Publication: THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: 04/19/2007
Page: 15D
Headline: CITY NATIVE'S FILM TO SCREEN AT FESTIVAL
Byline: BILL LYNCH
Filmmaker Sam Holdren talks excitedly, gushing about his 20-minute film "Audition" that's being shown at noon today at the Appalachian Film Festival in Huntington. Sitting at a table at Capitol Roasters on Summers Street - across the street from the Capitol Center Theater, which served as the location for the last scene in his film - Holdren says that he can't help but be proud of how things have worked out.
"This is coming home to me," he said.
Holdren was born in Charleston, graduated from Winfield High School and from West Virginia State College. For the last few years, he's studied film at Temple University.
His film "Audition," co-written with friend and W.Va. State classmate, Joseph Ng, follows 24 hours in the life of a painfully eager, pathologically earnest actor named William H. Ashe. Ashe has traveled to Philadelphia to audition for a part in a film. Very quickly, the unbelievably optimistic Ashe is out of his element and wanted for murder.
"It's a very dark comedy," Holdren said. "But there is a certain level of absurdity that makes it work, I think."
The story came from a back-and-forth dialogue between Ng and Holdren, a scenario that Ng pitched and Holdren didn't buy until they injected a mutual friend into the scene. Ashe is somewhat based on that mutual friend, a Charleston actor who is said to be a bit intense.
"He's got an energy to him that constantly gets him in and out of trouble," Holdren said of the friend. "Part of William Ashe is that guy, but a lot of him is also Joseph, and I can see me in William Ashe, too."
Todd Waters, who portrayed Ashe, didn't actually know that the character was based on a real person until late in the filming. Holdren introduced the two while the film crew reshot scenes in downtown Charleston.
"It was a surreal moment for everybody," Holdren said.
Holdren says that he's glad to get the chance to screen his film at the Appalachian Film Festival and hopes to eventually screen it in Charleston. In the meantime, he's submitting the film to other festivals and working on his next project.
"'Audition' is my warm-up."
The Appalachian Film Festival runs through Saturday at Huntington's Keith-Albee Theater. It closes with a 6 p.m. Saturday screening of "Two Tickets to Paradise," an independent film by D.B. Sweeny ("The Cutting Edge") starring himself, John C. McGinley ("Scrubs") and Paul Hipp as three friends on the verge of a midlife crisis who take a road trip to a Marshall University football bowl game. For a complete listing of events, visit www.appyfilmfest.com.
To contact staff writer Bill Lynch, use e-mail or call 348-5195.