\n
Turen, a producer of the \u201cX\u201d film series as well as \u201cThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,\u201d \u201cEuphoria,\u201d and \u201cThe Idol,\u201d died suddenly November 12 at age 44 while driving.<\/p>\n
We came from a generation\u2026<\/p>\n
With aspirations of what cinema is as an art form, what it can do to provoke change, illuminate dreams of individual stories, and propel cultural narratives. Inspired by the American New Wave of Cinema, living under the banner of the Cahiers du Cinema auteur theory, a world where writers, directors, and producers created stories in the emerging screen revolution\u00a0colliding between world cinema and the 90s independent film boom. Looking inside the cinematic kaleidoscope, imagining how to penetrate the dream factory,\u00a0Kevin Turen\u00a0was born to be a maverick as he surmounted this unpaved road for our generation of friends and filmmaking talent. As New York City Kids, we crossed the threshold into our professional years. Kevin helped out on my first student films at NYU and I filmed his early directing work. A group of hungry cineastes emerged among us and Kevin quickly filled his encyclopedia-like brain under the tutelage of film scholars like Andrew Sarris while studying at Columbia University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michele Civetta\u00a0is the director of feature films \u201cAgony\u201d and \u201cThe Gateway\u201d and music videos for Lou Reed, Sean Lennon, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.<\/em><\/p>\nOut of school, Kevin and I optioned the sci-fi masterpiece Ryu Murakami\u2019s \u201cCoin Locker Babies\u201d with the help of family and friends, fighting tooth \u2018n nail to get it made over a decade between Hollywood, Japan, and France: a first foray into the business. We moved to LA at the same time, all the while Kevin was a whirlwind of savantish brilliance, absorbing movies and books voraciously as he began forging a Swiftian path forward.\u00a0We rented a house with friends and then lived in the same building for a few years as Kevin moved in with the love of his life and soon to be wife Evelina. Kevin\u2019s nature allowed family, friends and work to coalesce effortlessly and ostensibly created a salon-like culture for silver screen dream seekers.<\/p>\n
Taking in movies at Calendar houses, traveling to UC Santa Cruz to watch bootleg copies of new Takashi Miike films before they were unearthed for American audiences, It was always an array of new obsessions and the movies were infectious and forging an imprint on the projects and talent Kevin began to develop. His influences and obsessions were perennial and he cultivated an aesthetic that allowed him to speak a truly international film language, whether classic Hollywood, underground fare from grindhouse to obscure comedies, Asian cinema, or emerging European works. The keen wit and irony of his email address namesake Guy Grand, a nod to Terry Southern\u2019s Magic Christian was indicative of the madcap and powerful aspirations he held, posturing like a studio mogul of the golden era with the keys to a Willy Wonkaesque dream factory.<\/p>\n
With a keen, irreverent, and charismatic ability to build alliances and encourage talent, Kevin became head of production at First Look Studios under Henry Winterstern where he championed Larry Clark\u2019s \u201cWassup Rockers,\u201d Greg Araki\u2019s \u201cSmiley Face\u201d and several other original independent films in the 2000s, earning his first producing credits. It became quickly apparent Kevin had the Midas touch, an instinct for talent, material, and the business acuity to navigate the thin divide of the art and commerce highway, all the while protecting the hearts and minds of actors, writers, and directors alike. The list of folks who passed through Kevin\u2019s sphere was truly endless as people became a myriad chess game of new passionate talents Kevin looked to cultivate projects with while conjuring the grandiosity and infectious showmanship of a PT Barnum with optics for recognizing mythology.<\/p>\n
