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12 Nov. 2008: From the Rochester City Paper's "Best of Rochester 2008 - Critics' Choices":

Best Hollywood Hopeful: Zoje Stage
Rochester has been home to some pretty famous people: Garth Fagan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Teddy Geiger, Taye Diggs. And soon, we'll be able to add one more name to our proud list: Zoje Stage. While not yet a household name, the local filmmaker recently won the prestigious New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for screenwriting, placing her in the ranks of previous winners like Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Todd Haynes, and Julie Taymor. Many NYFA Fellows have gone on to win Tonys, Oscars, Pulitzers, and MacArthur Fellowships.

Stage is currently trying to secure funding for her award-winning script, "The Machine Who Loved," which she also plans to direct. The story defies categorization: it's part science fiction, part romance, and part drama. It's artsy and accessible at the same time. It combines familiar story arcs, yet it's like nothing you've ever read. So keep your eyes open because it's a project that has a very high chance of lifting off - and soon. It's already been compared to the work of Ingmar Bergman by someone in the biz, and Stage is in the process of attracting Viggo Mortensen for one of the leads.

So, Rochester, next time you brag about how your city often fosters some of Tinseltown's biggest talents, throw out the name Zoje Stage. Once she makes it big, you can pretend you knew her when. - BY SUSIE HUME

25 Sept. 2008: Watch our new short film: Tea Ceremony at the End of the World.

1 Aug. 2008: "The Machine Who Loved" finished in the top 7% - out of 5,224 entries - in this year's Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. (Zoje has twice been a semifinalist in the Nicholls with her scripts "The Opposite of Secret" and "Monster.")

20 June 2008: Zoje is in New York City to attend NYFA's celebration for the 2008 Fellows, being held tonight at Exit Art.

2 June 2008: We are thrilled to announce that Zoje has been awarded a 2008 Fellowship in Playwriting/Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Previous NYFA Fellows include Spike Lee, Todd Haynes, Tamara Jenkins, Mira Nair, Julie Taymor and Tony Kushner.

5 Oct. 2007: "Happy Walter" is screening tonight at 7:30pm as part of the Directors Chair Film Festival. The films can be watched either live at the television station, or on Channel 57 (Staten Island Community Television). Zoje will be in the studio for the Q&A with the filmmakers.

27 Sept. 2007: Today's blog: Don't Take "No" for an Answer

29 Aug. 2007: Get your official Master Builder gear! We've added merchandise to our Online Store - great new selections for men and women!

26 Aug. 2007: "Happy Walter" has been accepted into The Directors Chair Film Festival (Oct. 4-7). This unique festival will screen its selections on Staten Island Community Television, and will feature live interviews with the filmmakers.

1 July 2007: Read the blog entry about the Pioneer screening of "Happy Walter."

25 June 2007: "Happy Walter" is screening tonight at 7pm at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York City. This marks our first ever theatrical booking.

16 March 2007: We can happily report that "Happy Walter" was well received at its premiere! Big laughs, good crowd and a fun Q&A. Read the full recap in the blog.

13 March 2007: "Happy Walter" will premiere tonight at Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA). The reception begins at 7pm, followed by the screening at 8pm. For directions to the theatre, please visit the Film Kitchen website.

8 March 2007: From the Pittsburgh City Paper's preview of "Happy Walter": "With the right inspiration, it's true: A script really can almost write itself. So Zoje Stage learned while watching the documentary Bukowski: Born Into This shortly after viewing another portrait of "an asshole genius": Tell Them Who You Are, Mark Wexler's film about his relationship with his father, famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler. In "Tell The", Stage recalls, Wexler asks his son, "Are you going to stand there and shoot it? I thought you wanted to make a good documentary."... Stage's mockumentary "Happy Walter" premieres at the March 13 installment of the Film Kitchen series. The Rochester-based artist herself plays Happy Walter Jr., one of 13 children of a famous and goofily smug artist who made his name with ephemeral sculptures no one was permitted to document, most of them constructed of toilet paper. The satiric indie feature, shot on video, is both a bio of the dubiously talented Happy Walter and the story of [Happy Walter Jr.'s] struggle to know the father who failed to raise any of his children, despite naming them all after himself. Walter is portrayed by a friend of Stage's named Hal Weaver, an artist and graphic designer who lives in Virginia Beach, VA. His Walter - the son of a Pittsburgh steelworker - is a goateed, greasy-haired, earringed guy in a T-shirt reading "Half Man, Half Horse."... by movie's end Stage has even convincingly introduced a few notes of sadness into the story... witty." (Bill O'Driscoll)

20 Dec. 2006: Happy Walter has been invited to screen at Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA) on March 13, 2007 at the Melwood Screening Room. (Check back later for more details.)

16 Nov. 2006: St. John Fisher College (Rochester, NY) is participating in the United Nations Philosophy Day by holding day-long free events that explore this year's theme of "Philosophy and Popular Culture." "poetica.cinema./trilogy." will be playing today as a thirteen-hour looped installation (8am - 9pm). Zoje will also be part of the roundtable "Passions and Emotions: Ancient, Modern and Postmodern" that will take place from 4:35-5:55pm. During that time "Best of Luck" will be screened, followed by an open discussion on the Philosophy of Rejection.

30 June 2006: We are about to commence production on our new feature-length mockumentary, "Happy Walter." Hal Weaver stars in the title role as a famous artist with dubious talents and thirteen estranged children who bear his name - one of whom makes a documentary as a means of getting to know him. Shooting will take place through August in Rochester, NY and Pittsburgh, PA.

