In each episode, the C.E.O. of WILDsound, Matthew Toffolo, chats about all things storytelling and film. Conversations with talented individual from all around the world.
SHAMDEMONIUM, 6min., USA
Directed by Grace Ann Rathbun
SHAMDEMONIUM is a music video style narrative short film that follows young aspiring actor Barb as she leads up to her final moments alive and her time in the After Life.
https://instagram.com/graceannimation
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EDGE, 14min., Spain
Directed by Abel Moreno Pradas
Locked in, separated by a huge glass and deprived of speech, two people meet without knowing how they got there. Where are the limits that prevent us from acting in unjust situations? Are they physical or are they within us?
https://www.instagram.com/abel_moreno_pradas
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AN ANATOMY OF GRIEF, 15min., Canada
Directed by Anthony Joseph Spatafora
A mother grieving the death of her son while being haunted by his corpse.
https://www.instagram.com/ananatomyofgrief_shortfilm/
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Hannah Ehman chats with actor Patricia Moser on the making of the award-winning film. Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pajomo326/
Follow Interviewer Hannah Ehman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ehmanhannah/
Watch Hannah’s commercial spots: https://www.ispot.tv/topic/actor-actress/bP8/hannah-ehman
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Conversation with directors Hai-Lam Phan, Olivia Mowry, and writer/producer Margaret Cooney from the award-winning documentary film "Asheville is Calling: A Climate Change Emergency"
Extreme weather disasters are becoming more common, more powerful, and more deadly. Today, more than ever, U.S. federal agencies like FEMA that help Americans prepare, respond, and recover from natural disasters need to be fully funded, staffed, and ready to act. Hurricane Helene survivor, Colleen Daly, talks about her harrowing experience both during and after this catastrophic event, and how changes enacted by the current U.S. administration are leaving communities to fend for themselves against extreme weather disasters. Communities deserve better than a government that abandons them when disaster strikes, and refuses acknowledge that climate change is harming people here and now.
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LIPSTICK & LIGHTBULBS, 8min., USA
Directed by Tamara Luisa Hernandez
An evening’s plans are ruined when a roommate comes home a day early.
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THE LITTLE GIRL, 10min., USA
Directed by Tamara Luisa Hernandez
The Little Girl” is a poignant true story of a woman who embraces her identity as a plus-sized woman while navigating the complexities of love. Through her late-night interactions with strangers, she confronts the harsh realities of societal beauty standards, ultimately challenging conventional perceptions of attractiveness.
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A single mother and her teenage daughter living on the south shore of Long Island. Fighting each other to be seen. Living in the conflict of oppression and dominance. Both fighting to win, both will end up losing.
https://www.instagram.com/longislandsouthshore/
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Friday Night Flop, 16min., UK
Directed by Simon Friedberg, Elliott Gerner
A mother tries desperately to reconnect with her estranged daughter.
https://www.instagram.com/fridaynightflop
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TRIGGER, 33min., Greece
Directed by Haris Gioulatos
If you were told there was an organization that could change your life forever, would you go through with the switch. And if so, would you pull the Trigger?
https://www.instagram.com/gioulatos/?hl=en
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DEMON, 18min., USA
Directed by Patrick Torres
https://instagram.com/illuminatingswordsman
What motivated you to make this film?
I’ve always been interested in the fantasy/ heroic journey genre of film and I feel like we don’t get enough of them today. The muse also seemed to dump a bunch of stories into my head without me requesting them and feel compelled to start creating all of the stories I have written so far.
From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
Demon took about 18 months to create mostly due to a big injury on my end and crew setbacks. Nothing ever goes according to plan haha. I also had to learn and play with Unreal Engine for the temple shots which took a great amount of time as I had no prior experience with these types of programs.
How would you describe your film in two words!?
Selfish Hero
What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
Like I mentioned earlier, it was definitely the injury (I fell off a horse but it happened after shooting) and learning Unreal. If not for those 2 things I think we could have done it within 9 months.
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Watch the best scene reading: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/horror-festival-1st-scene-reading-grad-nite-by-sion-raize-interview
While enjoying an overnight celebration at a regional theme park, a group of graduating high school students are targeted by a vicious killer wearing a dragon mask.
What is your screenplay about?
Grad Nite centers around a group of high school seniors on an overnight field trip to a theme park where mutilated bodies begin to pile up.
What genres does your screenplay fall under?
This is a slasher, a horror slasher, with a dash of coming-of-age for depth.
Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
Slashers as a horror subgenre are unique in that nostalgia and familiar beats are expected and celebrated just as much as originality. It's the originality in Grad Nite that is unlike any other slasher you've ever read or seen. These are characters that are sidelined in other stories, taking center stage here, with a unique tone and energy that is patented me (Sion-Raize).
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KNIFE, a 3-minute Micro-Horror Short Film.
A slasher told from the point-of-view of the murder weapon.
Michael Kuciak is the writer-director-editor of DEATH METAL, and the writer-producer of FROM THE SHADOWS (starring Keith David, Bruce Davison, and Selena Anduze). He has directed music videos and short films, including the award-winning horror shorts KNIFE and STAIRS, and served as a producer and executive producer on several independent feature films. Before focusing on filmmaking, Mike was the Senior Vice President of Development for a literary management-production company. He is the founder and CEO of Blast Furnace Media, and a partner of Alt-House Productions. Mike is a reformed musician; he used to play bass in punk and metal bands in his hometown of Chicago. He now lives in Los Angeles.
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Watch the best scene reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8FWeuRhTA
A young man navigates the weeds of dating apps while tending to his makeshift compost pile.
Get to know the writer:
What is your screenplay about?
My goal was to parellel new age dating with, kind of, urban farming or composting. With dating apps, intentions are often vague and can result in so many failed attempts. Often times you can find what you’re looking for without even lookingm in a more natural way. I tried to equate that to something that actually happened to me, when tomatoes started growing out of my own compost pile. Seemed like a fun little juxtaposition.
What genres does your screenplay fall under?
I guess romance and a little bit of comedy? I’d like to expand on this at some point and include more drama.
Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?
I think a lot of people would be able to relate given the oversaturation of dating apps and the dissociation that can accompany that, when the next person is just a swipe away.
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SCALES - THE TIPPING POINT, 40min., South Africa
Directed by Bruce Young
Bruce Young is a deeply curious filmmaker from South Africa who is fascinated by pangolins, an animal on the edge of extinction. Scales is his third film about the animal. This time he is on a personal quest to find out why these quiet, shy, harmless, and yet charismatic little creatures are the most trafficked mammals on the planet. And if there is any hope that they will survive.
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Watch the Best Scene Reading: https://youtu.be/5sBVY0wv-Rw
Awaken the Medium is a feature-length script that follows the story of Maggie Samson, whose latest near-death experience thrusts her into discovering her gifts and powers. Maggie is a librarian in her forties. Married to Chris, a professor, with whom she has a son, Justus Samson, now eleven years old. Maggie arrives at a crossroads, unaware of the challenges and mysteries that await her.
What is your screenplay about?
Grief, family, love, fear, supernatural events, spiritual awakening.
Stanley Kubrick once said - while filming Stephen King's The Shining - 'anything that says there's something after death is an optimistic story.'
Awaken the Medium is a feature-length script that follows the tale of Maggie Samson, whose latest near-death experience thrusts her into discovering her gifts and powers. Maggie is a librarian in her forties married to Chris, a professor, who is rooted in science-based belief, with whom they have a son, Justus Samson, eleven years old. Maggie arrives at a crossroads, unaware of the challenges and mysteries that await her.
In the aftermath of her parents' tragic death, Maggie decides to move her family into a beautiful house. However, soon after they move in, things begin to happen, strange things. Noises, shadows, unexplainable visions, mirages - every minutiae like this becomes so overwhelming that Maggie realizes she must stop the evil forces nested in the house before it's too late and she or her son and husband are harmed.
Maggie meets a medium, Roberta, who helps her acknowledge her gifts. She discovers that she is a medium, a psychic, and a believer, hence the mirages, the telepathic conversations with her son, and the ability to converse with her deceased parents. With this newly found knowledge, Maggie, joined by her skeptical husband, and loyal son, embark on a quest to close the portal to evil she opened, and shut the evil down, once and for all.
This script is loosely based on my near-death experience, and our family's transformation after my parents died.
Awaken the Medium has been described as 'an elevated supernatural thriller which includes multicultural and spiritual intersectionality: Indigenous wisdom, Catholic doctrine, and parapsychology converging to shape the thematic framework. The use of the "liminal veil" as a metaphysical threshold is a compelling symbolic anchor, deepening the narrative beyond a haunted house cliche. The inclusion of generational trauma, grief, and psychic-medium inheritance gives the story emotional weight and thematic resonance.' J.R. Elliott, Script Adviser.
