Humpday

I just wanted to share some good news about an Atlanta Film Festival alumna filmmaker, Lynn Shelton, who screened her second feature film, My Effortless Brilliance, at our festival last year (2008). Lynn's new film, Humpday, was accepted into Sundance this year and has turned out to be one of the festival's hot films. The film was bought by Magnolia! Go Lynn!



Here are a couple of blog reviews/interviews with Lynn about Humpday:



From IFC Interview: Lynn Shelton on "Humpday" Sunday, January 18, 2009 | 8:24 AM By Alison Willmore

If there were a prize for most outrageous premise at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Lynn Shelton's "Humpday" would be ahead of the pack. The film follows Ben ("The Puffy Chair"'s Mark Duplass) and Andrew ("The Blair Witch Project"'s Joshua Leonard), two hetero friends who on a drunken night out come up with a plan to shoot themselves having sex with each other as a submission to their local alt-weekly's annual amateur porn festival -- it's art, you see, and neither is willing to be the one to back down when sobered up the next day. For now, though, "Humpday" will have to settle for being Sundance's early buzz film, its mix of squirmingly uncomfortable comedy, painfully realistic dialogue and bittersweet exploration of the ins and outs of male friendship and adult relationships winning the love of audiences and potential distributors alike. I sat down with the Seattle-based Shelton, fresh off a meeting with one of the latter, to talk about homemade porn and best bromance.
(read more)

From Spout Blog HUMPDAY: Interview with Lynn Shelton
by Karina Longworth

We’re almost 48 hours into the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and Humpday seems to be the biggest break-out hit thus far — and according to Mike Jones at Variety, it could very well soon become the first narrative film to sell during the duration of this year’s festival. Days before the film had its hugely successful Friday afternoon premiere, we published one of our preview interviews with director Lynn Shelton. Last night, post-unveiling, I caught up with Shelton to talk about working like Mike Leigh, her cinematic interest in dudes, and why she’s glad her first two films didn’t premiere at Sundance.
(read more)

Click here to read Karina's review of Humpday


(PS: My current profile photo was taken by Lynn Shelton at the Indie Memphis Film Festival in October 2008)