Z Clan Productions has done it again! As they did last year, the local filmmaking company will once more kick off the Bermuda International Film Festival’s ‘Midnight Madness’ on Friday, March 16 at the Little Theatre, where their new, six-minute short, ‘Beacons’, will screen at 11.30 p.m.

The film is about two Bermudian boys who are reunited on the Island, and is a story of friendship and a shared love of the waters around Bermuda.

It will lead off for ‘Short Bus’, the controversial new film by John Cameron Mitchell, the highly-acclaimed writer/director and creator of ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’.

This is the fourth short film completed by Z Clan Productions this year. All four fit together as a larger film, which is an exploration of the horror genre. Each of the films is a microbudget short which emphasises story and shows what can be accomplished by motivated guerrilla filmmakers.

“Fortunately we own all of our very basic equipment,” producer/director/editor Vicky M. Zabriskie said. “Since we have the camera, microphone, and a few lights we did not have to worry about renting any gear. We were actually able to shoot each of our films for a couple of hundred bucks apiece.”

Mrs. Zabriskie is the instructor for BIFF’s Film Academy. She received her MFA in Film Production from Florida State University’s prestigious College of Motion Picture, Television, and Recording Arts.

“It is amazing what filmmakers can achieve with the technology available today. We are in a guerrilla filmmaker’s renaissance,” she said.

Mrs. Zabriskie and her husband, screenwriter and cameraman Christian Zabriskie, are at the core of Z Clan Productions, but there are over a dozen key players in the organisation, including actors, technicians, and a composer, all of whom are resident Bermuda and committed to making these four films a local product for export to the world at large.

“The last year has been crazy,” Mr. Zabriskie said. “Just getting these films shot was a challenge in itself, and Vicky has been working like crazy to get them all cut together and looking and sounding great. We are so fortunate that BIFF has chosen a film from the cycle two years running. After we premi|0xe8|re ‘Beacons’ on Friday we will begin the process of marketing the films to other festivals overseas. We have been really fortunate to have the support of so many kind people in the community of Bermuda.”

Last year Z Clan Productions’ short, ‘Take a Bath’, opened Midnight Madness before the Thai horror film, ‘The Ghost of Mae Nak’.