28 June 2006: The "poetica.cinema." trilogy has been invited to screen in November during the UNESCO program at St. John Fisher College (Rochester, NY). This will mark the premieres of both "poetica.cinema./new york." and "poetica.cinema./erotica." - as well as being the first time the Trilogy will screen in its entirety.

3 April 2006: "Best of Luck" will screen tonight at Flicks on Fairbanks (Winter Park, FL).

22 Feb. 2006: Zoje's first New York City screening is happening tonight as part of NewFilmmakers @ Anthology Film Archives. "Best of Luck" will screen in the shorts program at 7pm. "Bewilderness" will be the feature presentation at 8:20pm.

21 Feb. 2006: Zoje has been awarded a Strategic Opportunity Stipend to cover her travel expenses to attend her screenings at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City. The grant is awarded by the New York Foundation for the Arts in collaboration with the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester.

19 Feb. 2006: From the New York Times: "Don't Call. We Won't Either: On the taxonomy of the brushoff. Zoje Stage submitted her writing - screenplays, fiction and plays - to studios, publishers and others nearly 1,000 times between 1993 and 2003, but she never once hit the jackpot. Undeterred, Ms. Stage, 37, saved every rejection letter and turned them into a 25-minute documentary, "Best of Luck," in which the camera pans across hundreds of the missives, rapid-fire, while she reads from them. It's an amusing take on the travails of aspiring writers, but in an unhappy twist the documentary itself was rejected by six film festivals. Ms. Stage persevered, however, tasting success with a screening in a Pittsburgh forum for local filmmakers (she has since moved to Rochester) and another on Wednesday in New York as part of the Anthology Film Archives' NewFilmmakers series. Savoring a rare breakthrough, she offered a lesson on the taxonomy of a brushoff." (Andrew Adam Newman) (link to article)

19 Feb. 2006: From the New York Post: "Zoje Stage is a struggling writer and filmmaker in Rochester, NY, who reckons that over a 10-year period she's received nearly 1,000 rejections. Not to let all that work go to waste, she's made the movie "Best of Luck" (2003), which features sound bites from many of the rejection letters. On Wednesday, "Best of Luck" and an autobiographical feature "Bewilderness" (2002), in which the multi-tattooed woman stars under the name Zenovia, will screen at Anthology Film Archives (Second Avenue and Second Street) as part of the weekly NewFilmmakers series. Program kicks off at 6 p.m.; newfilmmakers.com" (V.A. Musetto)

10 Jan. 2006: Tonight's program at Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA) includes three of Zoje's short films:"Against Her Skin," "poetica.cinema." and the premiere of "Mt. Hope." Zoje will be in attendance and will answer questions following the films.

5 Jan. 2006: From the Pittsburgh City Paper's preview of "Mt. Hope" and "Against Her Skin": "Zoje Stage likes planning things. "I am a very very organized person by nature," says the writer and moviemaker. But she realizes planning isn't the only way, especially when it comes to art. Inspired by Dogma 95, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's credo of no-frills cinema, Stage conceived of a story idea one day and shot it, scriptless, the next. She gave her actresses a premise -- one's dealing with a death in the family, one with divorce, and both are on the road -- and shot their improvised encounter on the fly.

The Pittsburgh native, who moved to Rochester, N.Y., in 2004, did the rest in the editing room. "I wanted a sense of more of their quiet space and their not knowing each other very well," says Stage. "Mt. Hope," whose creation Stage likens to "writing with images," was also influenced by Elephant and Last Days, recent Gus Van Sant films with an improvised quality and ambiguous meanings. "The audience has to participate in those kinds of movies," she says. "I really like how reality can be explored in that way."

Conversely, planning can be fun, too. Stage's short, creepy drama "Against Her Skin" required her longest pre-production ever. It was shot in Pittsburgh, at the shadowy old Point Breeze home of friends she stays with when she visits. "I really wanted to make a film that had a mood to it," says Stage. "That house begged to have some kind of haunted-house story." (Bill O'Driscoll)

25 Oct. 2005: We are thrilled to reveal our new logo, created by graphic artist/illustrator Craig Mrusek!

7 Oct. 2005: "Best of Luck" has been invited to screen alongside "Bewilderness" at the Anthology Film Archives (New York, NY), slated for early 2006.

29 Aug. 2005: "Against Her Skin" premieres tonight at 9:15 pm at the Little Theater (Rochester, NY) as part of the Emerging Filmmakers series.

25 July 2005: "poetica.cinema." screens tonight at 9:15 pm at the Little Theater (Rochester, NY) as part of the Emerging Filmmakers series.

5 May 2005: "poetica.cinema." screens today at the National Association for Poetry Therapy 25th Annual Conference (St. Louis, MO).

19 April 2005: "'Voices in Wartime' may prove to be one of the most startlingly literate documents of war every created for film." - from The San Francisco Bay Guardian

12 Feb. 2005: "Voices in Wartime" is scheduled to be released in theatres this March/April. This documentary explores war through poetry, and includes an animated montage of poems from the "Poets Against the War" website. Zoje's poem "I See You" - along with other pieces by such writers as Ursula Le Guin - will be featured in this segment.

20 Dec. 2004: "Avi & Sylvan" premieres tonight at 9:15pm at the Little Theater (Rochester, NY) as part of the Emerging Filmmakers series.

10 Feb. 2004: "Best of Luck" premieres tonight at Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA). Reception at 7pm, films at 8pm. Zoje will be present for a Q&A following her screening.