An international award-winning writer/director, Ty Clancey is a graduate of SMU School of Film and Media Arts and New York Film Academy. Born and raised in Iowa, Ty’s early credits include “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” before earning worldwide accolades with the comedy team “The Lost Nomads” featuring Josh Gad. Ty has directed two digital series for Fox; was E.P. and director of “Gigi: Almost American” on Hulu; wrote and directed over 75 episodes of “Marvel Mashup” on Disney XD; was show runner and director of the mystery mini-series “Cryptid” on History Channel and the Brazilian adventure series “Treasure Quest: Snake Island” for Discovery; directed the comedy series “This Isn’t Working” for ABCd; the immersive “People of Earth” VR experience at Comic-Con for TBS; and recently won a 2019 Clio Gold Winner Award and three Golden Statues at the 2019 ProMax Awards. His horror short “Thank You For Staying”, shot in quarantine, will make its premiere in 2020.
Director Statement
Originally written prior to the pandemic, this motion picture was made while in quarantine lockdown by convincing my wife (who has no prior acting experience) to play the lead. The two of us bootstrapped this movie all by ourselves, and are pretty proud of the effort. Thank you for watching.
Jano Pita, born in Figueras, Asturias, Spain, on November 2, 1992. After four years at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Oviedo, he studied Film and Video Making at the CIFP CISLAN in Langreo between 2015 and 2017. In 2021 he completed the Diploma in Film Direction at the Madrid Film Institute .
A lover of genre cinema, especially horror and Series B, he was always very clear about where he wanted to direct his career as a filmmaker. Today he has made three short films, Occhio (2020), Jano Pita’s Christmas Story (2020), and Teratoma (2021). In his three works you can see that taste for seventies horror cinema, homemade visual effects, and the cinematographic genre as a tool to tell more universal stories.
Marco Bolognesi is a multidisciplinary artist and a film director of experimental cinema. He won numerous awards for his photographic work and films, including the Artist in Residence Award at the Institute of Italian Culture in London (2002), the Canadian Cinematography Award for the best short (CaCA, 2020), the best short award at the AltFF Alternative Film Festival of Toronto (2020) and Best sci-fi Award at The Indie Short Film Competition (Florida, U.S.A, 2008). He also got presented at the Rome Film Fest and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. He published Protocollo (Einaudi, 2009), a cyberpunk graphic novel in collaboration with Carlo Lucarelli.
Over the years Bolognesi enjoyed strong curatorial support and exhibited extensively worldwide. He exhibited his photos and installations at the European Photography Festival (Reggio Emilia, 2012), Month of Photography (Vienna, 2012), Fin del Mundo Biennial (Mar del Plata & Valparaíso, 2014), Kunst Meran (2014), Biennial Italy-China (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016), International Biennial of Curitiba (2017), MACRO (Rome, 2019).
His works feature in prominent public collections including the Collezione Farnesina and the Oscar Niemeyer Museum.
Dystopia is a journey through George Halles’ hallucinated unconscious mind populated by tormented memories, fears and drives. So the city in which he lives, Sendai City, is shown to us through an oniric and horrific look, becoming the representation of his mind and unconsciousness.
Voices, memories and images show us the life of George Halles. His traumas bring him to take his life and to be reconfigured in the body of a robot with a positronic brain that still contains memories from his human past. In a narrative loop, George Halles’ nightmares fight with the programming of his brain which follows Asimov’s Three Law of Robotics. The Laws speak to him throughout the movie from the lips of a spectral geisha. In this story, in which we can’t discern dream and reality, violences and crimes remain without an explanation. The only thing left is the geisha’s voice resonating and repeating the obedience to the laws of robotics.
I am a self-taught animator, and have worked on numerous self-directed projects, as well as many commissions. RKLSS is a deeply personal project, and is a step out on a limb for me. I normally hide meaning and personal history behind horror and fantasy, so drawing directly from my own life experience has been a challenge. For more of my work, check out @tankstandingbuffalo on Instagram.
