Richard Neely and Michael Andrunas, of Andrunas & Neely International Film Brokers, announced that their five-year old partnership will be re-focusing its efforts and will be moving into feature film production under a new banner, Andrunas & Neely Picture Company.
Taking their lead in film production from company's like US-based Strand Releasing and London's Dangerous to Know, Andrunas and Neely believe that their operation will be the first US-based company exclusively focusing on the production of gay and lesbian films. "It's our intention, like our predecessors, to fill the gap in the production and distribution of high quality, cast-driven gay and lesbian films," explained Neely who is representing the company in Berlin. "This year's Sundance proved to be the point that there is a need and interest for these films, and we believe that our focus will prove successful on screens worldwide."
Kicking off their slate of productions for 1996 are Paul Bartel's Modern Marriage, a big-screen gay/straight sex comedy in the spirit of the popular TV sitcom Friends, Collin Curtis' feature film debut Wavemaker, telling the romantic coming of age story of a college swimmer who discovers that his love for a team mate could sink his Olympic dreams, and The Beauty Queen, about a beauty who uses her fame to crusade against homosexuals.
Christian De Schutter
