft. long tunnel set was actually built some 40 miles away on a soundstage

facility at the Saugerties Performing Arts Factory. “It’s actually like an artist’s loft, where they had blacked out the windows,” Mickle recalls. “But every 12 minutes, a giant railroad train would go by about eight feet away from the front door! But we could roll in and take over a giant space,” which the company used for other shots which couldn’t be achievable practically (such as an overhead shot of the kids in bed).

Flashback sequences, showing the original Parker cannibal clan, were filmed in a real cave, shot on the first day of filming. “It has a completely different look,” says Mickle. “It’s more like a set, and there’s fake snow. And the costumes were all hand-stitched, and looked pretty amazing.”

The film was shot by director of photography Ryan Samul, a longtime associate of Mickle’s. “We met early on when we were both grips,” the director recalls. When I made my first movie, ‘Mulberry Street,’ I wanted to give people breaks, and used Ryan as DP. We shoot everything together.”

Samul is particularly adept at shooting in the darkened house interior, particularly challenging after the lights have gone out due to the storm. “The house has a very dark look,” Mickle adds, “which I think it will have whether they have electricity or not. And even when the power is on, everything is lit from the outside. And Ryan is not afraid to under-expose. We watched a lot of movies where DPs aren’t afraid to light a wall and have the actor in front of it and not have them be silhouetted. It’s pretty risky, but I love that Ryan was willing to explore that.”

Dinner’s Ready

The Lamb’s Day festival meal (this year’s special: Stratton Stew) was served up nice ‘n hot on set, courtesy of the WE ARE WHAT WE ARE props department.

“The prop guys told us there were fingernails and toes in there,” Ambyr Childers recalls with a chuckle. Not quite. “It was a combination of various soups and stews they put together outside in the prop tent, because we couldn’t use the house’s kitchen to cook it,” director Mickle explains. “They’d be out there pouring cans of stuff

together and firing it up, and asking me, ‘Is it chunky enough? Is this thick enough? Is it gloopy enough?’”

While most of the cast put up with the odd stew ingredients (especially Sage, who is a vegan), young Jack Gore seemed to truly take a liking to it. “He kept eating it, going, ‘Wow, this stew really is good! You have to give my mom the recipe,’” Mickle laughs. He may, though, have had a little too much for comfort, Ambyr Childers recalls. “I’m not sure, but I think he threw up later.”

If the sickening sounds of truly-manmade soup weren’t enough, supervising sound editor Lewis Goldstein added an important touch. “He added in just simple sounds like a spoon hitting the bottom of the plate, with just that little squishy sound,” Mickle says. “It’s an otherwise silent Thanksgiving, with just everyday sounds creeping out the audience,” whose own imaginations are left to induce their own nausea at the idea of what’s being served for dinner.

The “gore is less” approach the film takes is actually one of its most unique qualities, avoiding opportunities for blood and guts, in favor of allowing the audience to ponder what takes place between scenes, in the manor of classic horror movies, and saving up for the big bang payoff at the end of the film.

“I think my last two films, a quasi-zombie film and a vampire film, kind of helped me get the full-gore movie out of my system, in a way,” Mickle says. “It’s not often you get a chance to make a movie where the audience is coming in thinking they know what they’re getting – and then throw them off by taking the classical approach to extreme ideas.” Loading the film at every moment with cannibal action wasn’t the point this time around. “It would just wind up turning you off from the characters, from the girls.”

His approach, instead, was to start small and end big. “Anticipation plays a huge part here,” he notes. In the beginning of the film, Mickle throws out just a few notions of what’s to come when Mrs. Parker is doing her shopping at the general store. “There’s meat being ground up and a few small things, enough to make the audience go, ‘What kind of cannibal movie is this going to be?’ Holding your cards to your chest and making everything up until the big moment as realistic as possible, living in this world with these girls, makes the audience think their world is normal.” Sorta.

A sudden bash to the head to Deputy Anders or the suggestion of Mrs. Stratton being respectfully disassembled in the basement is, by the middle of the film, all they get. “We’ve done the cannibal part, and then continue on with the movie. I’m hoping there will be a lot of

people going, ‘Man, I didn’t get to see anybody eat anyone. . . ‘” Damici agrees. “The midnight audience may not get it – they want the gore. But I was, like, ‘We don’t need the gore here. This ain’t that kind of movie.’” But never fear. . .

