Las Cruces, NM – The Paradigm Shift – the award-winning short film directed by Jon Barr and written/produced by Sam Holdren – has been accepted to screen as part of the upcoming White Sands International Film Festival on a date to be announced soon between April 23 - 26, 2009.

According to the festival - which began in Alamogordo, NM and is currently in its 5th year - they screen films that deal with contemporary issues, celebrate the human spirit, combine good storytelling, writing, acting, and direction, and also include films that explore the Latino and/or Hispanic World, as well as films made in New Mexico.

The Paradigm Shift is about an activist history professor (played by 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. 


The Paradigm Shift has previously won the Audience Award at the Main Line Film Festival in Wayne, PA; Best Student Narrative at the Peace On Earth Film Festival in Chicago, IL; Best Student Film (College/University) from the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival in Des Moines, IA for Barr and Holdren, as well as Best Actor from the same festival for the film’s lead actor H. Michael Walls.


More information, along with trailers, is available at the OFFICIAL MOVIE WEBSITE.