Jody Girgenti (C'98) approaches a hit film

What do you get when you mix a sex addicts, a tourist, an immigrant and a psychic?

You get a new Penn alum film.

Film Producer and founder of Ibid Filmworks, Jody Girgenti (C'98) has made the festival rounds with her newly produced award winning film called Approaching Union Square.

The film is a collage of eleven tales capturing thirty-something New Yorkers struggling to find love and connection in the big city. Among the elegantly drawn characters whose lives briefly intersect on a New York City bus are a sex addict, a tourist, an Italian immigrant, and a woman newly awakened to her own psychic powers who senses imminent tragedy.

Some great quotes about the film:
Variety says, “thought-provoking” and “touches with skilled insight.”
A “startlingly accomplished debut … smart, confessional, rueful, funny and sad,” writes the Montreal Gazette.

Stay tuned for this film's TV premiere on the Sundance Channel in 2008!

Click here to check out the trailer

Click here for more info about the film, the festival listings and awards it has racked up so far!

Click here to learn more about Jody's beginnings

Click here to check out other Penn film producers

Click to see what other 1998 Penn grads are up to


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Ryan Jaffe (C'96) pens The Rocker

Ryan Jaffe's (C'96) script for The Rocker has just finished filming.

Per Ryan, "The Rocker stars Rainn Wilson, Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, Jason Sudekis, Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch, Emma Stone, Josh Gad, and Teddy Geiger. It's the story of a drummer that gets fired from a band just before they become really famous and earns a second shot at rock stardom twenty years later when he hooks up with his teenage nephew's band. "

Per Variety, Ryan is currently writing Don't Lean on Me, a film which "tells the story of an assistant high school gym teacher with no interest in education who's forced into his worst nightmare -- a promotion to high school principal." Great concept!


Aspiring Penn undergrads and alumni writers, check this out...

How did this all happen for Ryan?

Per Ryan, "I wrote a script called The High Road, which led to a manager and then agent at Endeavor. Debbie Liebling at Fox liked the script and took a general meeting, where I pitched The Rocker. She liked it, asked for a synopsis, and then gave me a two script deal. It's not quite that simple, but that's the nutshell.

Until I sold the pitch to Fox I worked first as an assistant at Industry Entertainment for three years after graduation, then worked as a script reader, then a web producer, which took me to San Francisco for a year. While there I began taking fiction workshops at Berkeley and had a big breakthrough in terms of building confidence. I then moved back to L.A. to work in television, but my passion was always film and I ended up writing a couple features, one of which was The High Road (based on a short story I wrote while in San Francisco). I never saw the short story as a potential film, but was encouraged to write something that I didn't think would necessarily sell, but rather demonstrated an original, compelling voice. The script still hasn't sold but it's responsible for just about every opportunity I've ever had."

I bet he didn't write these scripts in Starbucks...

Congratulations, Ryan!

READ MORE - Ryan Jaffe (C'96) pens The Rocker