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The New York Television Festival has named its 2018 independent pilot competition selections to be screened for industry executives and fans at the 14th annual Nytvf running from July 14 to July 20. A total of 59 television and digital pilots were chosen spanning a range of themes and topics, from demons to beer.

This year, a record 72% of the selected projects include persons of color above the line, an increase from 56% at the 2016 festival. Additionally 70% of the pilots feature a woman in an executive creative role, with 53% created by women. This number marks the highest number of women in creator roles in the festival’s history, up from last year’s 50%.

The pilots will compete in multiple categories, including best comedy and best drama, judged by a mix of Nytvf screening committee members and Nytvf-hrts Next Generation committee members. The jury will crown the winners at a closing awards brunch on July 20.

Talent...

From the festival that’s highlighted such strong talents as Cathy Yan (who’s helming DC’s upcoming Margot Robbie-starring Harley Quinn movie) and Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano (who have a third season of HBO’s “Animals” hitting in August), comes the next generation of talent.

The New York Television Festival (Nytvf) has unveiled its lineup for the 2018 Independent Pilot competition, including 45 world festival premieres and a number of well-reviewed entries from this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The 59 pilots come from a diverse group of creators from various international locations. A few highlights:

A record 72 percent of all selected pilots feature persons of color above the line, up from 56 percent in 2017 70 percent of these pilots include a woman in a core creative role, including 53 percent with a female creator (up from 50 percent in 2017 and the largest number in the festival’s history); 40 percent of Official Selections have...

The New York Television Festival, which this year has moved up to July from its traditional fall slot, has selected 59 independent TV and digital pilots for its competition slate.

Over the years, the festival has yielded several network deals for show creators. The 14th annual edition of the festival will be held July 14-20, a shift designed to align it more closely with the industry’s development timeline.

Festival organizers emphasized the diversity of this year’s creators, with a record 72% of pilots featuring people of color above the line, up from 56% in 2017, and 70% featuring women as creators, writers or directors. Geographic diversity is another feature of the lineup, with 30% of projects coming from beyond New York and La, and entries from the UK, Austria, Australia and Canada.

Most of the titles (45 out of 59) are world festival premieres, and 51% come to Nytf without any representation.

“Some of the most compelling...

When Harvey Weinstein was trying to lose weight and visited one of his sets, handlers advised the crew to remove certain foods from the craft service table. With a crew of well over 100 people, the solution wasn’t to provide an enticing, healthy alternative for the visiting boss, who had to be followed with cans of diet soda like a nurse with an oxygen tank. The solution was to eliminate any food that could be a possible temptation. The assumption was clear: Weinstein’s appetite was huge, his discipline nonexistent, and the entire company needed to cater to his shortcomings.

This isn’t meant to be a metaphor to explain the avalanche of sexual assault accusations against Weinstein. It is one of thousands of examples that show how an entire business was built around his failings as a human being. The traits that he forced his staff to account for...

Mark Consuelos and My Name Is Earl co-star Nadine Velazquez have been tapped to star in the Oxygen original movie Husband for Hire.

Mario Lopez, Erik Estrada and Tempestt Bledsoe round out the cast of the tentatively titled romantic comedy.

Velazquez stars as Lola, a Latina businesswoman who has to get married or she will lose her share of the family fortune, while Consuelos plays Nate, the man she hires as her husband-to-be. Lopez has been cast as Lola's ex-fiance, Estrada as her traditional father and Bledsoe as her no-nonsense best friend.

The movie, from executive producers Tim Perell and Howard Gertler of Process Media and writer-director Kris Isacsson, begins shooting this week on location in New Mexico and is scheduled to premiere later this year.

" 'Husband for Hire, ' with its hilarious, gorgeous cast, is a perfect romantic comedy for Oxygen," said Debby Beece, president of programming and marketing at Oxygen. "This will be our fourth original movie with Tim and Process Media, and nobody knows our audience better than them."

Perell and Process Media produced the Oxygen movies My Sexiest Mistake, Tempting Adam and Romancing the Bride, the latter two of which Isacsson wrote and directed.

Recovering just fine from the woeful "Wing Commander" and paired again with a young actress in a romantic formula that should equal or surpass the surprising success of last January's boxoffice hit "She's All That", Freddie Prinze Jr. graduates into the almost-real world of down-to-earth leading men in Miramax's touching, enjoyable "Down to You".

Not screened in advance for critics, the feature debut of writer-director Kris Isacsson -- who won an award at Sundance three years ago for his short "Man About Town" -- is a surprisingly gentle, almost nostalgic vehicle for Prinze and the magnetic Julia Stiles, who was one of the two best things (along with Heath Ledger) about "10 Things I Hate About You" and will soon be seen in "O" and "Hamlet".

Isacsson is largely successful at making one forgive the now-familiar cliches of independent films, from nonlinear storytelling to characters addressing the audience directly. The story takes few surprising turns, but, centered squarely on the "first love" of college sophomore Al (Prinze) and freshman Imogen (Stiles), it keeps the supporting players from hogging too much screen time.

This less-is-more strategy works to the advantage of Selma Blair as a post-Harvard porn actress, Shawn Hatosy as a sensitive but always-eager party dude and Zak Orth as a driven, egotistical actor with an Orson Welles complex. The latter two are Al's college buds, and one grows rather fond of their antics while noting that they offer little help during Al's moment of crisis with Imogen.

Blair's "wanting to share herself" vamp lurks around Al the entire movie and gets her chance when the leads break up. Ashton Kutcher as a Jim Morrison actalike puts the moves on Imogen at the same time. But, mostly, the film is the story of Al and Imogen -- their getting to know each other, coming to love each other and wanting to get over each other when the "tingles" go away.

Prinze and Stiles' chemistry is excellent, and the writing is snappy. Older, wiser viewers will discover nothing new and may not always concur with the upbeat, giving-true-love-a-second-chance scenario, but Isacsson seems to know his audience and works in fun touches like Prinze and Stiles lip-syncing old standards in separate sequences.

Henry Winkler and Lucie Arnaz as Al's parents are welcome additions to the large cast. The spiffy-looking production was filmed in New York. It's trim and well-paced at 91 minutes, with a strong soundtrack of old and new pop songs.

DOWN TO YOU

Miramax Films

Open City Films

Screenwriter-director:Kris Isacsson

Producers:Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente

Executive producers:Bobby Cohen, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Jeremy Kramer

Director of photography:Robert Yeoman

Production designer:Kevin Thompson

Editor:Stephen A. Rotter

Costume designer:Michael Clancy

Music:Edmund Choi

Casting:Douglas Aibel

Color/stereo

Cast:

Al Connelly:Freddie Prinze Jr.

Imogen:Julia Stiles

Cyrus:Selma Blair

Eddie Hicks:Shawn Hatosy

Monk Jablonski:Zak Orth

Jim Morrison:Ashton Kutcher

Lana:Rosario Dawson

Running time -- 91 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...