The end of the year, that is… I’m pretty sure the earth will keep rotating for a little longer – with or without us. Oooh, can you tell I’m in my gloomy mood? Must be the jolly season!
Anyhoo, I DO have great news to share!
Today, the 10-Day extravaganza aka The 6th Annual Ax Wound Virtual Film Festival! is starting and I’m damn stoked to say that my short film Things We Dig will be part of it – making this the official end of its 2021 film festival season run!
Ax Wound Film Festival features horror films written and directed by women and nonbinary filmmakers. It’s an imaginative and immersive virtual horror film festival with slumber party vibes!
You can catch my horror comedy in Block G on Friday, Dec 17th, 5:00 pm PST. See the schedule/get tix here and check out the rad film selectionhere. Oh, and I almost forgot: There will be a live Q/A stream with the filmmakers right afterwards, including yours truly!
What makes this even more special to me is that I’m an alumni – my second time having one of my shorts as an Axwound FF selection! (The first time was in 2015 for ‘The Appointment‘). Can I get a bloody hellz yeah! Thank you #AXWFF!
August went by so fast! Lots of film and acting stuff happened!
Lemme start from the beginning!
On Friday the 13th, I released ‘The Test‘, my ‘pandemic baby’, a fun & punky crime short with a dash of very dark humor. Thanks for all the love and social media shares! It looks like you really liked it, which makes this a happy filmmaker!
Here’s a great review from the TG Geeks that just warmed my dark little heart:
Click here to read the whole article and review! Thank you so much Ben! And thanks for the 5 out of 5 shovels!
Of course, you can judge for yourself and just watch the short film right now!
I’m still amazed how quickly this short film came together, compared to the torturous four year process to get ‘Things We Dig‘ made! It was written, filmed and edited within 4 months while we still had our regular/thrival/essential worker jobs! Of course this one is so much shorter and simpler than Things We Dig. It felt like the universe gifted that one to me, starting with a light bulb moment that resulted in the script in no time! Then my film family came together, and before I knew it, we were in post production..and here we are!
Starring Deepti Kingra-Mickelsen and myself, written and directed by moi. Edited by ever patient mensch Peter Stoll and beautifully shot by Peter Kingra-Mickelsen on RED Helium Weapon with Lomo Foton Zoom and Rokinon 16mm Prime lenses!
Grab a friend, a snort of whiskey (or a non-booze bev for my abstaining frenz) and enjoy the 5-minute ride with a kickass soundtrack thanks to composer Eric Recourt and President Frankenstein.
Then there was this crazy last weekend, starting with Friday, when I got to play a pastor’s wife (Me! Hahahaha!…I really had to do some ACTING here, lol) in David Ruiz‘ next movie “The Other Pastor“.
I didn’t get to turn into a vampire (my horror peeps will get this reference), but it was a quickie shoot for me and so fun to re-connect with David, who made it his mission to cast me in all his film projects (for good luck, he said) ever since his first feature “Proctor” way back in 2004 (?) You still need to put the rest of your films on IMDb, David! As a matter of fact, he wrote his feature ‘Bad Guy One’ with me as one of the leads and filmed it as his second feature. I mostly remember rolling around in the dirt at night with sticky blood all over me! It’s a thriller about two female filmmakers who wind up being stalked by a rejected actor. Funny how life imitates art…sort of. Now I’m a filmmaker, but luckily, no crazy actor stalker (that I know of)! Anyways, I digress.
Then, Saturday I was part of team Kanari Storm for the 48HourFilmProject SanDiego. They sent me the script in the morning and in the afternoon I got to play my part in “Terrornovela“, directed by my filmmaker and actor friend Christine Gatlin. I can’t say much about it yet, as to not spoil anything, but I can say that our assigned genre was telenovela/soap opera and comedy. Need I say more? The cherry on top was that I got paired up with D. Candis Paule, who was a surprise actor addition to the team! Most film peeps in San Diego know her as the casting director in town and (thankfully) I have taken her actor workshops before. Naturally, I felt a bit extra pressure at first, but to my huge relief, it didn’t take long till we were knee deep into our characters and had a blast working together. We wound up wrapping at 4am-ish and I finally rolled into bed Sunday morning just as the birds started chirping outside. True vampire form right there!
Wanna see the short film? I haven’t seen it yet either and I can’t wait for its screening! Join me and Team Kanari Storm at Reading Cinemas in La Mesa on September 15th at 7pm! Make sure to check the 48HrFP page for details and screening dates/time of all the other teams as well.
One of the things I really enjoyed over that last weekend was that this time I “only” had to act! No wearing of several hats, no film production worries, no leading a cast and crew, no shotlist and continuity to worry about or losing a location! It was refreshing to only focus on one thing again. It made it even more enjoyable and freeing…Yay!
Ok, that’s enough for today, but I have one more nugget: Now that it has pretty much finished its film festival run, I will release my other short film ‘Things We Dig‘ out to the wild soon….very soon! Just in time for Halloween season!
Hey everybody! How are you feeling, now that Covid19 restrictions are easing up?
Popping in for a few quickie updates before heading out to some beautiful weather! No June gloom in San Diego today!
“Things We Dig” had its successful screening at the Austin After Dark Film Festival in Texas! I wasn’t able to travel there in person as I had intended, but festival director Mikel Fair told me: “People honked horns, whistled and clapped for your film!” Yaaayyy! He was even so kind and emailed me this snapshot from the drive-in screening that night!
Things We Dig on the big screen in Austin – photo by Mikel Fair
#HappyFilmmaker
I’m in the middle of post-production for my next shorty short film, a crime/thriller called “The Test“; making good progress working with editor Peter Stoll (our third collaboration). Also, we have a rad poster designed by all around creative genius Elsa Mickelsen! I will reveal it soon in a new, separate post! Stay tuned!
Last but not least – I am super happy to share the news that my horror script “Parcopresis” won Best Horror Short Screenplay at the Die Laughing Film Festival in Hollywood!!! This is my first time winning anything “first place” as a writer! I’m so friggin’ excited and over the moon about this! Feeling a bit validated, you know what I mean? Cheers!
That’s it for today – thanks for reading and indulging me – have a great weekend!!!
Pia Thrasher 