Former decorated Philadelphia police officer, Ozzie Feliciano and 47 Films Production are set to start pre-production on Ozzie’s sobering independent film, Andy the Star. Andy the Star, a realistic police drama loosely based on actual events, will start film pre-production in the spring of 2011 with plans to wrap-up production by the end of summer 2011. Andy the Star is a realistic police drama set in the City of Philadelphia in 2005.

Janelle Mathis, a young Latin woman living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania discovers, after his death, that her long lost father of twenty years was a legendary police officer in Philadelphia named David Antonio (Andy) Gonzalez. Janelle, eager to discover the legend of her long, lost father by going to Philadelphia, is soon faced with the reality that the legend and mystic bestowed on her famous father might all be a myth created by his police brothers in blue to protect one of the most corrupt officers in Philadelphia’s police department history and possibly a murder. Andy the Star, is a grim and gritty drama about a young woman’s emotional journey to find the true story of her father’s legendary life, and the emotional torment between, wanting to believe, and discovering the truth.

Andy the Star will be filmed on location throughout the city of Philadelphia and the city of Coatesville, a suburb just outside of Philadelphia. “I’m very excited to head back to Philadelphia, to the city that raised me and work on this film,” Ozzie states. “Andy the Star, is a story that has been forming in my mind for over seventeen years, shorty after I left the police department. I think what makes Andy the Star different from your traditional crime or police story is the fact that it is a very.. very grim story. I tell the story from a real police perspective and not from what has been portrayed in movies or on television nowadays. I think, that my time working in one of the most elite units in Philadelphia’s police department history, the Special Investigation Unit, gives me an unique point of view and allows me to show the audience the real world of law enforcement, in spite of how grim it might be.” A smiling Ozzie adds, “If you come to watch this movie with a preconceived notion of how rewarding law enforcement can be or to see police officers and what they do on a daily basis through rose-color glasses, boy… are you in for a treat”. Ozzie Feliciano plans to keep the Andy the Star script and some aspects of the pre-production process a secret and will not be made available to the public. “I want to keep the script and part of the filming close to my vest because I plan to put it all out there for everyone to see and I don’t want people who may be opposed to what I have written affect what I’m trying to accomplish, which is to tell this story”.

Filming of Andy the Star should take about twenty-one days and will require Ozzie, now at one hundred and ninety pounds, to lose over sixty pounds for a dramatic scene at the end of the film. “It’s going to be difficult losing that weight with all the incredible food in this great city but I’m going to try my best”, says Ozzie.

Via EPR Network
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