Denver's star rises

Filmmaker puts her city in the movies

Erika Gonzalez, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Filmmaker Donna Dewey believes the Mile High City was just made for the multiplex. Her first Denver-based feature film, Looking for Sunday, premiered at the Starz Denver Film Festival last year.

Her sophomore outing, the quirky comedy Skills Like This, was also shot entirely in the Denver-area and will have its world premiere next week at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Here's an insider's look at the movie, which Dewey co-produced.

Back story

Dewey learned about Skills Like This through Los Angeles producer and manager Paul Aaron, who was representing her son Brian Phelan (an up-and-coming actor). One of Aaron's other clients, Spencer Berger, penned the script with friend and fellow actor Gabriel Tigerman. Although Dewey thought the story read like a series of improvised skits (perhaps owing to the fact that Berger and Tigerman were in a sketch-comedy group) she saw potential and forwarded the script to local commercial director Monty Miranda.

"I remember I got home late and looked at the screenplay on the computer and I thought, 'I'll read it for a second,' and I finished it!" said Miranda, who directed all of the Hickenlooper-for-Mayor commercials during the 2003 election. "I couldn't put it down."

Plot

• Max Solomon always dreamed of being a great writer, but after conceiving a particularly poorly-received play, he realizes that a life of crime might be his true calling.

Edited out

• Mayor John Hickenlooper had a cameo in the movie, playing a poor sap who gets a parking ticket and then is run down by a bank robber making his getaway. His footage, however, ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Cast

• MAX An afro-sporting, down-on-his- luck loser......Spencer Berger

• TOMMY and DAVE (Max's best buds)......Brian Phelan

   Gabriel Tigerman

• THE ENERGETIC, OSCAR-WINNING PRODUCER...... Donna Dewey

• THE FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR......Monty Miranda

• THE LEAD INVESTOR......Greg "Freddy" Camalier

• THE OUT-OF-TOWN PRODUCER......Tim Gray

• EDITOR AND SUPPORTIVE BUSINESS PARTNER...... Rock Obenchain

• THE GUARDIAN ANGEL* ......Peter Berg*Hollywood Director/Actor Who Falls In Love With The Film And Provides Office And Editing Space In L.A.

Setting

• Denver - or any similarly hip urban area. Look for: Union Station, LoDo, Fairmount Academy, Arvada's 12 Volt Tavern, Pagliacci (which becomes Rinaldi's on screen) and Senor Burritos, which is played by a very convincing upholstery shop. "We converted it and while we were shooting people showed up for lunch and we had to turn them away," laughed Dewey.

Ending

• Unresolved

But early signs point to a positive result. Skills Like This is one of only eight films chosen to screen in competition at South by Southwest. Dewey has also drafted high-profile sales agent John Sloss (Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me, The Station Agent) to secure a distribution deal.

gonzaleze@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5350