CIRCUMCISED!Episode I

Press Kit

Press Inquiries Charley Allen310.482.9958charley.allen@yahoo.com

Sales Inquiries Gleb Kaminer323.841.1627gkaminer@gmail.com

a.k.a. A Slice of Life...

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SHORT SUMMARY

CIRCUMCISED! Is the autobiographical story of a Jewish kid raised in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, a primarily Muslim country, who emig-rates to Israel. In true Israeli fashion, his welcome in-cludes a mandatory circumcision - at the age of 16! Oy vey and OUCH! The pilot episode reveals Gleb Kaminer's transformation into all of the characters that pervade this Jewish nightmare: the Mohel, a loy-al circumcision specialist; Dr. Rubenstein, a jaded and eccentric surgeon; Gleb's unenthusiastic Dad; an Angry Hospital Worker; a Perky Female Nurse and numerous hospital patients. CIRCUMCISED! a.k.a. A SLICE OF LIFE will make you laugh, cry, cringe, and cheer, possibly all at once.

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LONG SUMMARY“Most Jewish boys are circumcised at eight days old. Why in the hell wasn't I?” This is

the odyssey of a man who grew up in two foreign countries and finally fulfilled his dream of becoming an American. Two eternal questions continually surface in this ten part web series: "Who are we?" and "Where do we belong?" Born in a Muslim country, to a Jewish family, and raised in a Christian-Soviet environment, Gleb is driven to ask "Who in Moses' name am I?" In the first episode, a mandatory circumcision letter propels us into a hospital waiting room where hundreds of Russian emigrés are waiting to be “Jewed in.” In the surgery room, after eccentric doctor Rubenstein performs the operation, the ritual blessings performed by the Mo-hel throw young 16 year old Gleb into a panic.

Finally blessed as a true Hebrew, young Gleb embarks on another journey, that of a con-fused teenager, a circumcised boy, now enduring sleepless nights and taking care of his dam-aged shmengaley. The ritual Jewish kilt, baseball cap and warm baths all add to the meta-morphosis into his new personality. As he approaches his eighteenth birthday, and begins to win the attention of the girls in his high school with his “newly cut personality,” Israel's Draft Service comes calling. In the army, another chapter of his life opens up and he begins to exper-ience human nature through exploring the differences between various religions and political beliefs. Upon completing the Israeli Army's Krav Maga instructor's course he begins teaching new recruits how to kill an enemy. Shortly, however, he realizes something profound that cor-relates with his own journey. William Shakespeare said it best: "’All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts...’ I look at my new recruits and all I see are faces from Azerbaijan: Russian-Muslim kids who were my best friends. We were kids. No nationality mattered, no re-ligion mattered. Nothing. Pure friendship. So, here I am, an Israeli army instructor and I don't know what to do. On one hand I have a national duty on the other my conscience. What would you do?"

Gleb meets his future wife, who isn't Jewish, and after the city's Rabbinate declines, they are forced to marry in Cyprus. One day, unexpectedly, another chapter in Gleb's life opens up. He passes a newspaper stand and sees an ad for a United States Green Card lottery. Is this a joke?! He cuts out the ad and lets it decide his destiny. Six months later he receives a big en-velope with two temporary green cards and a warm welcome note from the United States Gov-ernment. All he can think about is what awaits him in America...

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PRODUCTION DETAILSThe idea for “Circumcised!” was conceived about a year ago while I was working on a completely different screenplay. I realized that the ritual of circumcision had an immedi-ate political and social connection. The short synopsis was written in about ten minutes and the real process of writing the show had begun. Within the first month, the initial draft of the, “Circumcised!” was completed and I quickly contacted my friend and fellow director, Anna Giannotis. The script, originally a play, was written for the stage as a one man show, but after reading the script, Anna completely fell in love with the project and said that we would be better off doing it as a web series and rewriting the play for the screen. After many rewrites, debates with Anna Giannotis, table reads with James Loren and then more rewrites we arrived at the final draft of the script with a production sched-ule to start in June 2010. After locking our crew we decided to shoot on Canon 5D, with which our cinematographer, Matthew Caudillo, made brilliant choices with a rigorous es-thetic and careful attention to composition details to fit the style of the piece. The pilot was completed July 2010 and is due to be completed this August. Starring in your own show is a self-parody, but at the same time walking that fine line that defines us all, whether it is politics, religion, family traditions, friends, motherland, or all of it, because we are, after all, earthlings and we're all alike.

