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Mercy Reviews and Review Links

Posted on August 30, 2007
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10KBullets.com
“Roddy is a talented filmmaker… Mercy’s surreal atmosphere is what sets it apart”

About.Horror.com
“disturbing…unsettling and thought provoking film”

Anevibe - Calgary Fringe Film Festival
“5 stars - “haunting yet incredible and a stunning directorial debut”

B-Scared.com
“a blend of realism and the surreal…fascinating flashes of disturbing energy” - 3 1/2 stars

Best-Horror-Movies.com
“The tagline for Mercy is “…you’ll beg for it!” Believe me, I did. ”

Bloody-Disgusting.com
“The performance from Gary Shannon is a revelation… ”

Cinema-Crazed.com
“Great acting, top notch cinematography, and beautiful direction” - 3 out of 4 stars

Cinephilia
“some of the best indie film making you will ever see…on my top 10 films of 2006″

Deadpit.com - the Creepy Kentuckian & Uncle Bill
“very David Lynch like…we’re not that smart, so we
don’t get films like this”

DreadCentral.com“Mercy is such a unique horror movie that it is almost impossible to categorize it for fear of insulting the work itself.” - 4 ½ stars

Fatally-Yours.com
” beautifully bleak and brilliantly acted film”

Horror-Fanatics.com
” The acting by Gary Shannon as John Mercy is what really stands out in this film”

HorrorTalk.com
“Patrick Roddy’s Mercy is a fascinating bit of filmmaking.”

Horrorview.com
“a very cool mash of social commentary and artsy creepiness”

HorrorYearBook.com
“”Mercy” is a nightmarish little gem”

James Wegg Review (JWR)
“Patrick Roddy has shaped a moody tale of horror… surreal atmosphere that knocks on Kafka’s door”

KUAT-TV
“about as true to the auteur tradition as you can get”

Phoenix New Times
“Nervy storyline…gorgeous cinematography”

Roger Corman
“Visually stark and severe, a very good film”

Rogue Cinema
“bleak and unnerving…a haunting film”

Shock Cinema Magazine
“a brilliant new indie-noir that’s technically terrific, powerfully acted and unsettling as hell”
“Gary Shannon delivers an intense lead performance”
“MERCY is tough, eerie, melancholy, and an incredibly impressive achievement for both Roddy and Shannon”

Videoscope Magazine
“strikingly original, unforgettable experience…true movie magic, of the deepest and darkest variety” - 3 1/2 out of 4 stars
The Phantom’s Annual “B”wards 2007 – Best Actor – Gary Shannon

Winner of Four Accolade Awards
Award of Excellence - Feature Film
Award of Excellence - Leading Actor Gary Shannon
Award of Excellence - Art Direction
Award of Excellence - Direction

Yeon Choi’s “Sandstorm”

Posted on August 27, 2007
Filed Under LAFG Events, Southern Circuit Tour | Leave a Comment

Sandstorm is a two-minute animated short by Yeon Choi, an associate professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. It will be screened at 7:00 pm on September 8, 2007 at the Central School Arts & Humanities Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana, as part of the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers.

What’s Sandstorm about? “In an imaginary land that lacks water and flesh, two skeleton figures find a pair of eyes in the sand. Their selfish minds start a fight over the eyes, and the fight leads to a bitter end.”

Yeon Choi was born in Seoul, Korea, where she studied at Ewha University before moving to the United States to study Computer Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She began creating animated films for her Master’s Degree thesis and has been working with animation ever since. An accomplished digital artist, Choi currently teaches computer animation at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.

Using the income from her teaching job to finance her short films, Choi handles every step of production herself, from animating to editing to sound design, which gives her the artistic control she prefers. “For my work process, everything is digital,” she says. “Everything is created on my PC and transferred to either DVD or Mini DV.”

Artistically, Yeon Choi started out as a painter, but once she witnessed computer animation she realized that she wanted to make her paintings move. After trying it for herself, she decided that computer animation is more challenging, and it became her true love. “I thought I was going to be a painter forever, but things changed. I feel more comfortable and satisfied with being a filmmaker.” Choi has utilized both stop-motion and computer animation in her short films, and is looking forward to expanding into animation mixed with live action, and animation that is interactive.

