It’s 1988 in a sleepless Manhattan fired by sex, drugs, crime, and clubs. After losing his very old friend Oskar to the police in a bloody siege, 209-year-old art dealer Luc is pursuing his taste for one night stands with talented women, still yearning for the one he abandoned in 1798. Amid a blistering heat wave, he encounters Alex, an indie filmmaker who wants this dashing, timeless Irishman to star in her Edgar Allan Poe movie. Soon Luc is rediscovering romance and sensuality with Alex—infuriating Lea, her devoted lover and producer. No less dangerous is Hector Santos, a brilliant cop whose career and body were wrecked by the demonic Oskar. Desperate for Alex, Luc keeps trying to reform. He’s running out of time and patience.
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Delinquent, a highly regarded movie that was written, produced, and directed by American Fever author Peter Christian Hall, is now available for streaming/rental and for sale at Amazon Instant Video. Shot on film and released theatrically in 13 U.S. states in 1997-98, Delinquent features an original soundtrack from the U.K.’s legendary Gang of Four, whose guitarist/composer, Andy Gill, recently contributed the music for American Fever’s book video trailer.
On Delinquent‘s release, the Los Angeles Times raved: “Delinquent is one of those great little near-no-budget movies that every now and then seem to come out of nowhere to give hope for a truly independent American cinema. It marks a stunning debut feature for writer-director Peter Hall, who never makes a false move as he builds suspense right from the start.” The review, by Kevin Thomas, concluded: “Delinquent, which boasts an effectively nerve-jangling score by Gang of Four, its first for a film, is a highly accomplished work in which its cast is never less than compelling. This is one suspense picture that gives way to a larger contemplation of the interplay of fate and emotion.” See dozens of reviews from around the world. (Scroll down the home page.)
“I’m pleased to be working on a new front with Amazon,” says Hall, whose novel is already available at Amazon in paperback and as a $2.99 ebook. “Independent filmmakers need a public marketplace, a big, easily accessible billboard on which to post movies for instant sale or rental. Amazon has been easy to work with and I expect to see Instant Video collect a massive audience as it shapes up its cinema presentation and develops a high-quality algorithm rivaling the one at Netflix—which tends to give indie movies away for nothing.”
Delinquent sold on five continents and is represented internationally by Beyond. It stars Desmond Devenish, Shawn Batten, and Jeff Paul, backed by Ian Moses Eaton and Marisa Malone. (Plus a cameo by author-filmmaker Hall, who plays a seedy taxi driver.) Cinematography: Todd Crocket. Edited by Thom Zimny. Consulting editor: Keith Reamer. Casting: Maureen Fremont.
Watch Delinquent‘s trailer, edited by Carol Dysinger:
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AMERICAN FEVER: A TALE OF ROMANCE & PESTILENCE
New York-based filmmaker David Rodriguez has won Arterial Witness’s global contest to make the best video trailer for our novel, American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence. (See it and other honored entries.) The news came on Friday, Sept. 28, during a lively celebration at cinema-bar IndieScreen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The party featured viewings of video entries from artists on three continents, interspersed with musical performances by Patrick Grant, Milica Paranosic, Gene Pritsker, Dan Cooper, Lynn Bechtold, Daniel Palkowsky, and Cesare Papetti, appearing variously as Composers Concordance Trio, Erbium, and Patrick Grant.
“This video is great,” author Peter Christian Hall told Rodriguez. “It moves powerfully—really captures the sweep of the novel’s events.” Still, he said, ‘I’m glad I put the word ‘romance’ in the title.” (American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence (synopsis) presents an East Village blogger’s view of a harrowing H5N1 avian flu pandemic that rocks America and unleashes national repression, even as his personal life explodes with promise.)
Hall read from American Fever and previewed a passage from his forthcoming novel, Luc.
