Untitled - Aviation Cinemas

Who was Danny Casolaro?
Based on the mysterious life and death of the screenwriter’s cousin, “Danny Casolaro” tells the story of a
freelance reporter who dies while investigating highlevel corruption in The Reagan/Bush Department of
Justice.
A tip from an old friend leads Danny to the Inslaw Case, in which a DC software manufacturer accused The Justice
Department of pirating his latest innovation.
As Danny
digs into Inslaw, he
uncovers a sprawling collaboration involving Iran/Contra,
The BCCI Scandal,
The Arming of Iraq,
and The October
Surprise. He names
this international ca- Danny Casolaro
bal “the Octopus,” a
shadowy world of crooked banks, doubleagents, and bitter ex-spies.
A year into the investigation, Danny is found dead in a bathtub in a West
Virginia Motel, his arms slashed 12
times, his papers gone. The authorities
rule it suicide, but a host of conspiracy theorists—and The House Judiciary
Committee—disagree.
What is “the truth” Danny died trying to tell? And what does his strange
journey reveal about the political world
we live in now?
Continued on Page A7
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
ERIC STEELE
The true story of Danny Casolaro impacted
me immediately – 5 years ago – when I
participated in a staged reading of the play
DANNY CASOLARO DIED FOR YOU by
Dominic Orlando. My heart was thumping.
I was angry and perplexed. Did this really
happen? Is this really a true story? How could
this happen in the US without us knowing about
it? I spent the rest of the evening researching
every name in the script, finding the details of
the entire story contained in Dominic’s script to
be true. It was chilling.
Danny Casolaro is a hero who is ultimately undone not only by his enemies
but by his own paranoia and regrets. A brilliant, revered freelance writer
and business owner who finds himself at the center of the most significant
American conspiracy since Watergate, Danny’s journey is one of let-down after
let-down. Sources go bad, major newspapers steal his ideas, Banks and creditors
come after him.
I’m focused on telling Danny’s story in the most honest, raw, visceral way
possible. Drawing from ‘70s cinema masters like Gordon Willis, we will paint a
world where moral ambiguity is represented on the canvas in dark strokes. The
beautiful, ornate Washington amid its nostalgic cherry trees and monuments
will be split by dark, lowly lit hotel bars and restaurants where clandestine
meetings take place after hours.
The audience we believe exists for this story reaches across numerous
demographics. Films like ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN, ARGO, 3 DAYS OF
THE CONDOR, and TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY have all connected with a
diverse audience: younger film aficionados, Indie film crowd, older demographic
interested in history, the literary crowd. I believe DANNY CASOLARO will
have this kind of crossover appeal.
This film will unpack and unravel the generic “Thriller” label, taking the
audience on a self-questioning, frightening journey through the shadows of
American democracy, free speech, and the military industrial complex. The
dismantling of Danny Casolaro is a fascinating character study - one that we
will strive to make sense of or at least pose enough questions that the audience
can decide for themselves: why did Danny Casoloro die and why does it matter?
WRITER’S STATEMENT
DOMINIC ORLANDO
Every year since 1982, my family’s gone down to
Washington DC to celebrate Thanksgiving with
my Aunt, Frances Casolaro (my Mother’s sister).
Thanksgiving of 1990 I saw her son, my cousin
Danny, alive for the last time. Danny had been a
novelist, reporter, and short-story writer during
my childhood, which would have been enough to
inspire hero worship even without his undeniable
charisma and charm. Danny came of age in
the late 60’s and early 70’s, but never made the
transition from the Beats to the hippies—he placed
himself squarely on the Hemingway—Kerouac
continuum and it showed. That last Thanksgiving
he was six months into an investigation that
would—one way or another—cost him his life. I was working on a political farce
about Reagan’s foreign policy. We talked late into the night about political farces
real and imagined. Danny was a good twenty years my senior. He may as well
have been God.
Nine months later Danny was found dead in a motel room in Martinsburg, West
Virginia, his arms slashed a remarkable twelve times. He had spent almost a year
investigating high-level corruption in the Reagan/Bush Department of Justice,
beginning with the theft of a software program and following every lead that came
his way, wandering through the political wreckage of the 70’s and 80’s, desperate
to find a trail. Whether that trail ended in suicide or murder I was determined
to find out for myself—or at the very least make some sense of his life and death
through my writing.
