"The Fall of Night," first-time writer-director Derrick Warfel's "Twilight Zone"-like feature about a budding rock star's horrific, desert run-in with a rogue prophet and his shadowy female sidekick, has been selected for the program at the 31st Montreal World Film Festival (Aug. 23-Sep. 3), it was announced today by WFF director Serge Losique and head programmer Daniele Cauchard.
Starring CW network staple "Girlfriends" lead Persia White as the driven disciple, Tony Longo (Toronto Film Festival standouts "The Cooler" and "Mulholland Drive") as her doomsday preacher and "One Life to Live" regular Bruce Michael Hall as a stranded musician who hitches a late-night ride from the peculiar couple, "Fall of Night" will unspool in the festival's third annual First Films World Competition highlighting works by new filmmakers.
One of few U.S. entries in the festival's overall lineup of roughly 400 films representing dozens of countries, the Winter Star Prods. picture will be enjoying its world premiere as it competes for the section's Golden Zenith.
The 86-minute mind-bender -- boasting Australian TV personality Grant Bowler ("The Mole") as a fellow hitcher with a plot to con the soothsayer and featuring "Hawaii Five-O" veteran Al Harrington (Alberta-shot "DreamKeeper") as a mysterious wilderness dweller -- chronicles the hitcher's desperate efforts to escape the supernatural grip the night has on him or end up, as predicted, dead by dawn.
Lensed by Michael Millikan ("Stage Fright") and line-produced by Roger Corman production manager Amanda Nugent, "Fall of Night" draws from Warfel's training in both film (M.F.A. cinema, University of Southern California) and psychology (A.B., Princeton), much as "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" benefited from writer-director Scott Derrickson's USC film and Biola University theological schooling.
"We're taking les habitants on an unnerving ride to that same Rod Serling territory frequented by David Lynch and visited by Christopher Nolan's 'Memento,'" said Warfel.
For more information, visit http://www.fallofnight.com/ or http://www.ffm-montreal.org/.
