After a very successful theatrical run, we are pleased to announce the upcoming home entertainment release of HAPPY NEW YEAR via SnagFilms, beginning with cable-on-demand and broadband digital platforms on 05/14, with DVD and subscription – based streaming options later this summer. The film will be available for cable-on-demand purchase for all Comcast and Verizon Fios subscribers on May 14 (120 million homes), with other providers being added later this year. The film will also be available on various digital platforms which include: iTunes, Amazon, Google, Xbox and Vudu. Stay tuned for news regarding with DVD (w/special features) release, coming later this summer.

We have also signed up with TUGG.com which allows YOU to host a special screening of Happy New Year at a theatre in your town.

Here we go!

GET TICKETS
EXCLUSIVE NY ENGAGEMENT STARTS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
QUAD CINEMA
(13th ST BET. 5TH & 6TH AVES, (212) 255 – 2243

SHOWTIMES: 1:00, 3:10, 5:25, 7:45 and 10:05pm

For Advance Ticket Sales, please visit:
MOVIETICKETS.COM

or Call 777-FILM #636

Intros/Q+As with writer/director K. LORREL MANNING, lead actor/producer MICHAEL CUOMO and Special Guests

WEDS, DEC 12, 7:45pm
K. LORREL MANNING, Writer/Director
MICHAEL CUOMO, Lead Actor/Producer

THURS, DEC 13, 7:45pm
K. LORREL MANNING, Writer/Director
MICHAEL CUOMO, Lead Actor/Producer
TINA SLOAN-McPHERSON, Co-Star/Military Mother

For Group Sales Please Contact: Jeanine Bianco / bianco.jeanine@gmail.com

After playing over 16 festivals, winning several awards, and garnering the praise of the press and thousands of veterans, HAPPY NEW YEAR will have its NYC premiere and reception at the Disney Screening Room as part of the 1st Annual Veterans Week on Monday, November 12th.    Hosting this special event will be GERRY BYRNE, Broadway and film producer FREDERICK ZOLLO, and producer and Chairman of Help USA, MARIA CUOMO COLE.

The film will begin its regular engagement in New York at the Quad Cinemas on Friday, December 7, 2012!  CLICK HERE FOR ADVANCE TICKETS.

by Joshua Kors

Don’t let the name fool you. Happy New Year has nothing in common with vacuous holiday comedies like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. The film, written and directed by K. Lorrel Manning, explores the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, digging into the ugly internal war so many soldiers face upon returning home.

Manning’s film follows the journey of Sergeant Cole Lewis (Michael Cuomo), whose face was scarred and spirit shattered on the battlefield of Iraq. Now home from the war, Lewis is sent to a veterans’ hospital, where he begins to recuperate despite visits from an unsympathetic father and a nagging guilt for the dead he left behind. Manning pulls no punches in his depiction of the deep-rooted pain of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which slowly drains the life from Lewis’ eyes. And he provides an unflinching look at the bleakness of VA hospital life, which gives his film an eerie echo of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

To Continue Reading This Article, Click Here.

I first met writer/director K. Lorrel Manning and actor/producer Michael Cuomo at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, where we found ourselves the fish-out-of-water New Yorkers in a sea full of Southwest cinephiles. Their SXSW 2011 (sold out) hit Happy New Year is grounded in star Cuomo’s nuanced portrayal of a fictional outsider named Cole Lewis, a sergeant who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and now finds himself battling demons both mental and physical in the psych ward of a veterans hospital. I spoke with the two about their veterans outreach effort, Indiegogo versus Kickstarter, and the best places to start a revolution over breakfast.

To Continue Reading Article, Click Here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR has been nominated for a 2012 Voice Award. Sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the VoiceAwards honor consumer/peer leaders who have done exemplary work promoting the social inclusion of individuals with behavioral health problems. The awards also recognize TV and film writers and producers that incorporate dignified, respectful, and accurate portrayals of individuals with behavioral health problems into their scripts, programs, and productions.

Previous feature film winners include The Fighter, The King’s Speech and Precious, along with groundbreaking television shows Glee, Grey’s Anatomy and Mad Men.

The 2012 Voice Awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, August 22 at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, CA. The event brings together people from the entertainment industry and behavioral health community for a night that celebrates increased awareness of mental health and substance use disorders and the power of recovery.

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE VOICE AWARDS, CLICK HERE.

In 2004, writer/director LORREL MANNING, wandered through a local Barnes and Nobles and came upon a small, newly released book, called Purple Hearts by award-winning photographer NINA BERMAN. He bought it and his life took a new course.

Until that moment, he hadn’t paid much attention to the war in Iraq, or the condition of returning war veterans, but the book touched something in him and he wrote a play about two servicemen, called “Happy New Year,” starring actor MICHAEL CUOMO as “Sgt. Cole Lewis,” a gravely wounded marine also suffering from PTSD. The play had a successful Off-Broadway run, and Lorrel and Michael turned the play into a short film.

