WILMINGTON — As Cucalorus Film Festival screens almost 100 films this year, many have local ties, showcasing North Carolina talent both behind and in front of the camera. At least seven films this year — both features and shorts — involve area actors, crew members and stories, two of which prove to be cinematic love letters to the Port City.
The first is the feature “Suburban Nights” written and directed by Wilmington local RJ Buckley. The film follows a couple post-move from Los Angeles to Wilmington who realize they have let their relationship fall by the wayside. More specifically, they haven’t had sex in three months. They then decide to have a childless date night.
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Buckley told Port City Daily the story was “pretty autobiographical.”
“My wife and I lived here, we went to college at UNCW, then we moved to LA … moved back once we started having kids,” Buckley said. “I realized that my goal in life was to make a movie, and I never did it out there. So I said, ‘Hey, why not just shoot something here?’”
Having years of experience working on short films with his circle of collaborators, Buckley took on many crew roles himself, while flying in some of his friends from L.A to star. This includes Ariel Barber and Zach Kanner, the two leads who are also a couple in real-life.
While Hollywood rom-coms rarely follow the couple after they decide to be together, Buckley’s film flips that structure on its head; his couple is already married. He said one of his major goals was to keep the stakes high, drawing inspiration from Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy.
“I was like, ‘Can I make a married, monogamous, suburban couple sexy?’” he contemplated. “Fingers crossed I did.”
Buckley explained how Wilmington is almost its own character in the film as well, having shot from downtown to Wrightsville Beach to Monkey Junction. The director planned on shooting while on a boat tour of the Cape Fear River, but after a Netflix production swooped in wanting to use the same boat, Buckley changed the script to a pirate tour — a fitting activity in the port city.
“Pirate tours are everywhere,” he said. “I don’t think anybody noticed what we were doing.”
“Suburban Nights” has already premiered at another festival, Film Invasion Los Angeles, and won the Grand Jury Award for Best Feature Comedy. Kanner and Barber also took away the Grand Jury Prize for Best Performance by a Duo at the festival. Buckley, a first-timer at Cucualorus, said he was excited to bring his film to a local audience.
“This is a Wilmington movie, and the idea that we’re going to be showing at Thalian Hall — as soon as I found that out I was blown away. That is just one of the best spots in town” he said.
The film is showing Saturday at 4 p.m. at Thalian Hall but for audiences who can’t make the screening, it will be available to rent at home on Amazon and Apple beginning this weekend. Tickets to the screening can be purchased here.
“Wilmington, NC”
Thalian Black, Nov. 20, 4 p.m. ● Jengo’s Playhouse, Nov. 22, 1:30 p.m. ● Tickets
Also capitalizing on Wilmington’s aesthetic is a documentary short from UNCW graduate Alec Gessert. Aptly titled “Wilmington, NC,” Gessert told Port City Daily his vision for the short was a diary entry from his own life.
The idea originally formed while Gessert was living in Madison, Wisconsin, for a summer. He used a Double 8 camera to film activities with friends — playing volleyball, going to nature preserves — along with conversations they engaged upon on the trajectory of their lives.
“With Wilmington, I wanted to continue that series,” he explained. “I shot stuff around town, so you see the Battleship, you’ll see various nature preserves, you’ll see downtown, you’ll see my house, and just like, kind of daily moments in life. And then I use that as almost like a diary or essay film … to talk about, like, why people do what they do and what they care about with their lives.”
Not only does the film document Gessert’s life, but he also talks to Juan Carlos Kase, a UNCW film studies professor who Gessert referred to as his mentor, along with a piano and a yoga instructor.
Gessert has volunteered with Cucalorus before and submitted music videos he’s shot, but this will be his first submission where he’s executed a vision of his own.
“Confession”
Thalian Main, Nov. 23, 4:15 p.m. ● Tickets
A horror feature set in rural Texas, though shot just outside Wilmington, “The Confession” features a recognizable cast to many locals. Justin Smith, Ron Fallica, Allie McCulloch, and Troy Rudeseal all star in the production.
The film follows Naomi, a struggling musician played by Italia Ricci, moving back into her childhood home and uncovering a disturbing secret in her dead father’s past.
“What’s interesting about a family member passing away, and then you find out the secret about them, and they’re not there to sort of give any kind of context to it or explain it at all, so that was kind of the starting point,” screenwriter and director Will Canon said.
