PRESS RELEASES
Heartland adds “The Lake House” to Truly Moving Picture List
June 14, 2006
Warner Bros. Pictures’ film is newest Truly Moving Picture Award recipient
Indianapolis, IN – According to the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival®, moviegoers should add “The Lake House” to their list of must-see films this weekend. Heartland is honoring the romantic drama from Warner Bros. Pictures with its Truly Moving Picture Award. The Award is given exclusively to theatrically-released films that tell stories of courage, integrity and hope with the goal of inspiring more studio films to focus on the positive. “The Lake House” joins an elite and ever-expanding list of films to receive the Award and be deemed a Truly Moving Picture by Heartland.
“It’s been a long time since we have awarded a romantic film as a Truly Moving Picture," said Jeffrey L. Sparks, president of the Heartland Film Festival. "We’re excited to honor ‘The Lake House’ and encourage everyone to support this touching and romantic fantasy."
Set to open nationwide on June 16, “The Lake House” captures the story of an independent-minded and lonely doctor (Sandra Bullock) who begins exchanging love letters with the newest resident of the unusual lakeside home she recently occupied, a frustrated architect (Keanu Reeves). When they discover that they’re actually living two years apart, the two must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it is too late.
“The Lake House” joins other 2006 Truly Moving Picture Award recipients “Cars,” “Glory Road,” “Nanny McPhee,” “Saving Shiloh,” “Sophie Scholl - The Final Days,” “Take the Lead” and “Tsotsi.” Forty-five (45) films have been honored since the Award’s inception in 2000. To view Heartland’s complete list of Truly Moving PicturesSM, visit www.TrulyMovingPictures.org.
Heartland created the Truly Moving Picture Award as a way to honor theatrically-released films that demonstrate the Heartland purpose with excellence, inspiring and enriching lives. Submissions are received directly from studios and producers for consideration. Since the industry decides a film’s success based on the opening weekend box office, Heartland encourages audiences to attend a Truly Moving Picture on its first weekend.
Heartland Film Festival will celebrate 15 years of honoring Truly Moving Pictures during the annual Festival, October 19-27, 2006 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Visit www.HeartlandFilmFestival.org to learn more about Heartland and this year’s anniversary celebration.
Heartland Film Festival, a non-profit organization, was established in 1991 to recognize and honor filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life. Each October, Heartland screens Truly Moving Pictures from around the world and presents cash prizes and Crystal Heart Awards to the Festival’s top entries. In 2006, Heartland will increase its total prize money to $200,000. This includes doubling its Grand Prize for Best Dramatic Feature to $100,000 and two new awards: a $25,000 cash prize for Best Documentary Feature and a $10,000 cash prize for Best Short Film. The remaining $65,000 will be shared among the 2006 Crystal Heart and Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award winners. The Crystal Heart Award cash prizes are made possible by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the Max Simon Charitable Foundation. Including the 2006 prize money, Heartland will have awarded more than $1.6 million in 15 years to support filmmakers in their quest to create Truly Moving Pictures.
“The Lake House” Synopsis
Feeling that it’s time for a change in her life, Dr. Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) leaves the suburban Illinois locale where she completed her residency and takes a job at a busy Chicago hospital. One thing she is reluctant to leave behind is the uniquely beautiful house she’s been renting – a spacious and artfully designed refuge with large windows that overlook a placid lake. It’s a place in which she felt her true self.
It is a winter morning in 2006.
On her way to the city, Kate leaves a note in the mailbox for house’s next tenant, asking him to forward her mail and noting that the inexplicable painted paw prints he might notice by the front door were there when she moved in.
But when the next tenant arrives, he sees a much different picture. Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves), a talented but frustrated architect working at a nearby construction site, finds the lake house badly neglected: dusty, dirty and overgrown with weeds. And no sign of paw prints anywhere.
The house has special meaning for Alex. In a happier time it was built by his estranged father (Christopher Plummer), a renowned architect who allowed his professional acclaim to grow at the expense of his family life. Alex feels a sense of peace here now and commits to restoring the property to its original beauty. He disregards Kate’s note until, days later, while painting the weather-beaten jetty he sees a stray dog run across the fresh paint and then towards the entrance of the house, leaving paw prints exactly where she said they’d be.
Baffled, Alex writes back, saying that the house had no occupant before him and wondering how she could have known about the dog; while Kate, who just left it a week ago, imagines he is playing some kind of joke on her and fires back a reply.
Just for argument’s sake, what day is it there?
April 14, 2004.
No, she says. It’s April 14, 2006.
The same day, two years apart.
Can this be happening?
As Kate and Alex continue to correspond through the lake house’s mailbox they confirm that they are, incredibly, impossibly, living two years apart, and each at a time in their lives when they are struggling with past disappointments and trying to make a new start. Sharing this unusual bond, they reveal more of themselves to one another with each passing week – their secrets, their doubts and dreams, until they find themselves falling in love.
Determined to bridge the distance between them at last and unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary connection, they tempt fate by arranging to meet. But, by trying to join their two separate worlds, they could risk losing each other forever.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Vertigo Entertainment production of an Alejandro Agresti film: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock in “The Lake House,” starring Dylan Walsh, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Christopher Plummer. Directed by Alejandro Agresti from a screenplay by David Auburn, “The Lake House” is produced by Doug Davison and Roy Lee.
three-sixty group
Contact: Lisa Dudeck
Day: (317) 633.1456
Cell: (317) 698.7350