In 2007, on the eve of the short film shoot, Michael told Lorrel about a review in the New York Times about a gallery exhibit showing portraits of Iraq war veterans. When Lorrel walked into the Jen Bekman space on Spring Street, he realized the portraits hanging on the wall were the ones in the book he still carried with him. The coincidence was too eerie. He decided to track Nina down. A small message on Facebook has lead to a wonderful real world friendship.

Fast forward to 2012…Happy New Year is now a feature length dramatic film which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in 2011 and has been raking in awards and acclaim on the international film festival circuit ever since. Nina, who became a creative consultant on the feature film, shot stills on the film set and while there, took some time with Michael who was way deep in character, to make a portrait of “Sgt Lewis” in the style of the Purple Hearts series. It was an amazing moment, so strangely familiar, and both Nina and Michael were quite shaken by it.

On February 23, 2012, the Whitney Museum Contemporaries, hosted a special screening of Happy New Year in New York City. For the first time, Lorrel, Michael and Nina were all present to discuss this unique collaboration. In celebration of that collaboration and in support of the film, we have released a limited edition print of “Sgt. Cole Lewis” (above) which is now on sale.

Sgt. Cole Lewis
24×24 inches
archival inkjet print
Edition of 8

Proceeds from the sale will support the June 2012 release of Happy New Year.

For more information, contact hnyfilm@gmail.com.

Photograph ©Nina Berman 2009

On February 23, the Whitney Museum Contemporaries presented a private screening of Happy New Year at the Bryant Park Hotel, hosted by Executive Board Member JESSICA LEVINE. The screening was followed by an intense panel discussion with writer/director K. LORREL MANNING, lead actor/producer MICHAEL CUOMO and award-winning photographer/Whitney Biennial artist NINA BERMAN, moderated by Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and NBC/MSNBC Military Analyst JACK H. JACOBS.

It was the first time that Manning and Berman had publicly discussed their collaboration on Happy New Year. Manning’s purchase of Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq, Berman’s groundbreaking book of photos and interviews of gravely wounded soldiers from the Iraq War, in 2004, introduced him to the plight of wounded veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder. Berman’s insights contributed greatly to Manning’s research and writing of Happy New Year.

After viewing the film for the first time, Jacobs called Happy New Year “a stunning film of raw emotion. It is riveting, a piece of art that at times may look like fantasy, but it is the truth like no one else has ever told it.”

Berman capped off the evening by revealing a limited edition print of lead actor/producer Michael Cuomo as “Staff Sergeant Cole Lewis” done in the style of the Purple Hearts series. Proceeds go towards the anticipated June 2012 theatrical release of Happy New Year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR added to its growing collection of awards by taking home the top prize for BEST FEATURE FILM at the 6th Annual Beaufort International Film Festival, held February 15-19 in Beaufort, South Carolina. It was a banner year for the festival, with attendance reaching over 7000.

Festival organizers RON TUCKER, BRUCE DONEFF, and REBECCA BERRY, along with Independence Fund President STEVE DANYLUC pulled out all the stops, making sure that Happy New Year was the film to see that week. The film screened to a packed house of 500 people and received two standing ovations.

An incredibly informative and emotional 90-minute panel discussion followed with writer/director K. LORREL MANNING, lead actor/producer MICHAEL CUOMO, military adviser/HNY actor JOSEPH HARRELL, with special guests Hidden Wounds Executive Director ANNA BIGHAM, Independence Board member and Iraq Vet JOSH LINDSEY, and COLONEL JACK SNIDER.

The trip to Beaufort was a special one for Manning and Harrell. Manning grew up in South Carolina and his family traveled three hours to see film for the first time. Harrell was a Drill Instructor at nearby Marines Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, from 2005-2008.

Regarding the film’s first screening in a “military town,” Manning told Low Country Weekly reporter MARK SHAFFER that he knew “the probability of the film ruffling some feathers would be quite high, and that the post-panel discussion might get a little heated.” “I was prepared for it,” he says. “I even prepared my mother for it.”

However, Manning, Cuomo and Harrell were incredibly moved by the warm embrace the film received. “There was an 85 – year old man (most likely a WWII veteran) absolutely sobbing as the credits rolled,” says Cuomo. “I’ve never seen an older man so emotional in my entire life. The film really touched people here.”

COMPLETE PRESS COVERAGE OF “HAPPY NEW YEAR” AT BIFF

Festivals, veterans laud filmmaker’s ‘New Year’

Low Country Weekly Talks w/ K. Lorrel Manning

“Happy New Year” Takes on PTSD at BIFF

Beaufort Tribune Review of “Happy New Year”

A Standing Ovation for BIFF

Spartanburg Native’s Film Wins Award!

On December 31, Writer/Director K. LORREL MANNING and friends celebrated the new year with the veterans at St. Albans Community Living Center in Jamaica, Queens, NY. It was absolutely awesome,” says Manning. “The guys were a riot and so happy to see us. There are so many activities happening at this place, if people want to get involved.”

The VA St. Albans Community Living Center (179th St. & Linden Blvd) provides primary care and offers specialized geriatric programs and restorative rehabilitation for elderly cognitively impaired veterans. If you are interested in volunteering, please call 1-718-526-1000.