Plaion PIctures has today confirmed that Lawrence Jacomelli‘s feature directorial debut, the gripping survival thriller, Blood Star, will celebrate its UK premiere at the renowned Grimmfest festival on October 6th, before swiftly transitioning to all major digital platforms starting the very next day.
This dark chiller laced with cutting social commentary, directed by Jacomelli, from a script he co-wrote with George Kelly and Victoria Hinks Taylor, and starring Britni Camacho (I’m A Virgo) and John Schwab (Master of the Air) follows a young pick-pocket who we find driving cross country back to her abusive boyfriend when she is targeted by a small-town Sheriff who shoots her off the road. A deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues and she must use her street-smarts to turn the tables against him.
Rounding out the case is Sydney Brumfield, Travis Lincoln Cox, Felix Merback and Wyomi Reed. The film is produced by Victoria Hinks Taylor and Zaina Tibi and Jacomeli also provides the film’s score.
Commenting on the genesis behind the film, Jacomelli revealed, “We wanted to make a Genre movie and specifically a “Cat and Mouse Thriller”. But we also wanted to make a film that wasn’t just commercial but had a social theme and zeitgeist element to the narrative. At the time of writing there was a news story breaking in the UK, the Sarah Everard case, where a police officer arrested a young woman on the grounds of breaching covid social regulations, and then abducted, raped and murdered her. This was also just a few months after the George Floyd case where a man was murdered in broad daylight by a police officer who arrested him, while being co-operative, about an alleged counterfeit 20 dollar note. After a struggle ensued George Floyd was pinned to the ground and his neck was leant on for over 9 minutes, before he died. Both occasions showed abuse of power, toxic masculinity, misogyny and racism. Both occasions reflected a scenario where the Lawful person should have been the protector, as the US law slogan states “serve and protect”, but instead showed the opposite. It conjured a deep feeling of betrayal, and then incredible vulnerability for so many people, and that became our motivation for our story.“
Actors Britni Camacho and John Schwab and director Lawrence Jacomelli will be presenting the film and conducting a Q&A when the film screens at GrimmFest.