It wasn’t until halfway through the writing process he decided to tie in the Pied Piper myth, a German story about a piper who was hired to rid a town of rats. When unpaid, the piper leads the town’s children away with his magical pipe.
“I just thought it seemed like a perfect kind of myth for a horror film,” Canon said.
For Canon, L.A.-based but from Texas, “The Confession” shoot was his first time in Wilmington. He was drawn to its historic homes and atmosphere — and also the film incentives.
“I fell in love with it; it was such a cool place,” he said, adding he always planned to hire locals but was impressed with how many positions he filled with Wilmingtonians. Canon gave props to his production design team, headed by Cucalorus co-founder “Jungle” Jim Shaugnessy.
“They had to create a lot of different spaces that didn’t exist — basements, attics — there aren’t a lot of basements in Wilmington,” he said.
The team used one place, the Old Acme Delco Middle School in Columbus County — where “The Black Phone” was also shot in 2021 — for four or five locations.
Canon was also appreciative of Wilmington’s horror lineage — “The Conjuring,” the fifth film in the “Scream” franchise, “Halloween Kills.” Canon has two other films in the genre, though his last, “Demonic,” was released in 2015. Since then, he told PCD, he’s tried to get other projects off the ground to no avail. What makes “The Confession” stand out is its full lean-in to the horror genre.
“I think horror has always been a great place to explore … interesting ideas with things going on in the world,” Canon said, pointing to the Vietnam War and racial equality. “I feel like now, the things that are really kind of topical in our nation — addiction, trauma — I feel like those are explored a lot more.”
Canon has already taken “The Confession” to the Dallas International Film Festival — a “homecoming” Canon described — and London’s FrightFest. Now it heads to Cucalorus, screening Sunday, 4:15 p.m. at Thalian.
Ron Fallica, has yet to see a final cut of the film, but noted scenes he has viewed were “super cool.”
“It was such a great experience, I have nothing but great things to say,” he said.
“Elaine & Trina”
Thalian Black, Nov. 20, 10:15 p.m. ● Jengo’s Playhouse, Nov. 22, 7:30 p.m. ● Tickets
Fallica, who runs Actors Arsenal in Wilmington, technically has two projects in this year’s festival, though “Elaine & Trina” was a collaborative effort, he said, despite his directing credit. For the last few years, Fallica has been helping his acting students put together a short film they can use on their acting reels.
“For the most part, the crew is learning as we go,” he said.
Fallica explained the project was shot in a few hours in the apartment of one of the actresses, Amber Wilks. Wilks wrote the script with her collaborator and classmate Courtney Burns.
The film follows two best friends navigating life in the ‘90s.
“We’re millennials through and through — we just love the ‘90s, so we were like: How can we incorporate this?” Wilks said.
She added the film has showcased another side of her and Burns, both of whom are typically more reserved. The film’s selection into Cucalorus has inspired Burns and Wilks to begin developing a sitcom based on it.
“It fit what we needed for class, yeah, but it just kind of has taken on its own life,” Wilks said.
“Denise”
Jengo’s Playhouse, Nov. 20, 1:15 p.m. ● Thalian Main, Nov. 22, 1 p.m. ● Tickets
Vanessa Anzola, UNCW graduate and director of the Cucalorus short “Denise,” can relate. The film came to life through her film studies capstone at UNCW, but has since earned Anzola and her creative partner, Joey Thomas, the university’s Anne Pemberton Student Research and Creativity Award.
Anzola said she and Thomas, who stars in the film as well, wanted to demonstrate what it’s like to live with anxiety.
“Joey, he had these coping mechanisms that he talked about,” Anzola said. “With anxiety, if you name it or if you give it a name or a personality or something to that, then it’s easier to control it.”
Thus, Denise was born. Played by UNCW grad Sarah Stultz, Denise plagues Marley, played by Thomas.
Anzola said choosing to depict a man with anxiety was deliberate, as she said men are less likely to talk about the condition. Ultimately, Anzolas described the film as an “invitation” to sufferers and non-sufferers alike.
“If you have anxiety, it’s good for you to see if you recognize yourself in the film, but also if you have somebody that struggles with that, it will give you, like a good perspective to see what that person is feeling,” she said.
“Thank You For Your Time”
Jengo’s Playhouse, Nov. 21, 10:30 a.m. ● Thalian Man, Nov. 23, 1 p.m. ● Tickets
Cucalorus audiences will also feel a bit of anxiety in another short film, though this time in the workplace.
