News & Such

Local filmmaker to show movie at Dixie Film Festival

Filmmaker Jarasen Peneguy's short "Sam Bargo and the Lacertilians" will play at this weekend's Dixie Film Festival at the Morton Theatre.

The first time an audience saw Jarasen Peneguy's first movie, they were evaluating his senior project at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The second time around, the Winterville resident will show his short to the audience at this weekend's Dixie Film Festival at the Morton Theatre. The annual film fest was the first to accept Peneguy's piece, "Sam Bargo and the Lacertilians."

"I'm really excited because I now know my work is festival worthy," he said.

Peneguy, 23, spent almost a year shooting and producing "Sam Bargo." The Oglethorpe High School alum worked with a classmate to write and execute the 10-minute film, which will be shown with several other shorts at the Dixie Film Fest at 6:45 p.m. Saturday.

The movie follows heroes Sam Bargo and Laurie Linderman as they get swept into another dimension where aliens kidnap them. They ultimately work against the alien stronghold as they try to find their way home.

This is a period piece set to take place just after World War II, but only the costumes give that away. Besides the color, the movie plays tribute to science-fiction movies from that era.

"It's a science-fiction piece inspired by the serials of the 1930s and '40s," he said.

Peneguy is a big fan of those serials, the precursors to the B-movies of the next generation. Like many of that formula, his film ends with a cliffhanger that leaves the audience wanting more.

Should enough people want more, he already is working on a script for a feature-length film with the same aliens. This time, he tells the story from the aliens' point of view.

Apparently, they feel overworked and underpaid.

"It's a satire of the working class," Peneguy said. "It kind of looks at their everyday life. I'm hoping to get enough funding to where I can make it."

"Sam Bargo" is a good first step, he said. Before he received his acceptance letter from the Athens film festival, a festival in Savannah turned him down. Now, he has entered the short into several other festivals.

"This has given me motivation to keep working," he said.

Peneguy's film leads off the Dixie Shorts segment of the festival. The Dixie Film Fest opens at noon Saturday with a showing of "Defining Beauty," a documentary that follows five women with disabilities on their journey to the 2010 Ms. Wheelchair America Pageant.

Before the shorts, "Love Thy Enemy," an Atlanta film, will put the audience in the shoes of a detective who has to analyze his own life after he finds out his girlfriend has been murdered.

The evening concludes with "White Knight," a comedy starring Tom Sizemore. Sizemore plays a racist who ends up in prison with a Mexican cellmate and ultimately falls in love with a Mexican woman.

On Sunday, the filmmakers will host a meet-and-greet at Trappeze before the Morton's silver screen lights up again for a full day of movies and shorts.

For a complete schedule, visit http://www.dixiefilmfest.com



Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, September 18, 2011
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/091811/liv_887118819.shtml

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