If you're goth in Houston, then Remi Award-winning director Henry Grevemberg wants you to meet him this week for a chance to be in his latest film. It's called SAPI3N, and it's a Harlan Ellison-esque journey of genetic manipulation. The script is available online, as is a brief novelization. Frankly, the whole thing makes as much sense to me as a screen door on the TARDIS, but Grevemberg isn't someone who deals in the conventional anyway.
He calls the film gothic slipstream.
"Gothic slipstream is a term I semi-coined, a best fit for the material," said Grevemberg via e-mail. "Slipstream is a form of sci-fi -- Wiki description: a kind of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction/fantasy and mainstream literary fiction. SAPI3N is inspired by Tarkovsky's Stalker, which is a sci-fi, but present day, paranormal, real and fantasy combined.
"The approach I take to all of my material is gothic, existential. Anne Rice has a lot to do with this (the Louisiana mystique), as well as movies such as Stalker, Ingmar Bergman's films, etc."
Grevemberg is a self-funded artist looking to utilize the particular gothic settings available in the South in order to build a production team. A Louisiana native, he will also be hosting auditions in Lake Charles and in New Orleans.
Interested parties should contact Grevemberg via e-mail at hgrevemberg at sapi3n dot com. Auditions will be held Wednesday, May 23, at the Alden Hotel.
Grevemberg's previous work includes the 2005 short documentary Loss of Trust, which explored sinister land practices in the oil industry. The short film danced the line between journalism and dark performance art in a way that distinguished Grevemberg as a man with a particularly spooky vision.
A read-through of SAPI3N reveals a mind that works in bizarre and innovative ways. If you dare the doors of the Alden, be prepared to abandon normalcy. Shooting is scheduled for fall, with a film festival circuit release penciled in for 2013.