NEW ORLEANS – This weekend the City of New Orleans stars in a new feature film, “There Is a New World Somewhere.” The film will be screened tonight at The Broad Theater, 636 N. Broad St., at 7:00 p.m., and Sunday, July 10, 2016, at Chalmette Movies, 8700 W. Judge Perez Dr., at 2:30 p.m.
“Our film was shot in the greater New Orleans area, and this will be our hometown premiere,” Writer/ Director Li Lu said. “The New Orleans Film Society is supporting our screenings.”
Lu said “There Is a New World Somewhere” is a coming of age story about self-revelation where main character Sylvia, a misguided young woman and a struggling artist in New York, is fired from her job and flees back to her Texas hometown for a friend’s wedding. At the pre-wedding party, she meets an enigmatic stranger, Esteban. On the eve of the big day, he dares her to join him on a road trip through the jewel cities of the Deep South including New Orleans. Sylvia is searching for distractions of every kind to evade facing her internal demons.
Lu said the “subconscious seeds” of her movie surfaced five years ago in the form of a short story, and the screenwriting process transformed a quiet scene in a motel room into a full, robust story of a woman’s journey to self-identity.
“At this stage in life, I feel as close to our heroine as I’ll ever be,” Lu said. “Abundant in passion but lacking in ways to physically manifest it, this story was a way for me to try to understand myself and fight my own self-doubts. This is why I wanted to make this film, for I feel anyone who has tried to express anything abstract can relate to these fears. As filmmaker Wim Wenders said, ‘I want to make personal films, not private films.’”
The cast of “There Is a New World Somewhere” includes Agnes Bruckner as Sylvia, Maurice Compte as Esteban, Ashley Bell as Samantha and John Robinson as Ethan.
For tickets to The Broad Theater screening click here.
For tickets to the Chalmette Movies screening click here.
