SPA NIGHT LA Festival Premiere at Outfest!

So proud to announce that our feature SPA NIGHT will have its LA festival premiere at Outfest in July as the US Narrative Centerpiece!!!
We shot SPA NIGHT entirely on location in Los Angeles, and we are beyond excited to finally bring the film home and share it with everybody who made this possible.
We are especially proud to return to Outfest, where we screened Myrna the Monster last year and where our director Andrew Ahn's short Dol won Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Narrative Short Film in 2012.

Screening on July 11th at 7pm at the DGA 1.
Tickets go on sale on Monday, June 13th.
Following the screening, a reception in the DGA Atrium, hosted by the Outfest Emerging Leaders Council.

Hope to see you all there!!

SPA NIGHT Festival Screenings - NYC and European Premiere Announced!

So many exciting screenings coming up!!!

On June 25th, we will have our European Premiere at the great Edinburgh International Film Festival, amidst some great films. Second screening will be on June 26th, let your friends know!!!

On June 23rd, SPA NIGHT will screen at the historical Castro Theatre in San Francisco at Frameline, get your tickets!! The whole team will be there and we hope to see you all!

SPA NIGHT will have its NYC Premiere at BAMcinemaFest in Brooklyn on June 20th - director Andrew Ahn and star Joe Seo will be there! Honored to be part of such a great lineup!!! Buy your tickets today!

On June 12th and 13th, SPA NIGHT goes down-under for the amazing Sydney Film Festival!!! According to them Andrew is "a bold new talent".. proud of our movie!

On June 2nd, 3rd and 4th a busy SPA NIGHT weekend with some amazing screenings:
Seattle International Film Festival - June 2nd and 3rd (Andrew will be there!)
TLVFest, the Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival - June 3rd
From the TLV website: "In his film debut, director and scriptwriter Andrew Ahn brings to the screen a cinematic aesthetic that is rarely found in contemporary American cinema. The spa scenes, in particular, are reminiscent of the atmosphere created by Tsai Ming-Liang in his exemplary I Don't Want to Sleep Alone."
OUTFilm CT in Connecticut - June 4th (Joe will be there!)

On June 4th, our director and the producing team of SPA NIGHT will speak on a panel at LAFF about "Low Budget in LA" - register for the event HERE.

Strand Releasing acquires North American rights for Spa Night!!!

We are thrilled to be partnering with Strand Releasing for the distribution of our feature, Spa Night, in North America. Strand has been distributing daring independent films for over twenty years, championing great directors such as Lucrecia Martel and Apitchatpong Weerasethakul - and we are proud to be part of this wonderful group of filmmakers.

Check out the press release out of Berlin on Variety.

Follow our Spa Night Facebook Page for updates on our upcoming screenings!!!

Joe Seo wins Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance!!!

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to our very own Joe Seo for winning the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance as David Cho in Spa Night!!!

Joe is a brave, daring, gentle actor, who put his all in this movie and we could not be happier for him! Hoping that this means many more great roles for him and the beginning of a wonderful career - it was an honor working with you through the laughter and pain and long nights and love. 

Congratulations Joe!!!

Check out the full list of winners on Variety, and Joe on Vulture as one of the "Best Performances of Sundance 2016"! So proud to be among these great films!!!

Reviews of Spa Night out of Sundance!

We are honored and humbled by all the great reviews and mentions that keep coming in, so we decided to share some of our favorite ones here. For the latest news and press, please follow our SPA NIGHT FACEBOOK PAGE and TWITTER, where we will keep you posted in real time!

Here is the first review of our film, that we woke up to the morning after the premiere, on Rogertebert.com, by Nick Allen:

"A new and necessary voice in indie cinema, he is a gay Korean-American filmmaker, two aspects of identity that inspire an anxious, shattering search for peace of place and identity within this incredible movie competing in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition."

On Twitch Film, by Jeremy O. Harris:

"Much like its lead, articulation has failed me in the days since watching and processing Andrew Ahn's glorious Spa Night. The film presents itself with such ease and confidence that its easy to miss its complexities at first glance. A friend of mine who saw the movie with me said it in another way, "It's like a masterpiece painting that you could miss in a museum if you weren't looking close enough. It's not showy in it's honesty." 

On IonCinema, by Nicholas Bell:

"...we can’t escape Ahn’s accomplished and beautifully human portrait of a family forced to flounder from one dream deferred to another."

On the Hollywood Reporter, by Boyd van Hoeij:

"...for those willing to fully invest themselves, Spa Night offers a carefully considered story about identity or rather identities, with David having to figure out a way to accommodate his orientation and his position as the only child of Korean immigrants in L.A."

