Production

Production

Production

The Assistant

Status

Completed

Type

Cinereach-Supported Production

Year

2019

Key Cast

Director

Kitty Green

Producers

Kitty Green, Scott Macaulay, James Schamus, P. Jennifer Dana, Ross Jacobson

About The Team

Kitty Green (Director, Writer, Producer, Co-Editor) is an award-winning Australian filmmaker. Her debut documentary feature, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, explored a provocative feminist movement in Ukraine. After making its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2013, the film screened at more than 50 film festivals internationally and won the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. Green's follow-up project, the documentary short "The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul," won the Short Film Jury Prize for nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. Her latest feature documentary, Casting JonBenet, was acquired as a Netflix Original, premiered at Sundance in 2017 and screened at the Berlinale before receiving the AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. Green was a 2017 Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow.

Scott Macaulay (Producer) is a film producer and president of the New York-based production company Forensic Films. His recent producing credits include Kitty Green's hybrid documentary Casting JonBenet; Elisabeth Subrin's dramatic feature A Woman, a Part; and Candice Breitz's art installation "Love Story," which premiered at the Venice Biennale. Macaulay's previous producing credits with producing partner and Forensic Films cofounder Robin O'Hara include Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas, Harmony Korine's Gummo (coproducer) and Julien Donkey-Boy, Alice Wu's Saving Face, Tom Noonan's Sundance Grand Jury Prizewinning What Happened Was… and The Wife, Jesse Peretz's The Ch¢teau, Bryan Barber's Idlewild, John Leguizamo's "Undefeated" and James Ponsoldt's debut feature, Off the Black. Forensic has also been involved as a co-producer in many European productions, including the Olivier Assayas films Demonlover and Clean. Macaulay is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Filmmaker magazine, a quarterly print publication and daily website published by IFP that recently celebrated its 25th year of publication. He has taught and lectured extensively on independent film production at the Sundance Documentary Film Program, the Venice Biennale College Cinema, CPH:DOX and the Dubai International Film Festival. Prior to his work in film, Macaulay was the performance curator and programming director of New York's experimental art space The Kitchen. In 1998 Macaulay and O'Hara won an Independent Spirit Award for their work in independent film. In 2018 Macaulay was given the Cinereach Producing Award.

James Schamus (Producer) is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm) and producer (Brokeback Mountain) as well as the former CEO of Focus Features (Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist). His feature directorial debut, Indignation, was an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel and starred Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon and Tracy Letts. The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance and Berlin film festivals before being released by Roadside Attractions. Schamus' New York-based production company, Symbolic Exchange, helped produce Kitty Green's acclaimed feature documentary Casting JonBenet, which made its world premiere at Sundance and launched on Netflix in 2017, as well as Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's A Prayer Before Dawn, which premiered at Cannes in 2017 and was released by A24 the following year. His recent projects include Rhys Ernst's Adam, starring Margaret Qualley; Noble Jones' The Tomorrow Man, starring John Lithgow and Blythe Danner; and Andrew Ahn's Driveways, starring Hong Chau and Brian Dennehy. Schamus is professor of professional practice at Columbia University's School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.

P. Jennifer Dana and Ross Jacobson (Producers) 3311 Productions was launched by founders Mark Roberts and Ross Jacobson with an eye toward developing and producing original content in film and television, working alongside both pedigreed and emerging filmmakers. P. Jennifer Dana heads film production for the company, which has produced a diverse slate of films including Brigsby Bear, starring Kyle Mooney and Mark Hamill, and Table 19, with Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson. 3311's upcoming slate includes The Violent Heart, written and directed by Kerem Sanga; Naked Singularity, written and directed by Chase Palmer; and Revolver, written by Kate Trefry with director Andrew Stanton attached.

About The Team

Kitty Green (Director, Writer, Producer, Co-Editor) is an award-winning Australian filmmaker. Her debut documentary feature, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, explored a provocative feminist movement in Ukraine. After making its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2013, the film screened at more than 50 film festivals internationally and won the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. Green's follow-up project, the documentary short "The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul," won the Short Film Jury Prize for nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. Her latest feature documentary, Casting JonBenet, was acquired as a Netflix Original, premiered at Sundance in 2017 and screened at the Berlinale before receiving the AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. Green was a 2017 Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow.

Scott Macaulay (Producer) is a film producer and president of the New York-based production company Forensic Films. His recent producing credits include Kitty Green's hybrid documentary Casting JonBenet; Elisabeth Subrin's dramatic feature A Woman, a Part; and Candice Breitz's art installation "Love Story," which premiered at the Venice Biennale. Macaulay's previous producing credits with producing partner and Forensic Films cofounder Robin O'Hara include Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas, Harmony Korine's Gummo (coproducer) and Julien Donkey-Boy, Alice Wu's Saving Face, Tom Noonan's Sundance Grand Jury Prizewinning What Happened Was… and The Wife, Jesse Peretz's The Ch¢teau, Bryan Barber's Idlewild, John Leguizamo's "Undefeated" and James Ponsoldt's debut feature, Off the Black. Forensic has also been involved as a co-producer in many European productions, including the Olivier Assayas films Demonlover and Clean. Macaulay is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Filmmaker magazine, a quarterly print publication and daily website published by IFP that recently celebrated its 25th year of publication. He has taught and lectured extensively on independent film production at the Sundance Documentary Film Program, the Venice Biennale College Cinema, CPH:DOX and the Dubai International Film Festival. Prior to his work in film, Macaulay was the performance curator and programming director of New York's experimental art space The Kitchen. In 1998 Macaulay and O'Hara won an Independent Spirit Award for their work in independent film. In 2018 Macaulay was given the Cinereach Producing Award.

James Schamus (Producer) is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm) and producer (Brokeback Mountain) as well as the former CEO of Focus Features (Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist). His feature directorial debut, Indignation, was an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel and starred Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon and Tracy Letts. The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance and Berlin film festivals before being released by Roadside Attractions. Schamus' New York-based production company, Symbolic Exchange, helped produce Kitty Green's acclaimed feature documentary Casting JonBenet, which made its world premiere at Sundance and launched on Netflix in 2017, as well as Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's A Prayer Before Dawn, which premiered at Cannes in 2017 and was released by A24 the following year. His recent projects include Rhys Ernst's Adam, starring Margaret Qualley; Noble Jones' The Tomorrow Man, starring John Lithgow and Blythe Danner; and Andrew Ahn's Driveways, starring Hong Chau and Brian Dennehy. Schamus is professor of professional practice at Columbia University's School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.

P. Jennifer Dana and Ross Jacobson (Producers) 3311 Productions was launched by founders Mark Roberts and Ross Jacobson with an eye toward developing and producing original content in film and television, working alongside both pedigreed and emerging filmmakers. P. Jennifer Dana heads film production for the company, which has produced a diverse slate of films including Brigsby Bear, starring Kyle Mooney and Mark Hamill, and Table 19, with Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson. 3311's upcoming slate includes The Violent Heart, written and directed by Kerem Sanga; Naked Singularity, written and directed by Chase Palmer; and Revolver, written by Kate Trefry with director Andrew Stanton attached.

PRess

Synopsis

The Assistant follows one day in the life of Jane, a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant's - making coffee, changing the paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, arranging travel, taking phone messages, onboarding a new hire. But as Jane follows her daily routine, she, and we, grow increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her work day, an accumulation of degradations against which Jane decides to take a stand, only to discover the true depth of the system into which she has entered.

Cinereach co-financed The Assistant. The Assistant is presented by 3311 Productions in association with JJ HoMEward Productions, Level Forward A Bellmer Pictures, Forensic Films and Symbolic Exchange production.

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