PAINT IT BLACK THE MOVIE PREMIERES TODAY (LA+NY) !

It’s here!  The film based on my book PAINT IT BLACK is opening theatrically at long last in LA, at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills, and at the Village East Cinema in NYC this week! I will be doing the Q and A tonight In Los Angeles with former student Lindsay Miller, now at Popsugar, and the powerhouse director Amber Tamblyn will be appearing three times this week, doing Q and A tonight with Amy Schumer, tomorrow night, the 20th, with America Ferrara, and the 23rd with Ira Glass.

The reviews have been a dream come true. Peter Travers in Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Nylon, Village Voice/LA Weekly  have all weighed in and the news is GREAT.

To celebrate the film’s release, I’ve been doing an Instagram takeover at my publisher’ Little Brown, giving some looks behind the book and into my world, exploring my  muses, disappointments, writing life and inspiration.

It has been a huge week–I just got married too… It’s all good but what an avalanche.  More soon!

 

 

PAINT IT BLACK MOVIE Trailer goes LIVE

Pure dark drama, the gorgeous and intense Paint It Black Movie, directed by multi-talented Amber Tamblyn, cowritten by Tamblyn and Ed Dougherty and starring Alia Shawkat, Janet McTeer and Alfred Molina is coming to theaters in LA and New York on May 19. Mark your calendars, and take a peek here!  More news when I get it.

Paint It Black the Movie–Coming to the Big Screen!

After many ups and downs, and a successful tour of film festivals last winter, Paint It Black the Movie will at last be coming to a theater near you!  It was picked up for distribution by Imagination Worldwide.  after the Houston Film Festival, and it’s going to get the royal treatment, the whole nine yards–theatrical, streaming, you name it.

Though it seems like movies take less time to shoot than novels take to write, Paint It Black was a four-year novel, while Amber Tamblyn has been working almost ten on this project–first trying to get the rights from me (sorry!) then writing the script with her writing partner, Ed Daugherty, the long road to casting–like herding kittens.  This one was on, then that one fell out.  Her decision to direct the film herself.  Then the final casting, the securing the locations–all within ten minutes of my house–getting the money together, that girl is a powerhouse.  The shooting only took 20 days, but it looks like it was 40.

She’s expecting a baby this month, and I’m putting finishing touches on my Russian novel, due out in November–and we’re going to celebrate the release of the movie this April! Nice to have some good things to look forward to.

Said the female CEO of Imagination Worldwide, Michelle Mower: “IWW could not be more excited to be working with Amber Tamblyn on the release of her directorial debut feature Paint It Black. Amber’s approach to the Janet Fitch novel is both visually poetic and features strong female characters in complex relationships. It’s the perfect film for relaunching our company in 2017.”

It sure is poetic and gorgeous and a touch surrealistic… Hope you enjoy it!

 

Paint It Black– THE MOVIE PREMIERE

YES, it’s a movie! The world premiere of Paint It Black the Movie has been announced, and at last, I’m allowed to talk about it!  It will debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival, held June 1-9, our screening on June 3, with individual tickets going on sale May 10. What a long strange trip it’s been. Amber (Tamblyn, the director) and her writing partner Ed Dougherty reminded me that they’d started writing their screenplay in 2009.  And now it’s set to see the light of day–or at least the projector–seven years later.

What a tumble of changes it–and we–have been through since I heard that Amber Tamblyn wanted to option my novel.  The actress?  Yes, and she was poet too, something I didn’t know about her.  I just remembered Joan of Arcadia.

That first night we sat down at a tiki bar in L.A., we’d been brought together by a mutual friend, the poet Derrick Brown. Over Scorpions, talked about what a Paint It Black movie would look like. Although she’d never written a screenplay, I was impressed by her passion–I’m still impressed by it.  The book had been optioned before, a terrible experience about which the less said the better.

At the time, she was planning to star in it, and bringing someone else on to direct. But as time and the  winnowing and changes of casting and personnel went on, the learning-as-you-go, discovery and the desire to protect the vision she’d created, she did something she had never imagined doing. She decided to direct the movie instead of starring in it. She cast the amazing Alia Shawkat to play Josie Tyrell, and prepared for her directorial debut.

I was able to go to the shoot whenever, as it was often right around the corner, a very different experience than I’d had with White Oleander, a big deal Hollywood movie. On Paint it Black, they sent me the daily schedule, the where and the when, the pages they would be shooting, and I just went over when I wanted to take a break from writing– slipped in among the lights and sound guys and gaffers, got a set of headphones and quietly stood by the monitor and out of the way as I watched Amber and the actors and cinematographer make the magic happen.

She really rode that horse all the way to the end.  I saw her skill with the actors, her leadership ability with the crew. I heard about the agonies of casting, and the horrors of having to cut beautiful beautiful scenes in the editing room.  I got to see it with her and Ed in her parents’ homey apartment in Ocean Park.  Now the premiere.  As the novelist, I have the best job of all– all of the fun and  none of the headaches.  Can’t wait to see it appear in the world.

PAINT IT BLACK, Directed by Amber Tamblyn, Starring Alia Shaukat, Janet McTeer, Alfred Molina, Emily Rios, Rhys Wakefield and Nancy Kwan, Screening: June 3, 7:30 p.m. Bing Auditorium. Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. May 10th at http://www.filmindependent.org/la-film-festival

 

Paint It Black THE MOVIE News, Panel

I’ve just heard some terrific news about the release of Paint It Black–written and directed by the indefatigable and multitalented Amber Tamblyn,  We can’t announce the details for a few weeks , but yes, it’s going to debut, and sooner rather than later. Stay on the line.

Recently  heard Amber speak about her experiences adapting the book on a panel at the big Associated Writing Programs Convention held this year in Los Angeles. She was great on the panel–with Graham Moore (The imitation Game), Robert Jacobs (Chocolat, Shipping News), Nick Kazan (Reversal of Fortune, for one).  She holds her own and then some.  While  Paint it Black is her first adaptation,  she alone on the panel had gone on to direct the adapted screenplay. Her perspective brought unique dimension–she’s so clear and warm and insightful.

It was downright surreal to sit in the audience listening to her talk about her experiences adapting my book!  Like being in a Charlie Kaufman movie. This is not my beautiful life…

I know what it was like for me to see the film adapted–an entire cycle of emotion–but a whole other trip to hear about Amber’s experience.  She talked about her approach to the adaptation, “It was about preserving the emotion I felt when I first read it. I knew I couldn’t do everything, I would have to pick what I wanted to emphasize, and for me, it was the relationship between the two women.  It was mesmerizing.  And how to give you that same feeling.”

And she talked about the second ‘adaptation’ of the book as it moved from screenplay to film, something I hadn’t even thought about. “Often emotionally you can accomplish something in a gesture that needed a whole scene in the script,” she said. “And then editing  is like a third adaptation.” She talked about shooting a scene between Josie and the singer Lola Lola. “It was fantastic. But in the editing room, it just didn’t fit anymore.  I tried a million ways to get it in. The editor said, ‘you know, you’re just not going to be able to save it.’ I was sure I could, but eventually, he was right. It just didn’t work anywhere.”

I know exactly what that’s like. I remember writing Ingrid’s backstory in White Oleander–about six pages. I loved that piece, but wherever I put it in, it stopped the book cold.  In film that goes 100x, because it moves so fast, there’s no room for anything that stops it–a film like this is a freight train, you have to go with it.

You’ll see.

 

Paint It Black the Movie

More than just a gleam in Mama’s eye now.  It’s in Variety, and its official, the Paint It Black movie is shot and wrapping.  Amber Tamblyn, a true force of nature, who fell in love with the book back in 2007, wrote the screenplay, fought to get it made and in the end, directed it as her debut behind the camera. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) and Janet McTeer (OBE, Tony winner, 2 time Oscar Nominee) are starring,  along with Alfred Molina (“Call me Fred”) as Cal,  Nancy Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong!) as a refashioned Sofia, Emily Rios as Pen and Rhys Wakefield as Michael, plus Chris Palko (Cage) as Nick Nitro, and Mish Way from White Lung as Lola Lola.

It’s been an incredible journey–the book was optioned before, and with a screenplay that was truly–OMFG.  It took someone who loved it, fought for it, was passionate about it–to finally get this done.  And no one can be more passionate than Amber Tamblyn, believe me.  And now, these ultimately talented actors.  How she did it, god only knows.

Always a strange thing to walk in and see your book reimagined in physical reality.  I don’t care if a movie paints by the numbers or breaks out and does its own thing as long as its a work of art that adheres to its own logic, and man, this is that movie.