In addition to a $1,000 check for his work, Rodriguez received a copy of American Fever, autographed by GANG OF FOUR’s Andy Gill—who composed and recorded the stirring music for the video—and by Hall. who also honored further contestants with non-cash awards: Catalin Stancu took the Audience Award and “Most Romantic;” Michael Pfeiffer won for “Scariest;” Amy Elson, “Funniest;” George Ingram Jr., “Most Microbial;” and Ziya Morris, 15, for “Talent & Pluck.” (They appear here, in sequence below Rodriguez’s winning video.)
American Fever is “a modern take on Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year” (Kirkus Reviews) that has been hailed as “compelling” (Publisher’s Weekly PW Select), “suspenseful and terrifying”(Midwest Book Review), and “by far the best stab at the future of the novel I’ve seen” (TeleRead).
We are proud of David’s video!
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AMERICAN FEVER: A TALE OF ROMANCE & PESTILENCE
Come celebrate the thrilling conclusion of our global quest for a compelling book trailer on Friday, Sept. 28, at AMERICAN FEVER’s Musical Multimedia Book Video Party at Williamsburg’s IndieScreen cinema & bar.
Publisher Arterial Witness will honor the best videos created by artists on three continents to represent Peter Christian Hall’s novel, AMERICAN FEVER: A TALE OF ROMANCE & PESTILENCE, with a special event at Williamsburg’s IndieScreen cinema & bar on Friday, Sept. 28. Doors open at 7 pm, followed by an evening of live music, readings, video screenings, and awards. Special guests include various incarnations of composer-performers Dan Cooper (& Erbium), Patrick Grant, Milica Paranosic, and Gene Pritsker (also DJing his fabulous ‘Fever Remix’).
Competing 73-second videos—crafted to a stirring original score created by GANG OF FOUR’s ANDY GILL—shall be honored as “Scariest,” “Most Romantic,” “Most Microbial,” and “Audience Favorite,” and then a cash prize of $1,000 will be awarded to the entry chosen to officially represent American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence.
American Fever (synopsis) presents an East Village blogger’s view of a harrowing H5N1 avian flu pandemic that rocks America and unleashes national repression, even as his personal life explodes with promise. The novel is “a modern take on Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year” (Kirkus Reviews) that has been hailed as “compelling” (Publisher’s Weekly PW Select), “suspenseful and terrifying” (Midwest Book Review), and “by far the best stab at the future of the novel I’ve seen” (TeleRead).
Author PETER CHRISTIAN HALL, writer (Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, the New York Times, Reuters.com, Mother Jones, and The Big Money) and filmmaker (Delinquent), will read excerpts from American Fever. (One will trigger a Composers Concordance Trio jam conceived by Milica Paranosic.) Copies of American Fever will be available for purchase, complete with inscrutable scrawls by the author.
GENE PRITSKER, who has written more than 400 compositions performed around the world by symphony orchestras and hip-hop and rock ensembles, will appear with Composers Concordance Trio. He recently orchestrated the score (and contributed original music) for the forthcoming Cloud Atlas, co-written and co-directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski (the Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run; Perfume). As Noizepunk, Pritsker will mix pestilential music, too!
MILICA PARANOSIC is a one-woman world of sound and vision whose music reflects influences from her youth in Serbia to the electronic dimensions she teaches at the Juilliard School. Paranosic, who has been described as a “musical Jackson Pollack” (SEAMUS) and “amazing … astonishing” by the New York Times, will appear with Composers Concordance Trio and will soon debut a composition commissioned by the American Composer’s Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
PATRICK GRANT, notorious composer, performer, and producer whose music adventures include John Cage, Quincy Jones, Robert Fripp, the Living Theatre, Robert Wilson, and the invention of the electric guitar parade, will perform vivid, even shocking selections from his ongoing solo work, The Velcro Variations, as well as a wild new-dada piece with Erbium.
DAN COOPER is a subtle and engaging multi-instrumentalist and composer from the island of Manhattan. His music has been described as “full of instrumental virtuosity and sly humor” (Fanfare) and “especially fascinating” (American Record Guide). Cooper will appear with Composers Concordance Trio (with LYNN BECHTOLD) and with Erbium, the suggestive, dynamic combo he founded with DANIEL PALKOWSKI.
