SENECA

  • Director

    Jason Chaet

  • Country, Year, Length

    United States/Puerto Rico, 2019, 90 min

  • Category

    Feature Narrative

  • Format

    Digital

  • Festival Year

    2020

Winner: BEST SCREENPLAY – NARRATIVE FEATURE AND INKTIP MEMBERSHIP

Cast: Armando Riesco, Cote de Pablo, Susan Misner, Shirley Rumierk, Tony Plana, Alex Morf, Michael Cyril Creighton, Isiah Whitlock Jr. , Francesca Curran, Stephen Adly Guirgis
Crew: Producers: Armando Riesco, Jason Chaet, Jonathan Grey – Screenwriters: Armando Riesco, Jason Chaet
Email: mingo77212@gmail.com

Synopsis
WINNER Best Ultra Indie Feature at Woodstock Film Festival WINNER Special Jury Prize across all categories HBO Latino Film Festival David Seneca is a Puerto Rican actor in New York City. He has been struggling for years to make his acting career a success. Now David’s hair grays while his millennial protégé takes the acting world by storm as David teaches accent reduction classes to foreign business executives. David’s home life is not faring much better. His relationship with his wife has been on the rocks and his parenting skills are not exactly up to par. On top of this, David’s homeland of Puerto Rico is going through its worst moment in recent history after the passing of Hurricane Maria. His childhood mentor Father Ruben is losing the fight to cancer on an island with no electricity and dwindling supplies. Meanwhile in New York, David’s rage finally gets the best of him in a less than impressive street fight. Due to this altercation, David unwittingly becomes a viral internet sensation, and not the good kind. He is kicked out of his home, and he slowly starts picking up the pieces of his life to make himself whole again. What does success really entail? Can he make amends with all his loved ones? Is there a magic key that can unlock the maze he is trapped in? Seneca is a funny, wistful, heartfelt story about aspirations, colonialism, and being an adult in the 21st century.

Director
Jason Chaet is an award winning filmmaker, theatre director, editor and producer. He got his start at the Ensemble Studio Theatre where he worked for three years, including developing new work by playwrights David Mamet and Arthur Miller. Jason has worked for HBO/USCAF and has scores of theater directing credits around the country. He was the artistic director of Stage One, an Off-Off Broadway theater company. His feature film Putzel won multiple awards, appeared in over fifty film festivals around the world, and was distributed internationally. Other Film/TV credits include Remember, Kissing Jessica Stein (Creative Consultant), and Avenues (TV Pilot). He also created the web series Just Words. Jason is a longtime faculty member at AMDA in NYC where he serves as the supervisor of first semester acting, screenwriting and film acting.