Taylor Kelsaw and Michael McCallum talk with Director, Russ Emanuel. He shares insights about his journey to bring his latest project to fruition, shooting his film in ten days. Russ grew up in Japan, and eventually San Francisco. He graduated from USC’s Cinema-Television program, as well as trained in International Relations and Japanese. He founded Russem Productions in 2002. Occupants will serve as Emanuel’s forth feature film direction. He has produced five productions to date.
Taylor and Michael then introduce Michael Pugilese, who is living in Toronto and is working as an actor. The film, Occupants, features Pugliese in his first lead actor role in an American independent film. Pugilese shares what it was like to work with veteran actor, Robert Picardo, who was Mr. Cutlip on the series The Wonder Years. In 1995, he won a starring role as The Doctor, on the Star Trek: Voyager series.)