Created by UNCW graduates Ricki Nelson and Rachel Olivia Taylor, “Thank You For Your Time” follows April Moore, played by Erica Ja-Kī Truesdale. As she sits down for her job’s exit interview, it t veers into a surreal interrogation of her perceived flaws as Black woman in the workplace.
“These are spaces that you’re required to be and in that you have to figure out: ‘OK, how am I going to maneuver this particular realm, while being as true to myself as I can, while also kind of trying to, like, salvage the remainders of who you are as the system continues to kind of try to break you down,’” Taylor said.
Both Taylor and Nelson wrote their own draft script before deciding Nelson’s was the one to go with, while incorporating some beats from Taylor’s.
With the film taking place in one office — really a conference room that the production team finessed to look like one — Taylor and Nelson noted much of the film’s success relied on its performances.
“Our lead has this really big monologue that she has to do, and so monologues can feel like you’re being talked at. They can feel very heavy, or if the person you know doesn’t have the chops, it can just not land, it can feel preachy,” Nelson said. “And so that was something that we really did a lot of spent a lot of time finding the right person.”
She noted Truesdal, along with her character’s interviewer, played by Dominica Ivey, put in the work, going even above and beyond what would normally be expected on a low-budget indie film.
The entire film was shot in one day in Charlotte, North Carolina, speaking to Taylor and Nelson’s “scrappy” ethos of frugally pulling together resources and talent from any source available. The two women liked that description so much they named their new production house after it — Scrappi Productions.
“I feel like it stems from what I’ve learned in Wilmington, with Wilmington being super indie friendly and coming from the roots of just like we get stuff done, like collaborating with other people,” Nelson said.
Both filmmakers indicated they felt inspired to create but didn’t have enough time to make a quality film. They are proud to say “Thank You For Your Time” defies this logic.
Part of that was due to Nelson taking on the role of director and Taylor as cinematographer, both able to execute the script’s vision seamlessly.
“Rachel and I, we don’t really know many female director/DP [Director of Photography] duos, so it’s like, why not be that representation?” Nelson said.
“Thank You For Your Time” premiered in Montreal and also screened in Atlanta and New York — where it racked up three awards. The filmmakers noted they were excited to bring the film home to Wilmington.
“From going to volunteering in undergrad to now like screening a film there is really awesome,” Nelson said. “I did have a film in it last year. It was experimental, so I’m really excited to have a film that’s narrative that has, like, a stronger storyline to actually discuss with other filmmakers.”
The film will screen Friday at 10:30 a.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
“The Plastic Cycle”
Thalian Main, Nov. 21, 10 a.m. ● Thalian Black, Nov. 23, 7:15 a.m. ● Tickets
From another recent UNCW graduate comes “The Plastic Cycle,” a documentary short on the microplastics polluting Bermuda’s beaches.
Director Ashley Reep was sitting in a film studies class when she got an offer to join the Plastic Ocean Project’s expedition to Bermuda to cover the efforts to remove the plastic from the Caribbean island. As the videographer for UNCW’s chapter of the nonprofit she had some experience shooting videos, though not necessarily a documentary.
“I had to take a step out of the class because that was like a big opportunity for me to go out and really test my skills,” Reep said.
And a test it was. Reep said the team spent several days at sea capturing the plastic circulating in the North Atlantic gyre and by the end of the trip, she was one of the only remaining POP team members, the others having succumbed to seasickness. The boat was facing 12- to 14-foot waves, she said, making research into the Sargassum seaweed, searching for microplastics, hard for everyone on board — until the last day.
“We all woke up and there was just Sargassum floating by. I mean, there was so much we hadn’t seen the whole trip, so it was just really something to see once we actually got to picking through the sargassum and finding these actual microplastics and animals that live in the Sargassum,” she said.
Reep said she learned how hard it was for Bermuda, with less resources and ability than somewhere like Wilmington, to keep trash off its beaches.
The filmmaker said the combination of her film work and advocacy happened by chance, but the Bermuda trip made her want to dedicate her work to documentary filmmaking.
“I like the authenticity of going to a location and capturing whatever’s there,” she said. She now works for a news station in Cherryville, North Carolina.
She told Port City Daily she never thought she would get into Cucalorus; now, she comes to the festival after a win for Best Documentary Short film at the Asheville Film Festival.
“I think I’d like to stress that anybody can make a film, as long as they got a camera and an idea to go,” she said.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com or text our tip line at 910-800-6397.
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