Recent Press and Praise

Aug 13, 2009

Interview on Leonard Lopate Show!

Hi friends,
There is a lot of news to report! I've posted recent press and praise coming off our fabulous screenings in LA and NYC as our qualifying Oscar run ends at the IFC Center in NYC tonight. You can find those on the blog. Also, here is an interview from the Leonard Lopate show:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2009/08/12
Next week we should have some of our Q&A's posted too!
Stay tuned!
Lee

1 comment:

  1. I just saw "smile till it hurts" and am very dissapointed by the way in which you chose to depict an organization that has crossed borders in many ways.While I am very aware that Up With People is not perfect, the films undertone went south for the same reason that today's T.V networks feed our current society's amusement with other people's misery. It was certainly not as objective as you claimed it to be in your interview.

    I am a proud Up With People alumni who recently went to my 10 year reunion. I wish you would have attended one of this reunions. If the organization had gone so wrong there would be no supporting alumni.

    The ideology of UWP was not as drastically changed as your film projects. The core of the program is still intact. To recognize our similarities as human beings across cultures one person at a time.

    There was a neglect in the film to speak of the hundreds of hours of community service that every cast performs in the communities visited. I was honored to perform in a woman's jail in Switzerland as well as in the rotary convention and the special olympics in Michigan. To stay with families where I had my own flat and with families where a child willingly gave up their bed for me to sleep on. I opened my suitcase to a host family so they could learn about my culture while I learned about theirs.

    I know for most of my fellow cast members the UWP experience transformed our lives in unimaginable ways.

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