UCLA alum’s movie ‘Like Crazy’ wins Grand Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival
Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones star in “Like Crazy,” a movie produced by UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television alumnus Marius Markevicius. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and sold to Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush. (courtesy of Fred Hayes)
By Eitan Arom
Feb. 16, 2011 12:36 a.m.
For many independent filmmakers, winning the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival is their equivalent of taking home the Academy Award for Best Picture. “Precious,” 2009’s winner, for example, went on to win a cache of award nominations and wins, as well as glowing critical reception.
This year’s winner, the long-distance romance film “Like Crazy,” which sold to Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush for $4 million, was put together by a young team of movie-makers that included producer Marius Markevicius, 34, a 2002 graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
“Each phase of the festival is so much fun, and the Grand Jury Award was just the icing on the cake,” Markevicius said. “Getting in was such an honor, but to sell a movie and then to win this prize is just … we’re literally all still in shock.”
Markevicius’ experience in independent filmmaking dates back to his time at UCLA, where he said the producers program taught him to put a premium on passion, even at the expense of production value and big budgets.
“The theater and film program really has an independent spirit,” Markevicius said. “USC skews towards more studio-driven material, but at UCLA it’s really about gritty independent filmmaking. Grab a camera and go shoot it however you can shoot it.”
Markevicius collaborated with a team that included lead producers Andrea Sperling and Jonathan Schwartz, writer Ben Jones and director Drake Doremus to put together “Like Crazy,” their second Sundance entry. At last year’s festival, the team submitted “Douchebag,” a love story about a pair of estranged brothers who embark on a journey to find the younger brother’s fifth-grade girlfriend.
“We were at Sundance last year, and as soon as we got back I wanted to do another one, so we just got the ball rolling,” Doremus said.
Markevicius first became involved with the team as a UCLA graduate student after meeting Schwartz at Sundance in 2001. According to Schwartz, he and Markevicius met while staying with a mutual friend in Park City, Utah.
Schwartz advised Markevicius on several projects of his and finally brought him onboard with “Spooner,” a small-town drama that premiered at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival, which takes place concurrently with Sundance in Park City each year.
After premiering at noon on the first Saturday of the festival, “Like Crazy” became the first film to be bought by a distributor when it sold to Paramount and Indian Paintbrush early on Sunday morning.
“The screenings were all sold out, packed,” Markevicius said. “There was this emotional outpouring at the Q&A’s. It was a love-fest, basically.”
The film focuses on the relationship between an American student, played by Anton Yelchin of “Charlie Bartlett” fame, and a British exchange student, played by English actress Felicity Jones, who is forced to leave the country after overstaying her visa. It is slated to appear to wider audiences in the fall.
“It should get a fairly wide release, which is pretty exciting because I think this film deserves to be seen by a wide audience. It’s an indie film, but I think it has a very commercial aspect to it,” Markevicius said. “It’s something that most people have been through in one way or another, so a lot of people will relate to it.”
In the meantime, Markevicius has been editing and producing a documentary titled “The Other Dream Team” about the Lithuanian National Basketball Team, which defeated the Soviet team to win the bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. A first-generation American, Markevicius grew up in the Los Angeles Lithuanian community, speaking Lithuanian as a first language and attending Lithuanian Saturday school as a child.
“The community is really tight, and we’ve tried to maintain the culture because there’s very few of us around the world, so it was always a dream of mine to do this story,” he said.
Besides being a member of the Lithuanian community, Markevicius said he considers himself part of a UCLA family that includes an ever-growing group of passionate and inspired filmakers.
“This year there must have been 100-plus UCLA people at Sundance, people who have films or friends in the festival,” Markevicius said. “It’s a great group. … We help each other achieve bigger and better things.”
