The A-List: Chef Adrianne's Finest, Vol. I (Volume I)

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Shelly never got to see it; on the afternoon of 1 November 2006, she was strangled to death by a 19-year-old construction worker named Diego Pillco, after she walked in during his attempted robbery of the West Village apartment she used as her office. Pillco staged her body like a suicide, and she was found hours later by her husband, Andy Ostroy. If it weren’t for Ostroy’s doggedness in disputing the initial suicide ruling, and the identification of Pillco’s shoeprint in the dust of Shelly’s bathroom, the killing would have probably gone unknown and unsolved.

Ostroy, a first-time director, set out to answer three questions: who was Adrienne Shelly, what really happened the day she died, and what was it like for a family to live through unthinkable tragedy?

Grief is ongoing, fluid, non-linear; so is remembering. Adrienne is a film to honor a film-maker with so much left untapped, a woman whose name is on Broadway marquees yet unknown to the many fans of the film and show. The film cements her legacy “as an actor, as a writer, as a film-maker, as a creative force, as someone who had so much left to do”, said Ostroy. “I wanted people to fall in love with her, I wanted them to mourn and grieve her loss the way we do, and to feel that absence.” Adrienne is the French feminine form of the male name Adrien. Its meaning is literally "from the city Hadria." [1] Ostroy: I'd always thought those conversations were truly remarkable in terms of how a very young child struggled to understand the incomprehensible subjects of death, murder, loss and grief through various stages of her emotional development. But since I didn't have footage of those conversations—just the verbatim dialogue—I felt that animating them would illustrate Sophie's journey in a very poignant, cinematic way. Sarachan: Would you mind sharing some information with our readersabout the Adrienne Shelly Foundation ? We understand that each moment in life is unique, and so are the preferences and sentiments that accompany them. That's why, at Adriennes Flowers, we take pride in our ability to craft bespoke arrangements tailored to your requirements .. Our team of skilled florists combine artistry with a deep love for nature to bring your floral dreams to life.

Sarachan: The creation of this film seems like it must have been a harrowing process for you. How did you deal with having to revisit this story? Were you ever able to separate your work on the film from your daily life?Sophie, now an 18-year-old senior in high school, also participates in interviews with her father starting at 15. “One of the beautiful parts of the film is that I had conversations with her and got real emotion from her that I don’t think I would’ve gotten if there wasn’t a camera there,” he said. Prescribed questions, for a project about her mother, allowed for a level of vulnerability an ordinary conversation might not. She starts the film admitting to her father that she hadn’t cried about her mother in years. By the end, the missing feels not abstract but palpable, and the tears begin to flow. Andy Ostroy: Her unique ability to blend comedy and drama. Tonally, that's not easy to pull off. But she was a master at it. 'Happy/sad' defines her work, and it's also how she defined her life. She also was steadfast in executing her vision and never compromised what she wanted to achieve through her work. As an artist, she had a truly unique voice and a powerfully feminist message, and she fought hard in a pre-#MeToo world to ensure it ended up on-screen. Sarachan: I loved the use of the conversation excerpts between you and Sophie as a child. What inspired you to use those? Numerous friends from her childhood through to the set of Waitress recall Shelly as ebullient, remarkable, a unicorn, an alien, an old woman in a tiny beautiful body, special – “Adrienne was like no one else you’d ever meet in your life,” said Ostroy, echoing similar sentiments from Keri Russell, Paul Rudd, Cheryl Hines, Nathan Fillion, Burke, her mother and brothers, and many others. “When you were in her presence, you really felt, ‘Wow.’” At Adrienne's Flowers, we believe in the power of flowers to evoke emotion, celebrate life's milestones, and offer comfort in times of need.