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If there’s one thing that horror teaches over and over again, it’s not to mess with the dead. The characters in indie gem Lizzie Lazarus, acquired by Bloody Disgusting, are poised to learn that the hard way.

Channeling Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, writer/director Aviv Rubinstien’s twisted psychological horror film builds to a shocker of a finale everyone will be talking about now that it’s arrived on both Digital HD and Screambox!

In the film, featuring stand-out performances from Omar Maskati and Lianne O’Shea…

“Summer Solstice, 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods looking for a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But what secrets will come back with it?”

You can also watch an exclusive clip here.

Lizzie Lazarus joins Screambox’s extensive library of unique horror content, including Terrifier 2, Street Trash, RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop,...

If there’s one thing that horror teaches over and over again, it’s not to mess with the dead. The characters in indie gem Lizzie Lazarus, acquired by Bloody Disgusting, are poised to learn that the hard way.

Channeling Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, writer/director Aviv Rubinstien’s twisted psychological horror film builds to a shocker of a finale everyone will be talking about when it arrives tomorrow on both Digital HD and Screambox!

In the film, featuring stand-out performances from Omar Maskati and Lianne O’Shea…

“Summer Solstice, 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods looking for a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But what secrets will come back with it?”

Filmmaker Aviv Rubinstien said in a statement, “This film was a labor of love born out of getting a little ‘cabin fever’ in covid and reevaluating all of my life decisions.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

2024 saw the flicker of a major flame in the strands of cinema that have my heart the most.

It was a year where sex, romance, and representation were back on the menu in exciting new configurations, mirrored behind the camera and in front of the screen. Films that made us feel, self-reflect, introspect, change our minds, and realize. In a sociopolitical climate increasingly intent on sidelining and disavowing empathy at every turn, it’s comforting to know that we are not immune to movies.

Favorite Big Screen Rediscoveries: Zerophilia, Moving, Bumpkin Soup, Manji, Their Last Love Affair

Honorable Mentions: Caught by the Tides, Summer Solstice, Gift, Ghost Cat Anzu, You Burn Me

10. Happyend (Neo Sora)

In 2024, Japanese cinema began to travel and shift in new ways. The...

"The people in Hell are starving while the people in Heaven feast in Lizzie Lazarus." Available on Screambox January 14th, we have a preview of the psychological folk-horror film Lizzie Lazarus that you can watch right now!

Summer Solstice, 1990, strangers Eli and Bethany carry a corpse through the woods. The dead girl is Lizzie, Bethany’s younger sister and Eli’s ex-girlfriend. They’re on a nine-mile hike toward a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But each of them is keeping a secret about Lizzie’s life, and the circumstances behind her death.

Written and directed by Aviv Rubinstien, the twisted indie gem is bolstered by standout performances from stars Omar Maskati (Better Call Saul) and Lianne O'Shea.

"This film was a labor of love born out of getting a little ‘cabin fever’ in Covid and reevaluating all of my life decisions," explains Rubinstien.

If there’s one thing that horror teaches over and over again, it’s not to mess with the dead. The characters in indie gem Lizzie Lazarus, acquired by Bloody Disgusting, are poised to learn that the hard way.

Channeling Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, writer/director Aviv Rubinstien’s twisted psychological horror film builds to a shocker of a finale everyone will be talking about when it arrives on Digital HD and Screambox on January 14, 2025.

In the film, featuring stand-out performances from Omar Maskati and Lianne O’Shea…

“Summer Solstice, 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods looking for a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But what secrets will come back with it?”

Filmmaker Aviv Rubinstien said in a statement, “This film was a labor of love born out of getting a little ‘cabin fever’ in covid and reevaluating all of my life decisions.

Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting have announced the upcoming winter releases for our streaming service, Screambox. This includes dates for recent acquisitions Breathing In, 2024 Macabro: Mexico City International Horror Film Festival’s Best Film winner, and the cringe-inducing exorcism horror Deus Irae, an official selection of the 2024 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.

Breathing In (premieres December 3) – Set in 1901, South Africa, a wounded general seeks refuge in the small home of a woman and her young daughter. Before long, he’ll learn the real reason why they’ve invited him and how they’ve survived on their own for so long. Jaco Bouwer directs this beautifully shot and tense horror thriller that stars Michele Burgers, Sven Ruygrok, and Jamie-Lee Money. Deus Irae (premieres December 10) – Follows Father Javier, who lives a fractured existence, claiming miracles, while he also hunts the possessed with Bibles, fire, and shotguns. This shockingly nasty horror was directed by...