Choi created Sandstorm in 2004. Her previous short films include The Fly (2003), The Labyrinth (2002), Objects of My Obsessions (2002), and Confessions (1997). In 2006 she created Learning to Play How High the Moon and Ever After (pictured, left). About Ever After, Choi says: “As we grow up, especially girls, we all hear and learn about fairy tales that imply there is one Prince Charming who will complete your life.” Drawing from her own life experience, particularly her divorce, she created Ever After in an effort to disillusion girls, who she feels sometimes remain in bad relationships because of their belief in Hollywood-style fairy tales. Choi wants girls to understand that their mistakes will sometimes come with a huge cost, and that learning from those mistakes is part of the process of growing up.

“I think people learn and grow endlessly through their lives”, says Choi. “I learn from all people I know, all of those books I read, all of the movies I watched and so forth.”

Ritual Etchings: The Experimental Shorts of Eric Patrick

Posted on August 25, 2007
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Next month marks the beginning of the 2007-2008 Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, which opens with Ritual Etchings: The Experimental Shorts of Eric Patrick on September 8 at the Central School Arts and Humanities Center in Lake Charles. Director and producer Eric Patrick will be in attendance to discuss the film with the audience after the screening.

Ritual Etchings: The Experimental Shorts of Eric Patrick is a collection of short films that spans a decade of his highly acclaimed work, including his 2007 Delta International Film and Video Festival award-winning Startle Pattern. This collection represents not only ten years of Patrick’s work, but also a sort of general method that he uses in his work. “The films are a cohesive collection of a certain approach to filmmaking for me,” he says. “I was interested in finding innovative techniques to illustrate the concepts that I was dealing with.”

Above: An image from Eric Patrick’s Startle Pattern.

Those concepts include a variety of issues, such as the hectic pace of modern life explored through time lapse photography in Ablution, or the “changes in consciousness that happen during driving long distances,” explored through cinematic collage in Stark Film. In other shorts, Patrick’s use of stop-motion animation, hand-edited frames, and 16mm and 35mm film are on display. Of these methods, Patrick says, “They impose a certain amount of ritual into the process, thereby forcing me to ‘be’ the film for a certain amount of time. The small repetitive acts of creating the frames for [one of the short films] are like saying a rosary or even a form of alchemy.”

Patrick’s focus on low-tech, traditional, film-based techniques to explore these ideas results in films filled with eerily beautiful visuals. Their surreal, otherworldly feel is complemented by the absence of a traditional narrative throughout Patrick’s films. “One shouldn’t look for all the trappings of traditional narrative,” he says of his film, adding that, “Approaching films in this way also allows me to leave secret passageways and trap doors in the narrative so that viewers can come up with their own individual interpretation.”

Above: Another image from Startle Pattern.

Eric Patrick has been awarded grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund of the Austin Film Society, and the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund among others. His films have screened extensively throughout Europe, Australia, Asia and the Americas, and have won numerous awards both domestically and internationally, including awards at The Black Maria Film Festival, The Humboldt International Film Festival, Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid, South by Southwest Film Festival, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, U.S.A. Film Festival, Big Muddy Film Festival, and Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona. He is currently working on a film titled Retrocognition, and is on leave from his position as an Assistant Professor in the Radio/TV/Film program at Northwestern University.

Don’t miss this special opportunity! Come out to the Central School Arts & Humanities Center at 7:00 pm on September 8, 2007 for an exclusive screening of Ritual Etchings, followed by a Q&A session with independent filmmaker Eric Patrick. (In the meantime, an audio interview with Eric Patrick is available in MP3 format here). Opening for Ritual Etchings is the animated short Sandstorm by Yeon Choi of Lafayette, LA. “In an imaginary land that lacks water and flesh, two skeleton figures find a pair of eyes in the sand. Their selfish minds start a fight over the eyes, and the fight leads to a bitter end.” Click the thumbnail to the left to view the Southern Circuit Tour Poster for September 8, 2007.

Sixty Second Movie Hour

Posted on August 25, 2007
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This month’s film challenge from Scott Waldrop: Create a sixty-second movie.

