Sons of Sea
Congratulations to Alum John Gutierrez whose film, Sons of the Sea, is premiering at The Cinequest Film Festival.
Sons of the Sea is about Gabriel, a gifted but reclusive teenager from a poor South African fishing community, is pressured by his older brother to steal two bags of ocean treasure - abalone - from a dead man. Tracked by a corrupt government official, the boys' mission to sell the goods takes them through the mountainous region of the fabled Cape of Good Hope, and into a fight for their own survival.
On March 30th at 2 PM EST, John Gutierrez and Alum Asher Goldstein (producer of “Just Mercy” “Short Term 12) will have a Zoom conversation about directing your first feature.
Passcode: 4g121W
Asher Goldstein is an award-winning producer whose credits include Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12, which won the Audience and Jury Prizes at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, along with recognition from The National Board of Review. He recently produced Warner Bros.’ Just Mercy, based on civil rights leader Bryan Stevenson’s New York Times best-selling memoir, the film was a recipient of four NAACP Image Awards, including Outstanding Motion Picture. As an executive, Asher has packaged, structured distribution for, or overseen production on more than 50 independent features including Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, Terrence Nance’s An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty, and Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time. Asher was a recipient of the prestigious 2020 Cinereach Producers Award. He graduated with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Asher has a deep, abiding love for tacos.
John Gutierrez is a Latinx writer/director born and raised in San Jose, California. John is a distinctive, visually evocative director who began his career in filmmaking as an editor. After graduating from NYU he edited music videos for Beyoncé, Regina Spektor, Duffy and many others. He also edited Peter Bogdanovich’s Grammy Award winning documentary about Tom Petty, ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream”. John directed several short films that went on to showcase at the Balenciaga Museum in Spain, The Wallace Collection in London, and several international film festivals. In 2010 he participated in the BFI’s Feature Film Program. In 2011 a script he co-wrote, THE VISIT won the Durban International Film Festival’s Best feature film project. John’s also directed commercials and branded films for Hermès, The Balvenie, Nescafé, Adidas and many others. In 2020 he completed his debut feature, SONS OF THE SEA, which premieres at Cinequest 2021. While his feature documentary LANDMINES will begin to tour the festival circuit in late 2021.