Casting Kill (2023)

Director: Mark J. Parker

Run Time: 15 minutes

Overworked and underappreciated Casting Director Tim is stuck holding a casting session after hours at the TV production office where he works for a last minute shoot tomorrow. Having to cancel his personal plans, he stays late to bring in subpar actors who are available on such short notice, but getting his producers to pay attention and seriously consider them is another hurdle. They're either bored, distracted, busy, or aren't even sure of Tim's name. Just when he thinks he's almost done and can book the top choices, a scream turns into a bloodbath, and Tim and only a few others are trapped at the office with a maniac he invited in. Some actors would kill for this opportunity. 

Nice People (2022)

Director: Jeffrey Griecci

Run Time: 96 minutes

How much would you suffer to do the right thing? Showing a side of Maine rarely seen in film (sorry, no lobstermen here) these five interconnected tales combine into one dryly observed slice-of-life drama about the different prices people pay for trying to do what they think is right. 

In Val & Teddy: VAL a middle-aged woman’s world is turned upside down when her slacker ex-husband reveals that he’s having fun and making good money performing sex shows for strangers on the internet. Frustrated with how boring her own life has become, she begins to wonder if she made the right choice. With her ex’s goading, she decides to seize upon a spark smoldering in the ashes of her old relationship only to get burned when their son shows up with a revelation of his own. 

In Lesdi: a racially-conscious black woman, LESDI, runs into trouble while trying to find an apartment in an out-of-control housing market. Her trust and confidence is broken when her white friend BETH suggests that maybe her behavior is the real reason they’re not having any luck. Her day (and their friendship) suddenly ruined; she wanders the streets looking for an answer. She encounters that answer in the form of a cheap dancing marionette, and the kindly busker pulling its strings. 

In Shane: After enduring the ridicule of street kids, and being beaten by a stranger with a tv remote, BILL’s search for the owner of the cat he hit with his car leads him to SHANE a nonbinary cat-owner who is searching for some answers of their own from their estranged father. Unfortunately, neither is who each other thinks they are, and it will take the two of them seeing the good in each other to find what each is looking for. 

In Jean: Two very different worlds collide deep in the northern woods of Maine when LINDA, a middle-aged woman trying to connect with her teenage niece by taking her out to chase a rare bird encounters an African man, JEAN, apparently lost, who asks for their help to get to the Canadian border. When it becomes apparent that her niece is more interested in helping the lost man than finding her bird, Linda decides to “smuggle” him north. But with winter coming on, and snow on the horizon, she starts to doubt her choice, and wonders if the safest thing is to turn this man over…

Finally, in Zed & Larry: ZED, a miserable and love-sick misfit and his older coworker friend LARRY find their routine of drinking and working brought to a sudden end when LARRY dies in an accident at work. When Zed goes to mourn Larry’s passing at their favorite watering hole, his sorrow is interrupted when Larry’s ghost arrives looking to get drunk, and maybe resolve some issues of his own.