written and directed by Chad Hartigan

2016 / Germany, USA / English, German / Coming-of-Age, Comedy89 min / 2K / 1.85:1 / Dolby 5.1

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MORRIS FROM AMERICA

LOGLINEWhen a black teen moves to Germany with his single father, he must deal with culture shock and his infatuation with a rebellious girl, all while dreaming of becoming a hip hop star.

SYNOPSISMorris Gentry is 13, overweight, and fancies himself the next Notorious B.I.G. He’s entering puberty, self-conscious, and new to living in Heidelberg, Germany, where nobody else looks or acts like him. His single father Curtis is better at relating to Morris as a friend than a father, bonding with his son over their shared love of music. Initially, Morris only interacts with Curtis and Inka, his kind - if naïve - German language tutor, but when forced to attend summer classes at a youth center, he instantly falls in love. 15-year-old Katrin is just the girl for Morris: rebellious, cool as ice, and not as indifferent toward him as the other kids. As the two begin to develop a slow friendship (albeit one that Morris hopes will be the start of something deeper), Morris drifts further from Curtis, who is having a hard time of his own adjusting to his son’s burgeoning adolescence. In the wake of these changing relationships, Morris risks everything in a journey far outside of his comfort zone toward self-confidence and acceptance in this new, foreign environment.

TECH SPECSRun Time: 89 minAspect Ratio: 2.35:1Shooting Format: 2KSound: Dolby 5.1Country: Germany, USALanguage: English, German

PRESS“Irresistibly sweet.”ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“Christmas (a terrific discovery) and Robinson strike so many wonderfully varied notes.”VARIETY

“[Hartigan] deftly combines Morris’ fish-out-of-water experience with a coming-of-age story that is equal parts salty and sweet.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Snappy and sincere.”ROLLING STONE

“[Robinson and Christmas] triumph over cinematic cliche to give [the film] its heart and, of course, soul.”

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

“[A] big hearted, coming-of-age tale.”NEW YORK POST

ABOUT THE FILMFilmmaker Chad Hartigan knows Morris Gentry quite well – in fact, he is Morris in some respects.Born to Christian missionary parents – an American mom and an Irish dad who met in England – he grew up in Nicosia, Cyprus in the ‘80s and ‘90s, just as hip hop was beginning to appear, prompting a desire to become a rapper. Then, there was the girl with whom he fell in love at age 13...who didn’t love him back. “It was a transformative experience for me,” he explains, one which he recalled as he was beginning to think of his next project. “I couldn’t think of many movies that dealt with first love, in an unrequited way, but showed how important that is for the growth of a person.”

In November 2011, on the set of his award-winning This is Martin Bonner (Sundance 2013’s Audience Award-winner for Best of NEXT), he found himself recounting a favorite teenage male rite of passage – getting in a little reproductive practice by humping a bedroom pillow. “It’s very common to just hump things when you’re 13,” he notes. “But it got me thinking, ‘That would be such a great scene in a movie,’” one with which most fellas could probably identify (“I would argue some girls know about that, too,” adds Morris producer Adele Romanski).

Hartigan began writing a screenplay the following Spring, eventually deciding to make the lead character an African-American teen. “I knew I wanted to make a coming of age movie about that particular first love experience, and then, somewhere along the lines, the idea to make the character black came into my head and really made sense. I couldn’t think of any other movies that had a young, black, male protagonist that would be in the kinds of situations this story had, or had this type of sensitivity. It made Morris unique.”

So did placing him in Germany. “I didn’t know much about Germany, and I’m obviously not black. All I had were my personal experiences – so it was my challenge to learn about those things and portray them authentically,” including creating dialogue for both German characters – in German (translated from his English writing by one of the film’s German producers, Gabriele Simon) – and for African-American characters. For the latter, Hartigan leaned on a black high school friend named Eugene, who would check over the dialogue of key scenes between Morris and his father to make sure they felt genuine. “Eugene’s dad would come in in the morning when he was making cereal, and embarrass him by singing a song that went, ‘Big Dick Gene, Big Dick Gene,’” prompting the director to write a similar scene, in which Curtis embarrasses his son in a likewise fashion during a breakfast discussion.

CAST & CHARACTERSFinding a young actor to play the teenage Morris from America, as described in the script, wasn’t as simple a task as it might seem. “He had to be or look 13, had to be a little bit overweight, black, and be able to do a little bit of freestyle rapping,” A friend of Hartigan’s pointed him towards a series of online shorts, called Channel 101, made by a member of the L.A. comedy scene named Matt Hill. Hill’s shorts sometimes featured a youngster, named Markees Christmas. Hill, it turns out, had been mentoring Christmas since the age of 8, as part of the Big Brother program.

