Stephen Cone's critically-acclaimed, award-winning coming-of-age indie The Wise Kids, based in Chicago and shot in Charleston, SC, has been acquired for DVD/VOD release by Wolfe Video. The film, which opened the 30th Reeling Film Festival last year, will appear on Digital and OnDemand outlets November 27, 2012, followed by a wide DVD release on January 8th, 2013. Prior to it's release, film will receive a theatrical engagement at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center October 26-November 1, 2012. Tickets go on sale in September.
Since having it's World Premiere at Outfest in Los Angeles in July 2011, Cone's The Wise Kids has screened at more than 50 festivals the world over, received a New York City theatrical run, where it was a New York Times Critics' Pick, and picked up several prestigious awards, including the Grand Jury Awards for US Narrative and Screenwriting at Outfest in Los Angeles, the Audience Award for US Narrative at NewFest in New York, the SHOUT Jury and Audience Awards for Best Narrative Feature at Birmingham's Sidewalk Film Festival, along with 3 additional Audience and Jury Awards in Atlanta and Memphis. The film also received raves from Roger Ebert, J.R. Jones and Variety's Robert Koehler, who, in his rave review, named the film to be "among the best of a recent spate of dramas observing American Christian life." The film stars Molly Kunz (Hulu's Battleground, Benny the Bum), Tyler Ross (Nate & Margaret) and Cone himself, as well as the Chicago-based actors Allison Torem, Matt Decaro, Sadieh Rifai, Sadie Rogers, Ann Whitney and Cliff Chamberlain, among many others, including several Southern-based thesps. It was produced by Cone, Sue Redman and Laura Klein.
Cone recently shot his latest feature, Black Box, starring Josephine Decker and Austin Pendleton, as well as an assortment of Chicago actors, in Chicago and Normal, IL. It is currently in post-production.
Stephen Cone (Writer/Producer/Director) is a Los Angeles and Chicago-based director, writer and actor. His last feature film, the award-winning, critically-acclaimed The Wise Kids, has screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide, won 8 awards including the Outfest Grand Jury Prizes for Outstanding US Feature and Outstanding Screenwriting, received rave reviews including a NY Times Critics' Pick, as well as raves in Variety and from Roger Ebert, appeared on four Best of 2011 lists (including the Chicago Tribune's and Chicago Reader's) and was recently acquired for DVD/VOD by Wolfe Video.
While dabbling in the Chicago theatre scene in the early 2000s, Stephen founded Cone Arts to facilitate the making of his own films. Since then, he has written, produced and directed the short films Church Story, Young Wives (2007 LA Shorts Fest) and 7 Experiments, as well as his medium-length feature debut The Christians (Gene Siskel Film Center; Philadelphia Independent Film Festival; NewFilmmakers @ Anthology Film Archives) and his first three full-length features In Memoriam (Gene Siskel Film Center, Big Muddy Film Festival), the aforementioned The Wise Kids, and his latest feature, Black Box, starring Josephine Decker and Austin Pendleton, currently in post-production.
As a playwright, his work has been seen in Austin and New York, and at Chicago Dramatists, Collaboraction and Bailiwick in Chicago. For the side project theatre company, Stephen has directed his own plays The Dancer, Henry Hettinger and Raised. He has twice been a Bay Area Playwrights Festival finalist and his short play The November Boy was a finalist for the Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon. His short plays I'll Never Tell You, Young Wives and We Came Here Because It's Beautiful have been featured in Collaboraction's Sketchbooks 5, 6 and 7 (as well as the Sketchbook "greatest hits" revue Reverb), and his one-act Cut To : A Stream was commissioned by Collaboraction for The Siddhartha Project. Also for Collaboraction, he directed a workshop production of his own play Stonehenge.
Other theatre directing work includes the side project's World Premiere of Philip Dawkins' Perfect, the same theatre's critically-acclaimed Chicago premiere of Sarah Kane's Crave, as well as readings and productions for Bailiwick and Dog & Pony.
In the summer of 2011, prior to relocating to Los Angeles, Stephen made his Chicago stage acting debut in the World Premiere of Philip Dawkins' The Homosexuals at About Face Theatre in Chicago, for which he was named one of the seven Hot New Faces of the Chicago Stage by the Chicago Tribune.
cone arts was founded by Stephen Cone in 2005 to facilitate the making of his own short, experimental and low-budget commercial features. Since then, they have produced or co-produced the short films Church Story and Young Wives, co-produced the medium-length feature film The Christians as well as the full-length features In Memoriam, The Wise Kids and the forthcoming Black Box.