Things begin to go downhill, once the seeds of doubt have been planted and Frank discovers a load of bones, deadly evidence of his family’s madness, coming loose in the stream bank en masse. “That’s the scene where everything begins to fall apart for him,” Mickle says. “He’s losing the bones, the evidence is flowing its way into town – the jig is up. His demons and his past are coming up to haunt him, and he’s just overwhelmed by it all. Something breaks in him.” Sage agrees: “The family has upheld the tradition, but this is it. It’s not going to continue from here. And he’s taking the family with him.”

Barrow tries to stop him in a scene straight out of the best of western classics. “It’s like a duel,” says Mickle. “We wrote it like a showdown, and that’s how we shot it.” As Sage explains,. “It’s like showdown at the OK Corral,” he recalls. “They size each other up and see the other as a worthy opponent. And my character has to sort of change tack, because he’s finally being called on the carpet. You see a little bit of charm. He’s the manipulative trickster.” Notes Damici, “This guy’s ruining his world, his power. It’s the most conscious we see Frank – he’s kinda pathetic otherwise.”

The confrontation scene is one Sage will never forget, as an actor. “Parks is amazing. He has this incredible presence when he walks in the room and comes on set. We were so in sync – we didn’t talk about the scene at all beforehand, we just came and did it.” Mickle was equally pleased. “It’s amazing just to let two actors do their thing sitting in a couple of chairs. Michael was particularly taken with Bill’s performance, and vice versa. It was quite an experience.”

Barrow being unable to stop Frank, it is finally left to the girls to end the madness – with more madness. Let’s just say they end up having Dad over for dinner. “We become animals,” states Garner. “They don’t want to be, but that’s who they are.” Mickle adds, “That’s a big theme of Nick’s – you just can’t beat nature. It’s the only way the girls know how to defend themselves.”

The two go from an all-out attack to subdue and stop their father to. . . a bit of a meal. They continue gnawing and chewing, long after he has ceased. “Oh, yeah, the gnawing,” Childers recalls. “It’s a combination of revenge and just. . . this is who we are,” Garner says. “It’s like a light switch that gets turned on. Though I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat turkey. . . with corn syrup, again!”

The scene was filmed on the second to last day of shooting, with additional filming the following day for pickups. “It was kind of uncomfortable, with all the sticky red corn syrup pumping out of me,” says Sage. “But it was really like a dance. At one point I think I lift Julia up on my arm. It’s precise, and extreme.”

In one shot, Childers flips her hair back, you know, kinda. . . naughty. “It’s as if she’s having an orgasm for the first time,” the actress informs. “She kind of discovers herself, in a weird way, in that moment.”

“That wasn’t lost on Ambyr, I don’t think,” Sage notes. “It’s like a strange kind of sex scene.”

The girls might have had one motive, but for Frank, it was finally the end to a long journey he maybe wishes he’d never had to take. Says Mickle, “They’re ending their father’s life in a way he probably wanted. You can almost hear him say, ‘Good girls. . . “

“It’s an end to his pain,” says Sage. “He can finally relinquish his grandiosity. It’s his martyrdom. He just gives in at one point – he can finally get out of it.” Adds Damici, “It’s his Jesus moment.”

In the final shot of the film, the girls are scene driving away in their father’s pickup truck, Rory in tow, and the family book safely in Rose’s lap. They share a silent look between themselves – no one will ever know or understand what they have been through in the way the two of them will. “They’re like twins, really,” Childers says. “And I don’t think what happened will ever be brought up again between them.”

What lies in their future is anybody’s guess – and everyone has a different take. “They killed their father to end it,” says Childers. “This isn’t the 1800s – you can’t do this now.” Mickle agrees. “They’re riding towards who knows what kind of future. Hopefully a bright one. If they can find it.”

Damici begs to differ. “They’re not getting pulled out of this. They leave, but they’re gonna eat someone else. They’re gonna be what Frank wants them to be. We can kill Frank, but those kids are cannibals. From now on in – you know they’re gonna do this. Because they’ve found religion now.”

Biographies

JIM MICKLE (Director / Co-Writer)

Jim Mickle was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and graduated from NYU's undergraduate film program.

In his third, highly anticipated feature, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, starring Julia Garner (MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE), Ambyr Childers (THE

MASTER) and acclaimed character actor, Bill Sage (BOARDWALK EMPIRE), a seemingly wholesome and benevolent family, the Parkers have always kept to themselves, and for good reason.  Behind closed doors, patriarch Frank (Sage) rules his family with a rigorous ferver, determined to keep his ancestral customs intact at any cost.  As a torrential rainstorm moves into the area, tragedy strikes and his daughters Iris (Childers) and Rose (Garner) are forced to assume responsibilities that extend beyond those of a typical family.  In this re-imagining of the 2010 Mexican film of the same name, JimMickle paints a gruesome and suspenseful portrait of an introverted family struggling to keep their macabre traditions alive, giving us something we can really sink our teeth into.