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CREW CASTAnna Giannotis – Director Gleb Kaminer

Gleb Kaminer – Writer as:

Charley Allen – Supervising Producer Dr. Rubinstein

James Loren – Creative Producer Mohel

Matthew Caudillo – Cinematographer Perky Nurse

Jacob Karesh, Eamon Glennon - Editors Angry Hospital Worker

Bob Luna - Composer Father

Vlad Solovey – Assistant Director Homeless Guy

Maaren Edvard – Associate Producer Young Gleb

Sean Walsh, Michael Kelley – Sound Old Man

Michele Monaco – Hair & Make up Punk Rocker

Susan Doepner – Props & Wardrobe Writer

Oze – Script Supervisor Hooligan

Saleh Ashumov – Grip Sarah

John (Rod) Rodrigues – Set Photography Abraham

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CAST & CREW BIOSANNA GIANNOTIS – Director / Producer

Anna began her career performing in regional theaters throughout the US. In the mid 80's she began writing plays. Her first one act, THE BETROTHAL, was performed at the Ensemble Stu-dio Theatre in New York. I DO! DO YOU?, an original showcase for actors, was co-produced at the Lamb's Theatre, with her friend Ann Montgomery and they formed Annimal Productions. After migrating to LA, Anna continued to work as an actress, taught and directed in LA County school as an Artist-in-Residence, and wrote, directed, and produced her first documentary fea-ture: THE PIONEERS, for the Greek Heritage Society of S.CA. A second doc feature completed in November 2009: THE PROMISE OF TOMORROW, is currently screening nationwide and has been selected for several film festivals. Both documentaries have received awards in the US and in Greece. "It's always a big plus to have “Olympia the Great Dukakis as your host and narrator." Anna is thrilled to be onboard with a fantastic, imaginative, and hardworking crew and that young genius, Gleb Kaminer, "playing all the roles to perfection in CIRCUMCISED!" Anna resides in Los Angeles with her composer husband Bob Luna.

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GLEB KAMINER - Actor / Writer / Producer

Born in Baku, Azerbaijan (former USSR). After the national conflict, his parents fled to Israel where they settled as "new immigrants". There he graduated with a Mechanical Engineering de-gree and soon enough was dispatched to military service. After demobilization, fortune played his way and he and his wife ended up in Los Angeles. In his early teen years Gleb thought about writing and even tried to write a novel. Only after he arrived in Los Angeles did he finally go back to it. While writing, he was very intrigued by the idea of characterization of his own heroes, began impersonating them and fell in love with the process. You can catch him on LifeTime channel, in Patricia Cardoso's, “Lies in Plain Sight”, various commercials and theatre plays: "Ber-lioz: The Romantic", playing a French writer, Alfred De Vigny, "Illya Darling", a Russian sailor, "The Merchant of Venice", Salerio, "Perseus - The Hero", playing the Perseus and "The Imagin-ary Invalid", doctor Purgon. Later, Gleb formed his own production company. Its goal has been to fuse quality art films with commercial product. The company concentrates on projects with a so-cial-cultural orientation and whether they are documentaries or fiction, its projects address phe-nomena that reflect the essence of human existence, yet still appeal to diverse audiences around the world. The company has produced feature films such as “Two Outs, Bottom of the Ninth”, “Ideal World”, “Her Time” and is currently in post-production for “Circumcised!”.

CHARLEY ALLEN - Supervising Producer

Based in Playa del Rey, CA, while hailing from Louisiana, Charley began his career by working three seasons as the Post Production Coordinator on the hit television show Criss Angel MIND-FREAK on A&E Network, winning two Telly Awards and an Aurora Award for excellence in 2006 and 2007. Moving over to production, he worked as the MINDFREAK Production Coordinator for the last two seasons. He joined Burnt Pictures in early 2008 as the Post Production Supervisor on the film “The Red Room” and then followed that by taking on the additional duties of Unit Pro-duction Manager on Burnt’s genre bending film “Henry John and the Little Bug” and on the PC.-com web series “Celebrity TechOver”. Charley is a decorated veteran of the U.S. Army. While in service, he graduated from the U.S. Army Airborne School & Air Assault School and received the Army Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Overseas Medal and an Honorable Discharge. After his discharge, Charley returned home to attend Louisiana State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English (Creative Writing). During college football season he can be found wildly rooting for his Fighting Tigers.

