In a Sundance overflowing with great shorts, "Among Thieves" stands out as one of the best. A riveting tale of betrayal, loyalty, and compassion, Oscar Daniels's superb character study/thriller is about the unusual relationship that develops between an armed robber on the lam and a dying old woman. After leaving his injured buddy at the scene of a botched robbery attempt, Travelle (dynamically portrayed by Rashawn Underdue) hides out in a home inhabited by the badly suffering woman and her cruel nursemaid/baby sitter. At first only interested in avoiding the cops and hitting up the old lady's cash reserves, which are long gone, Travelle unexpectedly starts to feel for her, as she stares up at him so helplessly and pathetically from her bed, hoping only to be freed from her pain. In the film's most pivotal (and beautiful) moment, the thug is forced to reconcile his thug mentality with a budding sense of human compassion and selfless kindness. Highlighted by an extraordinary, Denzel-worthy performance by Underdue, "Among Thieves" avoids cheap sentimentality while still landing a potent shot to the heart.


Review of "Among Thieves" on Filmthreat.com January 28, 2005





Oscar Daniels studied editing at AFI, but what he really wants to do is direct. "I was frustrated with directors bringing me bad footage," Daniels said. "So I decided to put my money where my mouth is and direct something."

The result is Among Thieves, a short film about a thief who breaks into a random house while fleeing a robbery gone bad, and stumbles upon a sick old woman who begs him to kill her. "I wanted to bring two people together who were as far apart as possible in terms of their lifestyle, bringing an elderly white woman together with a thugged-out petty, (or maybe not so petty) criminal to prove that we're more alike than we think."

That the film heads into morally sticky territory is a testament to the 31-year-old writer/director's penchant for ethical ambiguity. "I'm intrigued by gray areas, because they plague me in life," he said. "I was raised in a strict religious household, so there are certain things that are right and certain things that are wrong. And then there are those gray areas, where something seems wrong and also right, and which is it?"

With preoccupations like that, it is no wonder Daniels left his job analyzing intelligence for the government for film school. He had gotten involved in the intelligence community through a scholarship program that covered expenses for undergraduate school at the University of Michigan. After several years at the National Security Agency, Daniels was producing classified videos and decided to bust out on his own. He enrolled at AFI, where he was nominated twice for the American Cinema Editors Best Student Editing Award and won the Hollywood Reporter Key Art trailer cutting award.

The ambitious grad student also landed the prime gig associate editing Ondi Timoner's documentary DIG!, which won the Sundance documentary Grand Jury Prize last year. "If you can survive DIG!, you can survive any movie. That's what Ondi would say," Daniels said. "We didn't have AC in the room. It was so hot I was cutting in my underwear. One time she came in in just her bra -- and she was pregnant. I was like, we could be formal about this, but let's not; let's just keep working."

Since his graduation in 2003, Daniels has worked on low-budget features, which was great training for his directorial debut. As the man used to identifying the strongest footage and trimming the fat, Daniels wrote a taut script ripe with religious imagery wrapped around a compellingly inconclusive ethical debate. Invigorated by the experience, Daniels is finishing up several feature scripts and eagerly awaiting production number two. In the meantime, he recognizes that he's likely to spend some more time at an Avid. "I have to eat," he said with a deep throaty laugh. "I do enjoy editing. It's not second banana. But in terms of how I want people to perceive me in the future, as a director would be cool."


Sundance Daily Insider "Short Shot" January 28, 2005





This 24 minute film is riveting from start to finish. We are thrown right in the middle of a botched robbery as the perpetrators flee down a dark alley on the poor side of town. One of the thugs leaves his wounded cohort half hidden and bleeding as the cops close in. Eluding police, the dangerous fugitive breaks into a nearby home where he encounters an elderly cancer patient and her nurse which become his hostages. What happens next will blow your mind! This short is flawlessly directed, and superbly acted. Kudos for Rashawn Underdue who stars in the film, as well as, Jeanne Mount, Ransford Doherty and Franceska Lynne.


Valley Scene Magazine
7th Annual MethodFest Coming to Calabasas
Sunday April 10, 2005





SHORTS PROGRAM I (****) Hands down, the best shorts program I have ever screened at a film festival. Each short (6 in all) were great: "Among Thieves", "In The Morning", "In Time", "Oh My God", "Spelling Bee", & "Staring At The Sun" were all mini-masterpieces! Look for these titles wherever shorts may screen (Sundance Channel, IFC channel, film festivals, etc.).


Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Ain't It Cool News






Early Sunday morning, Hollywood finally popped the cherry at this year's Sundance. Just when the deal-hungry market watchers in town were wistfully recalling the Miramax buying sprees of old, in steps Paramount.

Sometime around 3:30 am, acquisitions troops on the ground here woke up Paramount chairman Brad Grey to finalize the purchase of Craig Brewer's breakout movie Hustle & Flow. Produced by John Singleton, it stars Terrence Dashon Howard (Ray, The Best Man) as a Memphis pimp desperate to leave the game... and become a rap star.

The buy is one of those fabled-but-rare three-picture deals totalling $US 16 million, with $9.5 million just for Hustle & Flow. By comparison, Napoleon Dynamite sold for $4 million here last year. As exciting as all those dollars are, this pimp drama will be a huge risk for Paramount. Sundance is famous for movies that sell high here and tank at the box office (Happy Texas, for one). You can bet Brad Grey will be riding Singleton's back, talking about "Bitch better have my money."

* * *

With any luck, I've just witnessed another, smaller scale sale.

Ten minutes ago a sweet faced black woman sat down beside me here at the packed Filmmaker Lodge on Main Street. She opened up a tupperware container and proceeded to eat her fruit salad. We got talking and it turns out she's the mother of Oscar Daniels, who's got a short here called Among Thieves.

Just then Oscar himself shows up, a dreadie who looks twice as tall as his mom. Turns out Jennifer Chen from the Canadian Film Centre is sitting on the couch beside me. She buys shorts for distribution, and she's seen Among Thieves. She and Oscar get talking and suddenly she's giving him the advice that ought to steer him towards the big dollars, or at least a good run on the festival circuit and a TV sale or two.

* * *

Sundance could never exist without the exchange of money-for-cinema, though anyone who works for the festival will tell you that's not what it's about. In a way, they're right. Money does rule Sundance, but the real reason people keep coming back is for the rush of chance encounters -- two minutes on a bus with a sudden kindred spirit, a dinner with someone you never spend time with at home, meeting a new fulcrum in your life.

Today, for me it was witnessing Jennifer Chen meet Oscar Daniels, and before that, my 12 minutes with Tilda Swinton. She's here in Mike Mills's Thumbsucker, which also stars Vincent D'Onofrio and Keanu Reeves. I have loved watching Swinton since Caravaggio and Friendship's Death in the mid-80s, but it's been strange to watch her act in more and more American films (Adaptation, The Deep End, Thumbsucker). Today, when I asked her about taking stock of the time between now and then, she opened right up, talking about how she still feels like an apprentice, how she's getting used to 20 years as a comfortable unit of time, and how, when her longtime director Derek Jarman died, a kind of cinema in Britain died with him. I'd interviewed Swinton by telephone years ago, but nothing compared to meeting her in the flesh. She's tall.


"Sundance money, Sundance time" Cameron Bailey's Sundance Report in Now Magazine Monday 24th, Jan. 2005