“We went for casting someone who was a close approximation to the role, versus going and finding the best actor we could find and then having them craft a performance that was way outside of themselves,” Romanski explains. “There’s a warmth about Markees – he’s very natural. And there’s something about him that’s unlike other teenagers – he’s not guarded. There’s something really earnest and open about him that makes him accessible and is really magnetic.“

Finding an actor to portray Morris’s father, Curtis, was almost as tricky. The producers met with quite a few actors, some more dramatic, some more comedic, including comic actor Craig Robinson. “I had loved the script, and really liked the vernacular he used and the way it was written, as well as the humor,” the actor recalls. Robinson drew on the relationship he had with his own father – which was 180 degrees from that between Curtis and Morris. “My father was a disciplinarian,” he says. “He lost his own father when he was 12, so he was the man of the house at 12 years old, and became really stern. A lot could be communicated with a look, a tone of voice – when I do that in the film, I’m actually doing a Jack Robinson impersonation. But for most of the movie, I basically do the opposite. Because what would Curtis do if Morris ran away? He’d be devastated. So he always has a measured response to his son.”

The other central relationship in the film is the one Morris has with Katrin, a cute blonde girl two years his senior, whom he meets at the Youth Center, played by 15-year-old German actress Lina Keller. “I loved that Katrin was mysterious about who she pretends to be to others. She appears to be cool, popular, rebellious, exciting and hard to get, but I had the sense there was more to her, and that interested me,” said Lina.

MAKING THE MOVIEMusic plays an incredibly large part in the film. The directive from Hartigan to his longtime friend and composer, Keegan DeWitt, was simple: create music which would represent what both Morris and Katrin listened to in their respective worlds – namely hip hop/rap and electronic dance music (EDM). “My goal was for Keegan, hopefully, to not get a lot of credit – because the idea was to make it sound like real songs just compiled on a mix tape,” says Hartigan.

The goal for the hip hop tracks was to provide the experience Morris has as he walks around in his private world with his headphones on. “We have three hip hop songs with rapping on them pretty early in the movie. And the idea was to make them feel like the rock block of a mixtape that he would make for Katrin later on in the movie – his top three songs, where he’s just in a groove in his own private world.” For the EDM, representing Katrin’s musical universe, DeWitt put himself through musical “boot camp.” “I spent two weeks watching 14 year olds on YouTube teach me how to mix dance music,” he laughs. “I tried to make it feel as gritty as possible, so when Morris is in those moments with her, it really feels alien to him – she’s drawn to it because it’s aggressive.”

During one scene, Morris is excited when Katrin invites him to a cool party under a bridge, only to be humiliated when Katrin whips out a squirt gun and squirts him in the crotch, to the laughter of the other kids. “That actually happened to me,” acknowledges Hartigan. “I thought I was going to get a kiss from this girl I really liked, and instead I got squirted in the crotch.” While the culprit in his own experience actually did like him, he notes, “That was her idea of flirting and being cute, and she was just unfamiliar with those kinds of feelings. But that’s not the case with Katrin. She loves being at the center of things, and knows she will have everybody’s attention.

Later in the film, Katrin invites Morris to come on a trip to Frankfurt to see Per deejaying at a nightclub – where he can finally do a real rap performance. The scene was filmed at Berlin’s popular Privatclub, with 100 extras in attendance to watch Markees Christmas do his stuff, which he did quite admirably. “It was intimidating for him to deliver those lines over and over again, take after take, in front of that many people,” says Romanski. “But he warmed up to it very quickly, and just did a fantastic job.”

MARKEES CHRISTMAS (Morris Gentry)Markees Christmas was born and raised in Los Angeles. He’s a high school student, now in the 10th grade. He started acting in a school play in the 6th grade, which led to acting in a series of Channel 101 shorts. Morris From America was both the first feature and first trip abroad for Markees. The fun-niest thing that happened to Markees in Germany was eating the candy called Camel Balls.

CRAIG ROBINSON (Curtis Gentry)Beginning as a stand-up comedian, Robinson first made his mark in the comedy circuit at the 1998 Montreal “Just For Laughs” Festival. Now headlining venues and festivals across the country, he does both solo acts as well as full-band sets with his band, The Nasty Delicious. Before deciding to pursue his comedy career full time, Robinson was a K-8 teacher in the Chicago Public School System. It was while Craig was studying education in Chicago that he also discovered his love of acting and comedy when he joined the famed Second City Theatre. Craig is best known for his portrayal of Dar-yl Philban in NBC’s The Office but has also starred in such movies as Knocked Up, This Is The End, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Hot Tub Time Machine 2, as well as his sitcom Mr. Robinson on NBC.

