Lisa Cholodenko's High Art is a glimpse at romance and resurrection at the margins of the New York art world. The film stars Radha Mitchell (Love and Other Catastrophes) as an ambitious 24-year-old stalled in a junior staff position at Frame, a prestigious photography journal. Syd falls through the looking glass when she investigates a leaky set of pipes and meets her upstairs neighbor, photographer Lucy Berliner, whose disappearance from the art scene years earlier is a matter of some scandal. Lucy's hooked on heroin, but she's not too far gone to be charmed by Syd's earnest deconstruction of her work. An affair develops between them, a love that's threatened by Frame's plans to relaunch Lucy's career with a special issue. "This isn't meant to be a coming-out story," says Cholodenko. "Syd happens to fall in love with Lucy, and I think a lot of Lucy's allure comes from the power of her stature. And for Lucy, Syd's a catalyst for change."

Cholodenko spent the early '90s working on studio features as an editor before entering the MFA film program at Columbia University in 1992. Cholodenko first met High Art producer Dolly Hall (All Over Me) when she showed up to help grip Hall's solo producing debut, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. Hall partnered with New York Avid-house Post 391 proprietor Jeff Levy-Hinte to assemble equity investors and says she pared the budget to keep the shoot under $1 million. Also on the producing team is Susan Stover, whose previous film, The Sticky Fingers of Time, recently premiered at Venice.

High Art shot in New York for five weeks beginning June 18. Cholodenko signed JoJo Whilden to make the photographs featured in the film. They also solicited unknowns to submit slides and chose twelve to showcase on poster-size mock-up covers of Frame in the magazine's offices. High Art should be done by January; all rights are available.

Cast: Radha Mitchell, Ally Sheedy, Gabriel Mann, Patricia Clarkson, Anh Duong, Bill Sage, David Thornton. Crew: Producers, Dolly Hall, Jeff Levy-Hinte, Susan Stover; Associate Producer, Lori E. Seid; Screenwriter/Director, Lisa Cholodenko; Director of Photography, Tami Reiker; Production Designer, Bernhard Blythe; Gaffer, Steven Ramsey; Editor, Amy Duddleston. Contact: Dolly Hall, dollface inc., 112 Charlton St,#4n, New York, NY 10014. Tel:(212) 645-8944, Fax: (212) 929-4107.

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