New TV Pilot, 'Greenport' Debuts, Kicks Off North Fork TV Festival

GREENPORT, NY — It's lights, camera, action in Greenport Thursday night as a new TV pilot filmed in the village is set for its world premiere — and a buzz of excitement has been mounting as a crowd of proud local residents are poised to attend.

According to writer and producer Tony Spiridakis, co-founder of the Manhattan Film Institute — which recently wrapped an inspiring and uplifting summer program at Brecknock Hall with students from across the world and country creating films with top-notch, A-list industry instructors — "Greenport" is a work born of his heart.

The 25-minute pilot "Greenport" be showing Thursday night at 7 p.m., officially opening the three-day North Fork TV Festival at the Greenport Theater on Front Street. The pilot will be followed by a question and answer session moderated by screenwriter Ted Griffin, of "Ocean's 11".

The comedy pilot is MFI's first professional production, called the program's fall project. The majority of cast and crew are MFI alumni, staff and faculty. Next steps involve securing a studio and network, Spiridakis, who is also an accomplished director, said.

Explaining the pilot's evolution, Spiridakis said he initially wrote a movie script, based on his life experience of raising two boys who are both on the autism spectrum; both boys inspired the single fictional character portrayed in the work.

"The story was about a recently divorced dad trying to co-parent his 11 year-old autistic son, and navigate his career as a comedy writer who just can't help burning bridges — he punches his boss Conan, gets fired, and has to go back to stand-up," Spiridakis said. "When his ex-wife uses a loophole to cut him out of the decision-making process on medicating and placing their son in a special education school, he kidnaps his own child, and takes him on the road to play comedy clubs while driving across country."

Spiridakis' rich and heartfelt work reflects deep parallels between his own life and sons: "His thesis for dealing with his son's autism is this: The best therapy and thing he can do for Ezra — the fictional child — is to teach him the difference between being laughed at, and laughed with. The son as it turns out is, in fact, naturally funnier than his father and on the cross country trek discovers that along with being autistic he's really good at something."

While Spiridakis said he came close to having the film made, director Shannon Goldman, his partner at MFI, suggested holding off on the film, "Inappropriate Behavior," and suggested making a series, instead, focused on Spiridakis, "about a father trying to get a movie made about his autistic son, with his real autistic son' — Dimitri Spiridakis — "playing the role of the fictitious autistic son. So the TV show 'Greenport' was born," Spiridakis said.

The pilot also features actor Michael Nouri and Jennifer Bassey.

The TV pilot resonates on many emotional and artistic levels, c0-creator Goldman said. "There's a line, which the father says to his son, 'If you can do this, you can show autistic teens everywhere that they can do anything.' And I think that's very true."

Spiridakis, who lives in Orient, and Goldman, who moved to Cutchogue full time a number of years ago — the two share a lifetime friendship, meeting when they were younger and summering on the North Fork — have teamed up at MFI to nurture new talent and create cutting edge work.

"It's very fulfilling to work in this kind of environment with all of your friends, doing exactly the thing you want to do," Goldman said.

Facing hurdles to get the film made, Goldman said it made sense to harness their innate creativity and transform the script into something more manageable that could be created "in our own backyards, in Greenport. Being able to spread your wings in your own backyard — it's kind of like a dream come true," Goldman said.

The pilot was filmed in a long list of North Fork locales, including Peconic Landing, Breeze Hill Farms in Southold, Southold High School, Eastern Long Island Hospital's Opp Shop, Preston's dock in Greenport and a number of spots in the village.

"This has not only been creatively fulfilling, but it gives back to people," Goldman said. MFI participants include a range of talent from young to seniors at Peconic Landing who brought their acting chops to the proverbial table. "It's an unparalleled experience, and to to do it in Greenport — you can't put a price on that," Goldman said.

The dream, he added, is to be able to sell the show and film and produce an entire season of the series in Greenport, "to be able to bring those jobs, that life, that creative spirit, to Greenport," Goldman said. "And it's not like I want to win the Powerball. It's an attainable goal."

So far, the reaction to the pilot has been abundantly enthusiastic, Goldman said: A clip on Facebook garnered 25K likes overnight. "And it wasn't our friends," he said. "It was people in the autism community, and people saying, 'Oh, my God! I love Greenport,'" he said. "It's gone way beyond our expectations. The response we've gotten is really something special."

For additional information and tickets, click here.

Courtesy photo of Dimitri Spiridakis and Rob Hancock, courtesy of Tony Spiridakis.

Courtesy video.