GOING ATTRACTIONS celebrates the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them: Thousands of seats, giant screens, exotic and ornate interiors with balconies and lounges, in-house organs and orchestras, amazing marquees, and air conditioning back when houses had none. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today's current preservation efforts. A tribute to America's great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.
April Wright is an award-winning filmmaker who fell in love with movies at drive-ins and decaying movie palaces growing up in Chicago and Miami. She brings a fresh and creative approach to her narrative projects and documentaries, and is drawn to material inspired by real people and events, especially underdog stories from an underrepresented point of view.
April is completing her new doc “All Skate” about the history of roller skating and rinks, which is very personal since her family’s business was a roller rink. She’s working on several new docs and narrative film and television projects. Her pilot script “Fear of Flying” was a semi-finalist for the Women in Film / Blacklist lab in 2024, and the prestigious Humanitas “New Voices” which honors film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way. April’s doc “Back to the Drive-in” had a theatrical release with per screen average second only to Top Gun Maverick in 2022, and is now on Amazon Prime. It was featured in Variety and won Film Threat’s 2023 ‘Best Film about Movies or Filmmaking.’
April loved directing “Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story,” exec produced by Michelle Rodriguez, which was awarded Best Documentary of 2020 by the National Women Film Critics Circle and nominated for the 2021 global ‘Cinema for Peace Award for Female Empowerment.’ April directed a drift car racing sequence with Michelle and her amazing stunt driver from the Fast series.
