With an Emmy Award, an MTV-U award and an appearance at the 2005 Academy Awards under its belt, the Athens-based Par-T-Com Productions is embarking on its first full-length movie.
The movie, Relative Obscurity
was written by Ohio University graduate Jeff Rosenberg and is based on a quote from author Franz Fanon. The original idea spawned from a request made by one of Rosenberg's professors, Dr. Esiaba Irobi.
Irobi, a professor of international theater, would regularly begin his performance and identity class with the quote from Fanon, which says Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission
fulfill it or betray it.
Irobi said he wanted his students to understand that you must bring something new and unique to the artistic field you practice
something which represents the genius of your generation; otherwise you will leave nothing behind for posterity.
At the end of the quarter, Irobi asked the class to turn in a reaction paper. Within a week, Rosenberg completed the first draft of a full-length script.
He was the only one in the class who understood what I was doing was provocation
Irobi said. He got the idea and ran away with it.
The plot follows seven main characters, who Rosenberg said are dramatizations of friends. One character is based on Rosenberg's freshman-year Ghanaian roommate and is played by Owiso Odera - a Princess Grace award-winning actor.
A big part of what attracted me to the film
and especially the character
was it was something I understood
Odera said.
Originally from Kenya, Odera attended Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., for undergraduate studies, and, like his character, he had to cope with growing and finding himself among the pressures of young adulthood within a different culture.
Other notable characters are Larisa Oleynik (10 Things I Hate About You) and Jack Kehler (The Big Lebowski). The rest of the cast and crew includes OU students and graduates willing to lend a helping hand.
We could have tried to sell the script
but we wanted it. It would probably have a better chance of being released
but it wouldn't be as good a movie. Rosenberg said.
The movie is set to be filmed from Nov. 26 to Dec. 21 in Athens and Columbus.
Nothing can go wrong
