Press Kit. The Bad Mother is an independent feature-length dramatic comedy produced by Pollinator Films Inc.

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1 Press Kit, September 2015

2 Press Kit About the Film The Bad Mother is an independent feature-length dramatic comedy produced by Pollinator Films Inc. The film follows Tara, a mid-30 s woman, struggling with her role as a stay at home mom after leaving a rewarding career to raise kids. When her 5-year-old son accidentally shares a scathing diatribe she writes about her husband s evil workplace, Tara becomes an instant cause celeb to other women in the same boat. But as she s thrust from obscurity into the spotlight, the scrutiny is a lot more intense than she bargained for, and Tara is forced to face her demons, or wither away. --- Written by and starring Sarah Kapoor, directed by David-James Fernandes and Sarah Kapoor, and shot by Director of Photography Gregory Bennett. Contact Info Twitter: Facebook: Instagram: Media Relations: Pollinator Films Inc., , [email protected] 328 James Street North, Hamilton, Ontario, L8L1H2

3 Quick Facts about the Bad Mother: Filmed with a real family Sarah Kapoor, her mother Sadhna Kapoor, her husband John Christensen and their two children, Hart and Daya (five and one at the time of filming) as well as her best friend Kristen Roderick are all in the film. Their existing dynamic allowed for access to some seriously funny sh*t. Particularly out of Sarah s mom. Successful Kickstarter Campaign In April 2015, the Bad Mother successfully Kickstarted $54,000 from 339 individuals over three weeks in order to complete its final 10 days of filming. First Canadian Film to Seek Equity Crowdfunding In September 2015, the Bad Mother became the first film in Canada to seek Equity Crowdfunding through its partner, Calgary-based SeedUps.ca. David Avocado Wolfe is in the film! The Rockstar of the Nutrition World David Avocado Wolfe, is a highly sought after health and personal success speaker, with over 1.5 millions facebook fans. Jus Reign is in the film! Youtube comic and enterainer, Jasmeet, has 588,000 subscribers on YouTube and another 1.2 million followers on Vine, where his six-second videos have been looped over 800 million times. Low cost, extremely high quality With a small budget of only $600k CAD, The Bad Mother has the look and feel of a feature that cost several million.

4 Context A lucky few mothers can bring their child to work. A few others have nannies and housekeepers and can sit at the table in corporate boardrooms, as Sheryl Sandberg suggests to women who want to be mothers and work in her bestselling book, Lean In. The vast majority of middle-class and working-class parents in North America have so few options for affordable childcare, they don t lean in, they camp out in front of daycare centres with sleeping bags to get a spot. They are ecstatic to be on a three-year waiting list. The more common scenario is that women leave the workforce. Middle-class living has become poor living. Gone are the days of paying off student loans in two years and a city house in twenty. Affording housing costs, raising kids, saving for postsecondary education let alone saving anything for emergencies or retirement requires two healthy and steady incomes. We were told growing up that we can do anything. We could be astronauts, hold the highest offices, says Sarah Kapoor, writer and star of The Bad Mother, but having a family wasn t factored into the dream we were sold. The Bad Mother is the perfect comic relief. The story of Tara Dubay going off the rails is Bridesmaids meets motherhood. Tara is the frustrated former career woman who gives up her seat at the table and dissolves into a woman in a trenchcoat and sunglasses who doesn t want to be recognized at her son s school. It s also about how women can be united on this front. Or not. The Bad Mother is as hilarious as it is real and it speaks to women silenced by the exhaustion of juggling family life and work life. It starts an important conversation about how women can get to the table in the first place.

5 Girls Rule: Women in Film Women buy more movie tickets than men. Women go to movies more than men. Women have consistently made the larger share of movie-goers since (1) They are mostly between and make up a quarter of the market share. And yet, they re seeing movies that are 70% about men in content. Men dominate roles and speaking parts by a ratio of 2.5 men to 1 woman. (2) In 2013, a slate of extraordinary women-centred films hit the screen: Gravity, The Hunger Games, Blue Jasmine, Philomena, Frozen, August: Osage County, Identity Thief, The Heat. What happened? They made more money. A study by Vanity Fair showed the average gross sales of women-centred movies in 2013 was $127 million. Men-centred movies averaged sales of $95 million. The total gross of all the top 100 movies in 2013 was $ billion. The total gross of 15 women-centred movies was: $1.908 billion. (3) Bridesmaids, a comedy about women, made a record profit of $340 million in ) 2) 3)

6 Sarah Kapoor Writer, Lead Actor (Tara), Director Sarah Kapoor is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and CEO of Pollinator Films Inc. Her work has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and aired internationally. She has invented a model for story-telling that supports bringing the internal journey of a character to the forefront and is applying that to the creation of The Bad Mother. She divides her time between running a company, raising her children and trying to please her mother.

7 David-James Fernandes Director, Producer David-James Fernandes is a Hamilton-based filmmaker whose last short film RE-WIRE played in festivals world-wide, is distributed internationally and won Best Sci-Fi at the Hamilton Film Festival in David s directorial focus is on creating the conditions for excellent, honest and nuanced performance from actors while also achieving the highest production values possible, visually and technically.

8 Gregory Bennett Director of Photography Gregory Bennett was born and raised in Hamilton/Burlington and has spent his 23-year career bringing his considerable talent to award-winning documentaries, music videos and commercials. He has been twice nominated for awards from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.

9 Pollinator Films Inc. is the creative collaboration between writer Sarah Kapoor and director David-James Fernandes. We produce original, thought-provoking films and offer our creative production services to a small number of select public and private sector clients that include major banks, NGOs, unions and governments. Formed in 2007 as Leslieville Production and Post Inc., the company rebranded in 2014 in order to reflect a new direction in original content production, namely dramatic feature films and feature documentaries. The Bad Mother is the company s first feature film James St. N, Hamilton, ON, L8L1H8 Phone: [email protected]