Dear friends,

Well, it took a while, but our movie is finally coming out here!
"Justice" is opening on April 28 at the Pioneer Theater on 3rd Street
and Avenue A, New York City, New York and it'll play there for at least three weeks. For more
info go to the website, www.justicethemovie.com .

We'll probably have an opening night party, so let us know if you're
around.

And tell everybody you know!

Best to all,
Evan

Justice
The Festivals

Tribeca Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Maui Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Rhode Island Film Festival
New Haven Film Festival -- Fave of the Fest
Athens Film Festival -- Best American Film
Waterfront Film Festival
Dubrovnik Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Breckenridge Film Festival
Sao Paulo Film Festival -- International Competition
Annapolis Film Festival
Marco Island Film Festival -- Best Screenplay
Santa Fe Film Festival
Sarasota Film Festival
Myhelan Film Festival
Cleveland Film Festival
Reel World Film Festival
Newport Beach Film Festival

Justice

Principal Crew

Writer and Director -- Evan Oppenheimer
Producers -- Amy R. Baird, Amelia Dallis
Director of Photography -- Luke Geissbuhler
Music -- Nenad Bach
Editor -- Allison Eve Zell
Casting Directors -- Felicia Fasano, Mary Vernieu
Production Designer -- Beth Kuhn
Sound Designer -- Bill Montei
Sound Recordist -- Paul Bacca
Costume Designer -- Dona Mandel
Props -- Kirsten Kane
Music Supervisors -- David Hnatiuk, Ramsay Adams
Comic Book Art -- David Jerrel Anderson
Associate Producer -- Martin Schepelern

 

Early talk about Justice
After American Splendor how about another funny-sad rumination on
making sense of a crazy world through the comics? That would be
Justice. This Marvel of a sophomore feature puts Evan Oppenheimer in a
League of Extraordinary Filmmakers.
-- 2004 Cleveland Int'l Film Festival

Humorous, intelligent and warm, Justice interweaves a variety of
relationships into a gentle, thought-provoking story. Daphne
Rubin-Vega's performance is particularly touching.
    -- The New Sun (New York)

Oppenheimer shows a deft touch in pulling humor out of a grave topic,
and in so doing he captures how we've all gone on--not by forgetting,
but by simply living.
    -- 2003 Tribeca Film Festival

Scores waited as long as an hour outside the United Artists cinema to
see films like Evan Oppenheimer's Justice.
    -- Entertainment Weekly

A terrific cast (including the always extraordinary David Patrick
Kelly)…strong and appealing actors who allow Oppenheimer to create
subplots through charming vignettes about a range of New York
encounters…Justice is a movie for adults who understand that comics
haven't been kids' stuff for nearly a generation now, and for anyone
who wants to balance idealistic dreams with daily struggles.
-- New Haven Advocate ("Fave of the Fest")

[A] thoughtful and humorous story that explores America's shared
process of assimilating the 9-11 trauma. Director Evan Oppenheimer
(whose first feature film, The Auteur Theory, earned widespread praise
and many awards) shows a very Doonesbury-like skill in pulling humor
from a sobering subject. 
    -- 2003 Maui Film Festival

All praise Evan Oppenheimer for daring to acknowledge what too many
people tiptoe around: that black humor is often the best way to deal
with grief.
                        -- The Flick Filosopher (flickfilosopher.com)

What makes a hero? And who exactly is a hero: A firefighter? A teacher?
A vigilante dressed in tights? Comic book writer Drew (you'll recognize
actor Erik Palladino from "ER") explores the definition of "hero" in
this funny feature film…The ending is worth every minute of this
twisty-turny film.
    --The Naples Daily News

Justice is a hip, energetic urban tale about how big-city life can
actually revolve around small social coincidences…Featuring a wonderful
cast, Justice is the type of film that definitely reaches people on
several different levels. The cleverness of each story is highlighted
by Oppenheimer’s ability to show how our concepts of heroism and honour
have changed since September 11 – and he proves that even in the
toughest of times, we all rely on each other, whether we know it or
not.
        -- 2004 Reel World Film Festival
Justice

