oh, sophia
cast
Diya - Lipica Shah
Lipica is a graduate of the Drama Department at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied with Stonestreet Studios and the Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Currently based in Manhattan, she thrives on collaborative work in all areas of the industry. Favorite past credits include the premieres of 167 Tongues, Dov and Ali and The Woman's Room on stage, and LURV, Shark Suit: The Musical and Dida Reema Anjana on screen. In her spare time, Lipica enjoys running, reading, cooking, doing crossword puzzles, and anything involving Nutella. Recently, Lipica finished filming her first feature, the indie comedy Super Mehra Brothers and cannot wait to begin work on Oh, Sophia!
Learn more at www.lipicashah.com
Jules - Angela Gulner
Angela Gulner, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, is a 2011 MFA Acting Candidate at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Theatre credits include The Great River Shakespeare Festival: Thaisa in Pericles (dir. Rick Barbour), Jessica understudy in The Merchant of Venice (dir. Paul Barnes); St. Olaf College Theater: Viola in Twelfth Night (dir. Gary Gisselman), Willa in The Aesodynamics of Accident (dir. Karen Peterson Wilson), Kate in The Taming of the Shrew (dir. Dona Werner Freeman) and 5 Guys Theatre: Miss Alice in Tiny Alice (dir. Kevin Meyer) and the Ensemble in Savage/Love (dir. Megan Hughes).
Sophia - Madeleine James
Madeleine James has trained at NYU, AADA (member, 2008 Academy Company), and RADA. NY theatre credits include Kernel of Sanity (Henry Street Settlement/New Federal Theatre, nominated for the Best Acting Ensemble Audelco Award), Cherie in Bus Stop (Lester Martin Theatre), Cassius in Julius Caesar (Hudson Shakespeare Co.), the Patient in 4.48 Psychosis (Gene Frankel Theatre) and the twice-extended production of Oh Those Beautiful Weimar Girls! (La Mama E.T.C./New Stage Theatre Co.). Film credits include Weary Sun (La Mancha Films), The Grass Is Greener (Glass Eye Pix) and Graveyard Ghost (Devilsangel Productions). Learn more at www.madeleinejames.com
Chris - Elijah Bridges
Elijah Bridges grew up in Northfield, Massachusetts where he performed in local theatre companies until moving to NYC to become a Graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy's Studio program. His recent credits include 'the Visitor' in Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Greenfield Community College Theatre), and just made his NYC debut with Endtimes Production's in Vignettes for the Apocalypse. Eli spends most of his time reading, auditioning, writing and covering songs to play all over the Island and makes frequent visits to the open mic at Café Vivaldi every Monday at 7pm. He is thrilled to be in Oh, Sophia and would like to thank the crew for bringing him aboard.
Teeny - Margaret Ying Drake
Margaret Ying Drake is an actress, belly dancer, singer, and model, based in NYC. Margaret studied theatre at Skidmore College, trained at Shakespeare & Co., and honed her voice-over skills at Voice of Success. She trains in belly dance with Reyna Alcala and dances with her troupe: Jewels of the Orient. Margaret has performed in various theatrical productions, films, commercials, and print work. She has shot films for NYU, Columbia, and the School of Visual Arts. Her professional work includes projects for Verizon, the Food Network, and Encore, and her most recent indie film, "Silver Sling," by director Tze Chun.
Walt - Jabari Brisport
Jabari Brisport is a graduate of Tisch School of the Arts. His recent films include Greetings from Bushwick (MarroMedia), Positive and Wednesdays (NYU Graduate Film Dept.). Web/Television credits include Guiding Light and theonion.com. Most recently, Jabari has been seen on stage in Big Man (Probity Theatre Company), Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and Saturday nights at the P.I.T. with Political Subversities.
oh, sophia
crew
Lina Suh - producer
Lina Suh was born in New York but moved to a suburb of Seoul, Korea at the age of 9. Writing stories and acting them out were her preferred pastime and at 11, she gathered friends to perform her first original skit. By her mid-teens, she had written and directed fifteen original works. Lina received her BFA in Dramatic Wrtiting with a minor in Producing at Tisch School of the Arts. She produced several senior-level films including Dida Reema Anjana, Halcyon Days (dir: Bornila Chatterjee), Father's Day (dir: Brian Rolling) and Vote 2008 PSAs (dir: Katheryn Warzak). Lina has lived in Cambodia, where she made a short documentary film Flow on Through, which was featured in a World Bank-sponsored Water and Sanitation DVD. Currently, Lina focuses on producing Oh, Sophia and perpetually searches for stories to tell next.