My move to The Playwrights’ Center also allowed for the creation of the play
“Danny Casolaro Died for You”. I’d written an earlier version, “Superman Is Dead”,
the result of a series of trips down to DC, interviewing family and friends (my own
family in this case, an interesting experience I encourage you to avoid), gathering
details of Danny’s story from intimates, published accounts, and The House
Judiciary’s Report on the theft of the Promis Software (probably nothing in this
long process compares to reading this report, which begins with an investigation
into the theft of a software program by The Justice Department and shoots off
on a dozen tangents, including, as one turns page 68, Danny’s death. The House
Judiciary Committee recommended an independent prosecutor look into Danny’s
story—The Justice Department unfortunately disagreed).
“Superman” was not a bad piece, but my Mentor at the Center had some
interesting ideas for revising it, so I applied for (and received) a McKnight
Fellowship to take a year off and focus on nothing else. That process led to
workshops, festivals and productions—includin g the one Eric Steele performed
in that began our conversations about this film. Since my ultimate goal with the
piece is to bring Danny’s story to the wider world, a film is the logical next step,
and Eric’s enthusiasm for the material is matched only by his intelligence and skill.
“Robert Nichols is absolute death”
- No Kidding
- Stay Away
Michael’s
Names
Robert Nichols
October Surprise
Iran/Contra
Wackenhut
Dr. John
Cabazon Reservation
DEA
CIA
NSA - Alan Spar
Agent Gates, FBI
Danny Casolaro
“It is a pale moon that illuminates the characters in this story.
With chords of fear and longing,
it is a dark world that everyone thinks they know
but few have seen.”
The
Reservation
Michael
Rinconsciuto
US Customs
Dept
Fred Alvarez
Alvarez Murder
Bill Hamilton
Promis
Software
Stolen
Jimmy Hughes
Videnieks/
Justice
Ehrlich/
Hadron
DANNY
NICHOLS
HUGHES
SPAR
Alvarez
RINCONSCIUTO
Videnieks
44. Freelance reporter. Wellbred, upper middle-class ne’er
do well—charming, adventurous,
impulsive. An old school writer/
reporter—cigarettes and whiskey.
In great shape for his age, single
by choice, no problem getting
laid—wicked gleam of humorous
intelligence in his playful eyes.
Stubborn, casually artistic, brave.
A man who gets the most out of
life, yet somehow managed to
raise a son on his own.
40’s to late 50’s. Shady West
Coast businessman and intelligence ties.
Either the inspiration for the
“mysterious stranger” in movies
or seen too many movies himself.
Smooth, polished veneer to cover
the violence and rot underneath.
Reporters nickname him “Clark
Cable” for his dashing good looks.
FBI calls him, “a mobster, a con
man, a spy—or some new hybrid of
all three”.
30’s to 40’s. One of the thugs
who tries to take over Fred’s
tribe. The violent appendage of someone much smarter
than he is—no thought, no
reflection—just action. The
meatman, the attack dog,
the little monster in a suit.
Maybe mobbed-up, maybe just
a cast-off from Intelligence
or Special Forces—thinks only
of ending others’ lives and
preserving his own.
40’s. Slight, sly, cynical—works
for the NSA, but we never
learn exactly what he does.
He seems to know his decision
to leak information makes him
a dead man—there’s a kind of
ghostly wisdom about him, a
playfulness that’s also desperate, as if he needs to impart
this wisdom as best he can before he vanishes into thin air.
30’s, to 40’s. Burly, stone-faced
Native American—leather jacket,
rides a wicked chopper—doesn’t
take any shit from anyone.
Passionately devoted to his tiny
tribe in
the California Desert—when outsiders threaten to take over, he
springs into action.
30’s to 40’s—twitchy computer geek—the prototypical
slovenly genius, with all the
energy, manic drive—and pettiness—of a precocious adolescent. So big, so weird, he
can’t possibly be real. Maybe
his mind is way ahead of its
time—or it could just be the
meth he’s accused of manufacturing, speeding him up and
rotting out his brain. Danny
never finds out for sure.
40’s to late 50’s. The archvillain as soulless bureaucrat. Videnieks has been
ensconced in some part of
the government most of his
life—maybe Justice, maybe
Customs—sucking in power,
money and prestige like a
blind tic. A fierce, aggressive blank.
