Rye Manhattan

RYE MANHATTAN was originally commissioned by the Iron Mule Comedy Film Festival for their “Wanna Be A Star” contest where they asked me to direct a film with a title and "star" both chosen at random by their audience. We lucked out in getting Matt Cohen, a terrific comedic writer/performer/producer in his own right, to star in “Rye.” I then drafted my co-producer, Dave Chan, from my award-winning short, WHAT’S EATING DAD?, to co-write and co-produce this new film with me. As for the story, I knew I wanted the film to be about modern dating in New York as I had recently gotten out of a long-term relationship. I quickly came up with the idea that the main character would be waiting for his date in the wrong bar, something I had actually experienced. And I also knew I wanted to do something fast-paced and in the vein of Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” a classic, darkly comic look at a NYC date gone wrong.

From inception to shoot, we only had about 2 weeks to pull everything together. We assembled a terrific team and shot the film in one weekend across multiple locations in New York City. We spent longer in post-production with the edit, color, and sound design, working with new collaborators who had wanted to work with us after the success of our prior short, WHAT’S EATING DAD?. We’re really happy with the charming, scrappy results: RYE MANHATTAN. Enjoy!