JAMES LOREN – Creative Producer

James Loren recently produced Indulgences in the Louisville Harem with the Michael Chekhov Studio. He has been seen most recently in Los Angeles as Don Donovan in Underground Wo-man, Camillo, Antigonus and the Shepherd in The Winter’s Tale with the Chekhov Players, Spet-tigue in I’m Just Wild About Harry with the Crown City Theatre Company, Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Mortimer in The Fantasticks with the Los Angeles Shakespeare Company in Topanga Canyon. He is a founding member and past president of The Michael Chekhov Stu-dio.

MATTHEW CAUDILLO – Director of Photography

Director of Photography, Matthew Caudillo, graduated from UCLA and now shoots RED, HD, and film. The challenge of shooting a one-man show with eight different characters is what inter -ested him in shooting Circumcised!. Working closely with Anna Giannotis and Gleb Kaminer, they developed sequences with careful attention to composition details to fit the style of the piece to portray various themes within the script.

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BOB LUNA – Composer

Bob Luna is a Composer/Arranger/Producer/Conductor/Keyboardist. Some of the Artists he has worked with are: Dionne Warwick, Deniece Williams, Sister Sledge, Juice Newton, Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones guitarist) Randy Crawford, Frank Stallone,, Maxine Nightingale etc. He has con-ducted for The Friends Of Distinction, David Elliott, Manny Lagod, Peaches and Herb, Billy Paul, Percy Sledge, etc. In 2009 he was Piano Conductor for Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s Shakespeare festival finale which featured an all star cast. As Composer his work includes Inde-pendent Feature films, Award winning Documentaries, numerous Trailers and Video games.

VLAD SOLOVEY – Assistant Director

Born in Ukraine, Vlad graduated from Kherson Music College with a degree in Choir Conducting & Composition. In 1997 he moved to Boston to study composition at Berklee College of Music and four months later scored the documentary “HADRIAN’S VILLA” for Arlington Cable for Sid Knowlton. In April of 2001 he moved to Los Angeles and worked as the Scoring Coordinator for Christopher Young on seven different pictures: “THE COUNTRY BEARS” (Walt Disney), “THE CORE” (Paramount Pictures), “RUNAWAY JURY” (New Regency), “SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE” (Columbia Pictures/Warner Bros.), “UNFINISHED LIFE” (Miramax) and two others. In ad-dition, Vlad scored the films “WHATEVER IT TAKES” and “HERCULES IN HOLLYWOOD.” After 2006, he started working as a screenwriter, producer and director. In 2009 he filmed six epis -odes of “THE PATH OF LIGHT,” a documentary series about astronomy for CELESTRON TELE-SCOPES. Vlad is currently writing, producing and directing a documentary, “DON’T BELIEVE: EXPERIENCE”, and a feature film, “THE MESSENGER.”

MAAREN EDVARD – Associate Producer

Maaren Edvard began her career acting and singing in stock and repertory theatre in the Midw-est, eventually arriving in Los Angeles, where she has since acted in numerous television, stage and musical theatre productions. Her television credits include a year long stint on The Young and the Restless and a variety of guest appearances. Some of her favorite leading roles have been Hedda in Hedda Gabler, Raymonde Chandebise in A Flea in Her Ear, Celia Copplestone in The Cocktail Party and Dona Ana in Don Juan in Hell. An award-winning actress and long-time member of Theatre East and Nova Diem theatre companies, she has performed in many of their original and classical plays. Among them were the Player Queen in Hamlet, Mrs. Allonby in Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, and an award-winning portrayal of the legendary Nora Bayes in the original musical My Lady Vaudeville.

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CIRCUMCISED!

a.k.a. A Slice of Life...

Filmed on location of Lutheran Trinity Church, 997 E Walnut St. Pasadena, CA 91106. Special thanks to Maaren Edvard, the pastor Terry Tuvey Allen and her secretary Juanita Alcazar-Small.

And, of course, special thanks to:

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