Like a statesman harnessing cherished relationships between New York\u2019s financial elite, night life impresarios, financiers, and the nexus of Hollywood agents and talent, he seemed to unlock his own secret code to fuse these seemingly incompatible worlds into a vision where creativity could blossom, and results would end up on the screen. There was truly no separation between family, friends and cinema with Kevin, the way one imagines Cassavetes and his troupe of talent forging forward. To work with Kevin was to be part of his intimate tribe, as he proved while championing our friend Nick Jarecki with his brilliant breakout directorial debut \u201cArbitrage.\u201d Always ripe to discover and champion new discoveries, I remember Kevin mentioning the first Ti West film he watched around 2009 and saying this is the guy to watch in the Horror space.<\/p>\n
With prophetic tenacity, years later Kevin and A24 helped to bring West\u2019s talent to greater audiences with the success of the \u201cX\u201d horror franchise.\u00a0Kevin\u2019s enthusiasm was infectious, whether talking up friends\u2019 new films, like what Richard Kelly was working on next with Ted Hamm; what he had slated to develop with Manu Gargi, the first film Matt Ross was making, \u201cFrank & Lola\u201d; Brady Corbet\u2019s spectacular directing debut, \u201cThe Childhood of a Leader\u201d; or the latest movie our friend Dana O\u2019Keefe discovered to represent for sales at Cinetic Media, \u201cNapoleon Dynamite.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nHe championed his friends\u2019 accomplishments like they were his own and I remember so well his elation when our friend Jay Penske bought Variety, a first step on assembling a nearly unprecedented digital media empire. This passion continued with rapture forward to produce and champion films that resonated among audiences and critics alike from J.C. Chandor\u2019s \u201cAll is Lost,\u201d to Nate Parker\u2019s \u201cBirth of a Nation,\u201d Ramin Bahrani\u2019s \u201c99 Homes,\u201d Sam\u00a0<\/em>Levinson\u2019s \u201cAssassination Nation\u201d\u00a0<\/em>and Tom Gormican\u2019s \u201cThat Awkward Moment\u201d and \u201cThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nWe came from a generation\u2026<\/p>\n
Before cinema mutated into the modern streaming world. Kevin rode this new wave into the emerging landscape to reach his grandest heights in the seminal HBO teen bildungsroman \u201cEuphoria.\u201d Challenging viewers with subversive slings and arrows of what is possible and marketable when you tap into the zeitgeist. This success allowed Kevin to produce a TV remake of Olivier Assayas\u2019s beloved 90\u2019s cinema classic \u201cIrma Vep,\u201d \u201cMalcolm and Marie,\u201d and \u201cThe Idol.\u201d Always on the quest for new horizons and new friends to enhance the magic world he inhabited, Kevin had finally surmounted the top of the industry and in a meteoric two decades. The imprint is gigantic. The diversity of the slate of projects he was developing is indicative of a maverick producer of any era, with the iconic vision he set out to achieve while daydreaming his way into this profession at university.<\/p>\n
We come from a generation\u2026<\/p>\n
That is reeling at the loss of a titan of our cultural legacy.\u00a0A community of artists, dear friends, and Kevin\u2019s beautiful and generous family will mourn and carry inside as DNA for generations to come, portraying the true triumphs of possibility in the human spirit and what a beacon of light art offers. Kevin\u2019s work embodies humanity across a blitzkrieg of postmodern genres: Skate culture, hip hop, punk, cyberspace, celebrity satires, teen angst, historical reexaminations of America\u2019s history of slavery and how poverty is effaced in an economic crisis. His short but luminous path is a testament of and fulfillment of the dreams he set out to achieve when embarking on the journey. Credits aren\u2019t enough, thank you for the invisible landscape forward you helped to make visible during your bright days. The future will be illuminated because of how big you dreamed. When a hero returns from slaying dragons his legend can be laid to rest. You will be forever missed and loved!<\/p>\n
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Turen, a producer of the \u201cX\u201d film series as well as \u201cThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,\u201d \u201cEuphoria,\u201d and \u201cThe Idol,\u201d died suddenly November 12 at age 44 while driving. We came from a generation\u2026 With aspirations of what cinema is as an art form, what it can do to provoke change, illuminate dreams of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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