Red Doors Movie Part 'Joy Luck Club' and Part 'American Beauty'

My friend Georgette Wong, the investor relations manager at Sterling Stamos, and my fellow board member at CAA, called me this morning to ask if I could help a friend of hers with promotional ideas for a new film, Red Doors (www.reddoorsthemovie.com), set to premiere on the West Coast on Sept. 22.

Because of the grassroots marketing for the film's New York City premiere, it opened last weekend as the number one film in the country, based on per-screen revenues. The buzz was helped by the film's numerous film festival awards, including Best Narrative Feature at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, and a cast that includes the beautiful and talented Jacqueline Kim of Charlotte Sometimes and the less-mentioned (but my personal favorite) Star Trek: Generations, in which she plays Sulu's daughter.

From Red Doors director Georgia Lee in an email :

RED DOORS is a dark comedy about the Wongs, a dysfunctional Chinese- American family coming of age in New York. The film has been described as AMERICAN BEAUTY meets JOY LUCK CLUB.

RED DOORS was an incredibly difficult film to get made. In the financing stages, studio execs who loved the script wanted us to make the Wongs a Caucasian family, or make the lesbian couple heterosexual, in order to have more commercial potential. So Jane, Mia, and I made RED DOORS on our own terms: completely outside of the Hollywood system. We raised our own financing, maxed out our credit cards, and called in favors in order to create our labor of love.

Needless to say, RED DOORS does not have a marketing budget to buy expensive TV commercials or billboards. We have only the power of community and grassroots outreach. Supporting independent films like this one is like voting in an election. You are voting with your feet and your dollars. If you are interested in seeing more diverse cinema, the best way to let the system know is to buy a ticket. If enough people vote for change, then the system will ultimately take notice.

Sounds like a film we need to support. If you're interested in helping this film open big in San Francisco, email me and I'll put you in touch with the right people.