The Polish brothers
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The Polish Brothers are two filmmakers named Mark and Michael Polish. They began their film career with the 1999 Sundance debut of their first feature, Twin Falls Idaho. The identical twin siblings wrote, directed and starred in the tale of conjoined twins. Sony Pictures Classics bought the rights for theatrical distribution of the film. Janet Maslin of the New York Times said “Twin Falls Idaho has style, gravity and originality to spare.”
In 2000, the Polish Brothers followed up Twin Falls with another independent film, Jackpot. The story of a deluded karaoke singer (Jonathan Gries) on a nowhere tour of American dive-bars, would go on to win the 2001 Independent Spirit Award’s John Cassavete’s Best Independent Film Award, and the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival’s New American Cinema Award. The film explored the other 45 minutes of fame, as opposed to Warhol’s glamorized 15. Again distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics, Jackpot cemented the Polish Brothers as key-figures in the independent film world, a real pair of working class filmmakers.
In 2002, the Polish Brothers were offered several opportunities to go mainstream as several Hollywood studio pictures were sent their way. Instead, the Polish Brothers began to put together their most ambitious independent film to date: Northfork. When financing collapsed days before principal photography, the twin filmmakers signed their house to creditors, and paid for their movie with personal credit cards. Starring James Woods and Nick Nolte, Northfork was chosen as an early selection by the Sundance Film Festival, and when the movie premiered at Sundance in 2003, Roger Ebert called it “a masterpiece”.
In 2005 the Polish Brothers along with producing partner Jonathan Sheldon wrote and released the Declaration of Independent Filmmaking (Harcourt/Brace). The book, a how-to guide for first-time, do-it-yourself filmmakers, follows in chronological order the filmmaking process, and gives firsthand accounts of the Polish Brothers’ travails in making their independent films. The Library Journal said the Polish Brothers “write in a way that illuminates the details more clearly than most technical scribes.”
In 2006, The Polish Brothers would team with Warner Independent for their forth film, The Astronaut Farmer. Keeping with their uncanny brand of filmmaking, the Astronaut Farmer was another highly original screenplay, this time about a former NASA astronaut, Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), who has been obsessively building the rocket of his dreams in his barn. With strong early buzz, Warner Brothers moved The Astronaut Farmer from its indie wing, and released it wide throughout North America in 2007. Critics noticed the strong style of filmmaking, and Ebert and Ropert gave it two thumbs up. AO Scott of NY Times wrote, “There is a thin line separating visionaries from fools, and Billy Bob Thornton walks it adroitly in ‘The Astronaut Farmer,’ a disarmingly sincere follow-your-dreams fable from Michael and Mark Polish.”
At present, the twin filmmakers from El Centro, California, are shooting two original and entirely separate independent films back-to-back, just days apart while launching their new production company, Prohibition Pictures along with partners Ken Johnson, Janet DuBois , and Jonathan Sheldon. The Polish Brother’s fifth film, Manure (with Billy Bob Thornton and [Tea Leoni]]) begins shooting May 27th,2008, and the Polish Brothers’ sixth film, Stay Cool (with Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Chevy Chase, Sean Astin, Jon Cryer) will follow six weeks later, at the front of July, 2008. Both Manure and Stay Cool are financed with private equity, and both are in preproduction in Santa Clarita, California.
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http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117986250.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i0f532682e1fd239ce2966fe389f03187
http://www.variety.com/profiles/people/main/43501/Michael+Polish.html?dataSet=1&query=michael+polish
