When Jake (Ken Sandberg), Byron (Owen McCuen), and Jack (Glenn Mercer) come to a forest reserve for a weekend retreat at a cabin, they’re surprised to meet an over enthusiastic forest ranger (Brian Holcomb) who warns them about the dangers of a mysterious area known as “Apple Island.”
In 2013, Carlo Caldana released an independent novel called, Smile Again, Jenny Lee, about a world renowned tennis player with a personality like Tonya Harding, who got her leg messed up like Nancy Kerrigan. (Only in this tale, she actually was knocked out of her sport for good.)
Two years later, in a feat of moxy that’s truly impressive, Carlo Caldana translated his novel into a script, directed the film, and cast himself as the colead alongside Monique Hafen who played the titular Jenny Lee.
The tale of the film revolves around Jenny’s attempt to find her place in the world after losing her spot in tennis. Low on funds and about to be cut off by her wealthy mother (Linda DeMetrick), she agrees to help a lawyer named Charles Landale (Carlo Caldana) track down her absentee father, hoping that he will float her some cash. However, when the mystery of her father’s disappearance grows more ominous, she and Landale will have to keep their wits about them to unravel the mystery.
I grew up believing the Mayan Indians were a long lost civilization, like the lost tribe of the Maori. I knew about their amazing science and their calendar, but, at some time in my childhood, had come to believe that they’d been slaughtered by the Aztecs and no longer existed.
As often happens with Dawn Engle’s films through PeaceJam, I learned a lot about both people groups and people that changed my perception through this film—not the least of which being that the Mayan Indians still exist as the indigenous people of Guatemala (as well as a number of other Latin American countries), despite genocidal attempts of a 36 year civil war.
Austrian filmmaker Johannes Grenzfurthner is on a mission to find all the nerdiest spots and people in America—at least, all the spots associated with the nerdy people he connected with online ahead of time. With a roadmap that takes him 7,000 miles (from California to New York) and an agenda of communist apologetics to share, he sets out to explore everything from creature effects companies to sex-geeks to massive caves to cyberpunks to alien researchers—all from an outsider’s perspective.
For soldiers who have survived the horrors of war, coping with the psychological trauma back home can be its own battle. Less Lost, directed by Chase Conner, follows Luke (Shane Fike), a medically-retired U.S. Army soldier who must now readjust to civilian life.
When he’s in danger of losing his business in the recession, Dave (Deepak Ravella) comes up with a dangerous criminal scheme with his partner Sonny (Sonny Chatrath) and his wife Amy (Ami Sheth) to gain $5 million through cheating the insurance company. But when things go off the rails, they plunge toward the depths of murder and betrayal.