Catch
Up With
Bruce Cacho-Negrete,
AB'92
On September 13 Liars Club, a movie written,
directed, and produced by and starring U of C alumni, premiered in Chicago. Johnny
Clark, AB'94, (right) plays Billy, a U of C grad having trouble in the dating
scene. Coming to his aid are friends Kevin, Jimmy, and Brad (played by Jason Shaw,
AB'95, left), also U of C grads.
Reviewed
in both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times,
Liars Club is the directorial debut of Bruce Cacho-Negrete, AB'92. Kate
Malone, AB'98, AM'99, was the film's assistant producer. The Magazine talked with
Cacho-Negrete about the movie-making experience.
Why
did you make this movie?
Both Johnny, a venture capitalist, and I, a
management consultant, had successful careers, but they weren't particularly fulfilling,
whereas Jason was in a career with a finite timeline-male supermodel. So the three
of us decided to take a chance at doing something that we truly loved. Johnny
and Jason were both aspiring actors, whereas I had been a writer prior to my consulting
days, so it seemed like a natural progression. In all honesty, however, I don't
think I would have ever left my job if it hadn't been for Johnny's initiative.
He wrote the first draft of a script and convinced me to take a cut at editing
it. It was only then that I remembered how much I missed creative writing.
What
is the next step for the movie?
The goal is to get the film distributed
in select markets across the country. I'm happy to say that we did remarkably
well during our opening weekend [in Chicago], amassing the second-highest per-site
average in the country.
Do you have
any future projects planned?
I've written three other scripts, two of
which I'd like to direct, one of which my manager is trying to sell to studios.
At the moment, we've got partial funding for one of the scripts I'd like to direct,
and we'll hopefully begin shooting in the spring. Meanwhile, Johnny and Jason
have had success acting in national commercials and other indies. Clearly, our
goal is to collaborate on another project sometime soon. Now that Liars Club
has finally been released, we're finding some time to brainstorm.
- Qiana
Johnson