"The Pardon" fundraising campaign
Logline
A con gone wrong, father knows best.
Synopsis
This story is about Lily Colvin, a traumatized street-smart student at an Ivy League university who cons unsuspecting men with her lover, Diana Bardot, and robs them. One of Lily and Diana’s targets, fellow student Connelly Fitzgerald, accidentally dies in the midst of a romp, as Lily’s world-weary stepfather, Pops Colvin, is on his way to the safehouse where this accident takes place. When Pops realizes what has happened, all three’s paths merge and no one will ever be the same.
Funding
The funding will be used for all aspects of production - pays for cast/crew, location or any props/wardrobe that we might need to purchase to make all of us look great so that we can tell the story as authentic as possible.
Additional Information
We are huge fans of crime-dramas, and the duality between what we call the law and breaking the law presents the greatest drama-all in the name of: family. Many gangs, crime organizations designate themselves “families” and many more are oath-based. The genre is predominantly male dominated and we love that “The Pardon” creates a space for that oft-neglected side, the female character, to tell her story as well.
The Nitty-Gritty
All projects will encounter hurdles but it's how we get there is what matters. Therefore, we will send personalized video messages and behind the scenes clips of what we are doing whenever we can in terms of the status of the film to our supporters. We are big on communication and that's the only way we roll!
Thank You
Thank you so much for your support!
Nicholas Bompart is an actor, director, writer, musician, and poet from Forest Hills, New York.
His plays have been staged at The Chain Theater, The Players Theater, The 13th Street Repertory Theater, The Theater 80 Saint Marks, The Secret Theater, Teatro LATEA, and many other theaters throughout the country.
His films have played at film festivals nationally and internationally, netting Finalist at The New York Film Awards, Special Jury Award at the Topshorts Film Festival, Best Screenplay at The Direct Monthly Online Film Festival, Best Sci-Fi Short at The Indie Short Awards, Best Original Story at Festigious LA Monthly Corp, Special Mention at The Global Shorts Film Festival, Best Dark Comedy Micro film at The Austin Film Festival, and many other awards.
He sang operatic solos in venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center as a Bass-Baritone Lead.
His plays and poetry have been published in various anthologies and magazines such as Literature Today. He also recently wrote a newspaper article for The Queens Gazette, where he was himself featured as a rising and notable person from Queens, New York.
Nicholas believes the solution typically lies in the stillness at the base of mind within that shadowy place most refuse to look.
Nick Sakai’s acting credits include High Maintenance, The Affair Orange is the New Black, Bashira (starring Liam Aiken) and also self-produced/directed projects such as “Ms.Kiss” which is being prepared for the festival circuits. He also worked extensively in Off-Broadway theater such as LaMaMa, Miller Rep and En Garde Arts.
His producing credits include The Professor, which starred Betsy Brandt (Breaking Bad) and Rick Peters (Dexter), an action thriller inspired by Occupy Wall Street. Nick served as Associate Producer on the film, which won the CINE Golden Eagle Award and Best Action/Adventure Film at Comic-con in 2014
He also co-produced Going Home, a short film which explored the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on former soldiers, “12”, a parody short of “24” and “The Office”, which premiered also at San Diego Comic-Con 2012, and again Ms. Kiss, a project he acted in, produced and directed.
His most recent producing work was “Bluebirds” starring James Chen(“The Walking Dead”, “FBI” etc) and Ayesha Adamo, premiered at Everybody Digital Film Festival(founded and hosted by Allen Maldonado(“The Last OG”, “Blackish”, “Straight Outta Compton” etc)
Nick is currently represented by ATB Talent, bicoastal agency based in Los Angeles and New York City.
Autumn Mirassou is a Northern California transplant living in NYC. Recent credits include: A24’s Earth Mama, NBC’s Law and Order: Organized Crime, and a film called Misread. Recent theater: Rhinoceros (Daisy, The Culture Project), Me Four (Susan, American Theater of Actors ), The Bare Truth (Judith, American Theater of Actors), American Hero (Host, Dixon Place), Glass Cannon (Dani, Arias Studios), A Whistle in Mississippi: the Lynching of Emmett Till (Carolyn, Harlem). She studied acting at RCSSD in London. She honors the Lanape, Canarsie, and Coastal Miwok lands she lives on.
Joseph D'Onofrio is an accomplished actor who has enjoyed both comedic and dramatic roles throughout his career. D'Onofrio began his acting career landing roles in such films as "Good Fellas" (1990) as Young Tommy, The drama "Jungle Fever" (1991) by Spike Lee, and played Slick in Robert De Niro's "A Bronx Tale" (1993), His passion for acting continued in the comedies, "The Pallbearer" (1996) with David Schwimmer, "The Deli" (1997) with Mike Starr, as well as dramatic roles such as Big Vinny in the drama “Friends And Romans (2014) and “Back in the Day” as Matty (2016)
D'Onofrio also worked in television during these years with recurring roles on ”30 Rock’ (2009-2010) "The Black Donnellys" (2006-2007) and "Are We There Yet?" (2010-2012). D’Onofrio most recently tackled roles in the feature film Comedy “Townhouse Confidential “(2022).Played Al Capone in the film Don Q (2022) And the Thirller Return to Danger (2022) Also working as a recurring role on the TV show Gravesend (2022) Can be seen on the show Power Book 3 Raising Kane on Starzz as Carmine.
