Roman Coppola debuts Four Stories

In August, W Hotels and Intel called for aspiring filmmakers to submit short scripts that were set in a W Hotel and somehow included an Ultrabook.

Over 1,000 submissions were whittled down to four scripts by The Directors Bureau and Coppola, who eventually decided to add his own short to the series, resulting in a “quartet of five films.”

Each is as different as the last. The first, Modern/Love, written by UCLA grad Amy Jacobowitz and directed by Lee Toland Krieger, follows two 20-somethings who have been talking over the Internet for two years and have grand ideas of their first in-person meeting.

¡El Tonto!, written by Ben Sayeg and directed by Lake Bell, chronicles a geeky traveller who meets a famous luchadore of Mexico named El Solar. A timid businessman receives a magic Ultrabook in Eugene, written by Adam Blampied and directed by Spencer Susser.

Aside from the charming Modern/Love, the most haunting and memorable of all is Kahlil Joseph’s abstract short The Mirror Between Us. Set in the idyllic W Retreat and Spa Maldives, it stars Nicole Beharie, who played opposite Michael Fassbender in Shame, and model Dan’ee Doty.

“I wanted to have a certain amount of diversity,” Coppola commented at the screening’s Q&A. “Kahlil’s piece is very lyrical and poetic, other pieces are more comedic. I think the way they flow together was purely accidental.”

Coppola’s short Die Again, Undead One features Margarita Kallas and Jason Schwartzman in an “intergalactic vampire tale.” Schwartzman and Kallas were both cast in Coppola’s upcoming feature, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, which he said is “very different” in theme in tone from Die Again. The film will be released in February.

Intel’s VP of Creative and Digital Marketing Johan Jervoe commented, “As a brand, we fundamentally think about technology and innovation is center. These future visionaries, we learn a lot from them.”