After a life in a city where he has been indifferent to the world around him, a wealthy physician in an unnamed Latin American Country who is nearing retirement and thinking about his legacy, decides to visit medical students who he has trained and sent to dangerous rural areas to serve indigenous communities. Never having given serious thought to the reality of the world around him, he is surprised to find himself slowly being immersed in a world of violent conflict, where powerless villagers and educated doctors alike are threatened and killed by “men with guns.” Men With Guns was filmed in Mexico with a cast that included many who had never seen a film.

“The film takes the form of a journey, sometimes harrowing, sometimes poetic. It has a backbone of symbolism, as many great stories do. As the doctor moves from the city to the country, from the shore to the mountains, he also moves through history.” – Roger Ebert, Chicogo Sun-Times

“John Sayles is the most courageous and decent storyteller working in American films today. He proves that again in ”Men With Guns.” ­Critic’s Pick – Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“When the history of this century’s films are written, John Sayles will stand tall, as a director who went his own way, made his own films, directed and edited them himself, and operated completely outside the traditional channels of distribution and finance. When we hear Francis Ford Coppola’s lament that he has to make a John Grisham film in order to make one of his “own” films, we can only reflect that Sayles has demonstrated that a director can be completely independent if he chooses” – Roger Ebert, Chicogo Sun-Times

JOHN SAYLES
Beginning with Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980) and continuing for another 17 films so far,  John Sayles has been integral to the development of independent film and what it means to be an independent filmmaker. He makes his films the way he wants to make them and tells stories that Hollywood doesn’t tell, often about people and history that Hollywood overlooks.

John Sayles is also screenwriter “for hire” for Hollywood, as well as a writer of fiction and an occasional actor. It was his fiction that brought Sayles to the attention of legendary Director/Producer Roger Corman, launching a lifelong screenwriting career. Credited or not, he has written over sixty screenplays and worked for filmmakers such as John Frankenheimer, Steven Spielberg, Jonathan Demme, Sidney Pollack, Billie August, Ron Howard, Sam Raimi, Joe Dante, Rob Reiner, and James Cameron among others.

Most audiences know him as an iconic director. In previous years, Rivertown Film has shown The Secret of Roan Innish, Casa de los Babies, Silver City, Honeydripper, Amigo, and Go For Sisters. Some of his other films include Baby It’s You, Lianna,  Brother From Another Planet, Eight Men Out, Matewan, and Passion Fish (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay),

RICH GUAY
Rich Guay is a New York based producer, screenwriter, consultant and teacher. He has produced fifteen feature length films and documentaries after beginning his career as a production auditor for such filmmakers as John Sayles, Mike Nichols, Jonathan Demme, and then producing and sometimes cowriting many films directed by his partner, Nancy Savoca. These include True Love, Dogfight, Household Saints, 24-Hour Woman, Dirt, and Union Square. He is also the producer of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Subway Stories, Reno: Rebel Without a Pause, and Kinsey, and he has worked as a production executive for Orion Pictures, Film Finances, United Artists and New Regency. Rich is a member of the Rivertown Film Creative Advisory Board.

MISSING MOVIES
Missing Movies seeks to bring awareness to the problem of movies becoming unavailable to the general public and to educate current filmmakers on steps they can take to preserve their work. They advocate on behalf of films that are missing and assist filmmakers seeking to find lost work. It was founded by Rich Guay and Nancy Savoca, among others, after their experience locating the owners of and elements to their film Household Saints, which had been lost and unavailable for years.

“A film that could have settled for being a masterclass in technique, but instead goes deeper, exploring questions of artistry, authorship, legacy.” NPR

“Had The Christophers just been a cross-generational punch-up, the sort of flinty showdown designed to throw off pleasurable sparks, you’d still walk away content. It remains a conduit for two of the best performances you’ll see all year.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“The Christophers is largely a comedy, but it’s also about all that we gain and lose with age, and about how we sometimes need young people to bring us back to ourselves.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Having lost the inspiration that guided him to greatness, Julian is an artist who can no longer paint, and Lori is an artist who has lost all confidence in there being a place for her work in the larger world. For all the undercurrents about fame, commodification, and reputation that flow through The Christophers, at its core is a more plaintive lament about what it feels like to love something that doesn’t love you back.” – Alison Willmore, Vulture

“Go see The Christophers. Show up, and support a tiny, talky experiment that has no relationship to IP or sequels or box-office projection. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s also never, as Lori grudgingly notes about Julian’s work, uninteresting. And in this cultural moment, that’s an authentic win.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Time Out

“The Christophers is a work of criticism that deftly distinguishes different approaches to criticism.” ­– Justin Chang, The New Yorker 

“Brims with hilarious dialogue, lightly satirical observations of a culture that treats art as a commodity, and satisfying payoffs to a number of story elements planted early on.” – Seth Katz, Slant Magazine

“In the end, this film about artists becomes a work of art in its own right. The more you look at it, the more its many components reveal themselves to you.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap

“Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a sardonic art legend who meets his intellectual match in frank preservationist Lori Butler (Michaela Coel). In a test of wits and wills held mostly in a single-setting, Soderbergh pushes both characters to return to their former passions through philosophical conversations that reflect his own career.” – Robert Daniels, Screen International

“It bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“The Christophers is a talky, at times incredibly funny, comedy drama with plot reversals that make it feel like it’s on the verge of a thriller. It doesn’t end up there, at least not strictly, but it’s unpredictable enough to never make us entirely sure just where it’s heading.” – Benjamin Lee, Guardian

“There’s no room for anything shy of genius in The Christophers, a crackling original drama about artistic legacy in all its facets, directed by Steven Soderbergh , from a script by Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move) and starring two top-notch English actors of wildly different backgrounds and styles, Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, at the top of their respective games.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

“With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American Cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs. – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast