Cast and Crew
Olenka Denysenko
Writer/Director/Producer
Olenka Denysenko is an independent filmmaker based in New York City. She was awarded The Grand Prize and Best Drama Director of the 2011 NexTv Entertainment Acting and Directing Competition for her short film The Summons, which celebrated its premiere at the 2009 LA Shorts Fest and screened at the 2010 Small Town Film Festival. Olenka wrote, directed and produced three book trailers for O/R Books, including The Rude Pundit’s Almanack by Lee Papa, Inferno by Eileen Myles and Collected Fictions by Gordon Lish which was nominated for a 2010 Moby Award for Best Performance and honored as one of the Top 15 Book Trailers Of The Year by The Daily Beast. Olenka produced the short film Portraits, which was a Finalist in the 2009 Doorpost Film Project and Timing, Best Comedic Short at the 2010 Strasbourg International Film Festival. In 2012 she wrote, directed and produced Alternate Sides, starring Gerry Bamman and Goodbye, Sweetheart, a 1940s film noir while script supervising the CBS TV show Unforgettable. Olenka has script supervised over 25 feature films such as Sinister starring Ethan Hawke and Cold Souls, starring Paul Giamatti and is presently script supervising the CBS TV show Elementary. Olenka has also written numerous unproduced feature films. She was the recipient of the 2004 Hollywood Trident Scholarship and has been the Program Coordinator for Kinofest NYC, since 2010.
Sam Morell
Executive Producer
Sam, a Chemical Engineering graduate of New York University, is the president of a specialty chemicals sales and marketing company - S.P. Morell and Company.
He and Donna Garr co-founded The Small Town Theatre Company in Armonk, NY which produces theatrical plays, summer concerts, play readings, variety showcases, and theatre/film festivals. With The Small Town Theatre Company, Sam is also involved in producing, directing, and acting.
Patrick T. Rousseau
Producer
Patrick T. Rousseau is President and co-founder of Iris MediaWorks, a motion media production company based in New York City. With a focus on storytelling, he works to cultivate communities around ideas, bringing people closer together using narratives rooted in the human condition.
He produced the Hammer Horror homage feature Sea of Dust [Tom Savini, Ingrid Pitt], which won Best Picture at the RIHFF and Best of the Fest at the Fright Night Film Festival. He also produced Ilegales, a modern day drama about human trafficking along the US/Mexican border which premiered at HBO's NYILFF and won Best Actor and Best Director at the Naperville Independent Film Festival. Additionally he has produced the features Jordan, a thriller lensed in New Mexico and Berel & the Bus Driver, a feature written, shot, edited, and mastered in seven weeks.
He has produced two award winning web series. The Captive [Michael Gladdis], 2010 Webby winner for Best Drama and NYTVF award for Best Web Series, currently available on the Sundance Channel's website, is a science fiction/action thriller set in an unspecified future. Red Carpet Run, the world's first live action game show for the web, winner of the 2010 NAPTE LATV NextTV award for Best Unscripted Series, has debuted on the front page of blip.tv and KoldCast and through Youtoo can be seen on Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox, and other cable providers.
Patrick has produced music videos for artists such as hip hop legend Juvenile as well as industrials, commercials, and new media projects for companies including Eli Lilly, MAC Cosmetics, and L'Oréal.
Noah Workman
Producer
Noah Workman is Creative Director and co-founder of Iris MediaWorks, a motion media production company. He has produced the soon to be released features Ilegales and Jordan, the feature Sea of Dust (Best Picture Winner at the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival), as well as the feature documentary Cash Crop (Winner of the Changemaker Award at the Maui International Film Festival). Additionally, The Captive, a web series he produced is available on the Sundance Channel's website and won Best Pilot at the New York Television Festival.
Noah also works as a commercial producer and director, including work for companies such as GSK, MAC Cosmetics and Volvo.
Glen Mordeci
Director of Photography
Glen is an award winning cinematographer having lensed over 200 Music Videos and more than 500 commercials in his 17 year career. Predominately a Commercial DP, Glen began to explore other genres of the Motion Picture Industry in 2005, lending his technical & creative expertise in the Feature/Short, Documentary, and Broadcast arena's. His work on the documentary Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life received 3 Emmy's, the documentary Cash Crop took 1st Place Honors at the Maui Film Festival, and his work on the experimental documentary 2+2 received Honorable Mention at Sundance.
After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 1986 with a Bachelors in Fine Arts, Glen began his career as a 1st Assistant Cameraman, joining the Cinematography Guild in 1989. During his 6 year tenure as a 1st AC he began shooting Music Videos. In 1994 he won his first Music Video Award. A year later, he won yet another MVA for his work on Zombie for the musical group The Cranberries. Glen's current client list extends well into the Fortune 500 Family. Most recently, Glen had the opportunity to Camera Operate on Robert De Niro's episodic CBS series NYC22.
Mascha Mareen
Elsa
Born and raised by alternative parents in West Germany, Mascha was introduced to the performing arts at an early age. Whether it was through her father, who was involved in an amateur theater company or her mother, a confirmed, adventurous hippie, her influences range anywhere from living with Clowns in Italy, traveling the continent in an old, barely working, Mercedes Benz to Berlin Cabaret in occupied houses.
She has been described as Classic Hollywood meets the roughness of Bertolt Brecht and her performances exude mystery, an indomitable strength and intelligence matched by her luminescent vulnerability. Mascha performed on stage and film in both New York and Berlin. She also continues to study with the legendary Wynn Handman. A certifiable sucker for a good love story and animals of all sorts, she is a leading lady with an edge, a romantic rebel...with a cause.
Paul Hickert
Detective Moore
Paul Hickert dreamed of playing professional sports as a child. But, many years after his NFL and Arena Football days were over, coincidence introduced Paul to acting, which led him to create new dreams and goals. Now, after several years of training and working as a professional actor in New York City, Paul is gaining momentum and getting recognition in the industry. In the last year he has appeared in Tower Heist, One Life To Live, The Onion News Network, Rockstar Games' Max Payne 3 and has had many lead roles in various independent short films. And now, he is very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an experienced and talented cast and crew, to help bring this story to life.
Erik Parillo
Mr. White
Erik has been working in regional theatre for years, taking on a wide range of roles from the tragic to the unscrupulous and earning a Best Supporting Actor Award in Austin Texas for his portrayal of the two brothers in Love! Valour! Compassion! From his recent renewed efforts to work on camera he appeared as a very disappointed diplomat in the Berlin episode of ABC's Pan Am, a good dad in a short that to date has six Best Film wins and three nominations in festivals from Mexico to New York City, and he now awaits the completion of a web pilot and two other films in which he plays unsavory lead characters involved in various kinds of skullduggery.