DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY
A documentary feature film
This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a dark and difficult masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it. It is about New York in a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change.
A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. Set in a New York besieged by economic collapse, social unrest, and cultural ferment, the movie tells the story of two homeless loners who join forces out of desperation and struggle to survive. It features superb performances by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, spirited direction by John Schlesinger, a brilliant screenplay by blacklist survivor Waldo Salt, and a memorable musical soundtrack. The result was the only X-rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture and John Schlesinger’s win as Best Director over George Roy Hill, Arthur Penn, Sydney Pollack and Costa-Gavras! It paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty, New York-based movies with adult themes and complex characters.
The legend continues with the newly published Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic by Glenn Frankel, which has been optioned by Augusta Films. Award-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski will write and direct. For an exclusive story on the film visit: Variety
PRODUCED BY: Nancy Buirski, Simon Kilmurry, and Susan Margolin
IN ASSOCIATION SPONSORS: Cineflix Productions, and Foothill Productions
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: James Costa, Geralyn Dreyfous, J.C. Mills, Glen Salzman, Regina K. Scully, Nathalie Seaver, Mark Trustin, and Jamie Wolf
Image from the feature film Midnight Cowboy.
ENDANGERED
An animated/live action feature film
Based on the award-winning novel by Eliot Schrefer
The gripping story of 14-year-old Sophie and her quest to save the orphan bonobo that she buys at the side of the road in Kinshasa, in war-torn Congo. Her quest becomes life-threatening as the sanctuary housing her mother’s precious bonobos is attacked by rebels and Sophie must run for her life – with Otto – the newly-named bonobo clinging to her back. They are both endangered.
Images from the short Endangered, to be released soon.
Image from original documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clerq
Photo credit: Jerome Robbins, courtesy of Jerome Robbins Foundation
TANNY
A narrative feature film
Based on the documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq.
There are few more haunting stories in in the world of ballet than that of the mysterious Tanaquil Le
Clercq. A ballerina at the height of her career, suddenly stricken with polio, never to walk or dance
again. But not just any ballerina; the muse to George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, arguably the two
greatest choreographers in 20th Century America. She seduced them as a dancer and as a woman, as
she did her audiences – no one was more beautiful on stage and more mesmerizing. She had fame, love
and adoration until it suddenly all stopped. Tanny danced until she collapsed; she was rushed to the
hospital, was in an iron lung, near death.
Tanaquil Le Clercq would never dance again, nor would she ever inspire these giants. It is the way Tanny
copes with not only the loss of her legs, but the loss of their love, that is the drama of our story. Its
heartbeat is Tanny courage, her singular wit and determination to forge an independent life no longer
reliant on these artists to make her whole. She is a powerful inspiration to anyone who knows her story.