CARLA JURI (Inka Meinart)Carla made her professional debut in Cihan Inan’s 180º, for which she won the Swiss Film Prize for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. Carla followed up that success with Xavier Koller’s cult classic Someone Like Me, for which she was awarded the Swiss Film Prize for Best Actress. Addition-ally, due to her trained multilingualism, Carla has appeared in various German and Italian projects, including the British film Fossil directed by Alex Walker. Carla was the recipient of the 2013 Shooting Stars Award. Recently, Carla wrapped Director Peter Greenaway’s Walking To Paris and Martin Kool-hoven’s Brimstone, as well as Paula that is being produced by ARTE, set to be released in 2016. Pre-viously, Carla made her mark with her performance in the critically acclaimed German film Wetlands, directed by Alex Walker, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and subsequently lead to her nomination for the 2014 German Academy Award (LOLA) for Best Actress.

CHAD HARTIGANDirector/WriterChad Hartigan was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, and attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking. His first feature as writer/director, Luke and Brie Are On a First Date, premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2008 and was remade for Latin American audiences in 2013 as Luna En Leo. His second feature, This Is Martin Bonner, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT and went on to also win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Morris From America is his third feature.

CAST

LINA KELLER (Katrin)Lina was born in Berlin in 2008. Since the age of 7, she has been acting in several theatre plays. Her first TV movie was Doc meets Dorf in 2012, and she also had a role in the German TV crime series SoKo Wismar. Her film debut was in V8 Die Rache der Nitros, directed by Joachim Masannek. Morris from America is her second feature film.

JAKUB GIERSZEŁ (Pierre)Jakub Gierszał was born in Poland but spent a significant part of his childhood in Hamburg and stud-ied at the National Theatre Academy. He made his screen debut in Jacek Borcuch’s All That I Love in 2008 (Sundance IFF World Competition, Rotterdam IFF) and followed it with a supporting role in Andrzej Kondratiuk’s One Million Dollars in 2009. He had his first leading role in Jan Komasa’s Sui-cide Room, which premiered at the 2011 Berlinale. He later received the Shooting Star Award at the Berlinale 2012.

LEVIN HENNING (Bastian)Levin’s first role in a movie was at the age of 8 in the German film Der Eintänzer. In 2008, he was part of the ensemble of The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke. In 2012, he was in Rubinrot – the adap-tation of the best-selling novel by Felix Fuchssteiner, and in Millionen by German director Fabian Möhrke. In 2014, he was in Under Sandet by Martin P. Zandvilet.

SARAH MURPHY // ProducerSara most recently completed principal photography on Dustin Guy Defa’s Human People, starring Michael Cera, Abbi Jacobson, Tavi Gevinson, and Philip Baker Hall, and Hunter Gatherer by first-time filmmaker Joshua Locy, starring Andre Royo (The Wire) and executive produced by David Gordon Green and Rough House Pictures. She produced Land Ho!, directed by Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released worldwide by Sony Pictures Classics. Sara also co-produced John Slattery’s directorial debut God’s Pocket, and was an associate producer of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut, Jack Goes Boating. Sara had been the head of development for Mr. Hoffman’s company, Cooper’s Town Productions, based in New York City. Sara is a 2014 IFP/Rotterdam Lab Producing Fellow and received the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award in 2015 for Land Ho!. Her other film production credits include Capote, Mission: Impossible III, The Savages, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Charlie Wilson’s War, Synecdoche, New York, and Doubt.

ADELE ROMANSKI // ProducerAdele Romanski is an independent producer who, over the past decade, has produced an eclectic body of films with an emphasis on supporting first time directors, beginning with David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth Of The American Sleepover - which premiered at SXSW and won a Special Jury Prize before going on to an international premiere at Cannes as part of the Critic’s Week sidebar. Recent projects include Chad Hartigan’s Germany/USA co-production Morris From America, premiering in competition at Sundance 2016, and Barry Jenkins’ long-anticipated sophomore film, Moonlight, produced in partnership with Plan B and A24, currently in post-production and to be released by A24. Other credits include Katie Aselton’s The Freebie and Black Rock, Jacob Vaughan’s horror-comedy Bad Milo! and Justin Tipping’s urban adventure film Kicks, also in post-production and to be released in 2016 by Focus Features. Adele is a 2010 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and a 2012 IFP/Rotterdam Lab Producing Fellow. She earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination (Piaget Producing Award) for The Myth Of The American Sleepover. Adele has since served on the Advisory Board of IFP and was also a mentee in the inaugural class of the Women Filmmaker’s Initiative consisting of a select group of Sundance women directors and producers. She lives in Los Angeles.