Principal Cast

Erik Palladino -- Drew Pettite
Michael Jai White -- Tre
Daphne Rubin-Vega -- Roberta
Ajay Naidu -- Mohammed
Catherine Kellner -- Mara Seaver
Marisa Ryan -- Julia
Tom Guiry -- The Red Anarchist
David Patrick Kelly -- Marty
Joelle Carter -- Monique
Michael Ealy -- Woody
Leo Fitzpatrick -- The Egg Machine
Larry Pine -- The Legend
Helena Lewis -- Helena
Alan Cox -- Palm Sunday
Dan Cantor -- Terrence the Ugly American
Tim Kang -- Bodega Owner
Gloria Irizarry -- Luiza
Firdous Bamji -- Samir Khan
Monique Guesnon -- Day-Old Bagel Lady
Scott Miller -- Cigarette Man
Waleed Zuaiter -- Pretzel Vendor
Shoshannah Stern -- First Patron
Jimmy Wallick -- Second Patron
Evan Lee Oppenheimer -- He Got Next
Dan Ziemann -- Perry
Emory Van Cleve -- Big Guy

Justice

Synopsis
Three very different -- yet intimately connected -- New York stories:

Drew -- A comic book writer, Drew has been greatly affected by the
death of a good friend in the World Trade Center attack. As a tribute
-- and an attempt to do something constructive -- he creates a new
comic book hero, a hero based on a real-life New Yorker. But when a
Village Voice writer comes sniffing around the story, Drew finds
himself hiding a battery of secrets...

Mohammed -- A street vendor, Mohammed is justly proud of his "Breakfast
Time" cart. But, one day, Mohammed  finds himself without any bagels --
and a breakfast vendor in New York needs his bagels...

Roberta -- A Latina activist, Roberta has got a lot on her plate in the
days leading up to September 11. The Giuliani administration is
threatening her advocacy group with budget cuts, and her husband is
pressuring her to start having kids...

Gradually, the relationships between these characters become evident.
And, as we see how fate sometimes hangs on the most tenuous of
coincidences, the question is asked: How do we learn to live in a world
in which everything is so uncertain?


Justice

The Actors

Erik Palladino -- Erik was one of the leads on "ER", the most popular
drama on TV, for three years, playing the headstrong Dr. Dave Mellucci.
He has also appeared in U-571 and Can't Hardly Wait.

Michael Jai White -- Michael played the lead character in the hit movie
Spawn. He also starred in Exit Wounds and Universal Soldier: The
Return, and is featured in the forthcoming Quentin Tarantino film Kill
Bill: Vol. 2.

Ajay Naidu -- Ajay starred in the cult hit movie Office Space. He has
also appeared in movies ranging from Suburbia to K-Pax to Bad Santa.

Daphne Rubin-Vega -- Nominated for a Tony Award for "Rent", Daphne
recently starred on Broadway with Jimmy Smits in "Anna in the Tropics".
On film, she's co-starred in Wild Things and Flawless.

Catherine Kellner -- Catherine's first movie was Six Degrees of
Separation. More recently, she played Nurse Lt. Barbara in Pearl
Harbor.

Marisa Ryan -- Marisa's career began playing the young daughter on the
television series "Major Dad". She has appeared in numerous films, as
well as the HBO series "Mind of the Married Man".

Leo Fitzpatrick -- Leo was the star of Larry Clark's controversial film
Kids. He also played Selma Blair's disabled boyfriend in Storytelling
and appeared on the HBO series "The Wire".

David Patrick Kelly -- DP's renowned roles range from Luther in The
Warriors (he uttered the famous line, "Warriors, come out and play") to
Jerry Horne in "Twin Peaks" to T-Bird in The Crow.

Michael Ealy -- Michael stars as Ricky, the twice-convicted felon who's
trying to turn around his life, in Barbershop and Barbershop 2. He was
also featured in 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Larry Pine -- Larry Pine played Dr. Ostrov in Vanya on 42nd Street. His
numerous other films include The Royal Tenenbaums, Dead Man Walking,
and The Shipping News. He also played Arnold Zelman on "Oz".

Tom Guiry -- Tom played Staff Sergeant Ed Yurek in Black Hawk Down. His
first starring roles were in The Sandlot and Lassie, and he has
subsequently starred in Tigerland , U-571, and Mystic River.

Joelle Carter -- Joelle was one of John Cusack's "Top Five Break-Ups"
in High Fidelity. She has also appeared in American Pie 2 and Swimming.

Justice

The Director

Justice (which world premiered as one of only four American films in
the Dramatic Competition at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival) is Evan
Oppenheimer's second feature film. It has won him numerous accolades in
film festivals around the world.

Evan Oppenheimer's first film, The Auteur Theory, made on a shoestring
budget of $70,000, appeared in over thirty festivals worldwide,
garnering various awards, including the "Best Feature" award at the
2000 Breckenridge Film Festival, hosted by NBC film critic Jeffrey
Lyons. It appeared on Showtime and The Movie Channel, and is available
on home video from Pathfinder Pictures. Reviewers have called it
"ingenious", "among the best first features I have ever seen", "one of
the best independent films of the year", and "easily the funniest indie
film since Clerks".

Evan Oppenheimer received a B.A. in English from Yale University. He
was an editor for three years at Atheneum Publishers; among his books
was the definitive biography of  Lawrence of Arabia, named a New York
Times "Best Book of the Year". Evan then moved on to NYU Film School,
where he spent half of his time making films and the other half
captaining the varsity baseball team. His student film Cross Road Blues
won first prize at the University Film & Video Association Student Film
Festival.

Evan lives in New York with his wife, Lia, and baby daughter, Zoe.

(Full reviews attached)

Praise for The Auteur Theory

Oppenheimer's satire is ingenious, collapsing film-class bluster with
the whodunit logic of Agatha Christie, "Scooby Doo" and one of those
Scream movies.
                -- Wesley Morris, San Francisco Chronicle

"Another movie about filmmaking?" I hear you cry. Hang on, this one's
different...The Auteur Theory -- like Christopher Guest's The Big
Picture before it -- cleverly focuses on the sacred and reveals the
profane. And it's funny, to boot.
                -- Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

Oppenheimer mercilessly lampoons independent film festivals, and the
self-important buffoons they often attract, in this extremely clever
black comedy. Expect rentals from younger, hipper patrons, especially
those from college towns and metropolitan areas that have arthouse
theaters and host their own festivals.
                -- Ed Hulse, Variety

Smart, funny, and fresh...This ranks among the best first features I
have ever seen.
                -- Ayo Johnson, Bermuda Sun

A fun, light chance to watch festival filmmakers get smacked
around…Funny stuff…The sheer chutzpah of this project suggests that
Oppenheimer has the fearless nature of a born director.
                -- David Poland, TNT Movies, Roughcut.com

**** (Four stars) Laugh-out-loud imitations of Quentin Tarantino, Spike
Lee, Michael Moore, obscure foreign films, and the egos and weirdos of
the film festival circuit.
                -- Curt Holman, CreativeLoafing.com

Easily the funniest indie film since Clerks.
                -- 2001 San Francisco Independent Film Festival

The Naked Gun of filmmaking films, skewering both filmmakers and
festivals alike.
                -- Cinemad Magazine

An incredibly promising first feature from a very talented filmmaker
who has a keen eye for detail, a penchant for witty storytelling, and a
serious love for both the craft and the art of this highly competitive
medium...One of the best independent films of the year.
Bruno Derlin, Guerrilla Filmmaker

A fine cast wrings out some clever humor, and director Evan Oppenheimer
does as good a job of parodying pretentious film students as anyone
since "The Big Picture". (Watch for the recreation of the Kennedy
assassination, staged with 8-year-olds.)
                -- Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper

Unpretentious, intelligent, silly, and very winning.
-- David Annandale, UpcomingDiscs.com