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CARDBOARD, 23min., USA
Directed by Diana Densmore
A neglected young girl builds a cardboard time machine and runs away to the future only to find her adult self in the throes of depression, as the two connect they remind each other of the joy of loving oneself.
https://www.instagram.com/flusshausfilms
Get to know the filmmaker:
What motivated you to make this film?
Alice Prime, the lead actress, had been bugging me to make something with her and my daughter in it for years. So I was trying to write something that would allow them to play opposite each other. The subject matter comes from my own struggles with mental health.
From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you
to make this film? four or five years… I guess Alice Prime (the lead actress) and I started talking about it, and then a year later, I wrote the first draft. Probably, a year after that, we had a shooting script, and we went into pre-production and production in earnest. By the time we were through the whole post-process, it was another year.
How would you describe your film in two words!?
The process of making it? Chathartic chaos. The final project? sweet sci-fi.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
The rest of life is happening at the same time.
What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking
about your film in the feedback video?
It’s nice to hear that people connected with the themes and appreciated the film.
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A dancer and a violinist, isolated yet connected by sound, break and rise through the silence between them.
https://www.instagram.com/_the.duet_
Chat with the amazing creative team of THE DUET. (Director Gica Pucca. Producer Karyante Franklin. Writer/Dancer Kristina Perez)
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Emily, Abby, Dan and Jake, arrive at the remote cabin for a relaxing weekend. After settling in, Jake receives a call and leaves abruptly, expressing concern over a family emergency. Later that evening a hysterical woman, Amber, shows up in a panic pleading for safety. Unfortunately, Amber has led an dark, ominous cult right to their front door.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2243233/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
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Low Roar - Field of Dreams, 4min., Ireland
Directed by Kim Saarinen
"Today I'll be remembered
Tomorrow just a dream
It's not what it seems"
https://www.instagram.com/lowroar/
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-low-roar
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A man keeps receiving strange phone calls from a supernatural presence whilst waiting at a bus stop.
What motivated you to make this film?
I took some time away from filmmaking, and when I decided to come back, I was very conscious about doing it in a sustainable, practical way. Instead of jumping into something ambitious, I wanted to make a contained, execution-focused short that I could bring from concept to completion. That's what motivated me to make Hello. It was also a chance to retrace my creative roots and reconnect with the kind of horror that first shaped my taste, particularly the influence of J-horror. In that sense, the film works both as a proof of concept and a creative reset.
From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
I wrote it around 2012–2013 under the title Boo. It sat with me for years, and in 2024 I found it was the right project to pull off the shelf and develop properly. From there, the actual production was very focused, efficient and smooth. We shot the film in three days, and post-production wrapped in September 2025. So while it took a while, the finished film came out better than I expected, so I'm proud of that.
How would you describe your film in two words!?
Oh fuck...
What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
Post-production was the biggest obstacle. I wasn't supposed to edit the film, but when our editor ran into hardware problems and funding fell through, I had to take over. Going from director to editor is challenging because you lose that outside perspective and start second-guessing the film in new ways. On top of that, the VFX compositing ran into some issues of its own which required bringing in compositors on Fiverr and finishing a good portion of the work myself. It was a very hands-on, problem-solving-heavy post workflow.
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The Ancient Time Piece, 5min., UK
Directed by Justin Walker, Islien Walker
Lily, a teenage girl is stuck in a monotonous cycle, perhaps this is connected to an old eerie clock she found in her family’s basement, a clock that was still ticking when she found it…. how long had this ancient Time Piece been ticking!
https://www.instagram.com/illy_pheebs_productions2012
Get to know filmmaker Justin Walker:
What motivated you to make this film?
My daughter Islien (co-director and lead actress) wrote the short story The Ancient Time piece when she was 11 years old, now she is 13….the short story was published in the compilation book ‘The glitch twisted tales’ which resides in the national library, London UK. Myself and my daughter had discussed making a short film based on her story for sometime… eventually we commenced production this summer.
From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
Haha, well shooting only took 2 days, post production, editing, effects, score sound design took approximately 2 months.
How would you describe your film in two words!?
Time Reflective
What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
Well being amateur/smartphone filmmakers who produce short films on a zero budget you are always working with restrictions and limitations…..often you ‘think’ big during concept/pre production but find in reality you have to work within your means….however you do tend to be more creative due to these restrictions. The major obstacle is finding the time between my full-time job and family life to shoot and complete post production is always a challenge. Obviously there is a challenge in having the final product look a quality piece/semi-professional on limited resources.
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