Take Me to the River

Product Description Matt Sobel's assured directorial debut is the story of Ryder, an artsy, confident California teen who is heading to Nebraska for a family reunion. After planning to come out to his conservative relatives, he holds off at his mother's request but nevertheless makes a showy entrance at the cookout with his short shorts and his eye-catching shades. No one seems particularly impressed except his 9-year old cousin Molly, who likes to follow him around. When they go to the barn to look for birds in the rafters and she comes back screaming and inconsolable, Ryder comes under suspicion and, in the process of clearing his name, learns that some family secrets are sometimes better kept that way. Review WINNER - Best Narrative - Tallgrass Film Festival NOMINATED - Golden Starfish, Narrative Feature - Hamptons Int'l Film Festival OFFICIAL SELECTION - Sundance Film Festival OFFICIAL SELECTION - London Film Festival OFFICIAL SELECTION - American Film Festival OFFICIAL SELECTION - New Fest OFFICIAL SELECTION - Three Rivers Film Festival --- Superlatively acted culture-clash indie chillingly evokes primal dread and sexual transgression... --Ronnie Scheib, Variety Writer-director Matt Sobel's quietly engaging debut is one of the great discoveries of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival: his fish-out-of-water observations have a personal edge... - Ibad Shah, Indiewire Played out like a genuinely strange waking dream...we rarely see such taxing audacity from first time filmmakers. --The Playlist About the Director Matt Sobel has been an active screenwriter and filmmaker for the past twelve years. He graduated from UCLA s department of Art and currently lives in Los Angeles. His first feature TAKE ME TO THE RIVER premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015. It was developed at Binger Filmlab's writing and directing labs in 2012 and IFP's Narrative Filmmaker Lab in 2014. It was also selected to participate in US in Progress in Wroclaw Poland in 2014. Matt was named one of 2014's 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine. His previous films include X TO Y, the Audience Choice Award winner for best short at Cinequest 2009 and the Grand Jury Prize winner at the National film Festival for Talented Youth. His fine art video Venery screened in the New York exhibition, Hooded and Headless: An Erratic Survey of Anonymity in Recent Video and Life, curated by Harry Dodge.