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First here’s a quick recap on what this is all about, for those who missed last week’s announcement:

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival titles have been announced in the various categories, and so we now know who made the cut. But what about those many thousands who submitted their films and didn’t get in? If you’re one of them, here’s a chance for you to let us know who you are.

For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at the Festival will be world premieres.

So really somewhere between 1% and 3% of total submissions were selected. Those are minuscule numbers. So that also means that there are roughly 97% of you remaining, with projects that didn’t get into the festival. And YOU are the folks we want to hear from!

Of interest to those of us on this blog (see the name and tagline of the blog at the top of page if you’re new here) are films by and/or about people of African descent. So, if you or your film fit the bill, we’d love to hear from you!

At the very least, it’ll be great just to know you exist, so that we can become familiar with you and your work, and track from here-on.

So, if you agree, feel free to send me an email to obensont@gmail.com, with all the vitals about you and your film, and we’ll go from there.

We posted the above last week, and since then, I’ve received several emails in response. I’ll begin highlighting those that match the above criteria today, starting with this one, titled Caught In The Shadows, from director Dion Lack, and writer Twilla Amin Tanyi.

I’m especially a fan of psychological thrillers (and other more fantastical genres like sci-fi, horror, fantasy) – genres that seem to have been mostly ignored by black filmmakers (based on what I see on a daily basis – from what’s being released in theaters, on DVD, VOD, etc, to the many emails I receive every week alerting me to upcoming projects); so this one caught my eye right away, if only for that reason, based on what I know of it. I haven’t seen the entire film, so I can’t offer any informed commentary on, or any critique of it. When I do watch it, I’ll update this post with my thoughts.

In the meantime, here are the deets:

“Caught in the Shadows” delves into the life of Roni who at the surface seems to have it all together; a great job, a nice house and great social life. As we follow Roni throughout her day, we see her engaged in her work and socializing with her friends. However, we also notice that someone or something has taken residence in her home or at least we think that Roni is not alone.

Actress Danette Wilson stars as Roni.

The filmmaker tells me that Caught In The Shadows was recently screened at the 20th Annual African Film Marketplace & S.E. Manly Film Showcase in Los Angeles over the weekend. It was the film’s first official screening, and the plan is to continue sending it out to film festivals; so it may come to a film festival near you.

Here’s the trailer:

Dion Lack

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