Director Statement
RKLSS is a true depiction of my passion for creating art and how it saved my life. I did two years in a maximum-security facility as a young offender, and was subjected to involuntarily segregation for six months. The practice of prolonged segregation has since been deemed cruel, and an inhumane punishment. Extended involuntary holds in segregation have damaging and lasting psychological effects. RKLSS depicts my passion to create art and how art managed to get me through the experiences I endured in segregation. At the time, I didn’t realize I was being tortured. I thought that this was the way it was supposed to be; routine beatings by guards, fear tactics and isolation were all part of being in segregation. Years later, upon reading about the long-term effects of prolonged segregation which include depression and suicidal thoughts, I felt it was time to go back and figure out what happened to me. How have I survived when so many people I know have not? Friends depicted in the film died in solitary. Many of my past experiences make sense to me now that I understand what I was subjected to was not normal. I want to shine a light on my experience and, through my artistic expression, find some healing in what was a horrible time in my life.
Statement on Solitary Confinement and Prisoner Justice Day from J.P. Blanchette:
“You don’t think torture takes place here in Canada? Think again.
On August 10, 1974, Edward Nalon, held in solitary confinement in Millhaven Maximum Security Prison J-unit for much longer than what was justified, slit his wrist. Guards pressed the emergency panic button for medical help, but the button malfunctioned and Nalon died.
Fast forward 29 years, to 2003. My 27 year old brother Yvan faced the same outcome as Nalon, after almost 12 months of involuntary solitary confinement without being formally charged. Same prison, same cell. Same emergency panic button malfunction when the guards found him. Same sad outcome.
At one point, I as well had been taken into involuntary solitary confinement at Millhaven Maximum Security. Fortunately, after an 8 day hunger strike, after losing 22 lbs, Corrections agreed to some of my conditions and released 3 of my colleagues. I was eventually found not guilty of the suspected charges and was released from solitary confinement 4 weeks later, where I finished my time in general population. I was fortunate enough to make it back home. Many of Canadian inmates are not so lucky.
These stories are sadly common. This is happening every day in our Canadian prison system. Fundamentally everything about the system is flawed, from how it is designed to turn prisoners into raging animals to how you are mistreated and left to die. If you come at me with “Club Fed, easy time,” I’ll show you my collection of scars received serving time, and am willing to tell you about the countless scars I’ve left on others. It was not easy time. It was definitely not humane.
Canadian prisons are in need of a serious overhauling. This is why Prisoners Justice Day means so much to me. More so than any other day of the year. On August 10th every year I stand in solidarity with all of my fallen brothers. For every inmate that has died an unnatural death within our prison walls, I stand for you! https://johnhoward.on.ca/sudbury/prisoners-justice-day/”
Tank, a natural artist who is always drawing, runs into trouble with the law with his gang of friends. Tank is convicted, jailed, and subjected to solitary confinement and intense brutality. His art allows him to escape his terrible conditions. He discovers his own native spirituality while in jail, and through his art, finds a way to be in the world, and to reflect on his own reality.
Sara Caldwell teaches digital media and screenwriting courses at UC Santa Barbara, College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing (FIDM) in Los Angeles, CA. As a filmmaker, she specializes in the sci-fi/horror genre and has won numerous awards for her work, including Best Screenplay at the Burbank International Film Festival and NOLA Horror Film Festival.
Sara is the author of Splatter Flicks: How to Make Low Budget Horror Films, amongst other industry books, and her advice appears in NOW WRITE! Screenwriting. She is a member or the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Women Directors (AWD).
Walter Gorey is a graduate of the UCLA Film School in Los Angeles, where he studied filmmaking and animation. He has worked in the film industry for about thirty years, primarily in the sound department. His credits include Twin Peaks, the People Under the Stairs, Till Death Us Do Part, Reality Bites, and Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. In addition to House of Gorey, he also works as a Media Services Tech at Sony Pictures.
Director Statement
Today, we’re consumed by technology more than ever, especially during a pandemic when boredom and isolation festers. GLITCH is a contemporary sci-fi on the danger of powerful technologies in the wrong hands – and how they can entirely consume us!
