Casper Andreas scores two movies at annual FilmOut festival

Ken Williams | Editor

A FilmOut festival without a movie by Casper Andreas is like a rare day in San Diego without sunshine, so it comes as no surprise that the Swedish-born filmmaker has been tapped for the 18th annual San Diego LGBT Film Festival.

Fans of Andreas — known for hits such as “Big Gay Musical” and “Going Down in La-La Land” — are in for a double treat when FilmOut’s festival returns June 3 – 5. In an unprecedented honor, Andreas has had two of his films chosen to open and close the festival.

“I selected ‘Kiss Me, Kill Me’ as the Opening Night film and ‘Flatbush Luck’ as the Closing Night Film because of the marquee/entertainment value and its accessibility for all audience types,” said Michael McQuiggan, longtime programming director for FilmOut.

FilmOut announced about a month ago that the star-studded “Kiss Me, Kill Me” was chosen for the festival’s gala opening on Friday, June 3. Shortly after that announcement McQuiggan “lucked” into another gem by Andreas, which is still undergoing final production tweaks.

“It was by chance that ‘Flatbush Luck’ even became available,” McQuiggan said. “It is technically a ‘Sneak Preview West Coast Premiere,’ so naturally I jumped at the chance to include the film in our lineup. It just made perfect marketing sense to offer the film as the Closing Night selection so we can spin the two films and its director.”

Andreas admits that he is blown away by McQuiggan’s decision to prominently showcase his two films.

It is a first for FilmOut.

“This is an incredibly huge honor,” the 43-year-old filmmaker said. “I found out about ‘Kiss Me, Kill Me’ chosen as the Opening Night film a while back, so when I then heard ‘Flatbush Luck’ was being considered for Closing Night I could hardly believe it. It’s very exciting and definitely a first for me as well!”

Short films and features by Andreas have been shown at FilmOut for more than a decade.

“We have screened all of Casper’s short films and feature films — starting in 2004 with his first endeavor, ‘Slutty Summer’ — through ‘Kiss Me, Kill Me’ and ‘Flatbush Luck’ in 2016,” McQuiggan said.

“His films are always well-written and directed and perfectly cast,” he continued. “[Andreas] clearly knows what he is doing and has grown tremendously as a filmmaker since 2004. Not to mention that all his feature films [‘A Four Letter Word,’ ‘Between Love and Goodbye,’ ‘Violet Tendencies,’ ‘Big Gay Musical,’ ‘Going Down in La-La Land’] are immensely popular and crowd-pleasing movies. They are LGBT film entertainment at its best!”

OPENING NIGHT FILM

“Kiss Me, Kill Me” is a murder mystery starring Van Hansis (“As The World Turns”) as a spurned boyfriend who becomes the prime suspect when his wealthy sweetheart — played by Gale Harold (“Queer As Folk”) — ends up dead.

Andreas calls the film an homage to film noir, those highly-stylized Hollywood crime dramas from the 1940s and 1950s. Even the film’s music evokes that theme.

“I grew up reading Agatha Christie novels and always loved a good whodunit, and it was very exciting making a movie like this,” he said. “I watched a lot of Hitchcock movies in preparation and some of our shots were directly inspired by shots in his movies — we even have a ‘Vertigo’ shot! The film was also inspired by films like ‘Basic Instinct’ and ‘Fatal Attraction.’ Screenwriter David Michael Barrett is a big film buff and there were definitely a lot of references to other films in his screenplay. The score was inspired by ‘Chinatown.’”

Fans will also notice the harsh look at Hollywood life, much like Andreas’ 2011 opening night film, “Going Down in La-La Land.”

Does he have a particular fascination with Hollywood, or is it purely by chance that two of his major movies over the past five years have had Hollywood as the backdrop?

“It’s actually more happenstance,” Andreas said. “‘Going Down in La-La Land’ I wrote based on a novel and I was fascinated by the life of struggling actors in LA — a life I have lived myself — and to explore why these characters would do the things they do. ‘Kiss Me, Kill Me’ is completely set in West Hollywood and is centered around a successful reality TV producer who gets murdered. In this case, the story could probably have been set in other cities but it was a lot of fun making the film with these LA-types that I certainly recognize and that Barrett knew well. And, of course, setting a film noir-inspired murder mystery in Los Angeles was a lot of fun considering the many great classic film noirs and thrillers that took place in Hollywood.”

With a finished script in hand, Barrett approached Andreas about directing the film.

“Originally it was called ‘Blackout,’” Andreas said. “We worked on developing it together for about a year and it went through quite a bit of rewrites during that time, so I think some of my ideas made it into the final script but mostly it’s all from David’s imagination.”

Operating with a modest budget, the filmmakers still landed a large cast that included Van Hansis, Gale Harold, Brianna Brown, Jai Rodriguez, Matthew Ludwinski and Jonathan Lisecki.

