Press Release from TM Publicity
Jamie Lewis, Creative Director at Newcastle’s largest advertising agency Enigma, has won this year’s coveted LA Comedy Festival title of ‘Kickass Original Filmmaker’ for his film Mikey’s Extreme Romance. The film was also nominated for Best Actor, Best Director , Best Writer and Best in Fest – Features
Told as a love story, Mikey’s Extreme Romance is the video diary of Mikey, a stalker who regards his relentless infatuation with Bekky as ‘extreme romancing’.
By day, Lewis is a Creative Director at local advertising agency Enigma. By night, his passion for filmmaking saw him burn the midnight oil to complete the screenplay. Lewis also produced, directed and starred in the film.
Lewis said he submitted his film to the festival in February and was told in May that his film was one of seven films from around the world selected to screen.
“We’d made some changes in the time between submitting our application and being invited so we had to work hard to have it all prepared for the big screen,” Lewis said.
“I was nervous our Australian humour wouldn’t translate to an American audience but they completely got it. There were parts where the audience was gasping and then they all clapped mid-way through and at the end too, which was awesome.
“I held a Q&A session at the end of the film and judging by the questions asked, it was obvious they got the subtle nuances too.
“The festival organiser Larwin Salazar gave it a good wrap: she said if you ever had to have a stalker, Mikey’s the kind of stalker to have, which just cracked everyone up,” Lewis said.
The LA Comedy Festival is the largest comedy festival in the US featuring film, live comedy acts and a screenplay competition. Over the past eight years, the festival has hosted more than 1700 performers and screened more than 300 films from across the US and the world.
The award-winning film is now complete so Jamie and co-producer David Jowsey will start working on screening it to local and international distributors.
View the LA Comedy Festival teaser for Mikey’s Extreme Romance here