This is not your occasional message from George or the minions of Fevre River, but a new addition to the team – I’m Michael Cassutt, writer of fiction, non-fiction, lots of television (TWILIGHT ZONE, MAX HEADROOM, EERIE INDIANA, more recently THE DEAD ZONE and Z-NATION).  Since October I’ve been working with George as his “creative director,” helping to shape and advance non-HBO TV, film and game projects and even some publishing. (No, I’m not “helping” George with his writing.)

Last spring and early summer I directed a short film titled THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a lost TWILIGHT ZONE TV concept by George, from my script. We shot for eight days in Alamagordo and Las Cruces, New Mexico, with a cast led by Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith and Matt Frewer, and just recently finalized the cut.

This is the fifth film that George has produced, following four adaptations of stories by his great friend Howard Waldrop: NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, HEIRS OF THE PERISPHERE, MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS. Four are complete.

So what do you do with a short film? Theatrical exhibition is always a goal, but difficult for even feature-length projects these days.

Streaming? Yes, but you have a short film, under 40 minutes in length. Where does it fit on Netflix, Amazon, Apple+ etc.? Almost nowhere.

But you want your film seen, so . . . .

You hit the festival circuit. Not only does this expose your work to an audience, but it opens the door to the holy grail of indie filmmaking, distribution.

Winning awards helps with that, too.

Our team started with NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, which had its premiere showing at the LA Shorts film festival in North Hollywood in August 2022, where it won best sci-fi short. COOTERS, directed by and starring Vincent D’Onofrio, earned additional honors at Midwest Weird (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) and the Atlanta Film Festival, too.

Since then we’ve released MARY MARGARET and THE UGLY CHICKENS, and both of them have picked up awards and made themselves known:

MARY MARGARET, written and directed by Steven Paul Judd, has been recognized by the deadCenter Film Fest and the Mojave Wasteland Film Fest.

At the recent Miami SciFi Film Fest, Steven was judged co-winner of the Russell Bates award, honoring the first Native writer of SF for television.

As for THE UGLY CHICKENS, directed by Mark Raso, written by me and starring the talented Felicia Day—

Felicia was chosen as best actress at the Yellowstone (India) Film Festival last fall, and Mark won the best director, short film, at the Pittsburgh Film Festival in December.

This week is the Pendance Film Festival in Toronto, and UGLY CHICKENS has already won the Best Canadian Short Film.

Upcoming we have the Fargo Film Festival, where Mark will be present. I will be attending

Cinequest in San Jose (March 22-24) and producer Elias Gallegos will be representing us at the Cleveland International Film Festival (late March-early April).

And new news, UGLY CHICKENS has been accepted at the Certain.e.s laiment court (CLAC), a short film festival in Lyon, France, April 4-5.

And we’re nowhere near done with MARY MARGARET, which has been submitted to half a dozen upcoming festivals. (Typically we find out about acceptances three weeks ahead of time.)

My SUMMER MACHINE will be submitted for the first time this spring.

I mentioning these events now because George and I and the team that made these films would like you to see them, too – and dozens of other great shorts and features at these festivals.

And if you do attend and see one of us, say hello!

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Current Mood: accomplished