The Rules: No dialogue. No copyrighted music. Sound effects and music are optional (Silent Films are welcome). And, obviously, you have to tell your story in 60 seconds. Use your cellphone, your digital camera, your camcorder… whatever’s handy. Need to borrow a camera? Email Scott at lafilmgroup@gmail.com.

These Sixty Second Movies will be screened at the next Lake Area Film Group meeting (September 4th at 7:00 pm at the Central Library in Lake Charles). Come and check out the results!

A lot can happen in 60 seconds. Are you up to the challenge?

Have questions or comments? Join the Sixty Second Movie Hour discussion on the LAFG Forum.

Gulf Coast Film & Video Festival

Posted on August 24, 2007
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The Gulf Coast Film & Video Festival will be held in Houston, Texas on the weekend of September 14-16, 2007. Established in 1999, the festival showcases independent films from local, regional, and international artists. You can view the complete 2007 screening schedule here.

One of the highlights of this year’s event is the screening of the short film Razor Sharp, which has gotten a lot of buzz after winning a number of awards, including the Best Action Short at Comic-Con 2007, and Best Short Drama and Best in Festival at Wizard World Fest 2006. The official website describes Razor Sharp like this:

Impenetrable fortresses, SWAT trained security forces, the occasional piece of malfunctioning gear; it’s all in a day’s work for corporate thief Veronica Sharpe. But business turns anything but usual when she’s hired by her underworld boss Rory Dex to steal an exotic codebreaker from a high-security skyscraper.

After rallying with her mentor, a grizzled Russian named Karloff Bryce, a plan to breach the tower’s defenses is born. However, the one contingency Veronica could never anticipate is the strain the job will place on her morality and skill once she’s confronted with the dark reality of the codebreaker itself.

Set in a near-future world where corporations strangle the globe, RAZOR SHARP blends a surprising amount of humor with pulse-pounding action to create an experience that is truly criminal to miss.

The cast includes Houston native Skye McCole Bartusiak.

You can click on the thumbnail above to view the Razor Sharp movie poster.

Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers

Posted on August 24, 2007
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Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers 2007-2008: Your ticket to exclusive screenings with today’s independent filmmakers!

The Lake Area Film Group in cooperation with the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana and the City of Lake Charles is proud to announce the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers is coming to Lake Charles, LA.

Click the thumbnail above to view the Southern Circuit Tour Poster.

The nation’s only regional tour of independent filmmakers, Southern Circuit provides communities with an interactive way of experiencing independent film. The tour takes the audience away from their televisions, DVD players, and computers to connect them with independent filmmakers, and encourages them to talk with one another about the films and their meanings. Southern Circuit transforms watching independent films from a solitary experience into a communal one.

Originated by the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1975, Southern Circuit provides communities across the South with a tour of highly talented independent filmmakers. Initially launched in three South Carolina cities, the film tour has visited over 30 communities across the Southern United States. Since its inception, Southern Circuit audiences have seen over 200 films and have engaged filmmakers in post-screening discussions of the subjects and themes portrayed in their works.

Accompanying the feature films being screened at the Southern Circuit events is the Short Circuit Traveling Film Festival. The Short Circuit Traveling Film Festival spotlights recent short films by filmmakers living and working in the Southeastern United States. Selected for their artistic merit by an esteemed panel of media arts professionals, these engaging short films will tour the South during the 2007-2008 season.

All screenings will take place at Central School Arts and Humanities Center, 809 Kirby Street, starting at 7:00pm. The touring schedule for 2007-2008 includes:

September 8, 2007
RITUAL ETCHINGS: THE SHORT FILMS OF ERIC PATRICK
by Eric Patrick of Austin, Texas
The interior space of a puppet becomes increasingly reflective, revealing the artifice of his own creation. Experimental
Opening Short: Sandstorm by Yeon Choi of Lafayette, LA. In an imaginary land that lacks water and flesh, two skeleton figures find a pair of eyes in the sand. Their selfish minds start a fight over the eyes, and the fight leads to a bitter end. Animation

