LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (July 17) --The non-fiction feature film Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me has been named an Outstanding Documentary of 1999 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The AMPAS Documentary Screening Committee recommended the film for inclusion in the Academy/UCLA Outstanding Documentary film series. Asset Pictures, the film's production company, announced today that director Tessa Blake has accepted the invitation.
"Having been selected by a committee of experienced peers is a great honor," said Ms. Blake, "and I am thrilled to accept the invitation to appear in the screening series."
Viewers in Los Angeles and nationwide will soon have the opportunity to view the film. The academy screening of Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me is scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, March 13, 2001 at UCLA's 270-seat James Bridges Theater. In addition, the film's distributor, Castle Hill Productions, has completed negotiations with the Sundance Channel to begin airing the film to cable subscribers across the country in January, 2001.
The Academy recognition gives the film its first public exhibition in Los Angeles. "The current climate being what it is for documentaries, our theatrical release was relatively limited," explains producer Jason Lyon. "I expect the Academy/UCLA screening to be a great boost for the film, and I'm pleased to have it play in the city where I live and work."
Ms. Blake and Mr. Lyon are planning to attend the screening, and both will participate in a question-and-answer session afterward. "Q&A's," notes Ms. Blake, "have been one of the most rewarding aspects of the film's release, engaging with the audience while the experience is still fresh and visceral." Five Wives is a first feature for both writer-director Blake and producer Lyon.
About Five Wives
Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me opened in New York City on October 8, 1999. Released by Castle Hill, it has played in selected cities across the US since then. Described by the New York Times as "oddly charming, impressive (and) playful," Five Wives has gone on to many warm reviews. The film's official website contains an archive of coverage at http://www.fivewives.com/Reviews.html.
Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me is filmmaker Tessa Blake's portrait of an 88-year-old man with a trail of Texas Exes: her father, the Houston oil man, Hollywood playboy, hotshot lawyer and serial monogamist Tommy Blake. On an hilarious and intimate journey a daughter looks beyond myth, money, and society in seeking the truth of her father.
Set against the extravagance of Houston society, Five Wives examines a microcosm in which wives One and Five lunch together, wife Three comes for the holidays, and the current secretary has been around longer than all of them put together. Injected into this tight-knit circle of women is the younger Blake, film crew in tow, asking questions no one has dared pose until now. As the youngest daughter of a man who is more icon than father, Tessa searches for the truth beneath her family mythology and discovers that the only truth, finally, is her own.
About the Screening Series
For the past eighteen years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Academy foundation, in association with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, has presented a semi-monthly series of film programs featuring the outstanding documentaries of the previous year. According to Ellen Harrington, AMPAS Special Events and Exhibitions Coordinator, the series "grew out of the deep concern of the Academy's Documentary Committee over the relative lack of public exposure which is the fate of too many documentaries of genuine merit." The series runs twice a month from October to March. All screenings are held at UCLA's James Bridges Theater, and are free to the public.
CONTACT: Joe Messiah/LA
Contact: Jason Lyon
310/722-2393