The New York Times List of the Best Movieson HULU Handpicked Hysteria!

You’ve probably seen plenty of Victorian-era serio-comic dramas, many featuring much of this prestige cast, which includes Hugh Dancy, Rupert Everett, Felicity Jones, Gemma Jones and Jonathan Pryce. 

But this is no starchy tale of class conflict or simmering romance; no, this is the story of how Dr. Mortimer Granville (Dancy), while pursuing treatments for “hysteria” (a onetime catchall medical term for troubles that affected women), invented the vibrator.

The director Tanya Wexler and her stiff-upper-lip cast clearly get a kick out of their randy subject matter and adjust their playing accordingly, while Maggie Gyllenhaal delights as a proto-feminist who seizes on this development and the power it contains.

Read more at the New York Times

Hysteria - Streaming on Hulu

HYSTERIA, a mischievously inspired romantic comedy set in the late 19th century, is based on the surprising truth of how Mortimer Granville came up with the world's first electromechanical vibrator in the name of medical science.

ERASED⁠ Streaming on HBO Max!

 

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In "The Expatriate aka Erased" Aaron Eckhart plays a former CIA agent who moves to Belgium, trying to make a fresh go of things as the relationship with his 15-year-old daughter (Liana Libreto) has crumbled. Working for a multinational corporation as a security head, he arrives to work one day to find that the corporation doesn’t actually exist and everyone he works with has vanished. He discovers his assistant is actually a trained operative trying to kill him. On the run with his daughter, the experience forces the two to trust and work with one another. Olga Kurylenko will play his former CIA partner and lover trying to track him down.⁠
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Toronto: Judy Cairo Heads Back to Fest With ‘Boychoir’

 

During the height of the recession, producer Judy Cairo managed to break into the feature film business with a smallish indie called “Crazy Heart” through her Informant Media banner.

Since “Crazy Heart” became a major hit with Oscars for lead actor Jeff Bridges and the song “The Weary Kind,” Cairo’s been able to keep Informant in the business — so much so that she’s making her third trip the Toronto film Festival following “Hysteria” in 2011 and “Stuck in Love” in 2012.

Cairo, Carol Baum and Jane Goldenring are at TIFF this year with another music-based drama, “Boychoir,” starring Dustin Hoffman with Francois Girard (“The Red Violin”) directing. Informant is financing and producing. CAA is handling domestic sales; Embankment has international.

“It does give you confidence as a producer to get chosen for Toronto,” Cairo said. “They are great tastemakers.”

The story centers on a troubled 11-year-old who finds himself at an East Coast school, where he engages in a battle of wills with a demanding choir master, played by Hoffman. Eddie Izzard, Debra Winger, Josh Lucas, Kevin McHale and Garrett Wareing also star.

Embankment Films sold out most international markets at last year’s AFM — something Cairo credited to Hoffman’s appearance. She also praised his ability to make more of the character, above and beyond Ben Ripley’s script.

“Dustin has such a strong sense of improvisation,” she said. “During one scene, he started talking about Handel and opportunities and everyone on the set was in tears.”

Reposted from Varity

Informant Media's Judy Cairo Talks With the PGA on Creative vs. Financial Producing

Produced By: PGA East
Edited By: Diana Lampiasi
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The Producers Guild of America protects and promotes the interests of all members of the producing team in film, television and new media.

The PGA has over 5,000 members who work together to protect and improve their careers, the industry and community by facilitating members health benefits, encouraging enforcement of workplace labor laws, the creation of fair and impartial standards for the awarding of producing credits, as well as other education and advocacy efforts.

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Informant Media's Next Film ...

