Concept 2 Reel founders Rachelle Neal and Larry Person Jr:
Concept 2 Reel screens one of the smallest collections of films of any festival I have been part of.
It is a special honor and privilege to have been included in this select group of films.
The FANtastic Horror Film Festival is up and running this weekend. You can catch horror features and shorts through Sunday online at https://fhff.festivee.com/.
My musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” is premiering as part of the festival’s Short Film Block #6 on Sunday, starting at 5pm.
It will continue playing on the festival on-line platform through November 29.
I knew already back in March that the Russian International Horror Film Festival was going to give my short film “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” an award.
I had acquired my visa to travel to Russia with my husband and co-producer Ed Elder, and our plane tickets and air bnb in Moscow were booked, and festival director Victor Boulankin, perhaps in an effort to make sure I stick around past my screening and Q&A, hinted that I would be receiving an award at the closing ceremony, without telling me what award exactly; and then exacted a promise that I keep that bit of information to myself for now.
“For now” would end up being eight months. Thank you, Covid 19!
As posted previously, the pandemic forced the postponement of the festival. But it finally took place last weekend. I would not be able to attend, sadly (Thank you, Covid 19!), so I asked Victor Boulankin over email what award “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” would receive. He responded:
Yes. The jury sympathy awards
I will my way send it to you by post
Or next time in March if you attend
I thanked Victor and chose the post option for receiving my award. Then I asked: “The Jury Sympathy Awards? Is that the name of the award?”
I received a one word response:
Yeah
I pressed on:
“I’m not sure I understand what that means in terms of an award. I wonder if something is not coming through in translation. Sympathy means feeling sorry for somebody, or having empathy, your heart goes out to them. Is the Jury feeling sympathy for the protagonist in Tell-Tale?
Is there a meaning in the original Russian name for the award that relates to the film in a way I am not understanding?”
This was the next email response:
Jury sympathy prize
Sorry for my English))
At this point it occurred to me that rather than communicating with someone who spoke English as a second language, it may be I am communicating with someone using a translate app to turn my English language emails into Russian and his Russian language responses back to English before sending them back to me. That app had been helpful for me when mass emails in Russian to all festival participants wound up in my gmail Inbox. A simple click on the translate button turned those cyrillic missives into something I could understand. So far Victor and I had been conversing swimmingly over email. But it appears the subtleties involved in figuring out “Jury Sympathy Award” were beyond the translate function.
I had this mental image of the jury feeling sorry for me.
Poor kid. You tried. But this is a hot mess. Our sympathies are with you…
Victor tried to clarify:
Sympathy means sympathy
I don’t know other variant to describe
It means very good attitude of the jury
I joked that the jury having a good attitude towards me does look better than the jury feeling sorry for me.
Still, I had to get to the bottom of this:
“I’ve never heard anything like it. I’m not sure what to compare it to. Is it similar to an “Honorable Mention” prize? Or a “Special Jury Prize”? Like a special general achievement prize you give that’s separate from the “Best Picture” or “Best Actor” or “Best Screenplay” prizes?”
That question seemed to get the right operative word through the translation app. Victor resonded:
Special Jury Prize, yes
“OK. Thank you very much. And thank the jury too. Sorry I can’t be there in person to accept it.”
So there we have it. “The Tell-Tale Heart won a Special Jury Prize at the Russian International Horror Film Festival. It’s quite an honor.
Yet I will always, with special tender feelings, think of it as the Jury Sympathy Award.
Headline from the festival website: “10th ANNIVERSARY FILM FESTIVAL “DROP” HAS ENDED WITH THE AWARDING CEREMONY”, as translated by Google’s “Russian to English”.
And below: “On October 25 in the cinema “Formula Kino EUROPA” the results of the 10th anniversary film festival “Drop” were summed up. During the festival, viewers in Moscow cinemas could watch more than 20 full-length genre films and 12 blocks made up of short films. The competition program ended with the demonstration of the film “Dead December” after the awards ceremony. The event was opened with a welcoming speech by the President and General Producer of the Festival, Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Bulankin.”
From further down the same webpage:
“Also, a number of filmmakers will receive their awards in absentia due to the inability to come to the festival due to the pandemic and closed borders, namely:
1. Film “Stalag III”, directed by Jason Rogan, USA / Belarus / South Africa
2. “New Woman” film – directed by Benjamin Noah, Canada
3. Film “Ecdysis” – directed by Tomo Sigiura, Japan
4. Film “Death December” – producers Dominic Saxl, Ivo Scheloske
5. The film “The Tell-Tale Story”, directed by Danny Ashkenasi
6. The film “Mother of Chernobyl”, Alexander Shuryepov”
UPDATE 11/3 – Victor just sent me a picture of my award certificate and statuette. He elaborated that “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” received a “Special Jury Prize” for “Best Short Film”:
The Festival goes live today. You can watch Tell-Tale Oct 31 – Nov 13.
