 |
AGE: 29 |
How do you break into the moviemaking business? For Billy Federighi, his moment came a few years ago when he and his directing partner, Brett Snider, hopped on the user-generated-content trend in advertising: The friends, then living in Los Angeles, won back-to-back national contests—for Doritos and Converse, both in 2006—with commercials they wrote, directed, and filmed. Today called Gentlemen, the team recently directed spots for clients such as BFGoodrich (starring the snowboarder Shaun White), Coke Zero (with some NASCAR drivers), and PowerBar (with the basketball star Lamar Odom). About a year ago, a friend offered Federighi a promising script—a teen rom-com loosely based on The Apartment (Billy Wilder’s 1960 tryst romp starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine). With the help of some fundraising muscle from his brother, Dante, Federighi moved back to Chicago in 2009 and set to work. In a coup for the project, he wrangled a high-profile casting director, who in turn snagged the comedian and Chicago native Jeff Garlin for one of the roles. Filmed mostly in Park Ridge, Sin Bin is about a 17-year-old boy who finds himself tangled in a scheme involving a Gunzo’s Hockey Supply van, high-school students, and sex. During filming, Federighi’s parents, who still live in Park Ridge, were dedicated groupies. “They hung around every day,” says Federighi, now shopping the movie around for distribution. “They even stuck it out on days we were shooting at five in the morning.”
Photograph: Maria Ponce