Rebecca Thomas Directs ‘Looking for Alaska’.

Rebecca Thomas writer/director of ‘Electrick Children’, reels in a big fish with ‘Looking for Alaska’.

At only 30 years old, Rebecca Thomas might be one of the youngest women in Hollywood to land a high-profile directing gig for a big name studio (Temple Hill and Paramount/Viacom). Winner of the Independent Spirit ‘Someone to Watch’ Award in 2012, for her film ‘Electric Children’, which showcased Rebecca’s individual style and edgy youthful vision.

‘Electrick Children’ was written and directed by Rebecca in her Senior year at Columbia University School of the Arts Film School. It has an 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a 6.9 rating on IMDB. The film centers around a young girl, Rachel(Julia Garner), who lives within a Mormon cult in central Utah. After hearing a song on a mysterious blue cassette tape, Rachel becomes pregnant and believes she has been miraculously conceived by the song. Her father arranges a shotgun wedding, so Rachel flees with her brother Mr. Will (played by Rory Culkin). They hook up with a rock band and she falls in love with a boy named Clyde who offers to help her find the man who wrote the song on the blue cassette tape. Instinctively she and Clyde follow a man in a Red Mustang, who ends up to be her real father(Billy Zane), and the creator of the song on the tape. She gets separated from Clyde and returns to the cult to be married, but Clyde and her Dad rescue her just in time and they escape. The Film also won the Fipresci Award for Independent Cinema, OFF PLUS Camera, Krakow, Poland.

‘Looking for Alaska’ is the film adaptation of the book by John Green. John’s other books, The Fault in Our Stars, with Shailene Woodley, and Paper Towns, starring Cara Delevingne, already have major success with youth audiences. Looking for Alaska was written first in the series. It is semi-autobiographical and has spent almost 400 weeks on the New York Times, Young Adult Paperback Best Seller list. Even though it is sexually explicit and uses profanity, winning the Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association made it required reading for young adults.

Looking for Alaska is about an awkward teenage boy, new to a school and an outsider, who makes friends and falls in love with a popular girl named Alaska, who gets cancer and dies young, leaving him traumatized. the script is written by Sarah Polley, who also penned Dawn of the Dead. John Guleserian, who filmed About Time, is the cinematographer.

The production of the film has faltered on several occasions, but now looks like it will be released later this year. Congratulations Rebecca!

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