Song of the Open Road: The Story of the Southern California Youth Chorale

A high school music teacher named K. Gene Simmonds started the Southern California Youth Chorale in 1965 at the height of the hippie era. The counterculture movement hardly grew out of a vacuum, with cries of "hell no, we won't go" directly tied to forced conscription, a matter of life and death. There were other undercurrents, including less healthful ones such as psychedelic drug use and artistically-inspired ones like Beat poetry. And the entire cultural milieu, it has been argued, arose out considerably older zeitgeists from outside the United States, including the Mazdakist movement of Persia and the late 19th century German Lebensreform movement.

The Youth Chorale became an international sensation, so it's worth exploring these influences to grasp the scope of Simmonds's achievement and appreciate the context in which he created such an uplifting, healthy and positive force for bringing people from diverse backgrounds together. Artistic expression at its best is universal, and Simmonds put on a widely popular show.

This film project appropriately arose out Southern California, and LA-based Director/Producer Melissa Dowler has done a fine job of demonstrating why a youth chorale that flourished in the 1960s and 70s is both relevant and worth examining today.

You can watch the trailer here: Song of the Open Road Trailer

Follow the Leader

She's a CEO. You know the type: driven, demanding, numbers-driven and ruthless when needed. Sometimes when not.

After stepping out of her limousine onto a street littered with melting snow, she is on a tear tonight because the numbers are down. Someone is going to pay—whole teams will pay—and she will be the last one to get the axe.

A short by upstate New York filmmaker Ryan Lewis Merritt, Follow the Leader delivers the goods with style and well-landed punches. The only problem for his CEO is the catch, and movie fans, it's a whopper.

You can watch the trailer here: Follow the Leader

Vietnam Aftermath

The Vietnam War is notorious for the rejection and disenchantment suffered by many if not all of its U.S. Armed Forces veterans. The New Hope Film Festival's Director of Submissions Thom Michael Mulligan happens to be one of them, making our organization highly attuned to the issues involved.

In this moving documentary, four Vets who belong to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial share their riveting stories for the first time. Director Tom Phillips has an impressive filmography, with many television producer credits for The History Channel, Discovery, Nat Geo, Outdoor Channel, Smithsonian, BBC, BBC Worldwide, Comedy Central, PBS and Smithsonian. The alchemy of such experience and war-related material is powerful and extremely worthwhile.

You can watch the trailer here: Vietnam Aftermath Trailer

Epic Quest

Enter the fantasy within a fantasy world of Epic Quest and witness a video game that can't be played—but one that is nevertheless played by real actors. Director Chelsea Goodman is an independent filmmaker and film technician from Vancouver, British Columbia. She earned her Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts at Capilano University before earning experience in set decorating and props, and she needed the entire background to successfully pull off such an unconventional project.

As for the story, world-weary bar maiden Alys, the heroine of the story, has quite the extended work day ahead when her sister Thea is kidnapped during a bar fight. The Kingdom of Riverstone is a perilous land where magic and fighting are the norm; she sure could use someone's help while hunting for dark knights in the forest. Enter Sevrin, the Magnificent Mage, but he's a complete stranger. She might be better off alone.

Goodman makes great use of her prop and set design skills in this wryly comedic web series pilot. Webisodes are rarely this elaborate, and the game theme adds an interactive element, lending a sense of trapped-on-the-sidelines helplessness as the action unfolds. Her inventive pairing of short film and fantasy game is interesting and great fun.

You can watch the trailer here: Epic Quest Trailer

Doctor C

In the 1960s, Dr. Francis Chiaramonte started a urology practice in the Southern Maryland Peninsula, a neglected suburb of Washington, D.C. populated with approximately 400,000 African-American descendants of slaves. The local healthcare system was dreadfully inadequate, forcing many people to travel hours to Washington, D.C. hospitals for routine care. Chiaramonte lobbied state and local authorities for an area hospital for years, but much to his frustration the tireless effort went precisely nowhere.

As the son of Italian immigrants from Shelter Island, New York, Chiaramonte knew firsthand how it felt to be discriminated against in favor of what decision makers considered higher priorities, so he took matters into his own hands and founded the Southern Maryland Hospital in November 1977. As the film makes clear, it was an extraordinary achievement that defied the odds.

Director Stanley Preston demonstrates instincts for a good story here, but this Maryland Motion Pictures production is also cinematically excellent, with feature film-worthy reenactments of Doctor C's life. A film this engaging can do far more than educate. It can transform, reminding us about all of those people who are underserved and encouraging us to remember that everyone matters.

You can watch the trailer here: Doctor C Trailer

A Blood Throne

Writer/Producer/Director Xavier Garcia earned his BA in Spanish Literature and Theater at Colby College, and this background is quite evident when watching A Blood Throne, a superb spinoff of the Gospel of Matthew's account of Herod, king of Judea. Based in Massachusetts, Xavier produced the film along with his brother Jonathan under the siblings' co-founded, award-winning production company Mount Harvest.

Although their website touts their faith-based film cred, we had to ask them for clarification because their final product feels quite apart from an ordinary religious niche production. And Garcia will tell you that Sunday school is not really the point. It's more a case of mining the Bible for material, then building a highly dramatic narrative about the characters, settings and situations they find. King Herod is not typical fare for a Bible-inspired film, either; in fact, the last attempt we could find in a Google search was a 1958 Italian-French epic.

Like other classically-trained dramatists, the Garcia brothers are intensely interested in characters who act unpredictably and often violently, creating a thunderstorm around themselves. And in a nod to effective structure, from this maelstrom enters another character who can counter the madness—to such an artist this could be Superman or the Biblical Jesus, it's almost beside the point.

This dual role of conviction and exploration is what makes Xavier Garcia so interesting as a filmmaker. He does profess his Christian faith, but he is thoroughly committed to telling his story wherever it takes him. Whether a believer or not, one can respect an artist who hits his marks like this one. You can read more in the Glouchester Daily Times and/or watch the trailer here: A Blood Throne Trailer

Devil's Food Cake

Filmmaker Andrew Pritzker brings a background in comedy and writing to the silver screen, having previously edited Punchline Magazine, a humorous publication distributed in Boston and New York. Pritzker parlayed his creative skills into a Master's in Film at USC Cinematic Arts, and his top-flight education is clearly evident in Devil's Food Cake.

The story involves a waitress working a lonely diner on a cold Ozark night. Right at closing time, a handsome and suave man walks in the door demanding service, and after quickly sizing him up she almost swears he's the devil himself.

A ride in his car after her old pickup breaks down only adds fuel to the fire, and by the time she gets home the fear in her soul is hotter than Hades. Now she must take action, but she's only one woman against one very ominous being. There's nothing funny about her predicament now.

You can watch the trailer here: Devil's Food Cake