When it Mormons, it pours

STIPIMM: “Chain of Fools,” by Aretha Franklin

Some good news fell into my lap yesterday afternoon, in the form of a phone call from a Mr. Ian Allen, of Cherry Red Productions. Specifically, it was three pieces of news all regarding the my thesis film, “Trapped by the Mormons.”

First, it turns out that “Trapped” will be playing in Beantown this weekend. It will be shown as part of the Boston Fantastic Film Festival on Friday night at midnight. This is pleasing for a lot of reasons; most significantly, I’ll be able to exhibit some of my work to some of our new friends. It may sound kind of strange to an outsider, but imagine if I wanted to ask one of Bridget’s school chums to act in or help out with something of mine. It is leaps and bounds easier to convince them to participate if they already have a taste of what I do, rather than just going on Bridget’s word alone. That worked in D.C., where everyone knew Bridget well… probably wouldn’t work so well here yet.

Second, in addition to the one-time showing that “Trapped” will be getting at the Pioneer Theater in Manhattan next week, the theater wants to run “Trapped” for a full week in December. That means a lot of really good things: 1) just being able to say we had an actual run in NYC; 2) money, money, money; and 3) the very real possibility of a review in the New York Times (just the thought makes me orgasm spontaneously).

And third, what has to be the most surprising development of all, the owner of the Pioneer Theater, who apparently has a fair amount of background in all aspects of film distribution, wants to be the distributor for the movie. That could mean a lot or it could mean nothing – depending on how good of a distributor he is. But at the worst, nothing else could happen, and at the very best, we could have screenings in small theaters all over the place. Which, of course, means money, money, money. One can dream.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the shooting of “Trapped by the Mormons,” and I must say, I’m very pleased with how post-production and distribution has gone. I can’t say that Ian and I didn’t imagine this kind of thing happening; we thought about and discussed a lot of the possibilities for growth of the movie. But we certainly weren’t counting on any particular result. So, every success the movie has seen has been a pleasant, if not entirely unforeseen, surprise. As Ian put it yesterday, we’re batting 1.000 so far in terms of venues and festivals he’s approached to show the film (and the irony of Ian Allen using a baseball metaphor didn’t escape me). All that’s left in our original high-hopes plan of action is to show in Salt Lake City, and that looks like that might happen soon. Beyond that, there’s the new distribution possibilities, and then the beauty of online DVD sales. We’ll see what happens.