When Filmmaker featured the startup film collective Omnes Films in our 2021 25 New Faces list, the L.A. outfit’s first two microbudget features — Jonathan Davies’ Topology of Sirens and Tyler Taormina’s Ham on Rye — had both premiered at festivals and received U.S. releases from Factory 25, its members had produced shorts and music videos, and new features were in the works. One of the few companies or collectives to land on our list over its history, Omnes impressed us with not only the quality of the films but the ambition — and optimism — evinced by a group […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 21, 2024Whether the sprawling fantasia that is Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point proves heartwarmingly reflective or personally destabilizing in its near-ethnographic study of American holiday ritual will depend, largely, on the composition and size of your own Xmas memories. It’s a strength of the film, however, that Taormina’s expansive canvas allows for — and incorporates — the whole range of emotions that the theater of Christmas can produce, from the giddiness of an overstimulated child, stomach groaning from too much pumpkin pie, gazing at all those wrapped presents, to the wearied anxiety of an adult realizing that the holiday […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 20, 2024Today we’re sharing the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for No Sleep Till, the feature debut from French-American filmmaker Alexandra Simpson. So far, $3,735 has been raised by 21 backers toward a flexible $25,000 goal, with 29 days remaining to secure funds through the campaign. Producing the film is Ham on Rye and Happer’s Comet director Tyler Taormina, a member of the filmmaking collective Omnes Films, which appeared on our 25 New Faces of Film list in 2021. Also on board in Zurich-based producer Michael Graf, who produced the Sundance ’23 short White Ant. Here’s a general synopsis and pitch of No […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 4, 2023My favorite film of the Berlinale was Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Ashley McKenzie’s ambitious and otherworldly fantasia about a “queer friendship romance” between a suicidal young woman and a Chinese immigrant she meets while hospitalized. Inspired by two teenagers she befriended during the casting of her previous feature, Werewolf (2016), McKenzie first sketched out the central character, Star (Sarah Walker), whose everyday life is mediated by endless negotiations with social workers, doctors, guardians, landlords and the various bureaucracies that employ them. Star is aging out of child protective services and has been deemed unfit to live independently, so as […]
by Darren Hughes on Mar 22, 2022A bizarre sacrificial rite of passage for a suburban neighborhood’s teen population; an inquisitive woman discovering a portal to the past via her late aunt’s hurdy-gurdy; an awkward businessman entering the wrong hotel room and stepping into the crosshairs of quarreling lovers—these are but three stories in the recent cinematic output of Omnes Films, a Los Angeles-based collective of filmmakers. Making their presence known with the world premiere of Tyler Taormina’s debut feature, Ham on Rye, at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in early 2019 (and its international premiere later that summer at the Locarno Film Festival), Omnes has […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 11, 2021We’re pleased to share the exclusive trailer premiere for Tyler Taormina’s Ham on Rye, which will be released virtually on October 23rd in 20+ theaters nationwide. An unorthodox teen coming-of-age movie with an increasingly sinister twist whose details are best left unspoiled, Taormina’s debut feature premiered at last year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival before making its international premiere at Locarno. DP and co-producer Carson Lund wrote an essay for us last year about the film’s microbudget production, and specifically four lessons learned from the process of making Ham on Rye, which deployed over 100 cast members on a number of outdoor locations with […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Sep 23, 2020