Independent filmmaker Whit Stillman is back behind the camera and out front on the red carpet with Wednesday(March 21) night's Los Angeles premiere of "Damsels in Distress."<br/> <br />Stillman, who literally took more than a dozen years off between jobs - his last film was the 1998 film, "The Last Days of Disco" - said his current project was based in part of students he once knew when attending Harvard.<br/> <br />SOUNDBITE Whit Stillman saying (English):<br/> <br />"I hope it well end up being a happy, cheerful film, about people dealing with problems they face in college. It is about a group of girls who came to the university after I left and kind of turned it around and made it a lot better. They were a good inspiration for this story."<br/> <br />Written and directed by Stillman, "Damsels in Distress" follows a trio of beautiful girls who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast College. They welcome transfer student Lily into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers. During the process, the girls become romantically entangled with a series of men, who threaten the girls' friendship and sanity.<br/> <br />"Damsels in Distress" opens on April 6th in New York and Los Angeles.<br/> <br />John Russell, Reuters.
