Our first JBFC Staff Picks screening is from Kaitlyn Hare, a member of the house staff. Hare will introduce the screening of Little Miss Sunshine, which will then be followed by a lecture and audience discussion with NYU Tisch Professor Rob Morton.
The Hoover family — a man (Greg Kinnear), his wife (Toni Collette), an uncle (Steve Carell), a brother (Paul Dano) and a grandfather (Alan Arkin) — pile into a VW bus bound for California to support a daughter (Abigail Breslin) in her bid to win the Little Miss Sunshine Contest. The sanity of everyone involved is stretched to the limit as the group’s quirks cause problems as they travel along their interstate route.
Rob Morton has over a decade of experience as a screenwriting instructor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He attended NYU graduate film school in the mid-to-late ’90s where he wrote and directed numerous award-winning short films. Prior to that, he earned a degree in film history and cinema studies at Hobart College. He joined the Jacob Burns Film Center as a screenwriting instructor in the fall of 2012.