Mariana Klaveno and Kevin Alejandro premiere NW film
  • May 27, 2015

Mariana Klaveno & Kevin Alejandro premiere NW film

Mariana and Kevin were interviewed on New Day NW yesterday. Also, our final screening of West of Redemption at the Seattle International Film Festival is today at 4:30 PM at the Harvard Exit.

Idealism Without Strings

(Right to Left) Mariana Klaveno, Cornelia Duryée, and Kevin Alejandro at West of Redemption’s World Premiere at Seattle International Film Festival

Idealism Without Strings

By Cat McCarrey

With its gated hedgerow and neat little garden nooks, Cornelia Duryée’s house feels like a fairy kingdom. Duryée, co-founder of Seattle Shakespeare Company and staple in the Seattle filmmaker scene, exuded joy when I met with her this weekend—a cheeriness at odds with her latest film, her third to premiere at SIFF, and the first she didn’t pen.

West of Redemption, which stars Billy Zane, centers around the imprisonment and beating of a man who happens to knock on the wrong farmhouse door. Produced by Duryée’s Kairos Production company, West of Redemption ends tomorrow night at SIFF.

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Hometown Heroes of SIFF: Cornelia Duryée’s 'West of Redemption'

Hometown Heroes of SIFF:
Cornelia Duryée’s 'West of Redemption'

By Katie Sauro

West of Redemption, a Washington Filmworks incentive production that wrapped principal photography in 2013, marks the third feature from Seattle’s Kairos Productions that has premiered as part of SIFF. The other two features were The Dark Horse and Camilla Dickinson.

"Seattle is my hometown, so premiering at SIFF again means the world to me. I love Seattle; I am a fourth-generation Seattleite, and hope to make as many movies as possible here," said Cornelia Duryée, the film’s director and founder/owner of Kairos Productions. Her partner in the company is Larry Estes. "Being given the gift of Washington Film-works’ grants for the last two features is a blessing that Larry and I deeply cherish—and it is our fondest wish and prayer that the film incentive grows and grows each year, so that more and more movies can be made locally."

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Women In Film - Featured Member: Cornelia Duryée

Women In Film - Featured Member:
Cornelia Duryée

By Crystal Lin Smithwick

Cornelia Duryée. Writer, director, producer. After having many careers, Cornelia is where she's meant to be and preparing to release her third feature film, West of Redemption, premiering at Seattle International Film Festival May 25, 2015.

Crystal Lin Smithwick: How did you get started as a screenwriter?
Cornelia Duryée: I was a dancer, actor, director, and playwright. In the late 90s, my Godmother, Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), gave me this stack of play scripts in old crumbly binders and said, “I wrote these in my twenties, and I want you to turn them into plays and movies.” When I asked her why, she told me, “You are the only living playwright that I trust.” So, I instantly dropped out of Seattle U., where I was in seminary, and went to Act One: Writing for Hollywood. Later I attended the first class of The Film School in Seattle. I had a wonderful time working with Stewart Stern, Tom Skerritt, Rick Stevenson, and Warren Etheridge. I wrote some scripts, workshopped them, and entered them in contests, some of which I won.

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World Premiere - West of Redemption Screening at SIFF
  • April 30, 2015

World Premiere - West of Redemption Screening at SIFF

Our latest film, West of Redemption will be screening twice during the Seattle International Film Festival. Come watch our world premiere on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th!

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Camilla Dickinson Release and NYC Event!

Camilla Dickinson Release and NYC Event!

On Thursday August 27th, Books of Wonder is thrilled to invite readers and movie lovers to join screenwriter-director Cornelia Duryée (Madeleine L'Engle's goddaughter) and co-producer Charlotte Jones Voiklis (Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter) for an informal chat as they talk, with some authority, about Madeleine L'Engle and her early novels, such as "Camilla", and illustrate their discussion with a screening of clips from CAMILLA DICKINSON, engage in Q & A, and sign DVDs. A hardcover edition of the book is your gift with purchase (limited to the first 20 customers who purchase the DVD or any of Madeleine L'Engle's hardcover books). We may even have a surprise guest or two from the cast!

Based on the book Camilla, by Madeleine L’Engle, Fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson (Adelaide Clemens) has led a sheltered life on the Upper East Side with her architect father (Cary Elwes) and beautiful, but fragile mother (Samantha Mathis).

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Random Media Acquires 'Camilla Dickinson' at 2015 Berlinale

Random Media Acquires 'Camilla Dickinson' at 2015 Berlinale

Los Angeles, CA – As the festivities come to a close in Berlin, Random Media has signed two new titles for release in Summer 2015.

Cornelia Duryée’s Camilla Dickinson, an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel, follows the daughter of a well-to-do family in 1948 Manhattan. Fifteen-year-old Camilla (Adelaide Clemens, The Great Gatsby, Rectify) leads a sheltered life in New York City until her parents’ marriage begins to fall apart. When Camilla meets her best friend’s rebellious brother Frank (Gregg Sulkin, Faking It) she finds a way to escape her troubles. As her relationship with Frank deepens, Camilla discovers a world outside of her own and begins to understand a little of what it means to grow up.

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Madeleine L'Engle Goes to the Movies

Madeleine L'Engle Goes to the Movies

By Jeffrey Overstreet

Cornelia Duryée's story sounds like something from a fairy tale.

"I got hit in the head with my godmother's magic wand, and she said, 'Hello, Corrie—this is what you're going to do for the rest of your life!' So I said, 'Yes, please!'"

To be more specific, Duryée's godmother—Madeleine L'Engle, author of science-fiction novels (including A Wrinkle in Time and her popular Time Quartet) and inspirational memoirs—bequeathed to her a remarkable gift: the rights to adapt twelve of her early stories into plays and movies. At the time, Duryée was in her third year of seminary; she promptly quit in order to attend film school instead.

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A moment with ... Carol Roscoe / actor

A moment with ... Carol Roscoe

By Gianni Truzzi

In the Seattle International Film Festival premiere of Cornelia Duryée's The Dark Horse, Seattle theater goers will recognize many faces, most prominently the film's lead, Carol Roscoe. The Seattle actor/director often is seen in plays at Intiman, Book-It Repertory and Seattle Children's Theatre.

Roscoe plays a ballet teacher returning to her parents' Orcas Island home, bridging family and crisis through a fiery Friesian horse. A locally produced effort, it also features veteran Seattle actors Seán Griffin and Kathryn Mesney.

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Profile/Larry Estes: Hollywood's Quiet 'Godfather' of the Offbeat Film

Profile/Larry Estes:
Hollywood's Quiet 'Godfather' of the Offbeat Film

By Bernard Weinraub

HOLLYWOOD— LARRY ESTES arrives for lunch at the trendy Melrose Avenue restaurant driving a distinctly untrendy 1988 Acura. No one's head turns when he enters. His table is hardly the best in the house.

But Mr. Estes, a low-key Georgian with a self-deprecating style and a faint smile that never quite vanishes, is one of the most influential, if unknown, players in town. The 38-year-old producer, a senior vice president of Columbia Tristar Home Video, has since 1987 financed nearly 60 films, most of them low budget ($1 million to $4 million). Some, particularly Sex, Lies, and Videotape, have become box-office hits. But Mr. Estes's true distinction has been in proving that thanks to the home-video market, a worthy film made at the right price can make a profit even if it never shows in a theater.

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