January 13th 2004:

South Jersey Courier Post

Brigantine buddies taking film to Sundance

by Kevin Riordan

Here's the pitch: Two buddies from Brigantine make a movie for less than $4,000.

A stylishly gritty story set on Philly's tough streets, Rise By Sin is a
rough-and-tumble morality tale, a sort of Shakespearean tragedy for the hip-hop generation.

Anyway, the first feature film written and directed by Mark Bernardi and Greg
Santarsiero had its world premiere in November at the Rehoboth Beach
Independent Film Festival in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

And on Jan. 22, it will be shown during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City,
Utah. You know, that (increasingly commercial) independent film extravaganza
founded by Robert Redford.

OK, so Rise By Sin isn't an official Sundance entry. Nor is it an official entry
at Slamdance, or at Nodance, the best known of the even-more-independent film festivals held simultaneously with Sundance.

But Rise By Sin will be screened during Sundance at the Freedom Cinema Festival in Park City, which means that filmgoers in the epicenter of the indie-cinema world will have a chance to see it.

Not bad for a scrappy, seat-of-the-pants movie made by a waiter and a personal trainer who, until recently, knew nearly next to nothing about making movies, scrappy, seat-of-the-pants or otherwise.

"We've never been `by the book' people," says Bernardi, a 24-year-old native of Marlton (where one Rise By Sin scene was shot).

He and Santarsiero, 25, met in elementary school, became smitten with
independent films while in high school, and began working on Rise By Sin after
graduating, respectively, from Fordham University and St. Joseph's University.

"We were looking to give voice to a somewhat neglected segment of society,"
Santarsiero says. "We wanted to tell a story about disenfranchised kids
struggling to find their identity."

Rise By Sin isn't autobiographical; the thoroughly middle-class backgrounds of
the two filmmakers is nothing like the movie's blue-collar, multicultural milieu. But the movie could be called generational, in that it is enlivened by the attitude, style and (often profane) slang associated with the hip-hop music
that has replaced rock as young America's favorite soundtrack.

The hip-hop edginess is carried through in the look and feel of the film, which
stars nonprofessional actors and includes quite a bit of ad-libbed dialogue.
The latter was a matter of necessity rather than choice - the logistics of
shooting on a shoestring budget ("We couldn't even buy our actors lunch,"
Bernardi says) meant few opportunities for rehearsals or reshoots.

Rise By Sin is surely not everyone's cinematic cup of tea. The language (like
some of the acting) is rough, the violence is startling and the youthful subject matter may be less than compelling for some audiences. And it takes a while to build up steam.

But the movie has intriguingly offbeat moments, plenty of sly humor, and a
surprise or two.

It's a labor of love with the ring of truth.

"Making a movie has been our obsession," Bernardi says. "We've been talking
about it since we were 13."

Adds Santarsiero, "We just wanted to tell a good story."