Prior to this, Jim's critically acclaimed second feature, STAKE LAND, draws on the post-apocalyptic frenzy described by Richard Matheson (author of the novel I AM LEGEND) and George Romero.  The film takes place in the heartland of America where a normal teenage boy is left to survive a vampire epidemic that has swept across the country, with the help of a rogue vampire hunter.  STAKE LAND won the People's Choice Award in the Midnight Madness Section of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and was distributed by IFC Films.  

Jim's first feature, MULBERRY STREET, earned acclaim for its atmospheric representation of a deadly virus in Manhattan that turns people into rat-like creatures, and earned the "Best Independent Feature" award at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.  With dozens of credits dating back a decade, Jim started out working as a lighting technician on projects such as TRANSAMERICA with Felicity Huffman, John Cameron Mitchell's SHORTBUS and PRIDE AND GLORY with Edward Norton and Colin Ferrell.  He also developed his visual style working as a storyboard artist on a variety of projects such as THE HEBREW HAMMER and JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT.  

Jim first toured the festival circuit with THE UNDERDOGS, where he started his working relationship with Nick Damici, co-writer and actor on all of Jim's features, including WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, continuing their exploration of the darker aspects of American culture by re-imagining traditional elements of horror.  With three features under his belt, each one more mature than the last, Jim's career trajectory has been hailed by horror aficionados, comparing it to the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi, a genre master crossing over into mainstream appeal. 

FILMOGRAPHY

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2013)STAKE LAND (2010)MULBERRY STREET (2006) Feature film - 86min.

-Toronto After Dark Film Festival *Best Independent Feature-Fantasia Festival *Best Film Finalist-Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival *Black Tulip Award (Special

Jury Mention)ONE NIGHT IN DECEMBER (2008) - Animated Short - 2min.THE UNDERDOGS (2002) Short Film - 22 min.

-4 NYU Craft Awards for Cinematography, Sound Design, Music, ProducerTHE JAM (2000) Short Film - 8 min.LAST LEGS (1999) Short Film - 8 min.

Nick Damici (Co-writer / Actor)

Nick Damici is a veteran actor whose numerous television credits include guest-starring roles on the series CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Law & Order, and Life on Mars, as well as a recurring role on The Black Donnellys. His feature film credits include WORLD TRADE CENTER, Jane Campion’s IN THE CUT, MY SEXIEST YEAR with Frankie Muniz and Harvey Keitel, and the upcoming THE DON OF 42ND STREET.

In 2006, Damici co-wrote and starred in the horror film MULBERRY STREET, which earned acclaim for its atmospheric representation of a deadly virus in Manhattan that turns people into rat-like creatures, and earned the Best Independent Feature award at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Damici reunited with creative partner Jim Mickle to take their apocalyptic vision of America in STAKE LAND prior to WE ARE WHAT WE ARE.

Ryan Samul (Director of Photography)

Ryan Samul worked as the cinematographer on a number of short films before making his feature film debut with the indie feature ABDUL LOVES CLEOPATRA. This was followed by Brian Jun’s STEEL CITY with America Ferrara and John Heard; Jim Mickle’s MULBERRY STREET; NEW YORK CITY SERENADE with Chris Klein; THE COVERUP with Eliza Dushku; and THE MISSING PERSON with Amy Ryan. His upcoming credits include KINGS HIGHWAY with Edward Furlong; COMING UP ROSES with Bernadette Peters; and JOINT BODY with Mark Pellegrino (Lost.)

Linda Moran – (Producer)

Linda Moran of Belladonna Productions is a two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee with L.I.E. (“Best Picture”/2002) andTransamerica (“Best First Film”/2006) and won the prestigious Motorola Producer of the Year Award in 2002 along with partner Rene Bastian. Transamerica (dir. Duncan Tucker) received two Academy Award nominations- Best Actress (Felicity Huffman) and Best Song (Travelin’ Thru by Dolly Parton), and Felicity Huffman won a Golden Globe for her performance. Other producing credits include An Englishman in New York (dir. Richard Laxton), Funny Games US (dir. Michael Haneke),Stake Land and Mulberry Street (dir. Jim Mickle), and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (dir. Dito Montiel) which garnered awards for Best Director and Best Ensemble Cast at Sundance in 2006. Linda along with René were named among “10 Producers to Watch” by Variety during the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. Belladonna continues to develop and produce high-quality independent films with international perspective and commercial appeal.

Nicholas Shumaker – (Producer)

Nicholas Shumaker works as a producer and in sales and acquisitions for Paris based Memento Films International.  With Memento, he has been actively involved in the sales strategies for a number of films, including Asghar Farhadi's A SEPARATION, Cate Shortland's LORE, Dominik Moll's THE MONK, Ursula Meier's SISTER, Craig Zobel's COMPLIANCE, amongst many others.  He has most recently produced Jim Mickle's 2013 Sundance premiere WE ARE WHAT WE ARE; Chris Moukarbel's Sundance 2012 documentary ME @THE ZOO (HBO); and Mike Cahill's ANOTHER EARTH (Fox Searchlight.)  He is developing a project with Craig Zobel at Focus Features.  He divides his time between Paris and NYC, and his French is laughably bad.

Andrew D Corkin – (Producer)

Andrew D Corkin, of Uncorked Productions, studied film and television production, concentrating on producing, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In 2007, with Borderline Films, Andrew Associate Produced his first feature, Afterschool, which premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Continuing his work with Borderline Films, he Co-Produced their short film, Mary Last Seen and their award-winning

feature, Martha Marcy May Marlene, both premiering at Sundance. Martha was sold to Fox Searchlight at Sundance in 2011. 

In 2011, Andrew worked with Bronson Club, out of Finland, to Co-Produce their English language debut, Love & Other Troubles, starring Emilie De Ravin, and also collaborated with SeeThink Films to Produce Andrew Neel’s narrative debut, King Kelly, which premiered at SxSW 2012. Under Uncorked, he Produced the 8-episode web-series, The Walker, starring Academy-Award nominee Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, and Rightor Doyle. Working with Brooklyn-based filmmaker/artist/musician Terence Nance, Andrew Produced Terence’s feature, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which was selected into the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and which was awarded a Gotham Independent Film Award. Andrew recently produced the genre film We Are What We Are, with Jim Mickle directing, which premieres at Sundance 2013. We Are What We Are marks Andrew’s fifth film in four years to premiere at Sundance.

Russell Barnes – (Production Designer)

RUSSELL BARNES began his creative career at an early age in New Zealand where he owned a prop fabrication business.  While in Auckland he designed several commercials and music videos, and he soon relocated to New York City to continue his career in film.  After art directing “Howl” and “All Good Things”, he designed his first feature film “The Best and The Brightest," starring Neil Patrick Harris.  He then went on to design two 3-D films, the first of which was “The Mortician” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011.  The second was “Hellbenders”, directed by J.T.Petty and starring Clancy Brown, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival's Midnight Madness program in 2012.  He recently designed Jim Mickle's "We Are What We Are," a dark thriller based in upstate New York.  Following that film, Russell traveled to Alabama to design the supernatural thriller "Oculus", produced by Intrepid Pictures and directed by Michael Flanagan.Russell is represented by The Gersh Agency.

Bill Sage – (Actor)In addition to We Are What We Are, Bill Sage can be seen in ElectrickChildren alongside Julia Garner and Rory Culkin. He recently completed production on the dark comedy Douglas Brown, the racing drama Born To Race: Fast Track, and the comedy Bad Parents opposite Janeane Garofalo and Cheri Oteri.

Known for his portrayals of complex men with disturbing pasts, Sage’s film credits include Surviving Family, The Green, Shockwave Darkside, The Scientist, Boy Wonder, Handsome Harry alongside Steve Buscemi and Adian Quinn, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Academy Award Nominee, Best Picture, 2010), If I Didn’t Care with Roy Scheider, Tennessee directed by Lee Daniels, Mysterious Skin directed by Greg Araki, Boiler Room with Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel, American Psycho with Christian Bale, The Insider (Academy Award Nominee, Best Picture, 2000), If Lucy Fell with Sarah Jessica Parker and Ben Stiller, I Shot Andy Warhol with Lili Taylorand The Perez Family directed by Mira Nair. He has also appeared in seven films by director Hal Hartley: The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, Flirt, No Such Thing, and The Girl From Monday. His short film, Off Season, directed by Jonahtan Van Tulleken was a BAFTA nominee for Best Short Film in 2010.

His television credits include “Person Of Interest”, “Nurse Jackie”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “Reconstruction”, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”, “NCIS”, “Cashmere Mafia”, “Law & Order”, “Numb3rs”, “CSI:Miami”, “Third Watch”, “The Handler”, “CSI”, “The $treet”, “Melrose Place”, and “Sex and the City”.

