Eric Mittleman, the director/editor/producer with whom we've produced a number of Boing Boing Video projects for some years now, has an awesome feature film project in the works: "Mobbed Up," which includes Oscar-nominated actor Robert Loggia. When Eric showed me the rough draft of the trailer for this film, I freaked out. It looks amazing, and I'm sure the finished product will be fantastic. Eric and his collaborators are crowdfunding it on IndieGoGo. He explains:
"Mobbed Up" is a passion project from writer/director Harvey Keith who your readers may remember from his first film "Mondo New York." "Mobbed Up" is more than a mob movie, it's about social injustice. The movie uses the formation of the Mafia in 1902 Sicily and other mob related stories as parables in the contemporary story of a lawyer, played by Costas Mandylor, who decides to run for Senate. He's from Bath Beach Brooklyn, which is to the Mafia like the Vatican is to devote Catholics, and his Senate run catches the attention of a female reporter who finds herself in the position to make or break his campaign.
We're still casting the female reporter and while we're going through that process I wanted to raise a little more money so we can step up every aspect of production, using the Alexa instead of DSLRs, adding extra shoot days, better dollies, cranes, etc. So far we've shot our 1902 Sicily and 1960 Brooklyn scenes including ninety percent of Robert Loggia's scenes, who was amazing to work with on every level.
What this movie means to me is a return to producing scripted entertainment at a very high level with a very modest budget. Using a crowd funding platform, like IndieGoGo, to me to make a political movie is kind of like making movies by the people for the people. Which is kind of poetic. From this type of funding to the digital technologies we're using to make the movie we're really creating something that couldn't have existed like this a few years ago. I've also got some surprises when it comes to distribution, but those will have to wait until we finish the movie.
We love Eric's work, and we're excited to see this project becoming real. Robert Loggia is lucky to work with Eric!
Contribute to "Mobbed Up" on IndieGoGo.
More video from the project: "Robert Loggia meets "Mobbed Up" co-star Corbin Chambers for the first time…"
