Private Project

The Low End Theory

A suicidal young woman steals from her drug-dealer boss to pay off debts owed by the beautiful, but equally troubled woman with whom she is having an obsessive affair.

  • Francisco Ordonez
    Writer
    IMPERIUM, ASHER, PACKS
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Genres:
    Crime-Thriller, Film Noir
  • Number of Pages:
    107
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 2018 NALIP Media Market
    Hollywood, CA
    June 22, 2018
    Fellow
Writer Biography - Francisco Ordonez

L.A.-based, Francisco Ordonez served as Co-Producer on the film, IMPERIUM, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Toni Collette. IMPERIUM was released by Lionsgate from Director, Daniel Ragussis, Atomic Features and Tycor International.

Born and raised in Queens, Francisco graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from The City University of New York. He then earned his M.F.A. in Film Directing at the Columbia University School of the Arts, where he was honored as a Film Division Fellow.

Currently, Francisco has been hired to write PACKS, a crime thriller about the rise of designer marijuana across America into a multi-million dollar illegal drug trade.

Francisco is in development on the film THE LOW END THEORY which will star Ricky Russert (I, TONYA, "Banshee") and Rene Rosado (ABCs "The Conners", and"Major Crimes").

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Writer Statement

Many of us grow up loving movies. But it wasn't until I stumbled into a college course on the sociology of Alfred Hitchcock that I became obsessed. The professor had written a wonderful book that analyzed the evolution of Hitchcock's artistic reputation, from the "great entertainer" of the 1950s to the "serious artist" of the 1980s. It was the first time I viscerally realized that movies have a history, a culture, and that they are personal--that a director puts his or herself into them.

I was hooked. I started reading every film history book I got my hands on and watching every movie I could. I discovered I had a low tolerance for sentimentality, and that I'm drawn to stories exploring the darker side of human nature.

After finishing film school I continued to work on my own material while earning a meager living directing low budget hip-hop videos. The necessity of making ends meet led to a surprising creative inspiration. These struggling rappers/musicians and the world they inhabit -- which was so different, yet so eerily similar, to my own -- became the basis of THE LOW END THEORY.

I set out to explore this world, but as an updated Film Noir; and to play with the elements of the genre: the concept of destiny, the femme fatale, the anti-hero scarred by war, but with a female protagonist in a contemporary Hip-Hop setting. In this way, I'd like the film to participate in the conversation around the fact that gender and sexuality are increasingly no longer a person's defining characteristic.

Thus, whereas the Noir hero of the 1940s or 50s was a man, often ravaged by the horrors of the world wars (e.g. THE ROARING 20s, THE BLUE DAHLIA), my Noir hero, Raquel, is a lesbian, a LatinX military veteran who experienced a traumatic sexual experience in the Marines. The Latino and Black men around Raquel, criminals and Hip-Hop artists, don't bat an eye at her gender or sexuality. I see this more and more in the world around me: Latino men I grew up with accepting their sons, sister and fathers as they come out; friendly indifference to a Hip- Hop musician's sexuality, a welcomed evolution from its homophobic past.

Over the years Urbanworld has been instrumental in developing my career, first as a place where I saw films that inspired me, and later when I had the honor of screening my short film "Cookie" there in 2011. I know that being included in Urbanworld's screenplay readings would be an invaluable opportunity to expose THE LOW END THEORY to the filmmaking community in an exciting event attended by members of our target audience.