The weekend after Independence Day, writer-director Andre Hyland will screen his "The 4th" comedy movie Saturday as a Clifton Market fund-raiser Saturday.
Hyland, co-star Anna Lee Lawson and producer Michael J. Rizzo will answer questions after the 2:45 p.m. and 5 p.m. screenings Saturday, and meet fans at a cook-out in the Clifton Market parking lot. The $25 admission includes the barbeque, says publicist Fred Anderson.
"The 4th," about a July 4th party gone wrong, is the first feature-length film by the former Clifton resident and 1998 Indian Hill High School graduate. He wrote, directed and starred in the 80-minute film which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The comedian is the brother of Adam Hyland, Clifton Market co-op board president, and son of Marilyn Hyland, longtime Clifton activist behind the effort to return a grocery store to the old Keller's IGA. Hiring starts in August so the market can open by the end of September, Adam Hyland told WVXU-FM on June 28.
For years, the former UC student has been creating comedy for MTV, Comedy Central, Funny or Die, the old Fuel channel, Sundance, LA Film Fest, AFI Fest and SXSW, says his blondchili website. His "Funnel" short film, also screened at Sundance in 2014, was called "one of the 12 Must-See Sundance" by Rolling Stone.
In reviewing "The 4th," the "Hollywood Reporter" praised Hyland's "deadpan situational humor that will prove relatable to a broad audience of struggling urbanites." His Jamie character "is the type of person who has a hard time dealing with open hostility, but can’t resist lobbing comments in the general direction of aggressors, enraging them further…. Hyland has expanded his trademark singular style to include a wider range of situations, characters and stylistic expression, demonstrating an ability to encompass more complex narratives that are yet to unfold."
Here are a few other Cincinnati connections to "4th" from Anderson, a former reporter for WKRC-AM and WCKY-AM:
Charles J. Gibson, a director of photography, is from Cincinnati. Shane Bruce Johnston, also a director of photography, lived in Cincinnati from 2009-2013. He's married to Sarah Hyland Johnston, Andre's sister, a production assistant on the film.
Actor Jeff Carpenter is from Cincinnati. Actor Paul ErlingOyen attended UC.
Andre's parents, Marilyn and Gerard Hyland of Cincinnati, play public radio announcers in a scene.
And Anderson is the voice of the Civil War book on tape narrator.
