ANR (Awesome New Republic)
It's Around You
"Stay Kids"
10K Islands, Neon Gold Records
Dir: Mayer\Leyva
Fun Factz:
"As a band from the heart of hurricane-prone south Florida, ANR have put their homegrown survival instinct to use in the force majeure video for our latest release, “It’s Around You”, which was fittingly conceptualized during Hurricane Irene. This cinematic work of art from the brilliant minds of Jillian Meyer and Lucas Leyva (of “I Am Your Grandma" fame) contextualizes the various layers of the track by juxtaposing piercing images of frantic swimmers with human cyclones and interpretative dancers. The visual accompaniment successfully makes natural disasters seem more human and bodily movements more fluid in the interlocking ebb and flow of life." -Beyond Gold Magazine
video by Mayer\Leyva (Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva)
producer: Nick Ducassi
director of photography: Juan Camilo Barriga
additional photography: Tim Roach
gaffer: Jack Elder
art department: Kayla Delacerda, Esperanza Rodriguez, Mandee Kuhn
performers: ANR ( Michael-John Hancock & Brian Robertson) Rachel Carroll Kayla Delacerda Cara Dodge Sophie Hamann Malika James Gary Mayer Jenna Montero Evelyn Park Liz Tracy Oly Vargas Ella Pea Esperanza Rodriguez
special thanks: Honor Roll Music, Antal Steinbach, Will Suter, B Rob's foot, Greg Frehling, Karina Ors, Baby Oliver, KRELwear, Handle Like Eggs, New Art Miami, Sean Metelerkamp, Nadia Bowen, Fro Rojas
Mayer\Leyva is performance artist Jillian Mayer and retired playwright Lucas Leyva. Their collaborations include short films, art installations, music videos, experimental theater, and web projects.
Their last two short films (Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke; #PostModem) premiered at Sundance and went on to play AFI, Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Winterthur, New Zealand and festivals all over the world. In 2012 four separate Mayer\Leyva projects were screened at SXSW and in 2013 they returned with another.
Named to Filmmaker Magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film” list, their projects have also screened at museums worldwide including MoMA, Guggenheim Museums, New Orleans Contemporary and the permanent collection of the Miami Art Museum. This year they were selected for the New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship at the Sundance Institute.
Their music videos have been featured by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Vice, Stereogum, and NME and have been named to various year-end Top10 video lists, including IFC.
They have made three viral videos, including I Am Your Grandma, which became an unlikely sensation that has been spoofed on various TV shows and was featured on the cover of Art Papers Magazine, and the controversial Jacuzzi Boys: Glazin’ which became infamous after getting over 600,000 views in 48 hours before being banned from YouTube permanently and becoming the subject of a SXSW Panel.
They have been awarded grants from the Cintas Foundation Fellowship for Cuban-American Artists, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Elsewhere Museum/ National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Harpo Foundation, the Zentrum Paul Klee Museum Fellowship (Switzerland), and the South Florida Cultural Consortium’s Visual and Media Artists Fellowship.
Together they help run the Borscht Corporation and the Borscht Film Festival in Miami, where they work and live with Shivers, their wise and benevolent miniature chihuahua.
website: mayerleyva.com