SENECA

Written by Armando Riesco and Jason Chaet

Executive Produced by Jonathan Gray, Brian Devine, Michael Buttiglieri, Gary E. Schreiber and Jerry Pekow

​

Drama/Comedy 95 minutes 

​

​

FILMMAKER

​

Jason Chaet is an award winning filmmaker, theatre director, producer, editor and acting teacher based in New York City. He got his start at the Ensemble Studio theatre where he worked with off-broadway icon Curt Dempster. In his time at the Ensemble Studio theater, he developed the new work of many playwrights, including working with David Mamet and Arthur Miller, and serving as assistant director on Mamet’s critically-acclaimed No One Will Be Immune: Five Pieces for Theater and Miller’s Elegy for a Lady. He also ran the Artistic Director’s Lab at their summer conference for two seasons. He created and directed Off the Page for HBO/USCAF and has a vast array of theater directing credits in NYC and around the country. He also founded and was the artistic director of Stage One, an Off-Off Broadway theater company that specialized in producing new and under-performed one-act plays.

​

Jason moved into the world of independent film when he directed the N.Y. and L.A. workshops, then served as creative consultant on the award-winning independent film Kissing Jessica Stein which was distributed by Fox Searchlight. His feature film Putzel (starring Jack Carpenter, Melanie Lynskey, Susie Essman, and John Pankow) had its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2012. It won multiple awards, appeared in over fifty film festivals around the world, and was distributed internationally by Filmbuff. Other film and television credits include Remember (produced in association with the Puerto Rican film commission) and Avenues (TV Pilot). He also created, directs, produces and edits the short political web series Just Words. His most recent feature film Seneca, which he directed, co-wrote (with longtime collaborator Armando Riesco), edited and produced recently had it’s sold out world premiere at the HBO Latino Film Festival in NYC where it won a Special Jury Prize across all categories. The film stars Armando Riesco, Susan Misner, Shirley Rumierk, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Tony Plana. It was shot on location in New York City and Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

 

Jason is proud to be a long time member of the acting faculty at AMDA (American Musical Dramatic Academy) in New York City, where he teaches acting, directs graduation performances, and serves as the Supervisor of First Semester Acting, Acting for the Camera and Screenwriting.

​

​

​

Armando Riesco is a versatile NYC based actor with credits in film, tv, and the stage. He graduated from Northwestern University and has been working consistently in multiple genres with some of the best directors in the business including Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh and Jonathan Demme. He has appeared in over a dozen films (Garden State, Adult World, Bella, World Trade Center, etc.) and regular, recurring, and guest starring spots on television (currently on Showtime’s The Chi). 

​

On stage he was most notably the title character in the Elliott trilogy, which includes the Pulitzer Prize winning Water by the Spoonful; by Quiara Hudes for which he received a Lucille Lortel nomination for outstanding lead actor in a play. As a writer/producer his short film Remember was an official selection at LA Shorts, HBO NY Latino Film Festival, LALIFF, and the Soho Film Festival. His second short Lost Flowers premiered at the Rincon International Film Festival in Puerto Rico. His feature film Seneca (which he co-wrote, produced, and stars in) recently had its sold out world premiere at the HBO NY Latino Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Prize across all categories.

​

​