Off-Broadway credits include Aunt Dan & Lemon, Hysterical Blindness, and Snuff. He has also appeared in Electra and Sweet Bird of Youth both in part of the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival.

Sage is a graduate of State University of New York at Purchase. He currently resides in New York City with his wife and their two dogs, Kid and Hank.

Ambyr Childers – (Actor)

Ambyr Childers beat out hundreds of young Hollywood hopefuls when she scored the pivotal role of Elizabeth Dodd in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master starring Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. The film opened in September 2012 to critical acclaim.

In the summer of 2012, Childers filmed the independent feature We Are What We Are, which debuts at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Childers can currentlybe seen with an all-star cast headlined by Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in Ruben Fleischer’s The Gangster Squad.

Childers’ film credits also include Stephen Frears’ Lay The Favorite starring Bruce Willis and the upcoming feature, 2 Guns directed by Baltasar Kormákur and starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

Additionally, Childers will appear in the highly anticipated Showtime series “Ray Donovan,” starring opposite Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight premiering Summer 2013.

Born in Arizona, Childers grew up in Southern California and currently resides in Los Angeles.

Julia Garner – (Actor)

Julia Garner's first job was a supporting role in MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, which premiered in competition at Sundance 2011.  But it was her first starring role, in the film ELECTRICK CHILDREN, which catapulted Julia to the next level.  ELECTRICK CHILDREN premiered at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival and then at the 2012 South by Southwest Festival to incredible reviews and fanfare. Julia is in every frame of the film and truly exploded off the screen. Julia next stars in WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, which will premiere at Sundance 2013, and THE BEGINNING OF THE END (aka THE LAST EXORCISM 2) for Studio Canal and CBS Films.  Julia also recently shot YOU CAN'T WIN, with Michael Pitt, and UNICORNS, Leah Meyerhoff's film.

Julia is one of five actors to be profiled in Variety in their "Searching For the Next Sundance Darling" feature, out next week.  She was selected as one of the “5 New Faces of the 2012 Berlin Film Festival" by The Hollywood Reporter, as well as one of the "10 Actresses on the Rise" by Indie Wire Magazine in 2012.  She was most recently chosen as THE ONLY actor on the “25 New Faces of Independent film of 2012” by Filmmaker Magazine, as well as being featured in Variety's 2012 Youth Impact Report. 

Jack Gore – (Actor)

Seven-year-old JACK GORE, native New Yorker, was thrilled to make his feature film debut in WE ARE WHAT WE ARE.  He will soon begin production on NBC's Michael J. Fox series, produced by Will Gluck. Jack shot an episode of 30 ROCK, and has appeared in numerous commercials and voice overs.  In addition to acting, Jack loves his

animals (he has 3 dogs and 2 cats), baseball, judo, reading, scootering, his little sister, and entertaining people with magic.

Kelly McGillis – (Actor)

Kelly McGillis broke through to stardom when she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in Peter Weir’s acclaimed WITNESS, which earned her a Golden Globe Nomination. That led to a string of notable feature film credits that include TOP GUN, MADE IN HEAVEN, AT FIRST SIGHT, THE BABE with John Goodman, THE ACCUSED with Jodie Foster, and Rob Reiner’s NORTH.

A classically trained actress who attended Julliard, McGillis has focused on raising her family and continuing her stage craft in recent years, having appeared in numerous acclaimed productions including playing Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler on Broadway in 1994 and performing as Mrs. Robinson in the national touring company of the stage version of The Graduate. Recently, McGillis appeared in a recurring role on Showtime’s acclaimed The L Word, and is currently working on the horror film THE INNKEEPERS.

Wyatt Russell – (Actor)

Wyatt Russell was born and raised in Los Angeles. He moved to Vancouver at the age if 15 to pursue his hockey career. He played in Vancouver, Chicago, and Toronto before getting a scholarship to play division 1 college hockey in Alabama. He then played professional hockey for three years in Germany and Holland before injury ended his career. He moved back to his home in Los Angeles in 2010 and decided to pursue a career in acting. His credits include cowboys and aliens, the netflix revival of arrested development, a recent role in Judd Apatow's This Is 40 and Jim Mickle's We Are What We Are selected for the Sundance Film Festival. Wyatt is also a partner in Hail Mary Productions with his brother Oliver Hudson and sister Kate Hudson.