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WHO: Publisher Arterial Witness and author Peter Christian Hall, with special guests Milica Paranosic, Patrick Grant, Dan Cooper, Gene Pritsker, and collaborators.
WHAT: The launch of the official video for Hall’s AMERICAN FEVER: A TALE OF ROMANCE & PESTILENCE.
WHERE: IndieScreen, located at 285 Kent Ave. at South 2nd Street, Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, NY.
WHEN: Doors open at 7 p.m. No cover charge.
###
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By Scott Macaulay in News
Back in the day Filmmaker took note of Peter Christian Hall’s independent drama Delinquent, and more recently we’ve followed his move into fiction writing. Now, film and literature are combining for the promotion of his new novel, American Fever, a dystopic tale about avian flu. With book trailers a requirement for new books, Hall has decided to let fans create one for American Fever — and win $1,000 in the process. What’s cool is that filmmakers can read the book for free and score their trailer to original music by Gang of Four’s Andy Gill…. (Read Scott Macaulay’s piece)
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TRAILER TO INCLUDE ORIGINAL MUSIC BY GANG OF FOUR’S ANDY GILL
American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence
New York, NY, APRIL 4, 2012: Peter Christian Hall knew it wasn’t enough to write an innovative novel and have it published. If he wanted to reach a wide audience, he’d have to find innovative ways to market American Fever.
When tasked to issue a video trailer, the novelist-filmmaker faced the challenge of creating something as fresh and original as his source material: a harrowing, yet humorous and romantic thriller that depicts an East Village blogger’s view of an H5N1 avian flu pandemic.
“The book trailer is a hybrid beast that hasn’t really paid off for many publishers and authors,” says Hall, who notes that the best trailers contain great music, inviting quotes from respected sources, and compelling images.
Hall has been praised for his own filmmaking. His narrative feature Delinquent was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “one of those great little near-no-budget movies that every now and then seem to come out of nowhere to give hope for a truly independent American cinema.” He also knew he could get compelling music: The U.K.’s legendary Gang of Four had scored Delinquent, and the band’s guitarist-composer-producer, Andy Gill, was eager to write a short piece for American Fever. Plus the novel’s website contains a gallery of fantastic images contributed by artists from various countries.
Still, he couldn’t imagine what to do. Says Hall: “Live action? Animation? Some sort of montage? I was stumped. I’m too close to the material.”
Spurred by a friend who was marketing books for a big publisher, Hall realized he should seek fresh thinking via a crowdsourced book trailer. “There’s a world of enterprising talent out there in film schools and tiny production companies — scouring magazines, websites, and the great DSLR blogs — itching to make an fast impact with great images.”
Hence Hall devised the contest, in which publisher Arterial Witness will pay $1,000 for the 73-second video that best captures American Fever’s spirit. Contenders can read the novel at AmericanFeverBook.com, download the music, reviews, and cover at ArterialWitness.com, and post their entries on YouTube. No purchase is necessary and people can submit as many videos as they like.
“I can’t wait to see the things they come up with,” says Hall, who intends to issue non-cash honors for such standouts as funniest video, scariest entry, most P.K. Dick-like video, most-viewed entry, and so forth. “Surprise us!”
The deadline? July 4th— America’s Independence Day!
More about American Fever:
Kirkus Reviews compared Hall’s novel to Daniel Defoe’s classic A Journal of the Plague Year, TeleRead’s Court Merrigan said the live-linked blog narrative struck him as “by far the best stab at the future of the novel I’ve seen,” and the Midwest Book Review concluded: “Suspenseful and terrifying, American Fever will keep the reader glued to the page until the very end.”
More about the Contest:
For further information, please visit ArterialWitness.com and AmericanFeverBook.com, or email aw (at) ArterialWitness (dot) com. Join American Fever‘s Facebook page.
