Need Help? Contact the Espiya Helpdesk. CLICK HERE


Author Topic: Amy (1998)  (Read 1190 times)

rioter1013

  • Let's get it on!
  • Active - Three Stars
  • ***
  • Posts: 436
  • Karma 11
  • Gender: Male
Amy (1998)
« on: June 19, 2008, 02:00:47 am »
Remarkable Australian Film To Open in U.S. Following Worldwide Acclaim

A Breakthrough for Its Creators Nadia Tass and David Parker and Stars Rachel Griffiths and Alana De Roma

A new film from Australia is about to win the hearts of American audiences following unprecedented success at theatres and festivals around the world. Amy is the poignant drama of a young girl traumatized by the tragic death of her father who retreats into a world of silence. Ultimately through the efforts of her dedicated mother and a young drop-out musician who lives next door, Amy breaks out of her self-imposed isolation by communicating through music – and transforming the lives of everyone around her.

Rachel Griffiths, the Academy Award-nominated star of Hilary and Jackie, portrays Amy’s mother, a single parent haunted by the loss of her husband and fiercely protective of her child, and the title role is played by the gifted Alana De Roma in her astonishing film debut.

Amy opened last February 2, 2001 in New York and Los Angeles, the first stage of a national platform release which the film will receive from its distributor, World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation. The winner of 21 international film festival awards, Amy has been honored as the Best Film at the Public Festival du Film in Paris; the Gioffini Film Festival in Italy; the Leon, France International Film Festival, and the Australian People’s Choice Awards, among many other prizes.

A major success in Australia, Amy then became the #1 arthouse movie upon its release in Japan and France, with crossover appeal to family audiences.

Amy has proven to be a breakthrough film for its creators, director Nadia Tass and her husband and partner, David Parker, who wrote the screenplay and is also the cinematographer. Tass and Parker are the producers of the Cascade Films Production.

Tass was subsequently signed by Disney to direct a remake of The Miracle Worker for television, which will be shown during November sweeps on The Wonderful World of Disney on ABC, and she and Parker will soon begin work on a feature film version of Mary Carr’s best-selling book The Liars’ Club.

David Parker had the inspiration for Amy while watching a production of Man of La Mancha. "As I watching the play," he recalled, "I had the thought…what if you could only communicate through song? This has been a form of entertainment for centuries; what if that was real life?"

Parker wrote a script, the story of a little girl, Amy, traumatized by the death of her father, who can no longer speak or hear. But when Amy is exposed to song by a neighbor (played by Ben Mendelsohn) who is a songwriter, she begins to express herself by singing. This magical story, while firmly anchored in naturalism, takes on a fairy tale-like quality, thus combining three very different genres, explains director Tass. "It’s a musical, it’s a comedy, it’s a profoundly moving drama."

Casting the key role of Amy was a crucial task, one that took the director to the U.S., U.K, New Zealand and throughout Australia in search of a young performer who could sing beautifully, act and handle the rigors of the demanding leading role. The search took Tass to schools, talent agencies and shows, and finally culminated at a small school in Sydney, Australia where Alana De Roma, the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, auditioned for the role. Little Alana sang for Tass. The search was over. Alana had never acted before, but she was perfect casting. "Never have I seen such talent in someone so young," says Tass. "One minute she’d be playing with one of the crew members, the next she could be sobbing on screen. Everyone on the film was totally mesmerized by her."

When the script was presented to Rachel Griffiths, she immediately accepted the role of Tanya, Amy’s mother. "I was so moved by the deep, profound bond between mother and daughter in David’s script," Griffiths notes. "He writes so beautifully for women. And Nadia is a real actors’ director. She relies on actors to tell the story and does so much through them."

"This is a real family film with a lot of emotion and a lot of heart," Parker observes. "That’s why it’s been finding so much success with different audiences all over the world, because its themes are universal – the power of love, the magical joy of music, the longing for a sense of community."

"At the end of the film," Tass comments, "Amy’s melodies have brought harmony to family, friends, neighbors and even complete strangers; she’s brought all the characters together. And that’s what the film does – it brings audiences together."

Here's the link to the streaming video if you'd like to watch it:http://www.vidics.com/media.php?id=1191

This is Alana De Roma after 10 years of filming "Amy". She's still 8 years old when she was filmed on "Amy". Now she's 18! This is the only picture I got of her from searching the web.


I like the song on the ending credits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x97ea9Ay8Cc

Real Life:
Through the magic of music and song, the motion picture "AMY" depicts how a young girl broke through her world of silence with the use of a form of "music therapy" as her primary tool of communication. Music therapy, in general, entails the use of music to restore, maintain, and improve emotional, physical, and spiritual health and well-being. The goals and objectives of music therapy include improving communicative, emotional, social, academic, and motor skills.

Dr. Clive Robbins , of the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University, applies the principles related to music therapy to treat many of his patients. Dr. Robbins claims, "Almost all children respond to music. Music is an open-sesame and if you can use it carefully and appropriately, you can reach into that child’s potential development. Music has a lot of universality. You bypass so many barriers to communication, and it seems to reach more of the child than anything else."

Further, Dr. Oliver Sacks, a world-renowned clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, explains the benefits of music therapy in treating his patients. The motion picture "AMY" excitingly demonstrates these principles and benefits. The use of language alone only activates the left-hemisphere of the brain, the language center of the brain. However, when music is played, both the right and left hemispheres light up and react.

Dr. Sacks says that "Because so many billions of neurons are firing when music is heard, it is more likely that the brain will be encouraged to move language tasks from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right hemisphere." Sacks emphasizes the importance of music in treating patients, "What I’m trying to drive at is that for me music is more than language. It is language which symbolizes reality. They are words which are used to represent real things. Music IS reality. It doesn’t symbolize anything. It communicates directly with the emotions and it expresses itself through sound. Music is also intellectual. The complexity of thought which goes into the composition of sounds to produce is extraordinary. "

Sacks proposes five fundamental functions of music and its use as communication:

• Music, like all other artistic pursuits, exercises our need to imagine and create.

• Music is an emotive form of expression and communication which has no equivalent.

• Music makes a fundamental contribution to our physical, intellectual and emotional well-being because music is fun.

• Music plays a major role in identification, establishment, consolidation and evolution of social and cultural groups. Music helps us identify ourselves as individuals and as part of a group.

• Music provides us with a knowledge of the ‘connectedness’ humans have with the universe.

We hope that through the power and beauty of song, the motion picture "AMY" may help to encourage this type of alternative communication therapy as a source of healing.