'Bronx Paradise': A Back Stage Success Story
Last week, the New York Daily News featured a story about Bronx Paradise, a new feature film from writer/actor Wayne Gurman and director Bill Lappe that screened a recent "preview" for a small audience of Bronx residents.
From the Daily News story by Patrice O'Shaughnessy:
It took five weeks to film and looks as professional as any theatrical movie. There are more than 100 people in the cast, from neighborhood denizens to recognizable faces from major films...
What the Daily News article didn't mention is that Gurman cast Bronx Paradise (as well as Bottom Feeder, the short film that served as a test run for the feature) through casting notices in Back Stage.
Bronx Paradise was shot about a year ago on location in the Bronx, and tells a story loosely based on Gurman's real life. In order to find the right actors to populate his true-life film, Gurman placed casting notices in Back Stage -- where he found actor John Palumbo, who was also featured in a recent "Who Got the Part?" story in Back Stage for his roles in both Bottom Feeder and Bronx Paradise.
"Wayne did it all on his own," Palumbo says. "He put up his own money for the short and the feature, which is something I respect. A lot of people talk and say they're gonna do things, but he actually went and did it. He had the dream, he had the vision, and in this business it's very hard, but he made his own work. He drew from what he knew, and told his life story."
"I'm a big fan of Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese -- old school stuff," Gurman says of his inspirations for writing his first film. "I wanted to make a movie that would be entertaining to watch, and that's it. I didn't wanna make a local gangster movie, because they usually bore the hell out of me. So it's very raw and in-your-face, but it's basically my life story."
Today, Gurman continues to run test screenings of the film, and is planning a NYC premiere in the fall. After that, he plans to take the film to festivals while he seeks distribution.
Gurman was once a cocaine dealer and a bookie, surrounded by real-life characters most of us only see in movies. He used his past experiences as inspiration for his first film, but he still remembers how it all got started once he decided to change direction and pursue a career on screen: "Back Stage is great, because that's how I got cast, when I did 70 films in my first four years of acting. That's all I did. I'm talking about short films, independent films, student films, everything -- all from Back Stage. So that pretty much started me."
Read more about John Palumbo and Wayne Gurman here, and read the full New York Daily News Story here.
Visit the Bronx Paradise website at www.bronxparadise.com, and watch the trailer for the film here.
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