Award from Blackbird Festival

Thank you, Blackbird Festival, for the Best Thriller Short award.  (screenshots from their virtual awards ceremony).

Two Awards for Cassandra in the last week

Best Short at Genreblast Festival and Best Directing (festival-wide) at Atlanta Underground Festival. Thanks to both, and congrats to the nominees.  

Cassandra wins Best Short at GenreBlast Film Festival Best Directing Award from Atlantic Underground Film Festival

4 Screenings for Our Film Representing Different Responses to Covid

Our film Cassandra has upcoming screenings in 4 different festivals, which were all supposed to be “in person” but now together represent the range of responses possible by festivals to COVID – 

IN A THEATRE

GenreBlast

Sept 5 4 p.m. in the half-full with masks/socially distanced Alamo theatre Winchester, VI

https://www.genreblast.com/2019-schedule

                (with the awards ceremony on Sept 6 where we’re nominated for best film, best horror short, and best fx in a short)

OUTSIDE

Atlanta Underground Film Festival,

Sept 5, 830 p.m.

outdoors at Art&Industry, Atlanta GA

http://www.auff.org/2020shorts5.html

                (this will be our third screening in the Atlanta area BTW)

DRIVE IN

Blackbird Film Festival, Cortland, NY

GreekPeakMountainResort’s OutdoorCinemaTheater, Oct 3, 1115 p.m., in the Unleash the Beast block

http://www.blackbirdfilmfestival.com/schedule2020/Blackbird_Schedule_2020_PRINT.pdf

VIRTUAL

Oct 1-4 Virtual

Milwaukee Twisted Dreams, schedule TBD

 And of course we continue to be streaming on Alter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptdm6sr1d_0

Thanks for checking out Cassandra in any city/context. And stay safe/healthy.

Congrats to Jenny Hagel!

Congrats to my ex-student/alumna of NU's MFA in Writing for Screen+Stage program Jenny Hagel for her 2020 Emmy nomination for writing as part of Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Jenny Hagel on a panel at Northwestern, moderated by Dave Tolchinsky

What's in the Box?

My son sent me this piece that samples SEVEN. “What’s in the Box??”

https://open.spotify.com/track/6krePyBjPsnPH5AkHzylJx?si=ez7OeKqmQ2WCuXexvLCT9g

Which lead to our conversation/thoughts for the day:

Horror and thrillers are both about opening a box. In fact ALL drama is about that. If you don’t have a box or a door that needs to be opened, something is missing.

Horror though may be that you open the box at the beginning of the movie and then have to deal with the consequences. The Ring for example.

Thrillers you don’t open the box until the end; earlier you’re trying to figure out where the box might be and what’s in it. So What’s in the box?? IE Silence of the Lambs getting to the house at the end.

New wave of horror: They never opened the box. They’re dealing with the consequences of someone else’s fault/opening a box. Us – they’re dealing with a box someone else opened. So more on the edge of science fiction/institutional. Or no reason for the horror, so no one opened any box, horror just happens. . . 

Your thoughts?

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images