An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Strayed
Genre: Horror / Fantastic
Length of film: 5:54 min
Date: October 2020
Director: Sarah Bonrepaux
Producer: Sarah Bonrepaux
Executive Producer: Romain Servais, Adrian Cacciola, Jean Christophe Bonrepaux
Writer: Sarah Bonrepaux
Cinematographer: Adrian Cacciola
Editor: Philip Mangano
Composer: Danny Saber
Production Company: Uzkid
Budget: 6000 Euros
Financing: Self Financed
Shooting Format: NA
Screening Format: NA
World Premiere: Atlanta Horror Film Festival
Awards:
– Outstanding achievement award – Best 1st time director (female) – IndieX Film Festival
– Best Foreign Short – Monsterflix Awards
– Semi-Finalist – Hollywood horror fest (2021)
– Finalist – the thing in the basement Horror Fest
Website: https://www.sarahbonrepaux.com/strayed
The Official Trailer for Strayed
Watch The Trailer for Strayed directed by Sarah Bonrepaux
A Short Biography of Sarah Bonrepaux
Sarah is a bilingual French actress based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut ‘Strayed’ has been selected in several prestigious Film Festivals, including the Academy Awards qualifying HollyShorts. She will play the female lead role in the upcoming horror feature film ‘Schimbarea’ directed by Patrick Corcoran and will also be seen in the movie ‘Exceptional Beings’ directed by Njedeh Anthony.
The Sarah Bonrepaux Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): STRAYED tells the story of a girl who’s jogging through the woods, and who has to survive when her abilities start to suddenly shut down. I had the idea while running into old articles about stories of alien abductions. I noticed how people’s testimonies were similar to each other. All had the common points of feeling disoriented, seeing a white light, and the loss of time.
Like, they were driving, it was 5pm, and suddenly the clock stops. And they don’t remember anything else. Or they look at the clock again and it’s 7pm. They don’t remember what happened in between. The disorientation, loss of time and control spoke to me a lot, having been chronically ill and stuck in bed for months, so I started writing about this.
How did you get the idea for your film?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): A few years back, I got a chronic illness, which happened brutally and suddenly. I went from living a healthy, completely normal life to being like “hit by a truck” and ending up laying down in bed, unable to do anything, not even writing a text on my phone. All this in just a few days. It was a nightmare. Suddenly, all the things you have: the health, the energy, the physical abilities, are like “stolen” from you. You just struggle to stay awake and not pass out.
Every time you fall asleep, you think you’re never gonna wake up. Since I spent years recovering, and trying to learn how to navigate in this new reality, I wanted to write something to convey this feeling of being “trapped” in your own body. As a fan of horror movies, I imagined this story about a girl, who suddenly sees all of her abilities shutting down. Thankfully, after a few years, I recovered and went on to shoot this film..
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): I’m really happy with the festival marathon. This is my first project ever as a writer & director, so I honestly didn’t imagine it would get so many prestigious selections. The Oscars qualifying Hollyshorts Film Festival was our latest event.
With 18th official selections today, including the Grimmfest (Manchester, UK), Panic Fest (Kansas City, USA), and Horrible Imaginings (CA, USA), the film will be next at FilmQuest (Utah, USA) on October 29th on Opening Night, as well as Nightmares Film Festival (Ohio), Razor Reel Flanders Film Festival (Belgium) & the New York City Horror Film Festival in December.
Development & Financing?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): Once I got the script, I asked Adrian Cacciola (my director of photography) if he wanted to be a part of it. I worked with him before and he’s an absolute genius. I knew I needed him, especially since I also act in the film, I didn’t want to have to stress about the picture or anything else while on set and about to shoot. With preparation, I knew I could trust him 100%.
That meant shooting the film in France, since he’s based in Paris. So I went back there. Adrian helped me to reunite a super talented, hard-working crew. He also introduced me to British actress Lynne Verrall, who’s also acting in the film. She’s fantastic! I self-financed this project. I had a little help from co-producers, but I didn’t get any investors. This is my first project so I had no idea about how to do it another way, and it would have taken too much time.
Production?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t a smooth ride. Everyone made it so easy on set, and everyone was so hard working that the filming went really well. We shot this in October 2018, and the movie came out in 2020, so you can imagine everything went a little bumpy during post-production. Being a self financed project, it took me time to find people who were available and wanted to contribute to this project. And I don’t blame anyone, I know how tough it is. I had to pause post-production for a while, because people left the project, and it was mentally challenging. At this point, I thought this film would never come out.
And I just wasn’t able to find anyone for the VFX, the music, and the editing at the time. But everything accelerated right before the pandemic actually. I contacted Phil Mangano, the editor, with whom I had worked on a feature film before, and he did a fantastic job getting the editing back on track and locking it.
Then I met Danny Saber, our fabulous composer, who created the music and sound/theme, and completely nailed what I was trying to get for this film. He’s so talented and creative, I’m not even mentioning the work background he has and the people he’s worked with before… I am humbled that he accepted to be a part of my 1st film. I would recommend working with him to anyone!
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Sarah Bonrepaux (SB): Once again, being my first project ever, I just followed the advice of my friends and assistant director Nicolas Verger, who introduced me to Film Freeway (the main film festivals platform). I had a shortlist of festivals I really wanted to submit to, and expanded to a few others by doing my own research. But I mainly focused on genre & short films festivals..
The Release?
SB: The film premiered at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival a year ago. It hasn’t been released publicly yet, but I intend to do so once the festival run is over.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
SB: Don’t wait for anyone to give you permission or validate you to start creating your own projects! Just do it. I always felt like an imposter (I still feel like one somedays) because I was always like « who am I to direct a movie? », but if you never try, you’ll never learn, and you’ll never know what you’re capable of. Try, make mistakes, try again! There are so many ways today of creating our own projects. Just do it. Stop making excuses..
What’s next for you?
SB: I’ll play the female lead in the horror feature film ‘Schimbarea’ directed by Patrick Corcoran, which is due to come out soon, and which I’m really excited about! As for the directing side, I’m writing on something new that I won’t talk about yet, but it’s in the works 🙂
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