HIBISCUS is a dark but heart warmingly strange Romantic Dramedy. It's about a late 20's something cemetery worker named Ralph. Ralph is a quiet loner that spends most of his spare time experiencing a life he'd like to have, through reading random books he blindly picks up at the local book store. Work, books, and caring for his dying estranged father, from afar, are all that he does. That is until one day, after being intrigued by the funeral of a young woman named Teresa, whom had finally succumbed to an illness that kept her bedridden, Ralph decides to try reading one of the prayers from a book he read about bringing the dead back to life, over her grave.
To his bitter surprise it worked and she is alive once again and healthy. He takes her to his apartment in Pasadena till they can figure out what to do. Once Teresa has come to some kind of understanding about what has taken place, she asks the question, "How long do I have?" They learn from the book that she only has 3 days to experience this new found life, until she returns to the afterlife forever. Those three days will teach Ralph what life could be like if he would be open to forgiveness, love, and letting go.
Brandon Fisher is a Lees-McRae College graduate, born in Asheville, North Carolina. He started his acting career in more than 35 stage plays with numerous theaters and touring companies along the East Coast. Since moving to Los Angeles, Brandon has had the opportunity to work on television shows such as Criminal Minds and 24, as well as various Independent Films.
Mia Topalian, as seen on All My Children, is a bright young actress with a range of film, theatrical, commercial, and television experience. Graduating early with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A. in Drama, she has multi-disciplinary theatrical training at Playwrights Horizons with emphasis on generating original material as well as advanced on camera training through Stonestreet Studios. She has worked on numerous projects including Indy Horror, “Project October,” and “Took a Road” opposite Taylor Negron.
Brian Fitzpatrick is the actor who played the Kyrian leader Tedran in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Living Witness". Fitzpatrick played the recurring roles of Mitchell "Mitch" Beck in All My Children, Rick Stewart Alden in Loving, Dr. Kenneth Collins in The Young and the Restless, Roscoe in General Hospital, and a Casino Manager in The Bold and the Beautiful. Fitzpatrick has also played in television series and film such as Castle, Criminal Minds, One West Waikiki, The Sentinel, Night Man, V.I.P., American Dreams, Navy NCIS, Basket Case 2, The Darwin Conspiracy, and My Femme Lady.
Charlie grew up in a xsall town in New Jersey where he worked with children in after-school programs for the YMCAs and played competitive tennis. He took the leap to the west coast and completed a degree in English Literature and Theatre from the University of Southern California. Best known for his That’s Amazing face in Geico commercials, his Axe campaign with Mike Tyson, and an upcoming movie, Miss India America, starring Hannah Simone from New Girl. For the past 10 years, Charlie has also been an Improv and Comedy performer.
Erika Ringor’s big break came when she was picked as the lead, opposite Sanaa Lathan as Sidra O’Neal in Spike Lee’s "Love & Basketball”. This character touched fans worldwide and made it ok to be the "bad girl", continuing to give Ringor international notoriety both as an actress and in the world of Basketball. Ringor's latest films include "Queen of Media", “Across the Hall” and R. Kelly's musical saga "Trapped In The Closet". Erika has booked recurring roles on “Law and Order Los Angeles” and the CBS series “Moonlight’ as Detective Theresa Novak, as well as “Cold Case”, “Ghost Whisperer”, “Hawthorne”, “The Forgotten” and “Sons of Anarchy”.
Mikaya Fisher is a Los Angeles native and a newcomer to the acting world. She was introduced to the entertainment business at the age of 1 when she played the role of Eva in the Lifetime feature film "Stolen Child". She has an appetite for performing. Fisher is excited to start Kindergarten in the fall as well as continuing to grow her acting career.
Tawan was raised in Paterson and South Orange, New Jersey. At the age of ten, his passion for the arts was cemented in his soul after seeing the opera ‘La Boheme’ at Lincoln Center. This experience inspired him to study 17th-19th century paintings, short story writing, stage and film history and ultimately, cinematography. His love for foreign films, film noir, and epic-driven films grew as he came to understand the craft of making movies. After years of pouring over books on cinematography, taking a course in color science, and spending two summers studying cinematography at the NUY Tisch School of the Arts, he was ready to begin his career in filmmaking. Since 2000, Tawan directed several short films and has color-graded numerous films, music videos and commercials, throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 2008 a short film he directed premiered at the Cannes film Festival. He resides in Los Angeles and works as a Colorist, Digital Workflow Consultant and Director.
Lamont Couch had a promising career in politics as a public relations/mediator specialist for a very well known member of Congress and a Governor. However, his creative bug, which started as a hobby, finally got the best of him, so he penned an idea he had for a story about the death penalty system in Chicago.
Couch promised his mother he’d write the treatment, which he did and send it out to 20 agents. If he didn’t get any responses, he’d continue on in his political career. Within a week 3 agents responded, one signed him. He left a career where he was earning $85,000 a year, to move to Los Angeles to learn about the film business, taking a job as a Background Actor paying $8 an hour.
Even though Couch’s relationship with the agent didn’t work out, (since the agency closed up without notice), Couch continued to push the project. He received an offer from Warner Brother’s Multi-Cultural Home Video division to distribute the two-hour pilot movie, as long as Couch was able to complete the project with limited funding from them. However with the national economic downturn, Couch has yet been able to bring the project to fruition.
Even after writing several other scripts that all received attention from major production companies and investors, funding still was elusive. Couch decided to produce one of his scripts on his own dime. That script became a mini-feature called Agoraphobia, which was well received in several film festivals. Couch used his scarce resources to buy his own equipment, educate himself in the art of filmmaking/acting, to make this film for less than $10,000.
It’s Couch’s hope that Hibiscus, his first full feature, will show his ability to do a lot with very little. The future looks very promising for the man with the willingness, faith, and gumption to follow his dreams.