Top photo: Richie Simeone (second from right, blue hat) on the set of his directorial debut, Sunnyside. (All photos courtesy Taylor Rahn)
CU film grad’s debut aiming for Boulder’s first Sundance Film Festival
For more than four decades, independent film’s biggest festival has belonged to Park City, Utah. Starting in 2027, Sundance Film Festival has a new home in Boulder.
The University of Colorado Boulder has spent months getting ready to welcome the festival as official university partner of the Sundance Film Festival, and the Department of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts has been a key partner in campuswide collaborations to welcome Sundance.
For 2024 CU Boulder graduate Richie Simeone, one of the most important celebrations of filmmaking coming to the Centennial State is personal. His homegrown film and directorial debut Sunnyside, a 2027 Sundance Film Festival submission, has shades of CU evident in every aspect of its making.
Richie Simeone (center, black shirt) is a 2024 CU Boulder graduate whose homegrown film and directorial debut, Sunnyside, is a 2027 Sundance Film Festival submission.
The dark comedy murder mystery follows four self-made elitists whose secrets start to unravel after one is murdered, leaving a grungy police officer nearing retirement to investigate people he knows all too well.
But the original idea for Sunnyside traces back to Simeone’s first professional credit, the indie film Dead Wrong, on which he was an associate producer.
“He [Dead Wrong co-writer and executive producer Ken Clark] had this idea of making a movie outside of Hollywood, trying to keep a small budget,” Simeone says.
Simeone and Clark struck up a creative partnership, collaborating on the first draft of Sunnyside when Simeone was a junior at CU Boulder.
“It was more a true crime, kind of gritty story that him and I wrote together. After that, we sat on it for about year while he was finishing up work on Dead Wrong,” he says.
Simeone, again partnering with Clark, would later have a chance to refine the draft. En route to rewriting almost the entire script, he leaned on his improv background in CU Boulder’s Left Right Tim team.
“That first draft really looks nothing like the original script except for the core idea, but I’m really proud of how it turned out,” Simeone says.
Originally, Florida wasn’t a creative inspiration for Sunnyside, but rather a financial decision considering its $350,000 budget. Even so, Simeone is the first to admit that location matters immensely when shooting a film.
“Florida was going to be where we filmed, just for budgetary reasons. We had access to some houses and stuff. But then I looked at it and thought, ‘What can I use this for and really transform it?’” Simeone says.
What was at first a constraint quickly became a defining theme of the film.
Simeone shot Sunnyside in Celebration, Florida, the meticulously planned town built by Disney outside Orlando. He used the elegant backdrop to set up a bit of tension, weaving the location’s character into the film wherever he could.
“When making the film, I really wanted to explore these ideas of the Disney World Florida versus the ‘Florida Man’ Florida,” he says.
The contrast is evident both in the visuals and the individual characters.
Richie Simeone (right, blue hat) talks with actor Michael X. Sommers (center) on the set of Simeone’s directorial debut, Sunnyside.
“The first thing I did was just take that and insert it into every element of this movie, and I started to find all of these funny little bits that would come out,” he says. “What happens if you take this almost trailer-park Florida guy and have him investigate a Disney World architect and a therapist for the housewives?”
As Simeone assembled a crew for Sunnyside on a shoestring budget, he turned first to the people he already trusted.
“I was really lucky that I had some good friends in film school and old roommates from CU who I could reach out to for different parts of the production,” he says.
“We brought in so many people from CU, including producers, casting directors, accountants, assistant directors, production assistants, actors and so many more. It’s hard to find a part of this film that didn’t have someone from CU involved in it,” Simeone shares.
The CU influence also appears in the soundtrack, where Simeone collaborated with several local bands to give Sunnyside its signature sound.
“We had so many CU bands as part of this film. The Dirty Turkeys, Curtain Ledger, Showerhouse and Luke Henry also contributed songs. It’s some really, really great bands that have connections to CU,” Simeone says.
For those interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the production, Simeone and his team have also been documenting the effort along the way.ed crew members, bands and actors to showcase their roles in the film
With post-production finished, Sunnyside is now working through festival submissions.
Asked what he would think if his film was selected for the 2027 Sundance Film Festival in Boulder, Simeone said, “It would be an incredible full-circle moment. Sundance is something every young filmmaker dreams of, and to be part of it in Boulder, where I went to film school, would just be unbelievable.”
In the meantime, Simeone is already developing his next feature, a comedy he plans to shoot in Florida next spring with much of the same team.
Even if Sunnyside isn’t selected, however, Simeone is still thrilled at the prospect of the Festival coming to the city where he studied how to become a filmmaker. He describes the feeling as something like a homecoming.
Get your group of friends and go make something. Write the stories and film the things that you want to tell.”
“It’s so cool to see this festival coming to the place where I went to school. It’s going to be so inspiring for a lot of young filmmakers now in the program to be able to attend the festival, meet people, maybe work the festival in some say, and make these connections,” Simeone says.
That access, he says, is incredibly important for current film students and recent graduates hoping for their break in the business.
“At Sundance, you’ll see big filmmakers, but you’ll also see people who are new in the industry, just like you, who are getting a break. Being able to meet those people, ask them questions, maybe join a team, is going to be huge for all the young filmmakers here,” he says.
As for CU film students who have dreams of bringing their own ideas to the big screen, Simeone’s advice comes without much nuance.
“It’s cliché, but it’s just do it. Get your group of friends and go make something. Write the stories and film the things that you want to tell,” he says.
Simeone credits much of his own break to being prepared when the opportunity arrived.
“They say luck is just when preparation meets opportunity, and I think that’s so true. Just being ready is key, because you never know when that moment’s going to come,” he adds.
If Sundance Film Festival’s arrival in Boulder next year does what Simeone hopes, the next break for a CU filmmaker hoping to create their own Sunnyside might be closer than ever.
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