UTICA, N.Y. :A Snowy Day in Oakland, an urban comedic drama written and directed by Utica native and former Frankfort resident Kim Bass, will open in theaters nationwide beginning March 17. Locally, the film will be shown at the Orchard 14 Marquee Cinemas in New Hartford.
“This story is very personal, as it is based on real people and elements of my early childhood growing up within the black community in Utica,” said Bass, adding that the film’s end credits will feature photos of Utica locations from his early childhood days.
The plot centers around a beautiful psychologist from San Francisco who ends a stalled romance with her high-profile psychiatrist boyfriend and business partner and opens her own practice in a vacant storefront space on a small commercial block across the bay in Oakland. Her presence turns this predominately African American and psychologically ignored neighborhood on its emotional ear.
Rated PG-13 and slated for 700 to 1,000 theaters nationwide, the film is Bass’s second to hit theaters across the U.S. in the past year. Last March saw the release of Bass’s Tyson’s Run, an inspiring family drama about a 15-year-old boy who doesn’t let autism thwart his aspirations to become a marathon champion.
The cast for his new feature film includes Nicole Ari Parker (Boogie Nights, Remember the Titans), Kimberly Elise (Beloved, The Manchurian Candidate), Deon Cole (Black-ish, To Tell the Truth), Tony Plana (Ugly Betty, An Officer and a Gentleman), Evan Ross (Pride, The Hunger Games), Reno Wilson (Mike & Molly, Good Girls), Michael Jai White (Spawn, Black Dynamite), Claudia Zevallos (Tyson’s Run, Day of Days), Arden Myrin (Grey’s Anatomy, Orange is the New Black), Donis Leonard Jr. (Ender’s Game, Criminal Minds), Marla Gibbs (The Jeffersons, 227), and Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale, Grey’s Anatomy).
Kim Bass is an Emmy-nominated, NAACP Image Award-winning, screenplay and teleplay writer who became a member of the Writers Guild of America West in 1989 after selling sketch comedy material to the HBO news parody show, Not Necessarily The News, and optioning his first screenplay.
Also, in 1989 Mr. Bass was selected as a participant in the prestigious Warner Brothers Studio Sitcom Writers’ Workshop. During the past twenty-five years, Mr. Bass has worked as a writer for most if not all the major Hollywood studios and television networks as well as many prominent and independent film and television production companies including: Warner Brothers Studios; Twentieth Century Fox Studios (overall writer-producer deal); Disney Studios; Sony Pictures Studios; Paramount Studios; Dream Works Studios; New Line Cinema; Film Roman Productions; Act III Productions; Savoy Pictures; The Jackson-McHenry Company; Image Entertainment; HBO; ABC; WB; UPN; FOX Television network; Nickelodeon.
Mr. Bass has sold over two dozen screenplays. Mr. Bass has been hired to rewrite several screenplays including A Thin Line Between Love & Hate starring Martin Lawrence. Mr. Bass has consulted on or rewritten more than fifty teleplays. Mr. Bass has been nominated for an Emmy Award for “Best Writing” and has received an NAACP Image Award for writer on “Best Comedy Series” for the ground-breaking FOX network sketch comedy series, In Living Color. Mr. Bass is the creator of the Cable Ace Award-winning Nickelodeon series, Kenan & Kel, and he conceived the ABC/WB hit syndicated sitcom, Sister, Sister for which he shares a “Created By” credit.
Mr. Bass was a creative consultant, for two seasons, on the WB network’s animated series, Men In Black—The Series.
Currently, Mr. Bass is in final post-production on his latest film, A Snowy Day in Oakland (an urban comedic drama) which will be released in theaters nationwide on March 17th 2023.
In addition, Mr. Bass’ film, Tyson’s Run (family drama), which he both wrote and directed, was released by Collide/Universal Pictures theatrically, nationwide on March 11th of 2022