Trans actor Leo is struggling to find his footing in New York. Between endless auditions and an unfulfilling relationship, his days blend together in a haze of uncertainty. But when Eleanor—Leo’s boisterous best friend from college—shows up unannounced, she sweeps him away on a spontaneous trip to the countryside. There, surrounded by rolling green hills and sheltering woods, they hope to rediscover the close bond that time and life changes have threatened.

Arriving at a picturesque lakeside cabin, Eleanor jumps right back into their playful dynamic. For Leo, though, navigating this reunion proves complicated. Gradually asserting his queer identity has necessarily altered their friendship’s dynamic. And glimpses of Eleanor’s own instability hint that her carefree facade may veil deeper agonies.

Noah Schamus’ intimate debut subtlety explores these intimate tensions. Shot on a shoestring budget, Summer Solstice prioritizes nuanced performances over cinematic flourishes. Bobby Salvör Menuez...

U.S. in Progress is now through September 8 accepting submissions from American independent filmmakers with pictures in post-production seeking finishing funds. Accepted filmmakers and projects will attend the in-person event at Wroclaw, Poland’s American Film Festival from November 7 – 9, where they will present the rough cuts of their narrative projects to European buyers and Polish post-production companies providing over $100,000 in post services. Recent and upcoming projects that are alumni of U.S. in Progress include the Venice-bound Familiar Touch, directed by 2023 25 New Face Sarah Friedland; the recently released Summer Solstice, by writer/director Noah Schamus; India Donaldson’s […]

The post U.S. in Progress 2024 Submissions Now Open for American Independents Seeking Finishing Funds first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

U.S. in Progress is now through September 8 accepting submissions from American independent filmmakers with pictures in post-production seeking finishing funds. Accepted filmmakers and projects will attend the in-person event at Wroclaw, Poland’s American Film Festival from November 7 – 9, where they will present the rough cuts of their narrative projects to European buyers and Polish post-production companies providing over $100,000 in post services. Recent and upcoming projects that are alumni of U.S. in Progress include the Venice-bound Familiar Touch, directed by 2023 25 New Face Sarah Friedland; the recently released Summer Solstice, by writer/director Noah Schamus; India Donaldson’s […]

The post U.S. in Progress 2024 Submissions Now Open for American Independents Seeking Finishing Funds first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

If there’s one thing that horror teaches over and over again, it’s not to mess with the dead. The characters in writer/director Aviv Rubinstien’s Lizzie Lazarus, making its world premiere next month at Popcorn Frights, are poised to learn that the hard way.

Watch the exclusive new trailer and poster reveal below.

About Lizzie Lazarus: “Summer Solstice, 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods looking for a mythical zone they believe will bring the dead body back to life. But what secrets will come back with it?”

The film stars Omar Maskati and Lianne O’Shea.

Filmmaker Aviv Rubinstien said in a statement, “This film was a labor of love born out of getting a little ‘cabin fever’ in covid and reevaluating all of my life decisions. What Lianne and I developed was a story about grief, loss, and guilt, cults and witches, and the question...

Noah Schamus, as many creatives did, used their time unemployed in the pandemic lockdown to write a feature. The result is the warm, wise, and unsentimental “Summer Solstice,” an Éric Rohmer-inspired tale of friendship about trans actor Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) and the whirling dervish in a daffodil dress who lands back in his life, his long-ago and cisgender friend Eleanor (Marianne Rendón).

But beyond lessons learned in the pandemic or years before at Columbia film school during undergrad, “Summer Solstice” writer/director Schamus also learned a great deal from an unlikely source of inspiration: director Greta Gerwig. In 2019, Schamus cut their teeth on a major studio movie as a post-production assistant on “Little Women.”

It ”was incredible to just see the scope of what is possible for a filmmaker who comes from the indie space, from a mumblecore space, who then has stepped up into these sort of enormous and wonderful productions,...

It was an Inside Out specialty weekend, fairly quiet and with a stream of indies films and more wide releases. The schedule is starting to recover from a strike-induced slump that, however, provided oxygen to some indies.

Small films have been competing for screens with majors at arthouses from Alamo Drafthouse to Landmark since theaters reopened post-Covid and the more of them there are, the harder it is. It’s nice to see major back and the broader box office on a solid footing. But it would also be nice to see more indie breakouts like Civil War, Late Night With The Devil, Immaculate, Wicked Little Letters, One Life or Love Lies Bleeding.

