Dad Swap
United States, 18 mins, Digital
My dad is a dick, so I swap him out with a new one.
Director: Ethan Mermelstein
Writer: Ethan Mermelstein
Producer: Nina Cochran
Director of Photography: Darin Quan
Editor: Amanda Laws (Editor) Ryan Spears (co-editor)
Composer: Larry Goldings
Cast: Ethan Mermelstein, Steven Mermelstein, Ron Swartz, Laurie Berlin, Ashni Dave, Nina Mermelstein
Contact: Ethan Mermelstein, ethanmermelstein@gmail.com
Program G
Sunday, May 12th at 5:00 PM
About the Writer/Director
Ethan Mermelstein is obsessed with the minutiae of social interaction. His grounded, dark comedies explore the discomfort that surfaces when the rules we take for granted are blown apart. As a director, he pushes the boundaries of the narrative and documentary form, often blurring the lines between the two.
Ethan was the script coordinator on Girls and Nurse Jackie. His films have screened at festivals including Palm Springs ShortFest, New Hampshire Film Festival, NoBudge, Omeleto, Indie Memphis, and Seattle International Film Festival. His screenwriting has received recognition from the following institutions and fellowships: Panavision New Filmmakers Grant, Sloan Science Foundation, Austin Film Festival, and Nantucket Film Festival.
About the Producer
Nina Cochran is a film producer based in New York City. After earning a BA in Art History at Williams College, she worked as Literary Assistant to American novelist John Irving (author of The Cider House Rules, for which he also won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay). Prior to working in production, Nina was a freelance photographer and photojournalist at the New York Daily News and Hartford Courant. She discovered her love for production in the camera departments of The King of Staten Island starring Pete Davidson and Marisa Tomei, and Marry Me starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. Nina is a recent graduate of the MFA Film program in Creative Producing at Columbia University, where she was a 2022 recipient of the Arthur B. Krim Memorial Award. While at Columbia, in addition to taking on a number of short films, she was a producer on Lump, a forthcoming feature film written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell, filmed in August 2022 in New York City. She is a 2023-2024 Marcie Bloom fellow. Currently Nina works for best-selling author and TV creator Neil Gaiman as his executive assistant.