''Ben's at Home'' is a 2014 Canadian romantic comedy film, directed by
Mars Horodyski Mars Horodyski is a Canadian film and television director and screenwriter based in Toronto, Ontario. She is most noted as director and co-writer of the 2014 film '' Ben's at Home'', for which she won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Direction in ...
. The film stars Dan Abramovici as Ben, a man who responds to an emotional breakup on the eve of his 30th birthday by rearranging his life so that he will never have to leave his apartment again, only to have his desire to live as a hermit challenged when he and Jess (Jessica Embro), a regular driver for his food delivery service, develop a romantic interest in each other.
The cast also includes Jim Annan, Rob Baker, Craig Brown and Inessa Frantowski.
The film was shot in August 2013 on a budget of just $20,000, half funded by Horodyski and Abramovici and half by a crowdfunding campaign on
Indiegogo
Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...
.
The film premiered in April 2014 at the
WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival
The WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, founded in 1968, is an annual film festival held annually in April in Houston, Texas. Notable festival alumni include John Lee Hancock, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning film '' The Blind S ...
Montreal Gazette
''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
It is the only English-language daily newspape ...
'', August 28, 2014.
Awards
At Houston, the film won the award for Best Comedy Feature.
It won the award for Best Feature Film at the 2014
Rhode Island International Film Festival
Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) takes place every year in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island as well as satellite locations throughout the state.
Started in 1997, the Festival is produced by Flickers, the Newpor ...
, and the award for Best Feature Film at the 2015
Canadian Film Festival
The Canadian Film Festival, formerly known as the Canadian Filmmakers Festival, is an annual film festival in Toronto, Ontario. Showcasing a program of Canadian independent films, it is held in March of each year and usually runs for five days.
...
.
Horodyski won the
Canadian Comedy Award
The Canadian Comedy Awards (CCA) is an annual ceremony that awards the Beaver for achievements in Canadian comedy in live performance, radio, film, television, and Internet media. The awards were founded and produced by Tim Progosh in 2000.
Th ...
for Best Direction in a Film at the
16th Canadian Comedy Awards
The 16th Canadian Comedy Awards, presented by the Canadian Comedy Foundation for Excellence (CCFE), honoured the best live, television, film, and Internet comedy of 2014. The awards were presented in Toronto, Ontario, on 13 September 2015. C ...