“June is crowded” with indies now, says one distributor. And theaters “don’t have space to support indies in a meaningful way.”

Others are heartened by recent wide-release blowouts. “It’s still a tough market. But I...

The only thing more powerful than a first impression is a second one — at least, that’s the bet that “Summer Solstice,” a new anti-romantic comedy from Cartilage Films, makes on itself. Beginning with a character giving an impassioned monologue recounting his gender-affirming surgery, the speech quickly curdles into something pretty tacky, even including the line, “I went from a caterpillar to a butterfly.” But then another voice interrupts: “Okay, thanks. That’s enough.” This has all been in an audition room. And the audition is not going well.

“I had a family member come to a screening. And she said, ‘I was terrified in the first 30 seconds that this movie was going to be so awful,’” says writer-director Noah Schamus with a laugh.

The scene reorients to introduce Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), a transgender man treading water in the ever-replenishing pool of auditioning New York actors. The performance drops and Leo returns to reality,...

Leo, a 20-something aspiring actor, is navigating a creative crisis in Summer Solstice, the feature debut from writer-director Noah Schamus. More aptly, Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) is frustrated with the reductive and trite roles he is constantly up for, compounded by the reality that these seem to be the only gigs available to him as a trans actor. It appears that much-needed distraction arrives when Elenor (Marianne Rendón), his best friend from college, pays a visit to his NYC apartment on her way upstate for a house-sitting job. After convincing Leo to join her, the duo drive to the Hudson […]

The post “What It Means to be Constantly Coming of Age”: Writer/Director Noah Schamus on Summer Solstice first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Leo, a 20-something aspiring actor, is navigating a creative crisis in Summer Solstice, the feature debut from writer-director Noah Schamus. More aptly, Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) is frustrated with the reductive and trite roles he is constantly up for, compounded by the reality that these seem to be the only gigs available to him as a trans actor. It appears that much-needed distraction arrives when Elenor (Marianne Rendón), his best friend from college, pays a visit to his NYC apartment on her way upstate for a house-sitting job. After convincing Leo to join her, the duo drive to the Hudson […]

The post “What It Means to be Constantly Coming of Age”: Writer/Director Noah Schamus on Summer Solstice first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Writer/director Noah Schamus takes us on a delightful but sharp-edged jaunt to Upstate New York with their sun-dappled and warmly directed buddy comedy, “Summer Solstice.” The film stars Bobbi Salvör Menuez as a trans actor tumbling through one dead-end audition after another, only to be jolted back to life by the sudden reappearance of a long-ago friend, the straight and cisgender Eleanor (Marianne Rendón). But Eleanor knew Leo before he began transitioning, a process Leo is still going through, much to his own social discomfort about revealing that. The unapologetically queer (and on all sides of the camera) “Summer Solstice” is wise and unsentimental in all the right places, even as its ending hits at a sweeter spot than the otherwise gently sardonic movie that comes before it.

“We’re looking for a transgender man or a transgender woman: Which one are you?” a tasteless casting director asks Leo...

Summer Solstice took me by surprise when I first saw it at BFI Flare Lgbtiq+ Film Festival back in March. Fresh and funny, simple, but never slight, this meditative indie summer film explores the coming-into-oneself of Leo, a trans man navigating post-transition and the early stages of an acting career, and his relationship with old friend Eleanor, who knew him pre-transition and hasn’t seen him in some time. The film speaks with a voice that feels wise beyond its years, whilst openly admitting that it doesn’t have all the answers and doesn’t always know what direction to take.

That voice belongs to Brookyln-based trans-nonbinary artist Noah Schamus, a first-time feature filmmaker with a background in docufiction hybrid shorts. That filmography is evident in the warm metatext that Schamus weaves through this arrestingly sensitive tale of finding where you fit and where you perhaps no longer fit.

With...

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are emerging in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. That’s why we’re doing the hard work for you.

This week, we make our first trip to Poland, to check out a World War II spy drama. The Bay of Spies draws parallels to the likes of German Oscar Winner The Lives of Others and John le Carré TV adaptations such as The Night Manager. Politically, Poland is a charged place right now. The fact a film noir-influenced story based on real events during the war and with real moral ambiguity is the country’s most talked-about show right now is perhaps no coincidence.