On the road to making her feature debut with What They Had, Elizabeth Chomko faced two crises. On one hand, there was the existentential—the potency of loss, and the inevitability of decline, experienced firsthand. On the other, a crisis of identity, in her work as an artist. A Bleecker Street release starring Hilary S…

At today's Contenders LA, here's what they said about What They Had, Bleecker Street's family drama from first time writer/director Elizabeth Chomko. "It was something that I wrote for my family," said Chomko, appearing on a panel with stars Hilary Swank and Robert Forster. "It’s about the things that happened during…

After premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Bleecker Street’s family drama, What They Had made its way to the Toronto Film Festival for its international premiere screening. Written and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, the film stars Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner, Robert Forster, Taissa Farmiga, and…

EXCLUSIVE: Venture capitalist and entrepreneur David Carrico has launched Valparaiso Pictures, a Los Angeles-based film and TV development, production and finance company. It already has its first project in the works in After Perfect, a feature film based on Christina McDowell’s 2016 memoir that is being adapted by El…

A family crisis plays out onscreen in What They Had, in which a big-name cast tackles a big-league problem: Alzheimer’s disease. Now we have the powerful first trailer for the film from first-time writer-director Elizabeth Chomko that premiered at Sundance in Januiary. It follows Bridget (Hilary Swank) as she returns…

"There were so many reasons I felt compelled to tell the story,” first-time director Elizabeth Chomko said of her film What They Had at Deadline's Sundance Studio, “but the biggest one, I think, especially in hindsight, is the awareness that memories are a gift and that they're precious." Memory loss is a key tenet in…