CREDITS

Directed byJim Mickle

Written byNick Damici and Jim Mickle

Based on the Screenplay “SOMOS LO QUE HAY” byJorge Michel Grau

Director of PhotographyRyan Samul

Production DesignerRussell Barnes

EditorJim Mickle

Music by Philip Mossman and Darren Morris

Jeff Grace

Costume DesignerElisabeth Vastola

Music SupervisorLinda Cohen

Casting DirectorsStephen Vincent

  Co-Producer NICHOLAS KAISER     Line Producer LIZZ MORHAIM       Unit Production Manager STEPHANIE BLACKWOOD

   First Assistant Director JOE CICCARELLA   Second Assistant Director MELINDA ZIYADAT   Associate Producer JAMES OAKLEY   Co-Associate Producer LINDSEY RAMEYcast (in order of appearance)      Emma Parker KASSIE DEPAIVA  Hardware Clerk LAURENT REJTO  Rose Parker JULIA GARNER  Iris Parker AMBYR CHILDERS  Rory Parker JACK GORE  Frank Parker BILL SAGE  Marge KELLY MCGILLIS  Deputy Anders WYATT RUSSELL  Doc Barrow MICHAEL PARKS  Arlene Stratton ANNEMARIE LAWLESS  Mrs. Kimble TRACI HOVEL  Mr. Kimble NAT DEWOLF  Sheriff Meeks NICK DAMICI  Emily Meeks VONIA ARSLANIAN  Bearded Tenant LARRY FESSENDEN  Alyce Parker ODEYA RUSH  Mathias Parker JOEL NAGLE  Alyce's Mother REAGAN LEONARD  Coach Stratton I.N. SIERROS  Counter Man TYLER BARDEN  Waitress LEA KWIECINSKI  Officer T.J. Turner JACK TURNER  Doc Barrow’s Dog ZOMBIE  Marge’s Dog KIDD   Stunt Coordinators TONY VINCENT  JARED BURKE  Stunt Performer STEFANIE FLORESTownspeople      NORMAN AARONSON  GEORGIA AINSLIE-HAMBLIN  IDA AINSLIE-HAMBLIN  SERRA AKYUZ  SUNA AKYUZ  JAMES ASHBY  JOHN BARD  LORENZO BERONILLA  ANGELIQUE BIASUTTO  CHRISTINE BRECSKA  BRAD BRICKMAN  JACQUELINE BRICKMAN  MAX BRICKMAN  SAM BRICKMAN  IAN BRYDON

  LUCINDA BRYDON  MAGDALYN BRYDON  SHANNON BYRNE  JOE BURKE  MO BURKE  CHRIS CADY  MIKE CAPUANO  TERRY CAPUANO  ANITA CASAMASSIMA  RALPH CHASE  EMILY CLAUSI  COCONUT  ANGELICA COFER  SALLY DAVIS  MELISSA DAY  MARCOS DE CAMAREO  NICHOLAS DEGIDIO  PAULA DESIMONE  DILLINGER   MICHAEL DORABY  LISA ELLIS  ANN EPNER  ANTONIA FALCO  ADAM FOLK  GREGORY FORCARETTA  ANA GANTZER  TONI-ANN GAVETTE  HOLLIS GILSTRAP  RALPH GREENBERG  DUSTIN HALL  ELIZABETH HARRINGTON  PATRICK HARRINGTON  DONALD HETT  AMY HOWANSKY  DONALD HOY  DANIEL HUTEHBY  JOE JAMES  DIANA JOHNSON  ROMAN KOSSAK  WANDA KOSSAK  NICOLE KUTUN  MARGARET LASELLE  CATHERINE LEHN  REAGAN LEONARD  DANY LEVESOME  ELIZABETH MAMI  NICOLE MAUGHAR  MIKE MAXIM  DEAN MEEHAN  JADE MEEHAN  PETER MEEHAN  ANTHONY MINCARELLI  LIZZ MORHAIM

  DAN MORSE  BARBARA MORROW  JOE MOSKOWITZ  MICHAEL ODATO  AUDREY ODAY  DARREN PAOLINI  JEANINE PASCARELLA  TODD PASCARELLA  ZACHARY PINTO  CHRIS PUIATTI  YVONNE REATER  LARRY REILLY  RIDLEY  MARILYN RINGEL  KEVIN ROE  MIKEY ROE  ROSE ROGERS  ROSS T. ROGERS  ANNE SANFORD  KYLE SCHWARZ  NICHOLAS SHUMAKER  JEFF SLAUSON  MARC SPAZIANI  ERIC STANZE  JERALD STEIN  FAYE STORMS  GEORGE SUESS  SHARON SUESS  BILL TARI  JOHN TOMLINSON  WILLIAM VERNOLD  JANE WAHRBURG  ABIGAIL WILLIAMS  KAREN WILLIAMS  MICHAEL ZAKARcrew    

