Rosebud premieres independent films

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

The Red Herring and 9 Sols to Intercept, two locally-made films, will premiere in Rosebud Theatre’s Opera House, July 15.
The Red Herring is a comedy about three friends locked in a mysterious room. “You’ll feel as trapped as they are,” said writer-producer Stephanie Lanting in an email. For Lanting, a fourth-year Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA) student, the film is her Final Project, based on a play she wrote in RSA’s playwriting course.
“I had written all the characters and their relationship dynamics very seriously,” Lanting said. “It wasn’t until my play was read during the Rosebud Budding Playwrights Festival last summer that I realized I had just written a comedy. The whole room was filled with laughter. Someone told me afterwards, ‘that was very courageous of you to have written comedy.’ I thought, oh, that’s what this is! It’s a comedy!”
Lanting hopes the film will do for viewers what the story does for her.
“It’s a reminder for me that I can laugh at myself when I’m in the middle of something uncomfortable,” she said. “I hope that this film helps give the perspective that, yeah, it’s not a great circumstance to be in, but look at how humorously insane this is.”
After the premiere, Lanting plans to show The Red Herring at film festivals.
9 Sols to Intercept is a space film about astronauts performing a mission on an unnamed planet. “Sol” is the term used by astronauts to describe a solar day.
The 15- to 18-minute film was produced and performed by Rosebud teens Hadden Eliuk, Donovan Snider and Weston Snider.
“Their whole mission is an exploration mission,” Eliuk said. “They’re on this planet where the gas is extremely valuable… their mission is to refine it and see if it will work for furthering space exploration. They’re on this mission outside the base, and one of their crewmates falls down a cliff and gets seriously injured.”
Adds Donovan Snider, “they only have nine days to solve their problems and complete their mission before they have to intercept with the ship that will take them back to earth.”
9 Sols to Intercept isn’t the team’s first film, but it’s their longest to date.
“Before this we just thought (short films) were really cool, that we were able to pull off some really short, almost one-day shoots. We got the really intelligent idea into our heads that wouldn’t it be great to make a space film?” said Weston Snider. “We actually found our love of film through making this really huge challenge.”
After the premiere, the production team plans to post 9 Sols to Intercept on their YouTube channel, Do No Films.
The Red Herring and 9 Sols to Intercept will premiere at 8 p.m. on July 15 in the Rosebud Opera House. A concession will be available, and the event will also include talk-backs with each film’s production team.
To see a trailer of each film and to buy tickets for $16 go to rosebudpremiere.ca. Tickets will also be available at the door for $20.