STUCK IN LOVE Produced by Judy Cairo Written and Directed by Josh Boone Starring Greg Kinnear, Lily Collins, Jennifer Connelly, Kristen Bell, Nat Wolff, Logan Lerman Three years past his divorce, veteran novelist Bill Borgens (Academy Award® nominee Greg Kinnear) can’t stop obsessing over, let alone spying on, his ex-wife Erica (Academy Award® winner Jennifer Connelly), who ignominiously left him for another man. Even as his neighbor-with-benefits, Tricia (Kristen Bell) tries to push him back into the dating pool, he remains blind to anyone else’s charms. Meanwhile, his fiercely independent collegiate daughter Samantha (Lily Collins) is publishing her first novel while recoiling at the very thought of first love with a diehard romantic (Logan Lerman); and his teen son Rusty (Nat Wolff) is trying to find his voice, both as a fantasy writer and as the unexpected boyfriend of a dream girl with unsettlingly real problems. As each of t hese situations mounts into a tangled trio of romantic holiday crises, it brings the Borgens to surprising revelations about how endings become beginnings. Release Date: July 5, 2013 Running Time: 96 minutes Rated R by the MPAA for language, teen drug and alcohol use and some sexual content.

The Cast and Crew of ‘Writers

Greg Kinnear, Nat Wolff, director Josh Boone and producer Judy Cairo stopped by our THR lounge to discuss their new drama. The script follows these multi-general lines, the high school element, the college element and all of them just resonated with me in a way that felt very truthful and I had never gotten to play an author before. Novelist.. I liked the sound of that” added Greg. 




Video by: R. Laski, P. Teyssier-Verger, J. Laski, C. Smith, J. Kooistra, C. Austin, O. Pratten, S. Wilson, G. Kilday, M. Lizaso, N. Ali

Two Rivers Reviews Hysteria

Scene On Film: “Hysteria”

By Joan Ellis

How often are you delighted by both the story and the look of a comedy? In grand collaboration, director Tanya Wexler and writer Stephen Dyer have managed to get everything right in Hysteria. Playing it straight with a giant wink in the collective eye, they have turned a true bit of history into a wonderfully wacky movie that is lifted high by Maggie Gyllenhaal’s madcap performance.


In this comedy about the invention of the electro-mechanical vibrator, an inspired cast generates amusement and charm in the stiff formality of Victorian England. Dr. Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a handsome young doctor disillusioned by the dismal medical practices in the hospital where he works. He quits in despair. His new job search lands him in the formal townhouse of Dr. Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), an older physician in dire need of a junior partner who can help him handle his burgeoning practice of grateful women who line up for “pelvic massage,” his personally administered relief from the common diagnosis of the era: hysteria.

The good doctor has two daughters. The proper Emily (Felicity Jones) is an admirable choice as a mate for his handsome new assistant. Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) drives her father mad with her passionate devotion to all things progressive. The clever setup presents Emily as a metaphor for aristocratic England – cultured, musical, bright, accepting – and Charlotte as a strident symbol of justice for women and the poor. She will help them all, at any cost.

When finally Charlotte discusses hysteria with Dr. Granville, she reminds him that this condition – for which the doctors of the day prescribed hysterectomy – is instead the result of the fearsome oppression of women who are thought to be ineligible for life on any level outside the house. So the lines are drawn: oppression of women and the poor vs. the world of privilege enjoyed by rich men.

When Dr. Granville and his best friend (Rupert Everett) invent the vibrator, all things become possible. Is the cure for hysteria at hand? Can the settlement house survive its financial woes? Will the good doctor marry Emily or Charlotte? The pleasure in this story lies in the predictability of the outcomes and the charm of all the characters.

The beautiful filming of Dr. Dalrymple’s stately townhouse where his professional and family life unfolds is the perfect backdrop for the lighthearted performances. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Charlotte is a passionate progressive without bitterness. On the run always, she flies in and out of the house annoying her father and enchanting the young doctor. Hugh Dancy’s Dr. Granville is bowled over by the doctor who has revolutionized women’s medicine and by the daughter who is as determined as her father to right a wrong. Beware social injustice when these three pick their targets. And all hail the women who line up for the new treatment for their oppression-induced hysteria. Their expressions are irreverently ecstatic, their cure sublime. Stay for the credits.

Maggie G. on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Hysteria's US Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival

Tanya Wexler, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce

...the buzz is building!

'Hysteria' Team Talks Vibrators, Medicine, and Culture

The KCET Cinema Series continued Tuesday night with a screening of "Hysteria" at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the NoHo Arts District.

After the screening, host Pete Hammond introduced Producers Judy Cairo and Tracey Becker, and Director Tanya Wexler. The audience was entertained by the lively discussion on the stage, which was full of puns and revealing stories about the making of independent film. Listen to the podcast