 2nd Unit DP / B Camera Operator BOBBY BOOTHE

 A Camera 1st Assistant Camera KEITH HUEFFMEIER

 A Camera 2nd Assistant Camera STEVE MCLAURIN

 

 B Camera 1st Assistant Camera COREY GEGNER

  FILIPP PENSON

 B Camera 2nd Assistant Camera BRETT CHECKELSKY

  Digital Imaging Technician ZACH MILLER  Still Photography YOON KIM  Still Photography Assistant JASON TALLON 

 2nd Unit Director / Behind the Scenes ERIC STANZE

   Script Supervisor ZORINAH JUAN

   Sound Mixer MIKHAIL STERKIN  Boom Operator DMITRY VOLOVIK   Gaffer DAN GARTNER  Best Boy Electric PETER MILMOE  3rd Electric KEAGAN FULLER  Additional Electrics NEKERO BUNSIE  ROBERT FATTORINI   Key Grip JOHN SHIM  Best Boy Grip BERT MONTANARI  3rd Grips JUSTIN WILSON  DANIEL APRIL  G&E Swing BLAINE CHOU  Additional Grip JOSEPH WANNEMACHER   Location Manager KARA JANECZKO  Assistant Location Manager NATE DELLARATTA  Location Scout CHRIS COYNE   Property Master JESSIE KATZ  Assistant Property Master BRIDGET RAFFERTY  Additional Props JOSEPH JAMES   Art Director ADA SMITH   Set Decorator DANIEL KERSTING  On Set Dressers ALAN DICKSON  JANELLE JONES  Swing Dressers STEPHEN CAPUTO  NICOLE HEFFRON   Art Interns ANDREW KECK  SUZANNE STOCKHAUSEN   Assistant Costume Designer SAMANTHA HAWKINS  Wardrobe Supervisor AMANDA WILLIAMS  Tailor BRIAN TURPIN  Costume Assistants BRITTANY AGNEW  JESSICA BERGSTROM  AMRITA KUNDU   Make-up Department Head JESSICA KELLEHER   Hair Department Head CYNTHIA VANIS   Special Effects Provided By GERNER & SPEARS FX  Make-up SFX BRIAN SPEARS  Make-up SFX Assistant PETE GERNER   Production Coordinator CYNTHIA CHOU

 Assistant Production Coordinator SARAH KARAS

  Production Office Manager NYC TONY BLAHD  Production Office Interns NYC BRITTANY MARKERT  ALISSA OTT  BLAIRE BUTCHER  Production Intern BRYNN MOODY    2nd 2nd Assistant Director DARRYL PREVOST  Set Production Assistants MISSY WEEKS  ANGEL MARTINEZ  JIM O’CONNOR  STEPHAN PREVOST  MOHAMMED WOLI  BRANDON REGINA   Production Accountant AINSLEY BARTHOLOMEW 

 Extras Casting Production Assistant ANITA CASAMASSIMA

   Craft Service NY CRAFTY  Key Craft Service JAVIER ROJAS  Craft Service Assistants GREGORY CLEMENTS  KATIE KRAMER  ANDREAS O’DONOHUE  OLIVER RILEY   Caterer TRIBE ROAD CATERING  Head Chef ANDREW GILBERT  Assistant Chef FELIX RIVERA  BRIAN WHITFIELD   Medical Advisor DR. JAMES MICKLE JR.  Set Medic KEVIN CALLAHAN       Post Production Supervisor ADAM FOLK   Assistant Editor AARON CROZIER   Post Production Sound PARABOLIC  Supervising Sound Editor LEWIS GOLDSTEIN  Assistant Sound Editor ALEX SOTO   Re-Recording Mixer LEWIS GOLDSTEIN   Dialogue Editor JAC RUBENSTEIN  ADR Editor DAVID BRIGGS  Sound FX Editors ALEX SOTO  MAX GREENE  Background Sound Editors WEN-HSUAN TSENG  LINZY ELLIOT  JERREL SUELTO  Foley Artist SHAUN BRENNAN  Foley Recordists THOMAS RYAN

