The Responsibility Project: TONY

The Responsibility Project Presents “TONY” from Academy Award-Nominated Producer Grant Heslov

Film Short Written and Directed by Heslov; Features Tate Donovan. Social Media Release PDF with live links attached.

(PRWEB) October 30, 2008 — A new independently produced film short written and directed by Academy Award® nominee Grant Heslov for The Responsibility Project demonstrates the power of working together to accomplish a single goal.

In “TONY,” actor Tate Donovan gets help from an unlikely cast of characters to find his son’s teddy bear left behind on a family trip. What starts as a lone journey becomes a treasure hunt for a small group of helpers - who have little in common - but who make it their personal responsibility to find the missing item.

“TONY” was produced by Smoke House Pictures, which is co-owned by Heslov and George Clooney. The film, which runs 13 minutes and two seconds, and its accompanying discussion guide, for those interested in sharing the film and sparking an in-person conversation in the classroom, home or community, can be found at www.ResponsibilityProject.com.

Grant Heslov is the producer and co-writer of the George Clooney helmed “Good Night, and Good Luck.” He served as director and executive producer of the critically acclaimed series “Unscripted,” and co-executive producer of “K Street,” both for HBO. He also served as producer on the recently-released film “Leatherheads.” Heslov is currently directing the feature film “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Along with producing, writing, and directing, Heslov has had a long career as an actor. Some of his feature credits include roles in “The Scorpion King,” “Dante’s Peak,” “The Birdcage,” “Congo,” and “True Lies”

Tate Donovan is currently shooting the second season of the Emmy®-winning FX series “Damages,” opposite Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. His feature credits include “Good Night, and Good Luck,” directed by George Clooney, for which he shared a 2006 SAG Award nomination; “Shooter,” ‘”Nancy Drew,” “The Pacifier,” “Swordfish,” “Get Well Soon,” “Murder at 1600,” “The Only Thrill,” “Ethan Frome,” “Inside Monkey Zetterland,” for which he earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination, “Love Potion #9,” “Little Noises,” “Memphis Belle” and “Clean and Sober.” Donovan was a regular on the hit Fox series “The O.C.” and NBC’s “Trinity” and had guest-starring roles on series such as “Friends” and “Ally McBeal.” Donovan recently performed in “Rabbit Hole” at the Geffen Theater.

The Responsibility Project, created by Liberty Mutual, uses entertainment content to create a forum for people to discuss personal acts of responsibility. Through short films, online content and television programming, The Responsibility Project is a catalyst for examining the decisions that confront people trying to “do the right thing.”

From The Responsibility Project Site

The original film Tony makes its debut on ResponsibilityProject.com. Tony was written and directed by Grant Heslov, and executive produced by Heslov and George Clooney.

Actor Tate Donovan stars as Michael, a relentlessly responsible father. But the Tony at issue isn’t his son. It’s his son’s teddy bear. Or more vexingly, his 6-year-old son’s lost teddy bear.

And therein lies the crisis, the challenge, and the question: Can you ever be too responsible?

Certainly parents who make the ultimate sacrifice of taking a family trip to Disneyland can already claim to have done the right thing for the kids. So when Tony is lost on that trip, shouldn’t a replacement bear be good enough?

Watch Tony and see how one man’s dedication and determination to track a child’s inanimate toy takes on a life of its own and buoys the spirits of a most unlikely search party along the way, struggling to find a bear—and their own surprising new depths of personal responsibility.

LINKS:
Interview with Grant
Watch Film

Documentary: Playground

While traveling to the Philippines in 2001, filmmaker Libby Spears gained first hand knowledge of the horrific practice of trafficking human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. She examined a little deeper, and discovered that most of these victims were young children.

Facing death threats to be “knocked off” for only $10, Libby went undercover to infiltrate brothels in South Korea and Thailand. She held first-hand interviews with victims, their pimps, and their abusers. She mapped the trafficking routes of the sex tourism industry, and charted the commerce fueled by the purchase and sale of minors—she was disheartened to find that virtually the entire globe was involved and affected by this growing industry.

What she was astonished to find, however, was the involvement of the United States and the degree to which they were influencing the global demand and growth of the sex trafficking industry.

Previously, she had mistakenly believed that sex trafficking was primarily an “international” occurrence in countries like Philippines and Cambodia. But a meeting with Ernie Allen, President of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, confirmed to Libby what her research was beginning to uncover: that the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation is every bit as real in North America.

This is where Playground begins.

Appalled by modern day sex slavery, filmmaker Libby Spears began a covert investigation to document the worldwide child sex trafficking problem, and to see how and if it led back to the United States. What she was astonished to find, however, was the involvement of the United States and the degree to which they were influencing the global demand and growth of the sex trafficking industry.

At the heart of the story is Michelle, whose first encounter with sexual abuse began at five. Having run away from a foster care system that left Michelle vulnerable and at risk, the film opens with the filmmaker’s search for her. Over a five year period, Spears unravels the gut-wrenching atrocities suffered by Michelle and other children like her, who are victims of the American sex trafficking industry.

By gracefully weaving in interviews with vice officers and social workers — and sometimes even the pimps or johns themselves — Spears constructs an insightful, resonant, and nuanced narrative that details just how complex and massive this problem is.

Playground examines our legal and social systems, and their inability to deal with this crisis. Neither dogmatic nor sensationalist, Playground offers no clear-cut answers, but instead, compels us to begin asking questions… the right questions:

Why do we treat children as victims in cases of sexual abuse, but as soon as money is exchanged, we deem these sexually abused children as “criminals?” Why does our legal system view foreign children who are trafficked from other countries as “victims,” but treats American children who are trafficked domestically as criminals? Why is there such an overwhelming demand for sex with a child? Are we adequately teaching our children sexual respect? What message do we send as a society when we normalize Justin Timberlake’s ripping off a woman’s shirt in public, but demonize Janet Jackson for her exposed breast?

The problem is monumental: The U.S. Department of Justice claims that the commercial sexual exploitation of children is the world’s fastest growing form of organized crime. Within the next decade, the prostitution of children worldwide will net more profit than the sale of illegal drugs. In the United States alone, child sex trafficking is a multi-million dollar industry with an estimated 300,000 children annually at risk. Wherever you can buy drugs in this country, you can buy children – American children – for sex. Playground makes compellingly clear that if we’re not seeing the problem, it’s only because we’re not looking.

To offer emotional relief of the heavy subject matter, animated characters appear throughout the film as quiet punctuations. Playground employs a hand-crafted animation style that hearkens back to the early days of animation as an art form. With original illustrations created by Yoshitomo Nara, the animation allows Spears to suggest, rather than literally depict, some of the horrors of sex trafficking, and does an effective job at conveying the psychological and emotional climate suffered by the victims.

From filmmaker Libby Spears and Producers George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Steven Soderbergh, comes a beautifully-wrought, astonishing portrait of our country’s most alarming and insidious secret — the child sex trafficking in America.

Music by: Bjork, Radiohead, Chris Martin, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, Sigur Rós, CocoRosie, Basement Jaxx, DJ Shadow, Kazu Makino

Official Site: http://www.playgroundproject.com/

Donations: http://www.playgroundproject.com/contribute/