On Variety, by Peter Debruge:

“Spa Night” serves as an homage to the sacrifices first-generation immigrants made in order that their children could achieve their full potential in the States, expanding the concept of “pride” far beyond its protagonist’s gay identity.

Spa Night Premiere at Sundance!

Spa Night premiered on January 24th, 2016 at the Library Theatre in Park City to a full house. It was a beautiful, moving, overwhelming, exciting, stressful, exciting, amazing moment to share the film for the first time with an audience. To hear them laugh, see them tear up.

To all the Sundance programmers who believed in our movie: THANK YOU!!! (Special thanks to Kim Yutani who introduced the Premiere!)

Sundance programmer Kim Yutani and director Andrew Ahn at the premiere of Spa Night.

To everybody who was there in the audience, thank you for being part of this moment. To all of our cast & crew who made it all the way to Park City and through the snow: we could not have done this without you, your talent, your hard hard work.

Special thanks to Kickstarter for hosting our crazy Karaoke party, to Dan, Jessica, Alex, Brady and the whole staff who made this THE BEST PARTY EVER. 
See the full calendar of their events at the Kickstarter lounge HERE.

Here are some photos!!!

L-R: Joe Seo (David Cho), Haerry Kim (Soyoung Cho), director Andrew Ahn

And party-time!!!

Cast&Crew of Spa Night at our Premiere Karaoke Party at the Kickstarter lounge!

Andrew (and many friends) singing the night away!!! So much fun!!!

Elijah Wood shaking it off at our Karaoke party!!! 

SPA NIGHT TO PREMIERE AT SUNDANCE 2016!!!

We are beyond excited to announce that our film Spa Night, Andrew Ahn's debut feature that we produced and shot last June, will premiere at Sundance in January in U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION!!!

With the risk of sounding repetitive, we would like to thank once more all the people out there who made this possible, who believed in us. Our amazing cast, our hardworking super-talented crew, our investors, our Kickstarter backers, the places that donated food, opened their house for us to shoot in, let us borrow their cars... THANK YOU, to each one of you.

A special thank you to our director, Andrew Ahn, who decided to go on this journey with us, and the producing team: Giulia Caruso, Ki Jin Kim, David Ariniello and Kelly Thomas - for never giving up. We have been working on this film for a long time now, since it was just an idea... we laughed, we cried, we laughed, we yelled, we sweated... Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was tough, sometimes it was brutal, something exhilarating. We can't say how proud and humbled we are to be taking Spa Night to Sundance and we can't wait to share the movie with you all!!!

See the Sundance press release HERE.

For any inquiries related to Spa Night, please email us at: giulia.caruso@nonethelessproductions.com

How the Labs made Spa Night possible - Interview with Film Independent

Check out this article about our director Andrew Ahn and the making of Spa Night on the Film Independent Blog: "5 Ways Directing Labs Can Set the Scene for your First Feature"

And if you are thinking of applying to their Artist Development Programs, check out their Guidelines and Deadlines HERE.

THAT'S A WRAP ON SPA NIGHT!!!

After 3 weeks on set we are proud to announce that we just wrapped production on Andrew Ahn's debut feature Spa Night.

What a ride.

Before we pass out for a couple of weeks, we want to thank all of you who made this possible and wonderful: our amazing cast (some of whom came all the way from Korea), our hard-working talented crew who endured the hardships of independent filmmaking with us and poured their passion into this project, all the extras, location owners, grocery stores, everybody who let use their place, donated food to our production, came all the way to set at 1am to be an extra in a scene at the Korean Spa... THANK YOU.

Thank you to our investors, all the organizations that supported us through this journey (Sundance Institute, Film Independent, Cinereach, Panavision, CAAM, Visual Communication, Pacific Arts Movement) and our Kickstarter backers. Each and every one of you who believe in us. This would not be happening without you and we could not be more grateful: YOU ARE MAKING OUR DREAMS WITH US. It doesn't get more special than that.

We have so many stories to share with you all, and most of all cannot wait to share the finished movie.. but for the time being follow us on our Facebook PAGE for all updates!!!

SPA NIGHT awarded a Panavision New Filmmaker Grant!

Very proud and excited to announce that our project SPA NIGHT was awarded the New Filmmaker Grant from Panavision - which includes an Alexa package for the duration of the shoot!!! The value of the grant is about $50,000 and we are honored and humbled to share this news.

Producer and DP Ki Jin Kim is beyond thrilled to be shooting on the Alexa and we will be doing some tests soon… More on that when the time comes!

For now, huge THANK YOUS to Panavision and Mike Dallatorre for their incredible support.

Learn more about this amazing program HERE.