Brandon Harris Wraps On Sophomore Feature ‘A Fresh Hell’
EXCLUSIVE: Brandon Harris, a filmmaker and executive who co-founded production company I’d Watch That with Judas and the Black Messiah helmer Shaka King, has wrapped production on his sophomore feature, A Fresh Hell, in which he also stars.
Hailing from Marginal Mediaworks, in association with Forensic Films and The Group Entertainment, the project is described as a Los Angeles picaresque centered on a once-prominent dirtbag leftist podcaster who struggles to break into comedy after seeing his co-hosts get canceled or embrace the burgeoning New Right. He loses his home to the L.A. fires and his sanity to the many by-products of fame, as he bounces from the bedrooms, couches, and tents of various friends, frenemies, and exes, eventually finding himself at a Malibu health center where perhaps something more sinister than bug smoothies is going on.
The film co-stars director-actor multi-hyphenates including Andre Hyland (The 4th), Annapurna Sriram (Fucktoys), and Jim Cummings (Thunder Road) alongside Evan Louison, who co-wrote the picture with Harris. Rounding out the cast are Arie Thompson (Keeping Up with the Joneses), Betsy Holt (Jules of Light and Dark), David Call (Tiny Furniture), Frank Mosley (Upstream Color), Leonora Pitts (For All Mankind), and Will Janowitz (The Sopranos).
Harris produced the indie alongside Jen West and Max Mooney. Exec producers include Sanjay M. Sharma and Milan Chakraborty of Marginal MediaWorks (She Taught Love), Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films (What Happened Was…), and Gill Holland of The Group Entertainment (Hurricane Streets).
“We’re longtime fans of Brandon and jumped at the opportunity to help support this timely, culturally urgent, and provocative indie feature,” said Marginal founder & CEO Sharma. “Brandon is an aficionado of subcultures and has crafted something in the tradition of John Cassavetes or Lars von Trier, mixed with the modern propulsion, wit, and bite of Ruben Östlund. The entire ensemble cast, crew, and wider producing team that he and his lead producers Jen and Max have put together is first class, so we were excited to lend our support.”
Said Harris, “I first got to know so many of our team in earlier facets of my career and it’s been remarkable to bring them together on this highly unusual and timely film. Among our producers are people that employed me fresh out of film school and people I taught while adjuncting in the same film program, along with friends that I first encountered as a journalist and programmer, or in the case of our fantastic partners at Marginal, while I was an executive at Amazon.”
Formerly a Development Executive for Amazon Studios, where he oversaw productions such as Master and The Voyeurs and acquisitions such as Blow the Man Down and Time, Harris made his feature directorial debut with the 2012 drama Red Legs and also previously penned the book Making Rent in Bed-Stuy. He is represented by André Des Rochers of Grandson Des Rochers, Derrick Eppich of Empirical Evidence, and Matt McGowan of Francis Goldin Agency.
Marginal is also repped by André Des Rochers.
