About "The Anniversary"
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“INTRODUCTION AND DEDICATION
I was born and raised a Manhattanite. I wasn’t there on 9/11. I was technically living on Long Island at the time but I was still usually in the City every weekend- and, sometimes, during the week because I’d just started homeschooling. I would have been there, though, if I hadn’t scheduled a hair appointment in the City for August 30th instead of September 11th. My dad, who worked on Wall Street at the time and was considering taking an office high up in the North Tower, would have been with me, we would have likely left very early in the morning, and there was a good chance that Dad would have taken me up to Windows on the World before they were fully opened for the day. (He had done it by himself just two weeks earlier and had sat by the window drinking a small container of milk.) Instead, I stayed home and did schoolwork and- I thought- he left late to go to his Wall Street office. When my mother called me in to watch the TV and see what was going on, my first thought was “Oh my God, Dad is buried under 220 stories of concrete.” (I apologize for the crudeness of the thought of my eleven-year-old self.) I asked my mother, “Where’s Dad?” only to find out that Dad was on his way home. He’d turned his car around on the way to the train station earlier in the morning because he hadn’t been feeling well and so he’d done busywork instead of getting on the train. We were all alive. My own friends had relatives and friends who were there who would never be the same. I had been in those Towers. I had looked out those windows onto my beloved City. I had looked up at our beloved Towers from the Promenade and the train and the streets countless times. They were gone. Everyone’s world was turned on its ear. What could I do to help?
This is a story about life. It was created by a blend of a primary fictitious storyline weaving through a composite of everything I saw and heard as I passed fellow New Yorkers on the streets of Manhattan and beyond in the years since 9/11. I never stopped anyone or asked anyone anything. I just saw and heard- watched and listened- from the time I was eleven years old and approaching my twelfth birthday (September 19th 2001), to this current day, and beyond. As we are coming closer to the 20th Anniversary, I decided in March of 2019, in a departure from the other novels I’d written, to put all of the journeys and emotions together through the vessels of creativity and imagination and a fictitious storyline and write this novel. It is a story of the heart. People are smiling again. People are loving again. People have peace again. People are living again. Everybody deserves that freedom. I hope that, when you read this novel, you will find Peace. I don’t know all the stories. But every one of them deserves a telling. Every one, twenty years of stories, twenty years of lives- every one of them is beautiful. Every one of them is a hero. You are all loved- dearly, deeply, sincerely, and truly. This is for you. This is for everyone. God Bless you all, and thank you for living your beautiful Life. Live it Free.”
–Quote in 2019 from Angel Katherine Taormina in the introduction and dedication of
her novel “The Anniversary”
“My hope is that you will feel this same way when watching the film adaptation of my novel. “Band together... to live” is the tagline of the film. Not only do I want to make a powerhouse
of a film, but I also want to share the hope and the healing that I felt reverberating through the steel and stone of a city that can rise again in glory and peace.” –Angel Katherine Taormina (2021)
As per Rose Room Productions and IMDb: ““The Anniversary” is the story of Jace Hudson and Valentina Vey- two people who see nothing in themselves and everything in each other and who would have committed suicide years ago were it not for their love for one another- and for the fact that they both found someone just as bad-off as they are. They understand each other due to a very deep form of “survivor’s guilt”. By occupation, they are the biggest stars and power couple in Hollywood. Personally, they are trainwrecks- collateral damage of a certain world event twenty years earlier that had devastating effects on many people. Currently working for the biggest director in the world- Martina Jameson- they are forced to reconnect with reality so that they don’t lose what made their talent special in the first place. In her effort to help them, Martina unknowingly (though it is ultimately for the better) puts them in a position that makes the past rear its ugly head- right as the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy approaches and right in the place where it happened. For them, letting themselves feel again is to realize not just that they are part of a bigger whole but also that what is being given uniquely to them could be an opportunity to help- and an opportunity for healing.”
A Message from Angel Katherine Taormina: "The Anniversary was written in 2019 after a March 2019 visit to New York City. It’s where I’m from originally, I saw signs of it flourishing, and I invented a “2021” for it- a different world so that different people- Jace and Valentina- could be the stars of it. I also chose to write their world the way I did because, looking at my hometown, I always see light, encouragement, hope, joy, and promise.
This is my New York. But it can symbolically be everyone’s New York. I want to take you all in to the 20th Anniversary- the “anniversary of peace,” as some have called it to me. The novel was released in 2019. The film is on its way. I want to give you some backstory on a film for which I envision that everyone who ever cared at all that day can be involved and make a difference for the better, now- to make a difference for unity and peace. Together, we can make the inner light of a city shine again and brighter than ever, for our own good and for the good of all. “The soul of the city is rising” I once heard a voice of a random person walking by me on the street saying. And I believe it is a soul that is ready to break free. Anyone who felt that day, lost that day, hurt that day- knows that we are all one world, united by love, and ready to be free. This story represents no one in order that it can represent everyone. It is not one person’s story in order that it can be everyone’s story and we can all take the Towers into our own and find our own way of healing. It is LA. It is Boston. It is New York. It is every soul that exists. It is the world. It is us. It is a singular, universal, story of peace. The message rings clear and the harmony begs to be joined. 20 years is long enough. Unite in peace. And heal.
In the 2021 of The Anniversary, Valentina Vey and Jace Hudson have been working together since late 2016 / early 2017, going through myriad hair colors and styles, filling the tabloids, and becoming famous for dramas, adventures, mysteries, and losing themselves to their top-caliber characters to the tune of several awards victories. In their personal lives, they’ve lost themselves as well and, frankly, they don’t care- until the world’s most powerful director, Martina Jameson, gives them an ultimatum they cannot- and will not- ignore. Welcome to “Manhattan 2021 as created by 2019 Angel Katherine Taormina”. The novel is here, the film is on the horizon, and the journey continues....
The most important thing I learned from making “The Saints of the Rue Scribe” is the very same thing I now take with me in to “The Anniversary”- the passion. Never hold back- give it your all, and success is yours.
Band together... to live.
“The Anniversary”
A Film by Angel Katherine Taormina Coming Soon." -Angel Katherine Taormina