Dan Perlman Wraps Coming-Of-Age Comedy Directorial Debut
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- Dan Perlman wrapped production on his feature directorial debut in NYC, an untitled coming-of-age comedy adapted from his award-winning short 'Cramming' with a new plot about two desperate eighth graders at an elite NYC prep school who recruit misfits to shut down the school one day at a time to dodge finals forever.
- Perlman wrote and directed from his own script, with the film billed as 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off meets Election' and selected for The Gotham's Project Market as part of Gotham Week's Shorts to Features track, supported by Rooftop Films' Filmmakers Fund.
- Romo Lee and Lucas Adler co-lead the film as the two eighth graders, with Lee's prior major credit being Netflix's 'The Kindergarten Teacher' and Adler previously appearing in Charlie Polinger's Cannes-premiering 'The Plague.'
- Maria Bamford, Gary Gulman, Jamie Lee, Sean Patton, and Yamaneika Saunders anchor a stand-up-heavy supporting cast alongside Tony winner Laura Benanti and Connie Shi, with additional cast including Jorie Blake Rosen, Matthew James Herman, and Ruby Karp among others.
- Lucien Formichella and Charlotte Gilbert produced the film, with Charlotte Kassimir exec producing alongside Amer Hilal and Perlman.
- Perlman co-created Showtime's 'Flatbush Misdemeanors' with Kevin Iso, which held a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating across its two-season run; his prior credits include shorts 'Practice Space' and 'No Sex' (over 4 million YouTube views) and the documentary short 'Being Bublé.'
Why it matters: Perlman's leap from a 100% Rotten Tomatoes Showtime series to a Gotham Project Market-selected feature marks a concrete career escalation for the writer-director-actor, and the film's 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off meets Election' pitch plus an unusually deep stand-up comedy roster signals an indie comedy with built-in audience crossover potential.
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