|Podcast| The Rat - Isabel Shill, Collin Kelly-Sordelet & Carlen May-Mann

Poster Design by Kevin Rogan

LOGLINE
It’s Halloween night, and Renee is madly in love with her boyfriend Jim. On their way to a party, Jim takes a detour to a haunted house, where Renee is forced to confront a terrifying situation.

SYNOPSIS
On Halloween night, 18-year-old Renee is going to a frat party with her boyfriend Jim. After picking her up, Jim takes a detour, driving his truck off the beaten path to a haunted house. They start to fool around on an old mattress, but after Jim leaves to retrieve a condom, Renee begins to hear unsettling noises echoing through the house and realizes she’s not alone. Creeping downstairs, she is confronted with a terrifying situation, and must come to terms with the thing that, deep down, she's most afraid of.

JEANBOOKNERD PODCAST 2019: SEASON 1 EPISODE 39

GUESTS: ISABEL SHILL, COLLIN-KELLY-SORDELE & CARLEN MAY-MANN

JOURNALIST: ERIK WERLIN
ISABEL - IMDB | COLLIN-KELLY - IMDB | THE RAT - IMDB | WEBSITE

   

WORLD PREMIERE
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2019

WINNER
BEST HORROR SHORT OF 2019, SOLZY AT THE MOVIES
AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM, METHOD FEST 2019
BEST DIRECTOR, HOME INVASION SHORTS, BROOKLYN HORROR FEST 2019

OFFICIAL SELECTION
METHOD FEST 2019
BLUECAT SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2019
MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL 2019
STOKERCON FINAL FRAME FILM COMPETITION 2019
OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL 2019
CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES FILM FESTIVAL 2019
PALM SPRINGS SHORTFEST 2019
DURBAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2019
BROOKLYN HORROR FILM FESTIVAL 2019
NEW ORLEANS FILM FESTIVAL 2019
IDAHO HORROR FILM FESTIVAL 2019

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT 
With The Rat, I call into question what is really scary, both in film and in real life. I find that there’s a great deal of crossover. Fear requires a violation of trust -- trust that we can believe our eyes, our ears, our own thoughts, trust that what we see on a screen can’t hurt us, that the people we love have our best interests at heart. As a director, I am visually and thematically inspired by mainstream art horror of the 1960s and 1970s -- films like Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, and The Exorcist. These films are about the terror that emerges from below the surface of our daily lives -- the normalcy of a new relationship, a school dance, or a cocktail party suddenly becomes twisted, nefarious, infested with horror. These iconic films all address female terror in their own way. And yet, they were all made by men. Rosemary's Baby in particular has served as an inspiration for much of contemporary film’s most impressive horror, such as Get Out and Hereditary, but it cannot and should not be ignored that this film was made by a known rapist, by someone who inspired in real women and girls the very fear that his films so aptly depict. I want to do my part to steal back the genre by making a film that explores real fear. I want to tell a story that speaks to the unique ways that we are always frightened -- of late nights, of empty streets, of men. I want to tell a story about the debasement of women not because it’s provocative, but because it’s real, it’s happening to us every day, and it needs to stop.

Photo Content from Carlen May-Mann

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

CARLEN MAY-MANN is a writer, director, and artist dedicated to personal and emotive storytelling. Her short film The Rat premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play the Maryland Film Festival, Overlook Film Festival, Palm Springs ShortFest, and many others domestically and internationally. The Rat also won the Audience Award for Best Short at the 2019 Method Fest. Her feature length screenplay Strawberry Summer (which she will go on to direct) was a participant in the 2019 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive and is being supported by Cinereach. Carlen’s work as a director also includes several music videos and short films. She has been profiled and interviewed in numerous publications, including Indiewire, The Creative Independent, and Moveable Fest. Carlen produces her filmmaking through New York-based film and media collective NITE SHIFT, an organization she co-founded. Carlen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University with a degree in Film Studies and Psychology. She was also awarded the NNK Award for Best Undergraduate Screenplay and the Leavell Memorial Prize for Outstanding Work in Film Studies.

ABOUT THE CAST

ISABEL SHILL - RENEE (she/her) is an actress and writer living in NYC. She’s lived all over the world and is a dual national with the UK. She graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in Theater. Her past credits include Law and Order: SVU, Orange is the New Black and Manson’s Lost Girls for Lifetime. She was a co-writer and lead actress of a short film entitled Cuddle Buddy that explored the emergent professional cuddling business. It was a selection on Short of the Week, Fandor, and Fandependent as well as the Vail and Las Vegas International Film Festivals. Her most recent appearance was Off-Broadway with Wise Fish Theater’s production of Who Am I This Time?
Collin Kelly-Sordelet (Jim)

Photo Content from Collin-Kelly/Isabel - Photo Credit: Ryan C. Jones

COLLIN KELLY-SORDELET (he/him) most recently starred in Somebody’s Daughter at Second Stage. Previously, Collin shot a lead role in the independent feature Radium Girls, opposite Joey King and Abby Quinn. One week into starting his freshman year at Juilliard, Collin was cast in Sting’s Broadway’s musical The Last Ship. He received rave reviews for his portrayal of Young Gideon leading to a nomination and subsequent win for a Theatre World Award. He was also nominated for the prestigious Clive Barnes Award, honoring the most promising young actors and dancers. He was also recently seen on The Path for Hulu, and starred in the independent feature Wildling, directed by Fritz Bohm, and opposite Bel Powley.

Photo Credit Belongs to Alter

FESTIVAL RUN

• WORLD PREMIER
  Sundance Film Festival 2019
• WINNERAudience Award for Best Short Film, Method Fest 2019
• OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
• Method Fest 2019
• Bluecat Short Film Festival 2019
• Maryland Film Festival 2019
• StokerCon Final Frame Film Competition 2019
• Overlook Film Festival 2019
• Champs-Elysees Film Festival 2019
• Palm Springs ShortFest 2019
• Durban International Film Festival 2019
• Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2019
• New Orleans Film Festival 2019
• Idaho Horror Film Festival 2019

ABOUT ALTER
ALTER is a new horror brand for novel and grounded stories exploring the human condition through warped and uncanny perspectives.

Giving voice to emerging, diverse and established filmmakers, ALTER’s owned and operated channel is distributed across YouTube and Facebook where three short films or series are released each week. In addition to curating and distributing award-winning content, ALTER develops unique stories with some of the most innovative minds in the genre through its ALTER Studio projects - which are not bound to a particular platform or format.

Recent releases include the official 2018 Sundance Film Festival selection, Summer of 84, the thriller directed by RKSS (Turbo Kid); CAM (in partnership with Blumhouse), winner of Best Screenplay at last year’s Fantasia Festival, which was acquired by Netflix; and Goodnight, Gracie from Stellan Kendrick, one of ALTER's first exclusive premieres. Later this year, ALTER will release the SXSW selection Villains — starring Bill Skarsgard (It) and Maika Monroe (It Follows) — in theaters.

Projects currently in development include 50 States of Fright, in partnership with Executive Producer Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man) and DIGA Studios (MTV’s Scream). The anthology is the first announced series for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new mobile video startup, Quibi.
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