Here's the latest:

 

 

1) Bastard Son of William Shakespeare

 

On November 9, 2012, my script won SECOND PLACE at the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards. 

 

From Variety:

"This year’s judges were producers Debra Martin Chase and Mike Medavoy, and Betsy Sharkey, a Los Angeles Times Film Critic.

Past winners of the Goldwyn Awards include Allison Anders, Francis Ford Coppola, Pamela Gray, Colin Higgins, Eric Roth and the novelist Jonathan Kellerman. 'We are very proud of this award and the extraordinary body of work produced by our former winners,' said Samuel Goldwyn, Jr."

 

2) Infinite Cinderalla

 

JAC will be publishing three of my short plays, adapted from folk tales in my award winning Grimm series of plays.

 

 

3) Speaking of Baghdad and Sami's Cock
New short films

 

Speaking of Baghdad screened at the 2012 Baghdad International Film Festival at the University of Baghdad. The film was also showcased in the Department of Cinema and Television at the College of Arts at the University of Basra.

 

Speaking of Baghdad also screened last year at the Conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), University of Massachusetts-Boston, and at NYU. Sami's Cock won Best Drama at the Independent Film Quarterly Film & New Media Festival in NYC.

 

 

About the films: For the last several years, George corresponded with Iraqi writers in Baghdad. He adapted their work and directed and produced two short films taken from their writing starring an acclaimed, international cast: C.S. Lee (Dexter, Chuck), Rex Lee (Entourage), Silas Weir Mitchell (Grimm, Prison Break, My Name is Earl, Rat Race), Navid Negahban (Homeland, Charlie Wilson’s War, 24), Geoffrey Owens (The Cosby Show, Without a Trace, Medium), Keith Szarabajka (The Dark Knight, Argo), and Michael Urie (Ugly Betty, Partners). The films feature a sound design from Michael Kirchberger done at Skywalker Ranch.

 

In Speaking of Baghdad (28 min) and Sami's Cock (4 min), we hear the words from Baghdad's own writers as they tell us tales of life in Iraq after decades of war.  Sami's Cock, written by Saad Saeed, explains the entire Iraq war in a four minute story about a rooster!   

 

Their words. Our voices.  

 

The films have screened on television, at 10 festivals, 6 times with Amnesty International, at the US Air Force Academy, and at six colleges/ universities in three countries (the United States, Canada, and Iraq)..

 

Click here to see Sami's Cock

 

Click here to see Speaking of Baghdad

If you are interested in screening the films, please get in touch!  For more information, please check:

IMDB · YouTube · Facebook

 

FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS

Speaking of Baghdad airs on the international arts television channel Link TV and streams now on their website.

In addition:

* the Napa-Sonoma Film Festival (one of Moviemaker magazine Top 25 Film Festivals worth the fee)

* New York University

* University of Massachusetts-Boston (the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at UMass-Boston)

* University of California, Berkeley

* the Baghdad International Film Festival at the University of Baghdad

* the Department of Cinema and Television at the College of Arts at the University of Basra.

* the US Air Force Academy’s Conference on War, Literature, & the Arts

* the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Film Conference (SCMS)

* Amnesty International's Reel Awareness Film Festival at the National Film Board in Toronto

* Amnesty International’s Iraqi event at Columbia Law School in NYC

* Amesty International in Toronto screened the film for four of their groups, including one at York University

* Indiana State University (later this year)

 

 

Sami's Cock has played in ten festivals:

 

* Independent Film Quarterly Film & Media Festival (winner of BEST DRAMA)

* the Starz-Denver Film Festival (one of Moviemaker magazine Top 25 Film Festivals and Top 20 worth the fee)

* the Big Apple Film Festival (one of Moviemaker magazine Top 25 Coolest Film Festivals)

* the New Media Film Festival in San Francisco

* Northern Illinois University's Reality Bytes Film Festival

* the Miami Short Film Festival

* Media Art Works in San Francisco

* the Pacific Film Archive/ Berkeley Art Museum Film Festival

* University of California, Berkeley

* the Art Institute of Boston's Short Attention Span Digital Video Festival

 

Both films were also finalists and honorable mentions for the USA Film Festival.

 

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CAST & CREW

The acclaimed international cast includes Rex Lee (Entourage), Aamer Mahmood, Silas Weir Mitchell (Prison Break, Grimm, Rat Race), Navid Negahban (Homeland, 24), Geoffrey Owens (The Cosby Show), Keith Szarabajka (Argo, The Dark Knight), and Michael Urie (Ugly Betty, Partners).

Directed by George Larkin.  Produced by George Larkin & Erik Evans. Edited by Erik Evans and Stef Allen.  Directer of photography: Jesse Eisenhardt.  Production sound: Gentry Smith. Music by Emmy winner Michael Whalen. Sound design and mix at Skywalker sound by Roy Waldspurger and Michael Kirchberger (Adaptation, Lost In Translation, Chocolat).

Speaking of Baghdad was written by Saad Rahman, Saad Saeed, Basim Al-Hajar, and Majed Jarrar

Sami's Cock was written by Saad Saeed.

The cast includes(from clockwise from top left): Silas Weir Mitchell, C.S. Lee, Keith Szarabajka, Rex Lee, Navid Negahban and Michael Urie (Ugly Betty).

 

 

PRODUCTION AND POST-PRODUCTION PHOTOS