Bornila Chatterjee - writer/director
Bornila Chatterjee grew up in Calcutta, India, where she acted in plays produced by the Seagull Foundation for the Arts and the Red Curtain Theater Company, and trained in Bharatanatyam under Guru Kalamandalam Venkitt. In 2008 she graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film and Television. Her student film Dida Reema Anjana received the Russell Hexter Filmmaker Grant and premiered at the 2009 San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival. While interning at Mira Nair's Mirabai Films, Bornila began observing the rhythms and boundaries of this great cultural hub called New York City. They are the inspiration for her screenplay Oh, Sophia, which was a finalist for the 2009 Chris Columbus-Richard Vague Production Award. Bornila is an assistant at the documentary production company All Rise Films (Favela Rising, The Two Escobars) and collaborates with other Brooklyn artist on their film, photography and performance endeavors.
Gabriel Frye-Behar - cinematographer
Gabriel Frye-Behar is no newcomer to telling cross-cultural stories in the visual medium. His cinematic eye took him to Cuba and back, assisting in shooting Adio Kerida, a documentary by his anthropologist mother Ruth Behar. Gabriel also shot the follow-up short-film, in Israel for Ruth. Having graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in May 2008 with a BFA in Film and TV Production and a second Major in History, Gabriel has shot seven short films in a variety of formats- 35mm, Super 16mm, and 16mm- recently completed and screened his own senior thesis Clean Kill, has served as a crew member in the Camera, Grip and Electric departments on more than 20 shoots, and interned at Miramax in the Production and Development & Acquisitions departments. Presently, Gabriel is signed on to shoot two independent feature films in 2010, is developing his own screenplay about Latino immigrants across classes in the U.S.A, and hitting the Bushwick basketball courts whenever he gets a chance.
Nicole Teeny - production designer
Nicole Teeny is happy to be working again with Bornila and Lina. She art directed their last film Halcyon Days and has worked with them on a number of other short films at Tisch where she double majored in Dramatic Writing and Film and Television. Nicole has production designed and assisted on award-wining short films and national commercials and assisted on various features shot in New York. She looks forward to designing her first feature with the Suh/Chatterjee team. In addition to art direction, Nicole is also producing and directing an anthropological documentary feature film about an esoteric religious competition. She enjoys kayaking, the great outdoors, cats on the Internet and rugs. Nicole lives in Bushwick and is a certified diver.
K.C McLeod - assistant director
Since his graduation from the Film program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in December 2007, K.C. McLeod has kept busy - he interned in development at Overture Films, worked as an assistant to a producer on the Catherine Zeta Jones starrer The Rebound, assisted the writing team behind Rounders, Ocean’s 13 and The Girlfriend Experience and worked as the assistant to the director and the producer on the Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler starrer The Bounty Hunter. With his thesis film, The Snakehead finished, he plans on pursuing several different projects, including a feature adaptation of his thesis, a semi-improvised low-budget feature inspired by John Cassavetes’ Faces, and a short-film distribution venture. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York with his closest friends and collaborators.
Spencer McCormick - technologist
Stories are really fun. And they're important too! We use them to remind us who we are, where we've been and where we're going. They are the core of our cultural memory. Spencer's current obsession is to use technology to tell stories in novel ways. He has other projects too, like making this web site. To learn more, or to collaborate, visit him at www dot spencer mccormick dot com or give a hello@spencermccormick.com.
Eric Branting - sound (recording/mixing/design)
Eric Branting completed his B.A. in Music Technology at New York University this May. Eric freelances as a sound recordist, sound designer, and music producer. He has experience as a boom operator as well as in music production and engineering, ADR, voiceover, and location sound recording. An understanding of the techniques necessary to capture sound both on set and in the studio reinforce Eric's post-production expertise: his post-production knowledge allows him to anticipate the needs of a sound designer and save time and effort—after all, the more work done on-set the simpler the post-production process becomes.
