“PARADIGM SHIFT” WINS AWARDS OVER WEEKEND, SCREENS NEXT IN CHARLESTON, WV

Des Moines, IA – “The Paradigm Shift” – a short film written and produced by local filmmaker Sam Holdren – won two awards on Saturday night at this past weekend’s Wild Rose Independent Film Festival in Iowa.  The awards included Best Student Film (College/University) for Holdren and the film’s director Jon Barr, as well as Best Actor for the film’s lead actor H. Michael Walls.

The 6th annual festival screened and honored a variety of independent features and short films from around the world in several categories.  “The Paradigm Shift” was also nominated in the categories of Best Directing – Short for Jon Barr, Best Screenplay for both Barr & Holdren, and for Best Costumes for costume supervisor Erin Snider.  The movie previously won the Audience Award at the Main Line Film Festival in Wayne, PA, and Best Student Narrative at the Peace On Earth Film Festival in Chicago, IL.

The film is about an activist history professor (H. Michael Walls - 12 Monkeys) who assigns his class to design a plan to assassinate the President.  The repercussions are immediate for everyone involved, particularly upon the professor’s teaching assistant (Nicholas Wilder - Flogging Margaret), a timid young man whose reluctance to choose a side plants the young man right in the middle. 

Sam Holdren will screen this film and two others as part of the upcoming West Virginia International Film Festival on Thursday, November 13, 2008, at 6:00 p.m.  The other films include ”Audition” and “Play,” which have previously screened at film festivals around the country.  Holdren shall be in attendance to present the films at the FREE screening this Thursday.

Holdren – a West Virginia native – is also a 1997 graduate of Winfield High School, a double-graduate (2001 & 2002) of West Virginia State University (then College),  and he recently earned his M.F.A. in Film & Media Arts from Temple University.  More information, along with trailers, is available at www.samholdren.com.