Goodnight Radio’s “Sophia So Far,” From The Academy Award-Winning Short Film Curfew, Premiered at Entertainment Weekly.com

“Sophia So Far” – a song heard in this year’s Academy Award winning short Curfew, is out exclusively now on iTunes. The track, released by +1 Records, will be available at all other digital retailers on April 23.  Entertainment Weekly premiered the full song here. “Sophia So Far” originally was a minute in length with no proper lyrics and was written for a pivotal scene in the film when the song that Shawn Christensen (director, writer, star and Goodnight Radio) wanted to use was not approved for licensing. But when moviegoers began requesting the full song, Goodnight Radio, a.k.a. Shawn Christensen revisited the song with fresh inspiration, writing lyrics for it and extending “Sophia So Far” into an indelible, euphoric track that stands on its own apart from the award-winning film.

Christensen has pursued the dual paths of music and film ever since graduating from Pratt Institute and forming the indie rock band stellastarr*. While on tour with the band, he began writing screenplays to ward off the monotony of driving from city to city. His credits now include several major motion pictures and his short film, Brink, was an Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Curfew premiered at Tribeca in 2012 and has been screened at upwards of 60 festivals, taking home 40+ awards. In the 19-minute film, Richie (SHAWN CHRISTENSEN), a drug addict at the lowest point in his life, gets a call from his estranged sister (KIM ALLEN), asking him to look after his nine-year old niece, Sophia (FÁTIMA PTACEK), for the evening.

“Sophia So Far” was written for the key ‘dance sequence’ at the heart of the film. Christensen who had shot the scene with the unapproved song needed a song that Fatima Ptacek would dance to, along with 60 extras in a bowling alley. Faced with the difficult task of finding another song that would match the rhythm of the scene, Christensen finally took the advice of a friend who told him: “You’re a songwriter. Why don’t you just write the song, yourself?” “It was very challenging trying to invent a new song that a little girl would dance to – all the while trying to get the other song out of my head,” Christensen recalls. He recently spoke with the New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter about the genesis of “Sophia So Far”: “‘Curfew’ is a sensitive exploration of the strife and reconciliation of a suicidal New Yorker and his abused sister, a single mother with a precocious daughter,” said The New York Times. “…Christensen has constructed an intriguing drama out of the way random events can change a life,” observed the Los Angeles Times while Indiewire noted: “The film has New York energy. It is sharp and original with a taut narrative arc that grabs usand continues for its entire length…” The trailer for Curfew can be seen here and can be purchased here.

Soundcloud link for “Sophia So Far”: https://soundcloud.com/goodnight-radio/sophia-so-far

Christensen will be shooting a full-length version of Curfew this summer. He will be starring in two upcoming short films, Grandma’s Not A Toaster, which will premiere at Tribeca, and The Bicycle.

http://curfewfilm.com