Festival audiences can access virtual screenings from all around the world.
Go to the South African Horrorfest homepage.
Scroll down to the contents wall.
“The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” is part of the “Shadow Realm Short Film Collection Volume 4“
Although the festival starts today, the Shadow Realm Short Film Collection Volume 4, which features “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” won’t go love until Halloween, October 31.
Today “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” will play early evening at two festivals, not streaming via the internet but in front of physically assembled live audiences: the Russian International Horror Film Festival in Moscow, and the New York Long Island International Film Festival.
Time zones being what they are, the Moscow screening will actually take place 8 or 9 hours before the Long Island screening, but I will still not be able to attend both. I will be in Lindenhurst, Long Island, doing a live socially distanced Q&A.
If not for Covid, I would have been there in Moscow in person in March. But we-all-know-what interfered, and the Russian Horror festival was postponed to October, and we Americans are finding it real hard to travel to most places these days…
So, in stead of me the audience in Moscow will get to watch a little intro video the festival director asked me to send them.
Here it is:
It’s mostly a standard introduction clip, until it veers into something … different.
A bit subtler than what I did for the Rock Horror folks in Rio, perhaps, but hopefully still as enjoyable.
The New York State International Film Festival held three different film panels over the course of its festival dates. I participated in all three.
NYSIFF has posted all three panels on YouTube, so I can now share them here. If you have a little bit of time, you can catch me chatting about “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” on the 7 minute mark of the first video. But I talk about Tell-Tale and other things on all three panels, and you can also hear from a varying assembly of international filmmakers and their films on each panel (I believe I’m the only one who participated all three):
NYSIFF Q&A 1 On 09 27 2020:
NYSIFF Q&A 2 On 10 01 2020
NYSIFF Q&A 3 & Awards Ceremony On 10 08 2020
Last Christmas’ favorite stocking stuffer gift was a Mini Zen Garden kit Ed got me. It came with a black sandbox, sand, five black mini stones, and a miniature wooden rake.
I have it placed by my bed on the small decorative table shaped like a piano which I acquired for a song at Housing Works last year.
I arranged my first Mini Zen Garden January 2nd. And posted a picture on Instagram. That started a little tradition, where every time I create a new garden arrangement, I post a picture or two of it on Instagram.
It’s been an extra stressful year for the nation, for the world, after a series of particularly stressful years. A little Zen now and then has been useful.
This week has felt even more oppressive in a series of ever more oppressive weeks. So I figured it’s a good time to post the photo series of all my Mini Zen Gardens to date.
An attempt at the Peace sign. And the one out-of-focus pic… is it a metaphor?
January would be the most prolific month of new garden designs, naturally, spurred on with the excitement of a new toy …
For more on this and San Diego’s local horror film festival overall, check out their Facebook Page. For more on “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre”, start here.
So, evidently there is a fan vote component to FANtastic Horror Film Festival’s awards.
You can go here to vote for “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” for Best Music: https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/CKCC1e
Thank you!
UPDATE – 10/18
Original Post:
For most of September and into October my musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” has been screening virtually in festivals located in Orlando, Rio de Janeiro, Wisconsin and New York State, festivals that presented their programs on-line because of the realities of Covid.
More festivals screening Tell-Tale on-line are coming our way, but today I want to talk about two festivals presenting Tell-Tale that are managing to go the traditional brick and mortar screening route: NYLIFF – the New York Long Island Film Festival (October 23-24) and DROP- the Russian Horror Film Festival (October 21-25).
New York State continues to be the state with probably the strictest Covid safety protocols in the Union, but NYLIFF has been determined to hold an in-person festival and not go virtual. It found a location where this can be accomplished October 23 & 24:
Loyal Order of Moose Lodge
1421883 South Broadway
Lindenhurst, New York 11757
“Seats will be placed 6 feet apart. Masks or face coverings will be required, but not while eating or drinking. Hand sanitizer will be made available. High-touch areas will be wiped down and sanitized at intervals throughout the event.”
So the festival explains. This also means seats will be limited. Ticket prices are $10.00 per day or $15.00 if you purchase for both days.
I will be there for both days, including giving a Q&A after the Friday, October 23 6:30pm screening of “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre”:
The Art is Alive Magazine has published a review of my short film “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre“, written by Michael Haberfelner.
From the review:
I find this film riveting and remarkable because it has the master’s words set to music. Director/Composer/Actor Danny Ashkenasi sings Poe’s words into the camera during the entire duration of the picture.
What sounds like a recipe for disaster turns out to be an artistic delight. His avant-garde approach to both direction and music provides the audience with an electrifying and enchanting macabre motion picture.
By choosing to put himself as the center of attention instead of setting Poe’s words to pictures, he allowed for a marvelously moody accompaniment alongside his award-winning acting.
This project works so very well, and the exceptional editing* proved to provide the final point of perfection. Well done!
