Down to the Wire by
Ira Sachs, Academy Award-winning sound mixer Dom Tavella (Chicago, Forty Shades of Blue, Black Swan) and Sound Designer Damian Volpe tweak the final mix in advance of Keep The Lights On‘s Sundance premiere in one week!
First Look: Keep The Lights On’s Teaser Trailer by
We’re excited to premiere Keep The Lights On‘s amazing teaser trailer in advance of our Sundance World Premiere on January 20th in Park City. Eagle eyes may also notice the Berlin Film Festival laurels at the beginning of the trailer, of course. Keep The Lights On will make its European premiere in the Panorama section of the long-running and very prestigious German festival. Since the Berlin Film Festival makes an appearance as a setting in the film, it’s only fitting. We hope you enjoy it! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
The Last Day by
On the last day of shooting, Keep the Lights On videographer Onur Karoaglu spent some time documenting the final hours of principal photography. If you’ve ever been on a film set, you’ll recognize the mix of exhaustion and jubilation that lingers in the air. Funny to think this was only a few months ago, and now we’re premiering at Sundance in just over a month!
Director’s Commentary: Part 3 by
Cinephiles! Just in time for your holiday breaks, director Ira Sachs discusses the films that influenced him during the writing of Keep The Lights On. Why not catch up on these films before KTLO’s Sundance premiere?
Sundance Screening Schedule by
The dates for our World Premiere screenings at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival have been announced! On January 20th, at 8:30PM at the Library Center Theatre in Park City, UT, Sundance audiences will get to see what director Ira Sachs and cast and crew have worked so hard on this past year. Five additional screenings have been scheduled throughout the duration of the festival, and you can visit our Movie page or our Sundance page to see when, and get details on how to purchase tickets. We hope to see you there!
Keep The Lights On In Park City! by
We are thrilled to announce that Keep The Lights On has been accepted into the US Dramatic Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 19 – 29th in Park City, Utah. Directed by Ira Sachs, Keep The Lights On is one of 16 films in the section, selected from 2,059 to apply. The film stars Thure Lindhardt (Into the Wild, Angels and Demons, Flame & Citron) and Zachary Booth (Damages, Dark Horse) as two men who meet in New York City in the late 1990′s and begin to build a home and life together. Over the course of the next ten years, they struggle to maintain their relationship while battling their own compulsions and addictions. A film about sex, friendship, intimacy and most of all, love, Keep the Lights On takes an honest look at the nature of relationships in our times.
Written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias (Madame Satã, Seuly in the Sky), the film co-stars Julianne Nicholson (Boardwalk Empire, Tully), Souléymane Sy Savané (Goodbye Solo, Machine Gun Preacher), and Paprika Steen (The Celebration, Applause, Open Hearts). The Producers are Sachs, Lucas Joaquin and Marie Therese Guirgis; and Executive Producers are Ali Betil, Jawal Nga, Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen; Associate Producers are Adam Hohenberg, Iddo Patt and Alex Scharfman.
The Sundance Film Festival and director Ira Sachs have a history that spans almost 20 years. Sachs’ films Lady (1994), The Delta (1997), Forty Shades of Blue (2005), and Last Address (2010) all premiered at Sundance, with Forty Shades of Blue winning the Grand Jury Prize in 2005. Sachs has also mentored other filmmakers at the 2008 and 2010 Sundance Director’s Lab, 2010 Israel Film Lab, and the 2011 Screenwriter’s Lab. He is thrilled to be back at Sundance to premiere Keep The Lights On.
The Sundance Film Festival has a long history of supporting important new queer cinema, with the festival premiering and giving awards to now classic queer films including Paris is Burning, Poison, The Kids are Alright, Longtime Companion, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Sachs created both the popular New York IFC Center film series Queer/Art/Film, which selects artists to present films that influenced them, and Queer/Art/Mentorship, a new program that pairs emerging artists with established artists in their field. Keep The Lights On is Ira Sachs’ first feature film to feature gay subject matter since 1997′s The Delta, and comes at a time when queer films like Weekend, Circumstance, and Pariah have achieved widespread critical and audience acclaim.
We will be announcing screening dates soon, so please keep checking our Movie section for more news and updates and info about Keep the Lights On, and join us for more information on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter (@ktlomovie). These platforms will have the most accurate and up-to-date information about the film, including announcements of upcoming screening.
Director’s Commentary Part 2 by
In the second part of my in-depth interview with director Ira Sachs, conducted prior to the filming of Keep The Lights On, I asked Sachs about something we’ve devoted a whole section to on our site: the way autobiography intersects with our art-making process. Sachs also discusses another autobiographical film that influenced him, as well as how his decision to live “as transparently as possible” led to him writing the film. It’s interesting to consider Sachs’ responses, which seem so assured and confident, coming after his dramatic production diary post from last week where he realized, upon watching a first cut, that the film was definitely him. To my mind, it shows that the work involved in opening yourself up in the creative process is constantly evolving as one’s autobiography.
And Then He Licked My Face: The Eastern Bloc Shoot by
On Wednesday, July 27th, scores of hot young guys filed into Eastern Bloc, the popular Soviet-Union themed East Village gay bar, to dance, drink, and party. If it were nighttime, nobody passing by would have batted an eye. But outside the bar the mid-day summer sun was drilling through layers of SPF-30 on skin all over the city. Director Ira Sachs had picked this day to film a pivotal moment in Keep The Lights On in which the characters played by Thure Lindhardt and Miguel Del Toro first meet in a crowded bar. Extras casting coordinator Jason Klorfein had been working for months to ensure that the place was packed with an authentic group of bar patrons, and when the day finally came it was a roaring success. Keep The Lights On‘s videographer Onur Karoaglu captured the behind-the-scenes action amongst the extras and other crew in this terrific video.
It’s a Wrap! by
Last night, the Keep the Lights On cast and crew gathered at The Delancey bar on New York’s Lower East Side to celebrate the end of production. After the hard-working team was appropriately intoxicated, extras casting director Jason Klorfein took things to the next level by displaying his unexpectedly impressive breakdancing skills.
We want to send a very special thank you to our talented cast and crew who did such an amazing job over the past five weeks, as well as to our friends, our donors and supporters on Kickstarter and everyone else who helped make this happen. We made a movie!