Julie Kendall talks to Chad Hartigan

Many of you remember actress Julie Kendall from her appearances on the podcast and
her contributions covering the Atlanta Film Festival for us.
Well,Julie and Adriana Martinez covered the festival again this year for us and we are thrilled to have them in the TRS family.
Here,Julie talks to director Chad Hartigan for his film "Morris in America".
I'll let Julie's work speak for itself!!!




Adriana Martinez then offers her thoughts in the written form..
The 40th annual Atlanta Film Festival closing night featured Morris from America

from Writer/director Chad Hartigan. Hartigan’s love for film began when he was a

kid, “messing around” with a camera and reenacting Mortal Kombat scenes using

ketchup packets for special effects.

True to the spirit of independent film making, his first film Luke and Brie Are on a

First Date was experiential. In his words “I was young and trying to figure things

out.” After proving to himself that he and his team could make a movie, they then

set out to prove to that they could make a “really great movie,” and the efforts paid

off with This is Martin Bonner, which won the 2013 Sundance Best of Audience

Award and the 2014 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award.

Hartigan is back on the independent film circuit with Morris from America,

bringing us a unique coming-of- age story. The movie does rely upon some of the

formulas of your usual coming-of- age story: conflict with parents, unrequited love,

road trip, experimentation, single parenthood; the unique angle to the story is

founded in the main character’s being an African American teenage boy finding

his place in a foreign country, Germany, where he struggles to adjust to not only

the typical growing pain of adolescence, but a difference in language, age, and

race. Morris is played by breakout star Markees Christmas. The father is played by

Craig Robinson, in his first dramatic role. The anchor to the story is the bond

between father and son, who in their own worlds are both facing the alienation of

cultural dislocation.