October 08, 2009
The Pander Brothers’ award-winning feature film, “Selfless,” is scheduled to play the Cinema 21 for a week, beginning Friday, November 6, 2009. Directed by Jacob Pander and produced by Arnold from their own original screenplay, the neo-Portland thriller is set in the heart of the trendy Pearl District, where ambitious young architect Dylan Gray shares a luxury condo with his beautiful fiancé while calculating his next brilliant career move as a rising design star in the ‘green’ high rise movement. What Dylan doesn’t know is that his perfect existence is about to unravel – the result of foolishly angering a convicted identity thief, dressed as a businessman, in an airport terminal.
“Selfless” will be screen with “Radius,” the Pander Brothers’ first collaborative short, shot in 1986 at the end of the Cold War. The 7-minute film features Portland’s Burnside Bridge as a bold architectural abstraction as it opens and closes for a lethal-looking military vessel as it passes through what was once believed to be ground zero for a potential Soviet nuclear missile attack during the Cold War.
“Selfless’” theatrical debut caps an exciting year on the festival circuit. After winning Best Feature, Best Supporting Actor (Mo Gallini) and Best Screenplay at the 2008 BendFilm Festival, “Selfless” captured Best Cinematography (Kevin Fletcher) at the 2009 Albuquerque Film Festival and the award for Best Portland Narrative from the Seattle True Independent Film Festival. The film also received a coveted spot on the official ComicCon screening schedule last July.
In August, Lightning Entertainment acquired all domestic rights (including theatrical, TV, VOD, DVD and Internet), allowing the brothers to now focus on their next feature. The Santa Monica-based distribution company’s current release slate includes Jada Pinket Smith’s “The Human Contract,” the inspiring sports drama “Forever Strong,” the thriller “The Shortcut” from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, the coming-of-age comedy “Hey Hey, Its Esther Blueburger,” and the psychological thriller “Anamorph” starring Willem Dafoe. Official website: www.Lightning-Ent.com.
Starring Portland actors Joshua Rengert, Jen Hong and October Moore, along with Los Angeles screen veteran Mo Gallini, “Selfless” was shot by cinematographer Kevin Fletcher, a regional Emmy Award-winner. The film’s chilling score was composed by Keith Schreiner, known for his distinctively dark melodic soundscapes, and features vocals by Storm Large and songs by Portland’s Pink Martini and Dandy Warhols.
“Selfless” marks the feature film debut for the brothers, who have developed a cult following as award-winning comic book illustrators and creators of such cult classics as GRENDEL: Devil’s Legacy and Triple X. Dubbed “a power duo of creativity” by SOMA magazine, their long collaboration has included music videos for Palm Pictures, the concept for Gus Van Sant’s “Runaway” video for Deee-Lite, three graphics novels, ten comic series and 15 stand-alone issues – such as the blockbuster titles Batman: City of Light and Batman: Apocalypse Girl – for Marvel, DC Comics and Dark Horse.
Popular comic book author Matt Wagner spotted Arnold’s work in a Portland comic store and had independent comics company, Comico, sign the brothers to illustrate his GRENDEL: Devil’s Legacy series. Overnight, Jacob and Arnold went from “selling Christmas cards out of our shoulder bags” to flying back to the family homeland of Amsterdam to inspire their next project. The 12-issue series set a new sales record for an independent comic book, merited nominations for the coveted Eisner and Manning Awards, and scored the industry’s top fans-choice award for the duo.
Among other notable projects, the Pander Bros. created the Secret Broadcast comic book/companion audio CD tribute to pirate radio (which included electronica producers from throughout the U.S.); the first comic book designed to be read in any order: the Dark Horse mini-series, Exquisite Corpse; and their own epic Amsterdam thriller XXX, also for Dark Horse (which Mondo 2000 hailed as “a comix masterpiece”).
After studying 16mm filmmaking at the Northwest Film & Video Center and serving as an apprentice editor on the 35mm feature, “Shadow Play,” Jacob launched his career as a director in 1992, when Frontier Records hired him to shoot the music video, Light in You, for Dharma Bums, which received extensive play on MTV. The Panders went on to conceive, direct and produce Hitting Birth’s Drive On, winner of a Oregon Cascade Award, and several electronica videos featured on MTV’s Amp. Soon after, they were hired by Palm Pictures in New York to create a series of music videos, featuring such international electronic artists as Howie B., Fantastic Plastic Machine, Spacer, and DJ Miku in a narrative through-line to tell an audio-visual story. Wired magazine called their talent for raw storytelling “a knack for cinematic suspense.”
Their 1995 cult classic, “The Operation,” took first place at the New York Underground Film Festival, 2nd place at the Chicago Underground Film Festival, and honors at festivals in Berlin and Copenhagen. Film Threat noted that The Operation was “the most unusual, inspiring and crowd-pleasing piece” in the NY Underground Film Festival. Wired described it as “the kind of video that can rewire your neural net,” and Northwest Film & Video Festival judge Dan Ireland told Willamette Week: “It’s like a 16mm version of going over Jupiter in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey!”
The Pander Bros.’ last comics collaboration was DC’s Batman: City of Light – which, coincidentally, featured Batman pitted against a mad, ego-driven architect. Their most recent graphic novel was Accelerate from Image Comics last fall. This July, in collaboration with co-writer Jon Vankin (The Greatest Conspiracies of All Time), Arnold released his long awaited pop-culture energy drink inspired adventure, TASTY BULLET, also from Image Comics. Official website: www.TastyBullet.com
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Foggia Public Relations LLC
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A media kit and high res photos available upon request.
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