Friel Films Options Dean Dimitrieski’s “Tears for My City"

LOS ANGELES - July 24, 2014 - PRLog -- Dean Dimitrieski’s Tears for My City: An Autobiography of a Detroit White Boy is the powerful true story of a Macedonian boy whose family moves into Detroit’s most dangerous neighborhood when gang violence was at its peak during the seventies.

The well received book was honored in the Autobiography category, and received the Best Screenplay award at the Hollywood Book Festival Awards ceremony, on Saturday July 26, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the home of the first Academy Awards. The book’s awards were accepted by the author’s wife Val Dimitrieski.

On optioning Dean’s book, Phil Wurtzel, producer with Friel Films comments: “I met Dean a little over two years ago when he came to me through a mutual friend for some advice on a deal/option he was going to sign with another producer.  I was able to help him, then a couple of months later when things had fallen apart with that producer, he wanted me to take on this project.  I agreed.

What compelled me to option the book was the fact that growing up in the seventies my family went into Detroit often to my uncle's home for the weekend, and I knew the streets/areas that Dean described.  I saw the Detroit that still had homeowners living in tidy little brick homes and had very little of the deterioration you see now.  My Uncle and Aunt passed away in the early eighties, just as the drug trade exploded, and literally within four to five years, those tidy homes were either abandoned or set on fire.  Those that weren't had the owners fighting for their lives against the drugs and gangs.  This story really appeals to me on that personal level.”

Producer Wurtzel further explains: “This story’s appeal is really everyman’s story of the struggle to build a better life for ourselves and our families, told through Dean and his family’s personal true story: Immigrants looking for a better life, arriving in America from war-torn Macedonia, and the problems they faced once they landed in Detroit during the crack cocaine wave.”

Phil Wurtzel is planning on shooting the film in Detroit, as close to the actual locations as possible.

Friel Films has two other projects in post-production: Cawdor, a tense tale of psychological terror, with Cary Elwes, and The Barn Theatre: Tomorrow's Stars Today, with Lauren Graham and Jennifer Garner.

For Up to Date Information on the Project:

http://www.thomcomm.com/tears-for-my-city.php