Rebel Pictures was founded by Romeo Ryder and Kimberly Ann Saviano in 2007.
Coming from very different backgrounds and countries both Romeo and Kimberly pursued acting, mainly in the theater. While Kimberly started out as a child actress, performing in over thirty musicals such as Annie (excerpt shown on this site), The Secret Garden, and Gypsy, Romeo found his beginnings later in life. After studying for several years at the International Network of Actors Theater Academy in Berlin, Germany, focusing on Brecht’s Epic Theater, Shakespeare, Meyerhold, and Stanislavski, he moved to America where he studied Method Acting at The Actor’s Center of San Francisco by student of Lee Strasberg, Shelley Mitchell. It was there where he met Kimberly.
The two went on to Los Angeles to pursue careers in film. Teaming up with a group of young filmmakers Rebel Pictures was created. The first project of the company was Devils – a dramatic short depicting three young adults failing in today’s modern society and the terrifying actions they take in an effort towards redemption. On board was award-winning Macedonian director, Darko Mitrevski who contributed his own personal cinematic vision.
Rebel Pictures is a unique production company upheld by its commitment to its name, “rebel”. As defined by Webster’s Dictionary to rebel is a : to act in or show opposition or disobedience and/or b : to feel or exhibit anger or revulsion. Rebel Pictures opposes the treatment of film as mere entertainment/financial product and instead strives to produce film which serves the audience as works of art. The company seeks to produce works which will do what any other forms of art do – to illuminate the human condition. With this being their primary goal, the company is less concerned about following traditional filmmaking rules or submitting to Western approaches to cinema and rather embraces novel filmmaking techniques such as incorporating theatrical elements like Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt or alienation effect. With their background as actors the films also have an emphasis on characters, dialogue, and truthful, intuitive acting styles.
In addition, Rebel Pictures, founded and run by a group of young filmmakers, has a unified sense of frustration and anger with the current world situation with a specific closeness to the discouraging plight of many of today’s young people. The desire to exhibit or express this anger largely dictates the topics which are chosen to be filmed.
Rebel Pictures was born out of two actors’ desire to create meaningful, internationally-relevant work depicting the struggles and perils of those outside the mainstream. They strive to delve into taboo topics, such as school shootings, with unabashed detail and truthfulness.
"Ultimately truthful acting can flow only from truthful living; that to be able to act realistically, honestly, freshly, and intuitively is to be able to live those qualities too, at a deep instinctual level, beyond the need for practice or for rules." (Constantin Stanislavski)
"When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen." (Stella Adler)
"A great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or in verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered." (Lee Strasberg)
