Ridgefield Playhouse Film Society Screens CASTING BY Tonight

Tonight, November 15th at 7:30pm, the Ridgefield Playhouse Film Society "Documentary Film Series" presents "Casting By," featured on HBO and distributed by Submarine Deluxe. The international film festival award-winning feature documentary, puts the spotlight on the casting director and takes us on a fast-paced journey through the last 50 years of Hollywood history spotlighting filmmaking's unsung hero - the casting director. Pioneers Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were casting director iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts helped to put an end to the old studio system and usher in the New Hollywood with movies like 'Midnight Cowboy', 'The Graduate', and 'Bonnie and Clyde'. They broke away from the traditional typecasting of Hollywood and brought a new kind of leading man and leading lady to the screen.

How, in fact, do all those wonderful men, women and children we see on the screen actually get there? "Casting By", produced and directed by Tom Donahue, executive produced by John Balis and edited by Jill Schweitzer, reveals that it is the contribution of casting directors, who trawl independent movies, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, college theater and summer stock to come up with the new faces constantly demanded by the star-making machinery of the cinema.

"Casting By" traces the evolution of the casting director beginning after WWII, citing the crucial role of the late Marion Dougherty, who moved from theater to television and eventually to Hollywood, and who perhaps more than anyone else professionalized the field. Interviews with major casting directors including Gretchen Rennell, Amanda Mackey, Lynn Stalmaster and Dougherty herself and many of the actors they discovered (including Dustin Hoffman, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Diane Lane, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Meryl Streep) give a rich sense of the work that goes on before the cameras start rolling.

At the Q&A following the screening, producer/director Tom Donohue, editor Jill Schweitzer, executive producer John Balis, and casting director Gretchen Rennell, will discuss the importance of the casting director in filmmaking. Casting By received awards at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2012 New York Film Festival and the 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival. The documentary also won the Audience Award at the 2013 Sebastapol Film Festival and is rapidly garnering Oscar buzz toward an Academy Award Nomination for "Best Feature Documentary."

For information and/or to purchase reserved tickets, go to the Ridgefield Playhouse, or online at ridgefieldplayhouse.org or by phone 203-438-5795. The Ridgefield Playhouse is located at 80 East Ridge Ave., Ridgefield, CT. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7.50 for seniors, and $5 for students.

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