Romantic comedy to be screened at Buffalo Dreams Film Festival and area venues
Rhonda Parker has been making films since she was 17 years old, but much of her life is invested in a full-length feature she’s just completed as part of an Honors Program project at Genesee Community College. The movie, “Friends Don’t Let Friends – Date Friends” will debut at a VIP dinner and a movie night at the Bald Eagle Bistro, 1033 South Lakeland Beach Road in Kendall on Friday, November 7, at 7 p.m. Seating is limited to 50. Presale tickets are $25 and, if there’s room, $30 at the door. Tickets are available on the movie’s website, www.friendsdontletfriendsdatefriends.com, where a trailer of the romantic comedy can be viewed.
Parker is a paralegal and communications/media arts student at GCC. She expects to graduate in December 2014. Besides being an Honors Program student, she’s been a blogger for the College and also won an essay contest sponsored by The Historical Society of the New York Courts, about which Professor Charles Scruggs said, “Her acerbic wit, frequently on display in class, is used to good effect in her written work.”
That wit is evident in “Friends…” which Parker describes as a “highly fictionalized account of actual events.” The main character, played by former GCC student Amelia Favata of Canandaigua, is a version of Parker herself. “It’s a very timeless story based on people I hung out with in my youth. It’s been in my head for 20 years. I started writing it 15 years ago and have revised it several times. Seven years ago it went through a peer review on [Francis Ford Coppola’s] Zoetrope.com.” So far, test audiences have enjoyed it. “One friend said of the film ‘I had forgotten…that’s what it feels like to fall in love.’”
Her husband, Mark Parker, completed editing the film at their home with Sony Vegas Pro software. “He’s the editor and I’m the editor-in-chief,” Parker explains. “He’s the doer, and I’m the thinker.”
Parker has been thinking a lot about how to get the word out about her film. “My goal is to have everyone in America see this movie,” she said. Beyond the dinner and a movie debut, she has lined up a number of additional screenings.
GCC Video/Telecommunications Director Barry Chow, with whom Parker completed an independent study, is sponsoring a show in the Stuart Steiner Theatre at GCC on Sunday, November 9, at 2:45 pm with a reception to follow. General admission is $8; students and seniors, $6.
Provided information