For press inquiries, please contact Patricia Gostyla at gostyla (at) gmail (dot) com.
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TRAILER TO INCLUDE ORIGINAL MUSIC BY GANG OF FOUR’S ANDY GILL
American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence
NEW YORK, NY, APRIL 4, 2012: Publisher Arterial Witness is excited to announce a contest to create the 73-second video that best captures the spirit of Peter Christian Hall’s revolutionary novel, AMERICAN FEVER: A TALE OF ROMANCE & PESTILENCE.
When it came time to issue a video trailer for American Fever, the publisher needed to create something as fresh and original as the source material: a harrowing, yet humorous and romantic thriller that depicts an East Village blogger’s view of an H5N1 avian flu pandemic.
Author Peter Christian Hall has been praised for his own filmmaking. His narrative feature Delinquent was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “one of those great little near-no-budget movies that every now and then seem to come out of nowhere to give hope for a truly independent American cinema.” Hall also had access to compelling music: The U.K.’s legendary Gang of Four had scored Delinquent and the band’s guitarist-composer-producer, Andy Gill, was eager to write a short piece for American Fever. And the novel’s website contains a gallery of fantastic images contributed by artists from various countries.
Still, the novelist-filmmaker couldn’t imagine what to do. Says Hall: “Live action? Animation? Some sort of montage? I was stumped. I’m too close to the material.” He then realized he should seek fresh thinking via a crowdsourced book trailer. “There’s a world of enterprising talent out there in film schools and tiny production companies — scouring magazines, websites, and the great DSLR blogs — itching to make an fast impact with great images.”
Hall devised the contest, which has publisher Arterial Witness paying $1,000 for the 73-second video that best captures American Fever’s spirit. Contenders can read the novel at AmericanFeverBook.com, download the reviews, cover, and Andy Gill’s fierce soundtrack at ArterialWitness.com, and post their entries on YouTube. No purchase is necessary and people can submit as many videos as they like. The deadline is July 4, 2012 — America’s Independence Day.
“I can’t wait to see the things they come up with,” says Hall, who intends to issue non-cash honors for such standouts as funniest video, scariest entry, most P.K. Dick-like video, most-viewed entry, and so forth. “Surprise us!”
More about the Contest:
For further information, please visit ArterialWitness.com and AmericanFeverBook.com, or email aw (at) ArterialWitness (dot) com. Join American Fever‘s Facebook page.
More about American Fever:
Kirkus Reviews compared Hall’s novel to Daniel Defoe’s classic A Journal of the Plague Year, TeleRead’s Court Merrigan said the live-linked blog narrative struck him as “by far the best stab at the future of the novel I’ve seen,” and the Midwest Book Review concluded: “Suspenseful and terrifying, American Fever will keep the reader glued to the page until the very end.”
For press inquiries, please contact Patricia Gostyla at gostyla (at) gmail (dot) com.
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“Biting political commentary interlaces the suspenseful, near-apocalyptic main narrative …
Suspenseful and terrifying, American Fever will keep the reader glued to the page until the very end.”
ᔥThe Midwest Book Review on American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence
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Peter Christian Hall will attempt to channel Henry James’s older brother William on Sunday, March 4 at (le) Poisson Rouge in Manhattan. 
The retired altar boy will narrate William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, Gene Pritsker’s chamber opera, in its debut. Pritsker has written more than 400 compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music, and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. (The New York Times has called him “audacious” and multitalented.”) Hall read Allen Ginsberg’s America for a lively Pritsker composition that they performed with numerous musicians in Tompkins Square Park during summer 2011 at the annual HOWL Festival. More recently, Hall read as Pritsker presented America electronically at New York’s MC Gallery during Composers Concordance Festival 2012. Hall has never seen a new opera, much less been in one.
Sunday, March 4th, 9:30 pm
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, NY
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Arterial Witness threw a launch party for AMERICAN FEVER at Lit Lounge in New York’s East Village early in 2012 (Photo by Lillan Munch)
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