Our CEO's & Resident Filmmakers? Or Construction Site Pirate Cheerleaders?
LEAH RUDICK
Leah Rudick is an actress, writer, and comedian. Film credits include “Chemical Cut” (Official selection of Slamdance Film Festival 2016) “Jammed” (2014), "Cut to Black" (2013), and “Prayer to a Vengeful God” (2011). She can be seen on the Webby-winning YouTube channel Barely Political. She has performed at venues across the globe as half of the sketch comedy duo "Skinny Bitch Jesus Meeting", and is co-creator/co-star of the web series "Made To Order" (2015) which has been featured on Marie Claire, New York Observer, Indie Wire, Flavorwire, and Decider, to name a few. Most recently she appeared on the HBO hit “High Maintenance”. Her stand-up comedy special “Everything Is Fine” can be watched on Seed & Spark and streamed on Spotify. She is a founding member of Lifted Yoke Productions and currently lives in Los Angeles.
DAVID BLY
David Bly is a filmmaker & actor born and bageled in Montreal, Canada. His feature directorial debut, SWEET PARENTS, will be released in the fall of 2020 after winning top awards at the Montreal World Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, and the Lower East Side Film Festival, among others. He recently assisted in the production of the film DEAN by Demetri Martin, which premiered at Tribeca, as well as DIGGING FOR FIRE by Joe Swanberg and OTHER PEOPLE by Chris Kelly, both premiering at Sundance. Other works have screened at various festivals and outlets, including SXSW, Slamdance, Montclair Film Festival, Harlem International Film Festival, and Seed & Spark.
Bly earned an MFA in Acting from The New School for Drama in New York and a Bachelor degree in marketing from McGill University in Montreal. He also completed University of Southern California’s Summer Producer Program and assisted in the production of Montreal’s Just For Laughs Comedy Festival for four years. He co-hosts the filmmaker podcast “You Had Your Chance”. He currently runs Lifted Yoke Productions with Leah Rudick and lives in Los Angeles where he is developing the recipe for Tundra, his Canadian amaro, which is documented at the popular YouTube channel "That's Amaro".
Photo by: Cory Goldberg
Lifted Yoke Productions was inspired by and rooted in the opportunity to learn about and live the start-ups that we experienced growing up. The tutelage of family members who risked every cent to start and build companies from the ground up instilled the confidence necessary to fulfill the potential of our shared vision. We’ve witnessed people with scarred hearts and backs embracing challenges and losses as simply steps in a process towards success.
We believe the knowledge needed to start a successful company with a long-term vision, whether it be in engineering, high-end fashion, science media, or film production, goes beyond the prerequisites of a specific industry. We believe it's the personality of the creator, the spark in the speech, the glimmer and determination in their eye when they share a new idea, that is the ultimate secret ingredient of success, no matter the industry.
We will both be contributing to the content slate as writers. We intend to capitalize on our unique asset of being a blend of urban, suburban, global, multi-lingual and multicultural. Our films are rooted in the imagination of a woman from America’s midwest and a man from Canada, living and working in New York and Los Angeles, the cultural and entertainment hubs of the universe.
We will be serving up the film equivalent -- and actual plates -- of poutine and Skyline chili to all of our collaborators, whether they like it or not.
The Sweet Parents Team (from L to R: Josh Itzkowitz, Stephanie Marin, Leah Rudick, David Bly, Matthew Smaglik)
Photo by: Cory Goldberg