Victoria Clark's HARVEST Film Gets May 6 Release

The QUAD Cinema and Monterey Media are pleased to present the New York theatrical premiere of HARVEST (103 minutes) opening May 6, 2011. Written and directed by Marc Meyers (Approaching Union Square) HARVEST is currently showing in select cities where it has been held over by enthusiastic crowds.

Produced by Meyers and Jody Girgenti, both New York natives, HARVEST features an impressive ensemble cast including Academy Award and Tony nominees Robert Loggia (Scarface, Prizzi's Honor) and Barbara Barrie (Breaking Away, Private Benjamin), Victoria Clark (Tony Award for Light in the Piazza, now starring in Broadway's Sister Act), Arye Gross (Grey Gardens, Minority Report), Peter Friedman (The Savages, Breaking Upwards), and Jack T. Carpenter (I Love You Beth Cooper). HARVEST 's original score is by Grammy & Tony Winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and David Poe. The original acoustic album release of "Duncan Sheik & David Poe: Music From the Motion Picture HARVEST" will have its worldwide release on iTunes and other digital platforms on Tuesday, May 3rd.

Set on the Connecticut shore in Madison, where old money and working families have lived together for generations, Meyers weaves the lives of three generations of the Jewish-Italian Monopoli family who gather around their Patriarch Siv (Loggia), as they wait out what might be the last summer of his life. Although he has pancreatic cancer, it's hard to tell. The robust Siv has built a substantial world and a generous reputation. A decorated WWII veteran and a successful business owner, he's all-American and determined to die with a burst of life-affirming energy.

When his grandson, Josh (played by the winning Jack T. Carpenter) comes home to Madison from college, determined not to spend his "last" college summer at home, his mother, Anna (Victoria Clark) posts the warning: "Everything your grandfather does this summer will be for the last time."

Gradually, the continuity of sympathy and responsibility gains ground, touching Josh, as it dawns on him how precious his family is, despite (sometimes because of) their shortcomings.

There are painful secrets, suspicions, unfulfilled desires and feelings that go unexpressed. Siv's once vivacious wife, Yetta (in a vivid performance by Barbara Barrie), has slipped into a cantankerous dementia. The sibling rivalry of his Sandwich Generation children heats up, in part over Siv's will. And when Josh's own budding romance with Tina falls apart, Josh reaches out to his grandfather for the secret of how he stayed married and in love with the same woman for more than fifty years. Meyers refracts these stories in meaningful fragments with a delicious humor and pathos-think Chekhov meets Scorsese (with a pinch of Eric Rohmer).

The idea for HARVEST began when Meyers's own grandfather, a WWII veteran, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given only several months to live. "Instead of anticipating a move to a hospital where the sad details of death could be handled at arm's length," says Meyers, "our family decided to have him stay in his house in Connecticut where he raised his family, and allow him to enjoy his last summer and let his passing happen naturally."

HARVEST has been a crowd pleaser across a wide range of audiences throughout its festival run. Winner of The Best American Independent Film at the 2010 Cleveland International Film Festival, HARVEST went on to win a number of other awards and screen at dozens of international film festivals including: Sao Paulo, Cambridge (UK), Kansas, Denver, St. Louis, Sacramento, Heartland, Fort Lauderdale, Connecticut, Charlotte, among others.

HARVEST wraps itself around us like a family hug. In Meyers' timeless story he reminds us, "we all come of age, in our own stumbling yet loving ways, often again and again."

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski

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