We featured the fundraising campaign for this project a couple of years ago, in early 2013 – one whose description really intrigued. It did eventually surpass its goal, raising over $46,000, and, earlier this year, made its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) as part of the "Signals: What the F?!"-themed section, which should be an indication of what to expect.
Titled "The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes," from writer/director Nancy Andrews (her feature debut),.the filmmaker describes it as an "original indy, musical, animation, schlock-opera, science-fiction, micro-budget, alternative dramatic feature film."
Rotterdam called it a "cinematographic marriage between ‘mad-scientist’ Hollywood dramas from the 1930s, and juicy B-films from the 1960s – with an eccentric strong female scientist as protagonist, for a change." And, given this blog’s specific interests, I’ll add that this "eccentric strong female scientist as protagonist" also happens to be black… for a change. It’s rare that peculiar films like this star actors of African descent, without the fact that they are of African descent being of any influence on the story/film. They just are.
The film stars Michole Briana White, an actress who’s been around for a while, but who we just don’t get to see quite enough of, given her talent. You might remember her from her work on TV ("100 Centre Street," "Reed Between the Lines") and in Film, co-starring role in Ava DuVernay’s "I Will Follow," as well as in the Viola Davis/Jennifer Lopez action/drama "Lila & Eve" and can currently be seen in "Reed Between the Lines" – the former BET series that was moved to Centric for its second season, which premiered on September 18, 2015.
Here’s a brief synopsis for "The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes": After a near-death experience, Dr. Myes, researcher in the science of perception, attempts to graft animal senses to the brain in order to revolutionize human consciousness. She must face the consequences when she uses her own body and mind as a research tool and transforms herself into a creature with super-senses."
Michole Briana White of course stars as Dr. Myes, in a project that promises something quite fantastical, and I’m looking forward to the challenge that I’m expecting will be the experience of watching it.
A week ago, it was selected as 1 of 10 projects for the IFP’s first annual Screen Forward Labs – a yearlong fellowship for content creators with story-driven, serialized projects. The program ran from November 9-13 at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center, supporting innovative content creators with $10,000 worth of services and support over the course of a year. Under this program, the film will be turned into a web series.
Over the summer, it won the Outstanding feature award at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City.
The above poster was used to advertise the film in Poland, where it screened at the New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw in August.
A fun new teaser-trailer for the film has been release and is embedded below:
