Actor/producer Sara Stepnicka on the Set of "Granny Panties" for Christopher Coppola's Motown PAH-FEST 2008 Film Festival

ValloNicka Films ("Sometimes in Life", "The Mongol King") was recently one of six Detroit-area finalists for the Mobiflicks competition as part of the Motown PAH-FEST 2008. PAH-FEST (Project Accessible Hollywood) is a traveling film festival and the brainchild of Christopher Coppola who is the brother of Nicolas Cage and nephew of legendary film director Francis Ford Coppola.

 

PAH-FEST is a digital media festival that travels to cities throughout the US and abroad. PAH-FEST encourages visual storytelling, fosters community engagement and promotes the production of fictional and documentary videos that will be shared globally.

 

For the Mobiflicks competition, director Anthony Vallone had three days to shoot, edit and complete a short film with coaching and equipment from the PAH-FEST team. The ValloNicka team shot "Granny Panties", based on the short story "Why the Granny Panty Told the G-String to Stick It" written by Lee Runchey.

 

"Granny Panties" is a unique narrative written from the point-of-view of a wise, elderly Granny Panty who is hanging in the back of a laundromat while a young woman wearing a pink g-string washes her clothes.

 

The story was originally published in The Connecticut Review, a prestigious literary journal whose pages have featured authors including Pulitzer-prize winner John Updike.

 

Vallone is also the director of "Sometimes in Life", the Michigan-made, independent feature that recently premiered on June 27 at the Detroit Windsor International Film Festival. "Sometimes in Life" is a story of life, love, loss and an unlikely friendship between two lost people whose lives are stuck in a rut. Jill is a young fashion designer who suspects that her lesbian girlfriend is cheating on her while Rob mourns the loss of his father.

 

The film stars Sara Stepnicka, Eric Morrison, Gunhild Giil and Jon E. Livernois. Wayne David-Parker, Angela Roberts, Emily Rose, Ethan Helmann-Scherrer, Carol Pierangelino and Sharon Emigh complete the cast.

 

"Sometimes in Life" also features music from two-time Grammy winner Ozomatli, Modest Mouse, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Presley and Anilore. In addition, listen for made-in-Detroit artists Amp Fiddler, Jamie McCarthy, Cetan Clawson, Bedford Drive, The Bloids and Mindizade.

 

ValloNicka Films originally signed a deal with CreateSpace as part of the 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project to present "Sometimes in Life" to the Sundance Channel for possible broadcast on their network. Although the deal had to be canceled after the announcement earlier this year that HD films would no longer be a standard, industry format, ValloNicka Films is currently discussing the film with other distributors.

 

For more information about "Sometimes in Life", and to see the trailer, visit www.sometimesinlifethemovie.com or www.myspace.com/sometimesinlifethemovie.

 

"Sometimes in Life" is the second feature from ValloNicka Films. Their first movie, "The Mongol King", joins Robert Rodriguez’s groundbreaking film "El Mariachi" as one of the five lowest-budget films ever to receive a distribution deal.

 

"Sometimes in Life" is an official selection of the Trinity Film Festival in Detroit on August 2, 2008. For more information, visit www.trinityfilmcoalition.com.

 

 

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