  WEN-HSUAN TSENG  Foley Editors THOMAS RYAN  WEN-HSUAN TSENG  LINZY ELLIOT   Music Performed by PHILIP MOSSMAN AND DARREN MORRIS  Recorded by MATT THORNLEY AT DFA STUDIOS NYC  Assistant Engineer MATT SHAW  Musicians VIOLIN - ADELA PENA  CELLO - ADAM GRABOIS    Additional Music by JEFF GRACE    Additional Musicians VIOLIN - TOM CHIU  CELLO - MARIEL ROBERTS    Color by OFFHOLLYWOOD  DI Colorist MILAN BONCICH  DI Producer JOHN "PLINY" EREMIC  DI Editor KEVIN KAIM  DI Conform ROB LOUGHLIN  DI Coordinator MEGAN MILNES   Additional Visual Effects by & COMPANY  DAVID ISYOMIN   End Titles created with AUTOGLYPH ENDCRAWL™ SOFTWARE   Production Counsel GRAY KRAUSS STRATFORD DES ROCHERS LLP  ANDRE DES ROCHERS  ANITA SURENDRANsongs    

 

  

   vendors    

 Grip & Lighting Equipment Provided by HAND HELD FILMS

 

 Camera Equipment Provided by OFFHOLLYWOOD

 

 Cast Payroll Services Provided by MEDIA SERVICES

   Insurance Provided by DEWITT STERN GROUP

   Trucks provided by EDGE AUTO RENTAL   Vehicles provided by ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR 

 Post Production Services Provided by OFFHOLLYWOOD

      thanks1      AGNIESZKA, ARTUR AND MAXIMILIAN SICIARZ  ANDREW KONOPKA  ANDY NOBLE  ANDY WOS  BETH MICKLE  BILL TARI  BOBBY REDD  BOB BRODER  BRIAN DEPERSIA  BUN N' CONE  CAREY LEE  CAROLE BIANCO  THE CENTURY HOUSE HISTORICAL SOCIETY  THE CHA CHA HUT  CHERYL TERRACE  CHERYL AND TOM MYERS  CHRIS SOUCEY  COLIN PAOLO  CYNTHIA BAUGHMAN  DANNY PEREZ  DEER RUN ANTIQUES  DON HOGAN  DOREEN DONOVAN CORKIN  EVA FLAMM  FRED MARGULIES  GARFF SHIRTS  GAYLE GRUNWALD  THE GREEN GIRAFFE  HALCOTTSVILLE CEMETERY  HALCOTTSVILLE FIRE DEPARTMENT  HALL TARI FUNERAL HOME  HOGAN’S GENERAL STORE  HOMESTEAD FARM RESORT  JAMES MICKLE JR.  JEFF SLAUSON  JEREMY PLATT  JESSE WELLS  JOE MOSKOWITZ  JOHN BIRUK  JOHN SPITERI FROM BLUE PARROT POTS  LYNN M. LISA  JIM FROM JAMROZY’S WAR RELICS  JOE, CHERYL, RICH FROM ANDES EMS

  JOE JAMES  JORDAN BREE LONG  KYLA GROGAN  MARK ANKNER  MAX CURIOUS PRODUCTIONS  MICHAEL COLLIN  MICHAEL HANSEN  MISHA TURNER FROM CLEMENTINE VINTAGE  NACOLE SNOEP  OK UNIFORM  PD’S USED  PETE’S USED FURNITURE BARN  PHILLIP LENIHAN  QUARLTERE'S NURSERY  REG OBERLAG, CATSKILLS FILM COMMISSION  R/GA DIGITAL STUDIO  RICH GORE  RICHARD BAILEY  RILEY KEOUGH  SARAH SELF  SPIEWAK  STEVEN CORKIN  SUNNY PATEL  SUSAN’S PLEASANT PHEASANT FARM  CHERYL TERRACE  TARA KAPOOR  TIIA AND ANNELI FROM MADMAK’S CLOSET  TIM GEHLING  TITAN DRILLING  TODD BROWN  TONI-ANN GAVETTE  THE TOWN OF ARKVILLE  THE TOWN OF BOVINA  THE TOWN OF HALCOTTSVILLE  THE TOWN OF MARGARETVILLE  THE TOWN OF STAMFORD  WARDA FILLON  WESTERN SAFETY PRODUCTSthanks2    

  BRIEANNE AND CORY ACKERLY FROM WOODY’S COUNTRY KITCHEN  BROOKSIDE AUTO & TRUCK SALES - WILL FINCH  MAINE BLACK BEAR SEAFOOD MARKET AND RESTAURANT  THE RESIDENTS OF THE ARKVILLE TRAILER PARK  CLOTHING FOR WYATT RUSSELL PROVIDED BY WOOLRICH  MARK L. PEDERSON