“highlighting the moral ambiguity of the story through the use of shadows and light...”
of the green mall
“dimly lit hotel bar scenes juxtaposed by the beautiful, sprawling openness
by the Washington monument”
Adam Donaghey (Producer)
Adam Donaghey, founder of micro-budget indie label Zero Trans
Fat Prods. and co-founder Aviation Cinemas Prods., is an awardwinning independent film producer. His work has been nominated
for both the Independent Spirit
and Gotham Awards, and has been
showcased at fests including Sundance, SXSW, Sitges, LA Film Festival, AFI Fest, Hampton’s Film
Festival and Thessaloniki; and via
distributors including IFC Films,
XLRator Media, Cinetic Media,
Lifetime and the Lifetime Movie
Network. Adam is a Partner and
Vice President of Aviation Cinemas, inc., the holding company operating the historic Texas Theatre,
an arthouse and national landmark
in Dallas, Texas. Financed by Howard Hughes in 1931, the Texas Theatre received national attention
after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged shooter of President
John F. Kennedy. Adam is also CoFounder of and programmer for
the Oak Cliff Film Festival, which
has been covered in various national publications including Texas
Monthly and the New York Times.
Adam regularly speaks and judges at universities, film festivals
and industry related workshops,
conferences and competitions and
is a freelance film columnist for
D Magazine. Adam is a graduate
of the University of North Texas
with a B.A. in philosophy.
Jack Heller and Dallas Sonnier - twice nominated for Tony awards
Managing Partners, Caliber Media for BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW
JACKSON and PETER AND THE
Caliber clients
Caliber is a full-service Manage- STARCATCHER.
ment and Production Company, also wrote several previous movies
representing talented actors, writ- including Lionsgate’s ABDUCTION,
ers, and directors while producing Tribeca’s DETACHMENT, Anchor
original Studio and Independent Bay’s THE DIVIDE, and Universal’s THE FOURTH KIND. On the
projects.
Management highlights have re- acting front, Caliber clients have
cently included the success of a starred in films such as TERMINAclient filmmaker’s movie BACHE- TOR SALVATION, FOOTLOOSE,
LORETTE, which debuted at Sun- GI JOE 2, and THE PACT, and TV
dance and was distributed by The shows like FALLING SKIES, BEN
Weinstein Company’s new label Ra- AND KATE, and BEING HUMAN.
dius. The film broke VOD-premiere See
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sales records and had a successful
theatrical run following the VOD company#sthash.r3Nl0KsM.dpuf
campaign. Another client sold a
feature pitch entitled AGENT 13
to Universal with Rupert Wyatt
attached to direct and Charlize
Theron attached to star, and is also
selling a spec entitled MY NAME
Dominic Orlando (Writer)
IS ADAM to Paramount with Tom
Cruise attached. One client sold
Dominic Orlando is a two-time
a pitch based on the comic book
Jerome Fellow, a four-time MacSTUFF OF LEGEND to Disney,
Dowell Fellow, a McKnight Felwhile another sold a pitch based on
low and a founding producer of
the comic book THE GREAT UNThe Workhaus Playwrights ColKNOWN to New Line. Caliber replective, company-in-residence at
resents staff writers from BONES,
The Playwrights Center in MinNBC’s upcoming DECEPTION,
neapolis. His work has been proand FX’s former series TERRIduced and supported by HERE,
Lincoln Center, New York TheERS. A theater director client was
atre Workshop, and Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, among others. He is the cousin of Danny
Casolaro.
Eric Steele (Director)
Eric Steele, a Filmmaker from Dallas,
was recently nominated for a 2014 Independent Spirit Award as Producer
of PIT STOP (dir. Yen Tan) which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival
2013. Steele’s feature film directorial
debut - BOB BIRDNOWS REMARKABLE TALE OF HUMAN SURVIVAL
AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF
SELF (2013) - won the Ron Tibbett
Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at Indie Memphis and premiered
at the Hamptons International Film
Festival. Steele’s short films CORK’S
CATTLEBARON (2012) and TOPEKA
(2010) were festival favorites. Steele
is also one of the Partners at the Historic Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff and
a Co-Founder of the Oak Cliff Film
Festival.
Unsolved
M
CBS Broa ysteries
March 10 dcasting
, 1993