Bingo Confidential

The funniest movie about bingo – ever!

Mad Englishmen, Black Widows, Nuns with thighmasters, Bingo?

No – BINGO CONFIDENTIAL! - An award winning comedy feature film, shot documentary style, that follows six Bingo-loving characters as they vie, lie, scheme, plot – and even channel the beyond – to win a million-dollar bingo game.

That's about the only thing honorable about most these characters, played by a multi-talented, award-winning cast – and crew for that matter – ranging from Emmy recipients, Broadway performers, playwrights, a man working on his doctorate in mathematics, comics, first-time actors and yes, even real Bingo players.

The story begins with wealthy Ethel Bell, who made her fortune playing bingo. In her will she leaves one million dollars for one bingo game to be played in her honor. While her greedy relatives (Gloria Grant, Mark Hatfield) desperately try to stop her attorney, Marshall Vickers (Peter Sanchez) from fulfilling Ethel's final wish, 6 apparently normal bingo players begin the journey to attend the game.

There's Lois Huckabee (Alix Elias), a widow lady of 3 very wealthy, very suspiciously dead husbands, who meets John Glatters (Richard Marshall), a man of dubious intent and several outstanding arrest warrants, at a local bingo hall. Estelle Smith (Sheri Goldner), formerly of New Jersey and a new member of the Witness Protection Program, who claims her psychic talents will help her win the game and forget the untimely death of her boyfriend Vinnie "The Meatball" Buonafortuna (Woody Bixby). Sister Mary Jerome (Mary Sanchez), former bingo hall manger, who has run away to play bingo full-time, sending TV home shopping gifts back to the convent with her winnings as Sister Mary Stanislav (Susan Blau) and Sister Mary deSales (Roberta Cruger) try to track her down and return her to all that's holy. There's Englishman Nigel Ramsay (Tony Doran) who came to the States to compete for stardom only to lose his flat, his job, his work visa and all of his money playing bingo online. Desperate to return to the UK, Nigel needs the million dollar win or a lift from a kind stranger. Former soap-opera addict turned bingo addict, Pamela Carruthers (Pamela Levin) is losing her mind trying to save her sister from kidnappers and needs the million dollars for the ransom fee. Or maybe not.

The film was written and directed by Susan Noel Benfatto, who stumbled into a bingo hall when she was asked to drive a neighbor's Mum to the local church game. Expecting to see a half dozen elderly players with a top prize of $25.00, she was astounded to find a large crowd of players, mixed in age and a top prize of $250.00 per game. After spending time watching the players with their lucky charms and "special" seats, she knew that there was a very funny film to be made that would charm bingo players and non-players alike.

After trying to raise the money for the film by playing bingo – to no avail, Ms. Benfatto called upon the talents of hundreds of her friends with decades of experience in the film business. Ten friends showed up and production began in June of 2008.

"I started the film with no money and no script, hoping that we could improv the stories as we went along." says Benfatto, "The cast is very funny, but it was easier on everyone if I sat down and wrote something. We improvised some of the characters and I came up with the story lines and we just started. Everything changed as we went along. Actors had to drop out, new characters had to be written, stories changed. Luckily, I had decided early on to shoot it documentary style, because I was the one doing most of the camera work and I had never worked camera before. Also with 6 separate characters, each story line was shot independently – so that it became 6 short films woven together in editing. The only time the entire cast was together was during the "grande finale" – the million dollar bingo game."

The film was finished in the summer of 2009, 3 months before the projected date.

"The plan was to finish production by the summer of 2009, which would give us 3 months for post-production. Stu Kennedy, a very talented composer based in Scotland, would have plenty of time to do the music. I was a little hesitant to work with a composer so far away, but Stu had real feel for the film. I adore some of the British comedies like "Brassed-Off" and "Kinky Boots" and thought he might bring that kind of musical sensibility to the project. At the last minute, I submitted a rough cut to the Long Island Film Festival and we became an Official Selection, so everything had to move quickly. Stu went from having 3 months to 3 weeks to compose all the music for the film. He came through with flying colors and I think his music took the film from being independent film, to sounding like a real movie. We won Best Comedy Film and Best First Feature Film at the Festival, which was very exciting."

Once the film was completed, the online Bingo community became aware of it through websites such as BallsupBingo and Bingo Sites UK.

"That came as a complete surprise," Benfatto laughed. " I knew they had online Bingo, but it is illegal here in the States, so I hadn't done much research into it, except to have the character Nigel play it, but one day I Googled the name of the film and I was stunned to see so many websites who had heard of the film and couldn't wait to see it. Aside from the UK, there were websites from the Netherlands, Thailand, Spain – I couldn't believe what an international phenomenon bingo is!"

Getting the film to the world has been challenging to the filmmaker. The film was submitted to C4 and FIVE in February of 2010, and the online bingo community came together to rally the film to those UK outlets, but no word has come to date if the film will be aired there. Another outlet the filmmaker feels would be interested is the large online rental company, LOVEFILM, similar to NETFLIX in the US.

"It is hard to reach the appropriate person to help get the film to the overseas community. We tried getting it to BSkyB and Virgin Entertainment and others. I am not sure if they just don't realize how many millions of people love bingo – and for those who aren't players, the film is not unlike "Best In Show" or even "The Office" – it's more about the characters than the game. The game just brings all of them together."

The film has sales representation in the States for broadcast and DVD rights through Seth Kittay at All Channel Films, and interested overseas broadcasters or theatrical distributors can access the film through MediaPeers.com.

A trailer for Bingo Confidential