October 13, 2007
THE GUESTWORKER
by Cynthia Hill of Durham, North Carolina
The Guestworker tells the story of Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno, a 66-year old Mexican farmer, who has been coming to the United States for 40 years, harvesting our crops and trying to provide for his family. Without benefits, without retirement, he battles against the elements, his own age, and the backbreaking work, returning to this farm year after year. Documentary
Opening Short: Bowl Digger by Kristy Higby of Alexander, North Carolina. A loving story of octogenarians Maxie and Hilton Eades, rural South Carolinians who create wooden bowls and dough trays as durable as their creators. Documentary

November 3, 2007
DISAPPEARANCES
by Jay Craven of Barnet, Vermont
Disappearances is a North Country Prohibition era tale of high-stakes whiskey-smuggling, a family’s mysterious past, and a young boy’s rite of passage. Starring Kris Kristopherson and Genevieve Bujold. Fiction
Opening Short: Wood Diary by David Meyers of Henderson, Kentucky. Follow a less-than-ordinary man over the course of one day and discover what it takes most people a lifetime to learn. Experimental

February 9, 2008
NEW YEAR BABY
by Socheata Poeuv of New York, New York
New Year Baby is a personal documentary by Socheata Poeuv, who uncovers the story of how her family survived the Cambodian genocide. When Socheata learns a family secret her parents had kept from her for 25 years, she begins a quest to understand how her fractured family became whole during the turmoil of the Killing Fields. Throughout her journey to Cambodia, Socheata pushes her parents to tell her the truth, but it’s when she lets go that healing begins. Documentary
Opening Short: Flyaway by Danny Oakley of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A little wooden plane, despite the price it must pay, does the impossible and joins a world it could only dream of. Animation

March 8, 2008
GUERRILLA RADIO: THE HIP-HOP STRUGGLE UNDER CASTRO
by Thomas Nybo & Simon Umlauf of Atlanta, Georgia
Facing threats of jail and censorship, four hip-hop groups struggle to reveal the boundary of artistic expression in Castro’s Cuba. Documentary
Opening Short: The Cole Nobody Knows by Clay Walker of Avondale Estates, Georgia. This documentary profiles Chicago-native Freddy Cole, the virtually unknown, yet equally talented younger brother of Nat “King” Cole. At age 75, Freddy Cole is, at last, finally being recognized for his amazing musical talent. Documentary

April 12, 2008
UNOCCUPIED ZONE: THE IMPOSSIBLE LIFE OF SIMONE WEIL
by Cathy Crane of Ithaca, New York
Philosopher, trade-unionist, mystic. Following the 1940 German occupation of Paris, Weil is forced to leave for the “unoccupied zone” of southern France. Under Vichy, she is denied the right to teach. For two years, she waits, she says, for God. We may never know Simone Weil. We must, however, contemplate her. Experimental/Fiction
Opening Short: Theodore by Jorge Moran of Nashville, Tennessee. Theodore knows loneliness, but the challenge of his life is knowing love. Fiction

For more information, check out the Southern Circuit blog.

Mercy Update

Posted on August 1, 2007
Filed Under Film Fests, LAFG News, Mercy | Leave a Comment

MERCY, the LAFG’s first feature length film, has been making the festival circuit. Directed by Patrick Roddy and starring Gary Shannon, the film was shot entirely in Lake Charles and DeRidder, Louisiana. Other cast members include Shelly Farrell, Charles McNeely, Julie Ann Fay, Mike Mayo and Carol Anne Gayle. In addition to the numerous positive reviews MERCY has recieved, the film has also been seen at the following festivals and venues -

In addition, MERCY recieved an unprecented four Accolade Awards of Excellence - Feature Film, Leading Actor Gary Shannon, Art Direction and Direction

Recently

• Red 71 Cast and Crew Premier
• Jay Craven’s “Disappearances”
• AFF: Corey’s Take
• AFF: Ken’s Take
• Spotlight On: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle
• Red 71
• “Mercy” Premiere in Boston
• “Little Chenier” Movie Is All That Remains
• Film Threat Selects “Mercy”
• AnE Vibe Chats with Patrick Roddy and Gary Shannon

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