Last night I caught a screening of Farewell Darkness, the feature debut of Dan Pico and featuring trippin’s own Circus-Szalewski in a truly dark and unforgettable performance. Still mighty jet-lagged I was terrified I might crash out, but I worried for nothing. One does not fall asleep during Farewell Darkness. It’s the story of Michael, raised by a disturbingly abusive father, who gets even more messed up serving 4 years as a Marine in Iraq (the war scenes are incredible and disturbingly convincing.) The bulk of the movie deals with the difficult challenges in his returning home. In other words, it’s not a heart-warming family comedy. That said, it was an amazing achievement with some incredible performances and production value that far exceeded the insanely low budget (I was shocked when Dan revealed the number.) We also watched the behind-the-scenes doc, which only further indicated what a resourceful team had put this together. Co-producer and actor David Bianchi regaled us with terrifying, yet funny tales (in the aftermath) of production obstacles and calamities. A super fun evening with a great group of filmmakers (and some sumptuous smelling homemade bread pudding that I managed to resist as I’m detoxing from alcohol and sugar after 3 weeks of decadence – sigh). Farewell’s to be released by R-Squared Films. It won’t leave you feeling warm and fuzzy (unless you’re seriously twisted), but kudos to these promising filmmakers who pulled off so much with so little.
Another crazy day’s ahead. On top of looming deadlines and gearing up for meetings and the AFM tomorrow, I hope to finally get back to cutting trippin’s trailers, teasers and some behind-the-scenes footage to upload to the site. Better go have at it…