MARTIN HEISLER // ProducerAfter graduating from the German Film and Television academy in Berlin, Martin Heisler founded the production company Lichtblick Media in 2008, working on both documentaries and narrative films. At the Berlinale/Panorama 2010 he premiered with David Wants To Fly, a documentary by David Sieveking which won several international awards (including the main award at the Locarno Critics’ Week) and was sold in more than 30 territories. Forget Me Not, also by David Sieveking, was an enormous box-office success in German cinemas and won over 25 awards on the international festival circuit. In collaboration with director Bastian Günther, he produced Autopilots (2007) and Houston, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (World Competition) in 2013. I Will Not Loose, a documentary by Sandra Kaudelka, premiered during the Berlinale 2013, and Martin returned in 2015 with The Audition (Perspective).

GABRIELE SIMON // ProducerAfter graduating from the Berlin Film School in producing in 2008, Gabriele got a scholarship at the Munich Film School in screenwriting. Since 2009, she has worked as a producer at Lichtblick Media Berlin, focusing on script development.

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GABRIELE SIMON // ProducerAfter graduating from the Berlin Film School in producing in 2008, Gabriele got a scholarship at the Munich Film School in screenwriting. Since 2009, she has worked as a producer at Lichtblick Media Berlin, focusing on script development.

MICHAEL B. CLARK // Executive ProducerAdele Romanski is an independent producer who, over the past decade, has produced an eclectic body of films with an emphasis on supporting first time directors, beginning with David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth Of The American Sleepover - which premiered at SXSW and won a Special Jury Prize before going on to an international premiere at Cannes as part of the Critic’s Week sidebar. Recent projects include Chad Hartigan’s Germany/USA co-production Morris From America, premiering in competition at Sundance 2016, and Barry Jenkins’ long-anticipated sophomore film, Moonlight, produced in partnership with Plan B and A24, currently in post-production and to be released by A24. Other credits include Katie Aselton’s The Freebie and Black Rock, Jacob Vaughan’s horror-comedy Bad Milo! and Justin Tipping’s urban adventure film Kicks, also in post-production and to be released in 2016 by Focus Features. Adele is a 2010 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and a 2012 IFP/Rotterdam Lab Producing Fellow. She earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination (Piaget Producing Award) for The Myth Of The American Sleepover. Adele has since served on the Advisory Board of IFP and was also a mentee in the inaugural class of the Women Filmmaker’s Initiative consisting of a select group of Sundance women directors and producers. She lives in Los Angeles.

ALEX TURTLETAUB // Executive ProducerUpon graduating from Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television, Alex began his career as an Assistant Editor, working on such features as Coach and Safety Not Guaranteed. After shifting to production in 2012, he partnered with Michael B. Clark to found Beachside Films, the west coast affiliate of Big Beach Films. Following the release of their first feature, Medora, in 2013, Beachside’s second and third films, Tig and People Places Things, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

ANNE FABINI // EditorBefore she started working as a film editor for both documentaries and narratives, Anne Fabini studied Film at Freie Universität Berlin. More Than Honey, an international co-production directed by Markus Imhoof, won the most prestigious national awards for documentary in Germany, Switzerland and Austria respectively. Her films Houston (2013), by Bastian Günther, and Return To Homs, by Talal Derki, premiered at Sundance Film Festival, with Return To Homs winning the World Documentary Grand Jury Award in 2014. Beyond Punishment, directed by Hubertus Siegert, is winner of the Max Ophüls Prize Best Documentary 2015. Her work has been nominated several times for Best Film Editing at the German Film Award (2009- Berlin Calling, 2013- More Than Honey, 2014- Houston). In February 2014, she was awarded the German Film Critics Award for Best Editing for Houston.

SEAN McELWEE // CinematographerSean was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is a graduate of The North Carolina School of the Arts. As a cinematographer, his past credits include Chad Hartigan’s previous film This Is Martin Bonner, Manson Family Vacation for the Duplass Brothers, and various documentaries, including State of Play, an in-depth sports docu-series for HBO. He currently resides in Los Angeles.

KEEGAN DeWITTComposerOver the past 4 years, Keegan DeWitt has brought 8 films to the Sundance Film Festival. His recent collaborations have gone on to garner an Academy Award, a Sundance Audience Award, 3 NY Times Critic’s Picks and an Independent Spirit Award. They help comprise a resume steeped in signature collaborations with daring and acclaimed young directors, creating works that are unquestionably unique.

Written and Directed byProducers

Executive Producers

Co-ProducersCommissioning Editor

CinematographerEditorMusic

Production DesignCostume Design

US CastingGerman Casting

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Chad HartiganMartin HeislerAdele RomanskiSara MurphyGabriele SimonMichael B. Clark Alex TurtletaubArek GielnikStefanie GroßSean McElweeAnne FabiniKeegan DeWittBabett KlimmeckNana KolbingerEyde Belasco, CSAManolya Multu, BVC

CASTCraig Robinson

Carla Juri Lina Keller

And Introducing Markees Christmas With Jakub Gierszał

Levin Henning Patrick Güldenberg

And Eva Löbau

CREDITS