EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR DIGITAL DEPARTURES

LISA MARIE RUSSO has been appointed Executive Producer for Digital Departures, an ambitious plan which will produce three feature-length films in the Northwest within the next 18 months.

North West Vision, together with its partners the Liverpool Culture Company, the UK Film Council and the BBC, invited writers, producers and directors from across the Northwest to get involved in the ground-breaking Digital Departures project, with each film guaranteed a cash budget of £250,000,
The deadline for submissions to the innovative project was on Friday May 11, with Lisa Marie now joining with a team of industry professionals to narrow down the 151 entries to a short list of 25 production teams.

“It’s thrilling to be in on a project right from the start, and to be part of an initiative where we can throw out the filmmaking rule book and introduce new and exciting working methods,” says Lisa Marie, who will have ultimate responsibility for executive producing the three winning feature films.

“With micro budget production the budget really does dictate the aesthetic. It can be revolutionary because the restrictions force people to be creative within a certain space,” she adds.

Guided throughout by experienced industry professionals, each of the three Digital Departures films will be developed, shot and post-produced in Liverpool and will premiere in the city in the autumn of 2008, during the capital of Culture celebrations. The films will then be distributed nationally and internationally across a variety of digital platforms including the UK’s rapidly-expanding Digital Screen Network. The BBC is taking UK broadcast TV rights.
Raised in America, Lisa Marie is currently living in London, but will be based in the Northwest during production. “I look forward to experiencing Northern humour and hospitality,” she says.

Lisa Marie is no stranger to the Northwest, having spent six months studying at Manchester University as a student. More recently, her filming work has seen here spending much of her time in the region over the last three years.
“I started my career in public TV in America,” she says. “I was a documentary director and I ran an independent film series for TV, then someone asked me to produce their micro-budget film about four people trapped in a nuclear fallout bunker. It was a case of everyone working for free, and just getting on and doing it – and I loved it! That’s when I got the taste for feature films.”
In the mid-90s Lisa Marie moved to London to be with her now husband, the director Marc Munden (who recently directed Mark of Cain for Channel 4 and together with Lisa Marie created Shiny Shin Bright New Hole In My Heart for the BBC.)

As a producer, Lisa Marie’s feature film credits include Brothers Of The Head, a Gothic tale of a rock producer who discovers conjoined twin brothers and turns them into a pre-punk act. The film premiered in Toronto Film Festival and opened Panorama section of Berlin Film Festival in 2006 and won the Michael Powell Award at Edinburgh.

In TV Drama, Lisa Marie conceived the improv drama Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole In My Heart about a shopping addict. Broadcast in the summer of 2006 for BBC Films, it was produced with Ruth Caleb and stared Sally Hawkins, Steven MackIntosh and Daniela Nardini.

Lisa Marie directed two documentaries for the C4 series Strictly Dancing in 1996, including one film about Raqs Sharqi belly dancers in Manchester. She is a member of BAFTA and ACE, a European Producers Network, and is a Governor of the London Film School. She was also was Head of Drama Development at Blast! Films 2001-02.

“I was attracted to Digital Departures because it was a chance to get back to my roots,” says Lisa Marie. “Do-it-yourself filmmaking is relatively new to the UK and people are generally becoming very supportive of other people’s efforts.

“There is a wave of optimism in the film arts at the moment – anything seems possible and it is the perfect time to launch such a special initiative as Digital Departures.”