“We spent a lot of time casting the film and it was all through personal connections that we were able to reach these actors directly rather than having to go through their reps. It’s incredibly hard to get agents and managers excited about their clients making films on this budget level,” Andreas said.

“David and I got a lot of help by Kit Williamson, who in addition to playing a role in the film, came on as an associate producer and put us in touch with several of our cast members, like Van Hansis and Briana Brown, both who worked on his web series ‘Eastsiders.’”

They initially raised money to finance the film through a highly successful Kickstarter campaign that raised well over the $100,000 goal.

“I do think it’s the future of indie film — especially with LGBT themes,” Andreas said. “The LGBT market is, of course, much smaller than the mainstream one to begin with so if you make a film for primarily a gay audience you have to keep the budget low.

“Nowadays with illegal downloads, cheap streaming services and a disappearing DVD market, it’s only getting harder to make money back on these films,” he continued. “So we knew with ‘Kiss Me, Kill Me’ that our Kickstarter campaign had to be successful for us to make this film and we worked incredibly hard to make that happen.”

Andreas said he also raised some of the film’s budget through investors, something the Kickstarter campaign helped with a great deal, since the less money they have to repay investors the more “in the green” the film may eventually be.

CLOSING NIGHT FILM

“Flatbush Luck” may be the most mainstream movie made by Andreas; the film is about two cousins who work at dead-end jobs as telephone repairmen in their Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Jimmy (Tanner Novlan), a former hotshot on Wall Street before the recession hit, dreams of hitting it big again. And his cousin Max (Robby Stahl) is getting wet feet about his impending wedding to his longtime girlfriend Donna (Jenna Perez), especially after he finds himself attracted to his hot Latino masseuse (Juahn Cabrera).

‘“Flatbush Luck’ is directed more towards a mainstream audience, but it does have a major gay plotline so I don’t think gay audiences will be disappointed,” Andreas said. “The film’s executive producer James Balletto wrote the original screenplay and approached me about making it.

“It was a passion project for him having grown up in Flatbush and wanting to make a movie that takes place there. The best part is that he self-financed the film so no Kickstarter was needed in this case,” Andreas continued. “I did all the casting myself, something I do enjoy a lot, and I’m very excited about the cast we assembled. For several of our actors, this is their feature film debut and I’m very proud of everyone’s job in the film. We had a lot of fun making it and I hope that shows up on the screen. “

Writing credits go to James Balletto, Jed Seidel and Andreas, so the screenplay became a collaborative effort.

“James was open to script changes and my friend Jed Seidel came onboard to help in developing the plot and restructuring the story quite a bit. Then I ended up writing the final few drafts of the screenplay,” Andreas said.

Again, Andreas had great success in finding a great cast. Some reviewers have called the part of Jimmy a breakout role for Novlan.

“I hope so! I think he is fantastic, and hopefully other directors and casting directors will see him in this role and agree,” Andreas said, adding that he is proud of the performance by Briana Marin as Barbara.

“Briana I had known for a while — we actually took acting class together — and I think she is excellent and so exciting to watch in whatever she does,” he said. “I basically looked at the script to see which one of the female roles I was gonna offer her and then I cast her before casting had even begun.”

Stahl once played the role of “bartender” on an episode of Bravo’s “Watch What Happens: Live” with Andy Cohen, Kristen Johnston and Luke Perry. FilmOut audiences will relate to his character’s coming out process during the move, which is very believable and realistic.

“A big part of what Robby does in the film is thanks to his talent as an actor, and though incredibly handsome, he also has a sweetness about him that I think makes him very endearing on screen,” Andreas said.

“Robby initially auditioned for the Jimmy character but I thought his sensitivity worked so much better for Max, and once I read him for that role it was pretty clear to me that he would be great,” he continued. “During callbacks I had him read several times with multiple actors auditioning for the roles of Donna and Andres, so that kind of worked out as a rehearsal.”

Still, Andreas made sure Robby was fully prepared for the crucial role.

“Once cast, Robby and I met up prior to shooting and looked at all his scenes together to make sure he understood what I needed from him,” Andreas said. “During production, I’m pretty hands-on with my actors, building up trust and making sure to give them room to play and have fun. This was Robby’s first time in a leading role in a feature film, so I also think some of the nervousness he had about that and about portraying this character, he was able to use to his advantage in the role.”

Andreas, along with many of his actors and film crew, will spend the June 3 – 5 weekend in San Diego. To buy individual tickets or a festival pass, visit filmoutsandiego.com. To watch the official movie trailer for the festival, visit bit.ly/27vMVB7.

—Ken Williams is editor of Uptown News and can be reached at [email protected] or at 619-961-1952. Follow him on Twitter at @KenSanDiego, Instagram at @KenSD or Facebook at KenWilliamsSanDiego. He also serves a voluntary position as Film & Media Relations Director for FilmOut San Diego.