*by Stolis Hadjicharalambous
For more from The Art is Alive Magazine, go here.
The new production of “Hexen” (“Witches“), the two women musical I created with Peter Lund, that is premiering tonight in Theater Hof, in northern Bavaria, Germany, has at least two strong claims to being very special.
The first is that it is live theatre being produced in the age of Covid 19. With practically all theater shuttered around the globe since March because of the pandemic – Broadway and all other live theatricals and concerts in NYC remain closed for the foreseeable future – this production at this theater is one of the few exceptions; theater that could be produced and presented under strict safety guidelines.
Theater Hof has been able to do this in part by moving the production from their regular theater stage to the theater’s cavernous foyer, where audiences will be seated six feet apart at cafe tables. It also helps that Germany has done a far better job keeping Covid 19 under control than many other countries, esp. the USA.
It is very moving to me that with so much if not all theater on hold everywhere, it has been possible to present a production of “Hexen”.
The second extra special aspect of this production is that it is the first “Hexen” in German that includes the American ending of “Witches”.
There have been dozens of “Hexen” productions over the years in Germany (plus Austria and Finland), but all of them used the original ending, which is different from the English language version, which I produced twice in the United States. But this new German production will be the first to include the American ending, with two completely new songs never before heard in Germany. I believe these are two of the more unique and beautiful tunes I have composed.
This Friday, my musical adaptation of the the Edgar Allan Poe classic, “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” will start screening on-line via the New York State International Film Festival.
Which means it will be playing in three festivals simultaneously!
At least for a day. Friday is the last day for the Orlando International Film Festival, which has been hosting “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” since September 15. And its residency at Rio de Janeiro’s Rock Horror Film Festival continues through this weekend.
That is some serious festival overlap!
NYIFF will take Tell-Tale’s September ubiquity (which began early in the month with the Art is Alive Film Festival) deep into October.
I will also be continuing my busy schedule of participating in on-line filmmaker panels with NYSIFF.
The scheduled dates and times for these are:
September 27th at 3:00 pm
October 1st at 7:00 pm
October 8th at 7:00 pm
For more info on those and their film schedule, visit the NYSIFF website.
So, if you haven’t yet seen “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” via the on-line festivals broadcasting from Wisconsin, Florida, or Brazil, maybe come see the musicabre closer to my own home….
As you might remember… who am I kidding, why would you remember, but I won a Best Actor award from the Prague International Indie Film Festival last March for my performance in “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre“. They give out awards quarterly, and my acting win comes with a cute anecdote you can reread here.
Last night the festival put on its annual gala, where they handed out their best of the year awards. As a quarterly winner, I was in the running for the year end Best Actor award.
The awards presentations were live streamed. I didn’t win the award, but I did grab some screen shots:
This lovely Covid mask compliant lady (whose name wasn’t listed, so I can’t repeat it here) hosted most of the awards presentations.
A Czech actress (whose name also eluded me) announced the acting categories and winners.
Each nominee was represented with a 5 second silent clip from their film:
The 2020 award for Best Actor went to Elmaz Ikovic.
The folks at PIIF asked each nominee to send them a thank you video to play at the ceremony, should they win. Many but not everyone did, I could tell from watching the wins in other categories. I don’t know if Elmaz Ikovic did, because just after they announced his name, the livestream recording cut out for me. Talk about dramatic timing!
But I had made a thank you video, with Ed’s help, which I thought was kind of cute. So why let it go to waste? Here is the thank you video they would have played I had won the award:
Who knows, maybe if I had been a little less cute and a little more solemn for the occasion, I might have won?
(Just kidding. I’m sure the PIIF jury watched only the films and not the thank you clips while deliberating…)
At 37 minutes, “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” falls within the 40 minute maximum length for short films as established by major film organizations like the Academy, Sundance, Cannes etc. But among the many many film festivals and awards bodies there is a variety of distinctions. The Short Film Awards honors “The Tell-Tale Heart – musicabre” as a long short film, others have called it a mid-length film, a featurette, even awarded it along with regular feature length films. And then there are also many festivals that have a 30 minute maximum cut off for short films and a 50 minute minimum for feature length films, and if your film falls in between, well, then you simply can’t apply.
This is an unusual category to be nominated in. I have not encountered it outside of The Short Film Awards. As far as I can tell, for every film they nominate in this category, they cite the director and producer. So I will highlight the cinematography of Jason Chua, the sound work of Todd Maki, the editing of Stolis Hadjicharalambous, and the VFX work of Austin Lepri.
Another unique category. Again it’s the director and producer cited, although I found one Outstanding Styling nominee on The Short Film Awards site that also named an actual “Stylist”. So here is where I highlight the costumes of Anthony Paul-Cavaretta and the production design of Nicholas Callais. Assistant Director Henry Borriello did my make-up, and I guess I was responsible for combing my hair, which was cut a few weeks before the shoot at Benny’s Barbershop in Park Slope.
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Notes from a Composer 