Here's a 12-minute short we totally overlooked when it screened at the SXSW Film Fest last month. Not only did it screen, but it was the winner of the Jury Award for Best Short Film. The Chair, helmed by Grainger David, centers around a young teen dealing with his mother's death, his grandmother's obsession with an old recliner, hence the title The Chair, amidst the chaos and confusion caused by a mysterious poisonous-mold-outbreak in the small town he lives in.

Synopsis:

THE CHAIR is the story of a mysterious outbreak of poisonous mold in a small town, and one boy's attempt to understand his mother's death, his grandmother's obsession with their discarded recliner, and the roots of this short-lived, strange, and inexplicable plague.

The Chair stars newcomers King Hoey and Khari Lucas. The film just won the 1st Prize King Award and the Wasserman Directing Award at the NYU First Run Film Fest.

While looking up the filmmaker's website, it looks like for the past two years, David has been working on a screenplay adaptation based on the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book titled The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by author Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat centers on the journalists involved in the Civil Rights Movement. I will certainly be on the look out for any developments regarding that project.

Anyways, I wish I would've caught this short at Austin last month. Oh well, here's the very intriguing and beautifully photographed trailer below.

THE CHAIR – TRAILER from Grainger David on Vimeo.