Rhode Island Film Festival - Shared Rooms
Shared Rooms is a romantic comedy feature film that brings together three interrelated tales of gay men seeking family, love and sex during the holiday season.
Interview with Writer/Director Rob Williams
Watch Shared Rooms on Prime Video, hulu, tubi and vudu
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We wanted to make a feel-good, holiday-themed film that offers positive messages about finding love and family in all forms. I’m a huge fan of Christmas movies, and films like Love, Actually were a big influence on me, since Shared Rooms has three separate but intertwined storylines about men seeking love and family during the holidays.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
We hope viewers will laugh along with the characters as they find love and family in unexpected places, and also be touched and entertained by the choices they face. I’m extremely proud of the cast we found for the film, and I think audience members will also be impressed with their performances. The fact that two of the characters are nudists – and are naked throughout the film – should also please a lot of audience members. J
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
While our films are all made primarily for the gay audience (which is very personal for us since we are a married gay couple making the films), we always work to make the themes more universal in appeal. Yes, all the characters in Shared Rooms are gay men, but their struggle to find love is a universal one, and we hope everyone can relate to their situations in some form. This is our eighth gay-themed feature film, and I can honestly say that some of our biggest fans are straight women who relate strongly to our characters and their quests for love and friendship.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development and production?
This film didn’t change much from its inception to its execution. The paths that the individual men follow changed slightly as the script developed and even more as the actors brought so much to their roles, but I’m really thrilled with how Shared Rooms came about. It was truly a joy to write and so much fun to film!
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback on Shared Rooms has been tremendous! I’ve been able to attend several film festival screenings, and I have been thrilled and sometimes even surprised at the amount of laughter generated by the film. I’ve been even more touched by the reactions of the audience members, who take the time to tell me how the film relates to their lives and their friends. That’s the true measure of a film’s success to me.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
The audience reactions haven’t surprised me, because I know people enjoy watching feel-good movies with positive messages. What has surprised me is the reaction from some gay film festivals that continue to focus almost exclusively on stories about the negative aspects of gay life - depressing stories about lost love or death or discrimination. Moviegoers tell me that they’re tired of those stories and that they want to see more uplifting films like Shared Rooms, yet so many gay film festivals continue to ignore “crowd pleasers” in favor of “controversy”. It’s been a constant struggle for us over the past 10 years, but we know what the audience reacts to most strongly, and that’s more important than anything else.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I would love to expose Shared Rooms to people beyond our core gay male audience and the gay film festival circuit, since our film is all about finding and accepting love. That’s a concept that unifies us, and I hope more people will take a chance on watching a film that isn’t necessarily about their community, because there’s a lot to be learned from other types of people and films. People have a lot of preconceived notions about “gay films” but we hope they can look past the label and enjoy the story.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We have distribution – and we should be able to announce that soon! – but we definitely could use the support of the media and film festival programmers to help us get the movie out to more people and to help us spread our feel-good message for the holidays.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I want people to laugh and, of course, make the film part of their holiday tradition in the future, but more importantly, I want people to come out of the film thinking about the people that they love and the people who are important in their lives.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
“Why is it important to have gay-themed films with happy endings and positive messages?” That’s a discussion I’d like to continue with viewers, filmmakers and film festival programmers. Personally, I feel like there is so much negativity and hatred and discrimination in the world – especially these days – that it’s more important than ever to make movies about gay characters who get the same happy endings that other characters get. And yet most gay film festivals still embrace the dark and the negative. The best reaction I’ve ever had to a film was to another Christmas movie I made in 2009 called Make The Yuletide Gay – I have had numerous teenagers over the years contact me and tell me that the movie inspired them to come out to their parents and receive the same sort of loving, welcoming response that is shown in the film. That is what movies can do, and I’m proud to be a filmmaker who focuses on positive messages.
Would you like to add anything else?
People who want to learn more about the film should check out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sharedrooms.
What are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We are working on our next feature film, which is scheduled to be shot in late fall 2016. We haven’t announced any of the details yet, but we are definitely open to discussing it with potential investors!
Interview: August 2016
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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Shared Rooms
Shared Rooms is a romantic comedy feature film that brings together three interrelated tales of gay men seeking family, love and sex during the holiday season.
Length: 75 minutes
Director: Rob Williams
Producer: Rodney Johnson, Rob Williams
Writer: Rob Williams
About the writer, director and producer: Rob Williams and Rodney Johnson are the co-founders of Guest House Films, an independent motion picture production and distribution company focused on gay-themed films.
Key cast: Christopher Grant Pearson, Alec Manley Wilson, Ryan Weldon, Justin Xavier Smith, Alexander Neil Miller, Robert Werner, Daniel Lipshutz, David Vaughn.
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists): Film festival directors, journalists, funders for future projects.
Funders:
Made in association with:
Release date: 2016
Where can I watch it in the next month? Rhode Island International Film Festival (August 10); North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (August 13 and 17); Long Beach QFilm Festival (September 8 – Opening Night).
Rob Williams
Guest House Films
323-605-5429 (cell)
www.GuestHouseFilms.com