A.S. Films International is a boutique American film production company operated by first cousins Dan Boylan and Guy Taylor.

 

Since its formation in 2007, AS Films has produced five short films, including the DC Trilogy – a trio of movies linked by themes Americans have had to encounter in a post-9/11 world. Boylan and Taylor were profiled in the Washington Post in 2008 during their trip to the Cannes Film Festival to market A Free Radical. Their latest film, Clam Pie, debuted in 2009 to critical acclaim and won numerous audience and jury awards at film festivals around the United States. In order to promote the movie, the producer/directors brought 40 cooked clam pies from Cape Cod to Manhattan for the New York City Food Film Festival.

 

History and Founding

AS Films was started by Dan Boylan and Guy Taylor, first cousins who consider themselves brothers because their mothers are identical twins. They grew up together in the Boston suburb of Medfield. Prior to founding A.S. Films International, Boylan and Taylor worked as journalists, professors, and advisors around the world. Taylor previously worked at the Washington Times, reporting from Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. While working at the Times, he received an international reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Boylan worked overseas as an international news editor for the Associated Press, served as a Fulbright Fellow in Indonesia and was an advisor to the Afghan government. Collectively they have worked in more than 40 countries including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Syria and Venezuela before eventually both settling in Washington, DC. Their first film, A Free Radical, was completely self-financed and filmed using a camera borrowed from CSPAN, which led to their first trip to the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

 

Short films

Boylan and Taylor’s DC Trilogy was made up of a comedy, a thriller and a tragedy all connected by similar settings and themes that explored the issues that confronted Americans after 9/11. Their comedy, A Free Radical, won praise in how it used humor to talk about the issue of terrorism – its main character is Nib Nedal, or Bin Laden spelled backwards. Filmed in Buenos Aires, Washington, DC and Cape Cod, it starred Boylan and Taylor as the terrorist and his protégé who set out to prove that they are the world's best terrorists after they botched an assassination attempt.

 

Clam Pie, a 2009 short film about a woman encountering heaven after eating the Cape Cod delicacy, received five awards from film festivals including the Boston International Film Festival,New York City Food Film Festival and New England Film Festival.

 

Releases to date

• 2008 - Moment of Silence

• 2008 - A Free Radical

• 2008 - Classified

• 2009 - Like Love

• 2009 - Clam Pie

 

Future Projects

A.S. Films International is currently in pre-production on its first full length feature film, focusing on generational conflict, war and comedy.