Partners & Team:
GARY O. BENNETT
Co-President
Gary wrote and directed Rain Without Thunder, a feature film starring Betty Buckley, Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Frederic Forrest, Graham Greene and Austin Pendleton, that was released nationally in 1993 by Orion Classics. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and Sanfranscisco Film Festival in the US. It played at such festivals as the Berlin Film Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, Ann Arbor, Human Rights Watch, Dublin and Locarno, Switzerland. Rain is now featured on Hulu and Neflix.
"Rain Without Thunder is a political horror film, offered by proponents of reproductive choice, not of what is, but of what could be. It is a strongly reasoned, strongly articulate effort to make some thunder. And toss in a few lightning bolts, for good measure." --Hal Hinson of the Washington Post
"The Pack directed by Alyssa Rallo Bennett and written by Alyssa and Gary O. Bennett, is a no-holds barred, stark look at the horrors of addiction. Compelling and frightening, The Pack is inspired by true events and dares to ask to ask questions which remain unanswered to this day. Few films deserve the label "important," and this is one of them." Larry Richmond, ProNetworks. The Pack won multiple awards in over a dozen film festivals including Sedona Film Festival, Hoboken Film Festival, Northampton, Toronto, Baltiimore Women's and was theatrically released in NY & LA in 2009.
Gary's screenplay Who Killed Juliet Matlin? is an action oriented romantic comedy wrapped in a murder mystery about a successful TV journalist and her newly unemployed Wall Street boyfriend, and their James Bond-like investigation of the murder of Juliet Matlin, a renowned film critic mysteriously killed by her own typewriter. The film was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Creative World Awards and won Honorable Mention at the 2010 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival. Matlin is now being produced by Vistar Pictures.
Gary wrote and directed Cryptogram, a feature film starring an ensemble of young actors, primarily drama students from NYU Tisch School of the Arts studying at Stonestreet Studios as well as Angela Pietropinto. Cryptogram is currently being repped internationally by House of Film.
Gary and Alyssa have collaborated as writer-director respectively on multiple sort films including Dance for Me Velma, which premiered at the Brooklyn Film Festival, The Weather Report, which premiered at The Santa Cruz Film Festival, and subsequently screened in Canada at the Light Plays Tricks Film Festival and the Back East Film Festival in New Jersey. Two other shorts, The Pitch and Jack & Jill, can be seen on www.stonestreet.tv. Earlier, Gary wrote and directed The Butterfly Effect, a thirty-minute film that won a College Emmy Award.
His stage play Juden Rift, was adapted for the screen and won an "honorable mention" for best screenplay in the Los Angeles Film and Script Festival.
His full-length plays The Frozen Infirmary and Body Fluid, were presented in Ensemble Studio Theatre's Octoberfest in New York.
Gary has two psychological thrillers in development, Mentor and The Trainer.
Currently, Gary's television pilot Paragraph 18 is in post-production and the film The Last Shot is in pre-production.
On the internet Gary's series The 47th Floor is the only historical/sci-fi mystery that stars notable New York actors and NYU Tisch School of the Arts actors who study in Stonestreet Studios Screen Acting Workshop.
Gary holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Science in Business from SUNY at Buffalo (1975), and a Law Degree and a Master of Social Welfare Degree from the University of California at Berkeley (1979). Mr. Bennett is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the American Bar Association.
Visit radicalactor.com for many of Gary's short screenplays and other writings as well as his blog at parodical.com.
ALYSSA RALLO BENNETT
Co-President
Alyssa Rallo Bennett is the co-president and head of development and production of Vistar Pictures, a unique film studio that developments slates of feature films with the care and creatively of independent film from all genres and does studio level distribution via it's unique relationship with PMK BNC. Alyssa is an award-winning producer and director as well as a founder of Stonestreet Studios, an independent film studio, production house and a unique screen acting and directing conservatory for NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Since its inception over 20 years ago, Stonestreet has been producing numerous independent feature films, shorts and pilots, and for the past ten years, the Annual Stonestreet-Goldberg Festival of New Short Films. Stonestreet is also a producer of the internet's only historical mystery webseries, The 47th Floor, starring many New York actors, alums including Miles Teller, Xosha Roquemore et al and currently airing it's 5th season on Blip TV.
Alyssa's past film credits include award winning feature films, shorts & music videos. Her feature film The Pack, which she directed, produced & co-wrote, stars Lucie Arnaz, Elisabeth Moss, Roger Robinson, Molly Culver, Tibor Feldman, Adam Ferrara, Zach Galligan et al was originally released theatrically in New York and LA and is now being re-released across the nation in a second theatrical release and will be featured this year in the 2011 Toronto Independent Film Festival. The Pack has won Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Rising Star Award at Wildwood Film Festival, and had "Best Feature Film: Honorable Mention" at Baltimore Women's Film Festival and Bayou Inspirational Film Festival and was featured as an official selection in the Hoboken International Film Festival, Sedona International Film Festival, Independent Features Film Festival at Tribeca Cinema, Northampton International Film Festival, Jersey Shore Film Festival, Festival of Festivals, Connecticut Film Festival, Sweet Auburn Film Festival, and First Take Film Festival.
Alyssa directed and produced the feature film Sonnets in the City starring Joe Siravo (The Sopranos, Jersey Boys); and produced Revengers Inc, directed by Robert Bella, The Code aka Cryptogram starring Angela Pietropinto et al. She developed and associate produced Rain Without Thunder, starring Jeff Daniels, Linda Hunt, Betty Buckley, Frederick Forrest, Graham Greene, Ming Na Wen, Austin Pendelton & Steve Zahn. Rain Without Thunder was theatrically released & distributed by Orion Classics, featured in over a dozen major film festivals and was recently bought by Sony Pictures. The film is now a featured selection on Hulu.
Alyssa is the host and producer of the series Behind the Scenes at Stonestreet Studios. Her guests have included Mike Myers, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Kevin Bacon, Peter Gallagher, Michael Imperioli, James Earl Jones, Elisabeth Shue, Chaske Spenser, Melba Moore, Vincent Pastore, and Joey Pantoliano. The show focuses on the process and art of film making for independent and studio films.
Alyssa has also worked in both films and television in front of the camera with directors such as Woody Allen, Franco Zeffirelli, and Andre Gregory. In New York she has directed many short and full-length plays at Ensemble Studio Theater and the Harold Clurman Theater and was accepted into Sundance Institute's Playwriting Lab here she worked as director, writer and actor, again developing new material for stage and screen. Alyssa attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has a BFA in Drama & MA in Drama & Psychology.
MAX BENNETT
Composer
Max Bennett began taking clarinet lessons in middle school and started playing guitar around the age of thirteen. He started composing original music shortly thereafter. Upon entering high school he quickly befriended his band teacher, Timothy Otto, from whom he took personal music theory and composing lessons.
When Max began high school he promptly joined the school concert band and big band as a clarinetist; by junior year he progressed to the jazz band and switched over to the tenor saxophone. Junior year he also got into the Trevor Cleffs, the Trevor Day school advanced jazz band of which represents the school at the High School Jazz Festival at the Berklee College of Music. Max composed four original pieces for his various school bands: one for the concert band, two for the jazz band, and one for the big band, all of which were preformed at school concerts.
The summer of his senior year (2008) Max began composing soundtrack music for the web-series The 47th Floor, and continues to do so. He continues to compose a wide range of instrumental to alternative music and is currently working on his first album. He is currently a Junior in the school of arts and sciences at Washington University in St. Louis