He was Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Carmen Salta is an actor and former professional ballet dancer. She studied at and performed with the School of American Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet Performance Company before joining Washington Ballet in our nation’s capital.
Carmen’s acting credits include roles in Crashing, Manifest, Law & Order, Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival, and others. She is a lifelong resident of the Upper West Side of New York City.
Our campaign just concluded and we're very happy to let you know that we exceeded our goal of $10,000! We are ready to film and we will be during the month of June.
In case it was not clear to you, this $10,000 will be used for the following - pay for cast/crews, location booking expenses, food, transportation, equpment rentals and insurance.
We are very excited to bring this vision to the world and very thankful to all of you who became one of the first supporters of this project. Regardless of the amount you donated, each of you are an important part of “The Pardon”. For that, we cannot thank you enough.
While we will continue posting on our Instagram channel - @thapardonthemovie , we will also provide you with some exclusive contents available only to you, the supporters. For example, we are planning on releasing the first teaser trailer in late June or July - you will be the first ones to see this before releasing it on our social media channels.
For those of you chose Google hangout with the cast/creatives as your incentive, we will contact you to arrange date and time, possibly during our filming or afterwards.
Again, thank you so much for your support. This would not have been possible without you. We'll be in touch!
Best
Nick Sakai, Nicholas Bompart and “The Pardon” Team
For those who have been following our social media already know this but about 24 hours ago, we reached the minimum goal, which means the film is getting GREENLIT either way! Thank you so much for being one of the first supporters and having brought us to this level, even before we shot a single frame of this movie. We are very greatful for your generousity!
However, especially for those who are familiar with filmmaking process would understand this - just because we reached the minimum does not mean that we can slow down - in fact the campaign will continue until this coming Monday the 22nd at 4pm Eastern and we still need to reach an actual goal or something much closer to it. This fundraiser is mainly for production itelf and we already know that we would need to raise more money or possibly spending our own money significantly to complete this film. So it is very important to get as close as we can to get to our actual goal!
So what can you do now?
- If possible at all, please consider increasing the amount of contribution even by a few dollars. If that's not possible, that's ok, we are more than greatful for what you have done so far!
- If #1 is not an option, can you get just 2 people you know to contribute any amount? Crowdfunding campaigns in general start to grow when you get someone you know (and we don't know yet) to also contribute.
As you know, we already have great cast and crews signed on to this project and we are very confident that this film will take all of us to the next level. Thank you very much for your faith in us and together, let's get this project to the finish line!
Thank you again.
Nick
We are at our final week! We mostly have been communicating via Instagram or Facebook so if you don't have one, you might have been missing out so I figured I would pop in and tell you what we have been up to.
(1) We now have The Pardon Instagram page! https://www.instagram.com/thepardonthemovie The handle is @thepardonthemovie
(2) We also now have The Pardon imdb page as well https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt27733746?s=78c4141b-49c6-fa38-00aa-0a0cec1439f9&site_preference=normal
We are gaining supporters every day now and thank you for sticking with us! Please tell your friends/family to join you as well.
We have more to come this week - we'll talk to you soon!
Nick
Hello everyone.
Hope you're enjoying this weekend. In case you don't know who I am, I'm Nick Sakai, the lead producer/director of The Pardon. I'll also be appearing in the film as one of cast members.
We are at halfway point of the campaign and again, wanted to say thank you to every single one of you on behalf of Nick Bompart and myself. We're not quite at our goal as of yet (we're just shy of 40% from our goal) but usually any crowdfunding campaign tends to slow down mid way through and gain another momentum towards the end so we are optimistic.
Once we hit the minimim goal, we are rolling out a few exciting announcements so stay tuned!
What can you do in the meantime? Well, if you could sperad the word on this project and try to rally your friends to support us, that would be golden. You came to us because most likely you know either of us and any crowdfunding campaign would grow via word of mouth.
We are working on The Pardon's project social media pages so once they're up, we'll let you know. In the meantime, for social media wise, you can follow me (Nick Sakai) at Facebook: iamnicksakai Instagram: NickNSakai or Twitter NickSakai since that's where I post updates mostly for potential supporters. For your supporters, you would get an email everytime we post something. But you can also reach me directly at the above social media for any questions or comments if you don't know me yet.
Anyway, thank you again and we will keep you posted!
Best,
Nick Sakai
We started this weekend with our private launch event on Zoom and we are very greatful for the initial supporters! Thank you so much for attending, listening to what we had to say and sharing this special moment. We have tons of exciting news coming our way this week 1 so stay tuned! Again, thank you for those who attended on our launch event.
