BEYOND THE RUSH
USA / 2024 / 94 min / English / Thriller
Samuel Grievess — a rising investigative journalist now demoted to covering the gossip column — is a high-functioning addict who finds himself at a crossroads dealing with cascading mental health issues, childhood traumas, a failing career, and the pressures of starting a family.
When he receives a secret tip that a judge, from his damaged past, is suspected of deviant sexual acts within the juvenile court system, church, and community, Samuel goes undercover and rogue, returning to his old neighborhood.
DIRECTOR: Rob has been in the Film and TV business for 26 years and has many writing, casting, and production credits on films such as The Devil Wears Prada and Across the Universe, as well as The VMAs, Fashionably Loud, Woodstock ’99, NBC’s The Marriage Ref, E! Network’s Ice Loves Coco, and James Beard’s award-winning culinary show, Food Trip with Todd English.
Rob also authored The Dividing Line, published in 2005, which he has adapted into a feature screenplay.
Rob is also a serial entrepreneur who just maneuvered through the worst pandemic to hit the world since the flu of 1918, to keep his Manhattan restaurant alive and thriving.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Making this film has spanned 32 years for me — basically a lifetime. From a short story written in 1992 during my senior year of high school, to a short film that won awards in 2017, to the screenplay that has evolved into casting for a feature film, this project has become much more than a tale of fiction, it has become my journey.
At 18 years old, who knew that I would come to understand this main character, Samuel Grievess, so much that he has basically morphed into a mouthpiece through which I speak? I fell in love with a heroin/opiate addict in 2016, lived through her brutal murder in early 2017, and then faced my own alcoholism that had spiraled so far down a rabbit hole I never thought I’d come out. BEYOND THE RUSH is now more than a screenplay title, it’s the metaphor of my life.
Contact: rob@salmonskyent.com
Special Guest: Robert John Sayegh
Saturday, Nov 9, 7pm, Savor Cinema
