Roadside Remembrances

They're always a bit chilling, those little roadside memorials with their white crosses and plastic flowers. We spot them through the windshield and then quickly look away, because we know exactly what happened there. But film producer Monica Kennedy finds them more than chilling--she finds them both universal and meaningful.
 

That's why Kennedy approached sometimes bad-boy actor Gary Busey during the "An Evening with..." event during last winter's Sarasota Film Festival and asked for three minutes of his time to hear about "a good story." He offered three hours, listened and ultimately took the role.
 

Descansas are nearly universal, actress-turned-producer Kennedy explains. They're found on roadsides around the world and in many different shapes and forms, depending on locale. But regardless of location, local governments find descansas of interest and often try regulating them. Sometimes they want uniformity, sometimes they want payment and sometimes they just want them gone.
 

"It's a story of loss and redemption and it revolves around those roadside memorials," the 10-year-independent film veteran but first-time producer explains. Busey, who played Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story, once suffered a serious head injury in a motorcycle accident and so was interested in the project. "Gary plays a God-like innkeeper," Kennedy explains.
 

Working very closely with Eric Polins and Sean Coniglio, Kennedy hopes to have the film released sometime this fall. -Bob Ardren  Partially reprinted from Sarasota Magazine May 2005
 

Academy Award winning director of photography, Rich Lerner, one of the producers behind the movie "Instinct" with Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr.   was on board to serve as the Director of Photography for the feature film DESCANSOS. 
 
On the technical side, Lerner is an accomplished cinematographer and has worked on a number of features as well as documentary productions for NOVA and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.