By: Virginia Schneider
Mammoth Lakes, CA (The Hollywood Times) 03/02-05/2023 – Over a dozen world premieres showcased at the 2023 Mammoth Film Festival in one short weekend. Audiences saw the World Premiere of What Did Deborah Do? From actor, writer and director Julius Ritter, and starring Carmen Serano (Breaking Bad, Runaways) the film follows a young screenwriter, recently released after a stint in a mental institution who seeks closure for the incident while squeezing in a few more delusional antics along the way.
Some Other Woman premiered Friday night, headlining Friday Fright Night a staple of the fest. Directed by Joel David Moore (Avatar, The Way of Water) and starring Amanda Crew, Ashley Greene-Khoury, Tom Felton, Rick Fox, and Brooke Lyons, the thriller follows woman whisked away to a tropical island for her husband’s work, later she encounters a strange woman who takes her life where the reality begins to unravel.
Another World Premiere Friday night was the horror thriller Night Shift starring Phobe Tonkin, Lamorne Morris and Patrick Fischler and directed and written by Benjamin China and Paul China. Tonkin portrays a woman working her first night shift at a remote motel, who begins to suspect that the property is haunted.
Mammoth Film Festival
The Mental State, from Director James Camali takes place in the heart of rural Kentucky, where a high school senior and his family struggle to cope with the true identity and intentions of a dangerous town shooter. The drama features Alyssa Sutherland (Vikings, Devil Wears Prada), Bryan Greenberg (Friends With Benefits, The Mindy Project), Carly Pope (Quantum Leap, Pretty Little Liars).
Another highly anticipated film was the crime drama The Engineer based on a factual Israeli story directed by Danny A. Abeckaser, starring Abeckaser and Emile Hirsch, alongside Robert Davi, Omer Hazan, Angel Bonanni, and Kyle Stefanski.
The festival’s closing night film, Dreamer, starring Diego Calva (Babylon), Ari Lopez, Renata Vaca, Afredo Castro, Paulina Gaitan and Jason Patric, is inspired by a true story from the Golden Globe winning producers of Argentina 1985. A Mexican teenager’s dreams of becoming a soccer star are disrupted when his mother dies. He’s smuggled across the border with the promise of a better life but is instead sold to a sweatshop in downtown LA.
Other films premiering to packed houses included On Fire, Rise, Beach House, Julie Last Name, Blueberry Hall, For Good, All Their Worth, Oyakodon, Takbir and Dreamer.
