ON THE OUTS – NARRATIVE, US, 2004, 82 Minutes

Sometimes fiction is better equipped to depict a complicated reality than documentary. This is certainly the case with Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik’s gripping, multi-layered feature about three teenage girls struggling to survive in a drug-ridden New Jersey inner city. The film grew out of the creative workshops that the filmmakers and one of the actors, Paola Mendoza, held at a detention center for youthful female offenders. After weeks of improvisation that involved both inmates and actors, a script emerged rich with incident and unexpected turns. The cast, a mix of actors and non-professionals, is so fine that it seems wrong to single out any one performance. Still, one can’t deny the exceptional work of Judy Marte as Oz, the lesbian crack dealer, who’s too smart not to know that the price of her autonomy is someone else’s addiction. Marte is an actor of great range and promise. (Amy Taubin)

2005 Slamdance International Film Festival: WINNER Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award

2005 Cinequest Film Festival: WINNER

2005 Independent Spirit Awards: NOMINEE John Cassavetes Award and Independent Spirit Award

Directors: Lori Silverbush, Michael Skolnik

Producers: Jon Cohen, Lori Silverbush, Michael Skolnik, Rob Stone

Writer: Lori Silverbush

Lori Silverbush will direct BLUESMAN, based on the novel House of Sand and Fog, and is currently writing HIGHER GROUND, a film about the U.S./Mexican border. She is adapting Alice Hoffman’s novel Illumination Night for Prospect Pictures. In May 2000, Lori was chosen to participate in the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. MENTAL HYGIENE, the film that resulted, won the Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the 2001 Deauville Festival for American Cinema.