Eliza Dushku

Director to make debut at Tribeca Film Festival

The next project for Mr. Avgerinos is “Zoe,” which he wrote and will direct, and will star Eliza Dushku and James Van Der Beek.

“It’s a script I’ve been working on for several years,” he said. “We’re just casting. We’ll shoot in Montreal.”

Some 4,000 filmmakers tried to have their work shown in the Tribeca Film Festival. Theo Avgerinos of New Canaan is among the 169 selected.

“Fifty Pills,” the New Canaan High School graduate’s directorial debut, premieres at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, April 26, at the Pace University Schimmel Center.

“It’s pretty huge, especially since it was shot in New York, on the streets of Tribeca, coming home to our shooting ground,” Mr. Avgerinos said of his first work in the five-year-old film festival.

In “Fifty Pills,” Darren, played by Lou Taylor Pucci, has lost his scholarship to a New York City university due to his roommate’s partying. In need of money to make his tuition payment, his roommate offers 50 Ecstasy tablets, which Darren has one day to sell.

“It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy rather than a drug story,” Mr. Avgerinos told the Advertiser. “It’s about the characters he encounters throughout the day. It’s a fun ride.”

In addition to running up against unsavory drug dealers, “Darren’s life becomes even more complicated when his girlfriend, Gracie, learns of his morally dubious enterprise and is forced to rethink both his character and their relationship,” according to an official summary of the film.

Gracie is played by Kristen Bell, “Veronica Mars” in the UPN television show of the same name.

The first feature film from Mr. Avgerinos has been tabbed by MTV among the films to watch this year.

Additional screenings are 3 p.m. Thursday, April 27, at AMC Loews Village VII 3; 12:45 p.m. Monday, May 1, at AMC Loews 34th Street 14; 11:45 p.m. Thursday, May 4, at AMC Loews 14, and 1 p.m. Saturday, May 6, at AMC Loews Village VII 1. Ticket information can be found at www.tribecafilmfestival.org.

Location was key to the picture, called by its director “aesthetically great.” “The City is fantastic to photograph,” Mr. Avgerinos said. “The tricky part is the weather. Besides that, the people are good, relatively.”

Washington Square Park, a focal point, offered “a lot of great production value,” he added.

Weather - with which continuity was important since the action takes place in the span of one day - cost the crew a half day of shooting.

“We had to see if we could make up an interior location or shoot another area. We were able to get away with cloudy and rainy. With color adjustment you can make it look more seamless,’ Mr. Avgerinos said.

“It’s a small film,” he added. “We didn’t have huge studio backup options. Shoot what you can, do what you can afterwards.”

Interiors were shot in Los Angeles.

The son of Michael and Linda Averginos, Theo is a member of the New Canaan High School Class of 1996.

While in middle school, Mr. Avgerinos shot films on super8mm. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout with a documentary, and took film classes with Peter Kingsbury at NCHS.

Captain of the football team and an all-state selection on the gridiron, he was recruited by Bucknell University. He focused more on work behind the camera, co-founding the school’s first film production company and helping pioneer the cinema studies major, which has developed into the school’s Film Department.

He worked as an editor for HBO and continued as an assistant director, cinematographer, and director/producer on multiple short projects.

Mr. Avgerinos said he hopes his career follows the writing/directing track. A statement promoting his Tribeca debut details his vision.

In a statement, Mr. Avgerinos said, “‘Fifty Pills’ came to me through a small group of filmmaking colleagues. Our common vision was to produce the best feature within our limits with a pure indy heart at stake. The film began with a fantastic cast and crew we not only trusted but had worked with on multiple projects. The challenges and hardships we overcame tested us as production commenced through to locked picture. Our heart and passion to execute this vision was never lost. This is the fire that kept our team and film alive through each step. It has been my pleasure to see this picture through with so many creative elements converging at once.” He concluded, “I give many thanks to the Tribeca Film Festival for their contributions to New York City and its film community.”