Progeny, Short Film, Review And Interview

Science fiction has had several looks at symbiotic relationships. They have been about willing participants. In Progeny the host is not so willing. In this story there are is also the included depth of dealing with political issues.

Progeny screened at the 2019 FilmQuest film festival (website). It was nominated for Best Screenplay (Kenda Greenwod Moran and Justin Daering) and Best Supporting Actor (Hans Christopher). It won for Best Student Short.

I recommend Progeny for science fiction fans, if nothing else to see a twist on the symbiotic relationship, but there is more good stuff packed into this short film.

Synopses

When a blue-collar man is forcibly implanted with his alien boss's parasitic offspring, he asks his wife to help him remove the parasite—a dangerous and forbidden act that puts their marriage and their lives at risk

The director, Justin Daering, shares what inspired the film and his filmmaking career. Along with that, he shares about what else he is working on and other things he likes to do when not making movies.

What was the inspiration for Progeny?

I was thinking about how frustrating it is to have so many men legislating women's rights for situations they are never going to have to face themselves, and I wanted to see a story where a man was put in that situation. I had also recently read Octavia Butler's Blood Child, and was inspired by the combination of the body-horror style I liked, with a more humanistic/dramatic narrative. I pitched my early idea to Kenda (Greenwood-Moran), my co-writer, and she helped me develop it into a real story.

What project(s) do you have coming up you're excited about?

We have a TV version, and a feature film version of Progeny that myself and the writer and producer of the short are shopping at the moment. Both scripts are great, the TV one gets into more world-building, whereas the feature goes deeper with the characters than the short allowed for. Kenda and I also have two other sci-fi features we are working on. I may also be directing a feature drama that a friend of mine wrote this winter.

What was your early inspiration for pursuing a career in film?

I have loved movies my entire life. Whenever I would see a film as a kid I would go home playing like I was in that movie, pretending to be Batman or The Ninja Turtles whatever I had just seen. I thought at first I wanted to be a painter because I found images so powerful, and then later a writer because I found story so meaningful, and then later an actor because I found performances so moving. But it was in high school when I started fighting with my theater directors over the directions they were giving to the other actors, that I realized the job I really wanted was theirs. So I started making films during my sophomore year of high school, and I haven't stopped.

What would be your dream project?

I have a large, world-building, science-fiction script that I want to make more than anything else. Nothing makes me feel as alive as imagining that world coming to life. The script is titled Resonant System, and it's my dream to be able to make it someday, but it's a big movie. To do it right, it would need to be on the scale of Star Wars or Avatar. So that's my Everest.

What are some of your favorite pastimes when not working on a movie?

I really enjoy seeking out rare films or rare versions of films. Recently I was able to get a copy of a "grindhouse" scan (dirty, degraded film with no clean up) of an original 35mm print of George Lucas's THX-1138. The last unaltered version commercially released was a laserdisc, and so this scan, despite its messy quality, is still much more detailed than what is commercially available. It's a film I really enjoy, but even more, I like the feeling of having something rare. That used to be more common, when you had to have physical media to watch something. Now, having something rare is rare, which I guess makes it more special, in a way.

What is one of your favorite movies and why?

A film I have been studying recently is John Boorman's Excalibur. I think it does a fantastic job of creating a sense of myth. It's an impersonal, soup to nuts chronicle of King Arthur. It's not especially psychological, it's very episodic, all traits antithetical to contemporary film tendencies and all subsequent versions of the Arthur story. But what it does do that none of those films achieve is create a sense of mythic grandeur. People take customs and beliefs with life or death seriousness, and the pageantry and presentation of the world feels like part historical reality, part Wizard of Oz. The more I watch it, the more I find it enchanting.

You can find out more about Progeny on

• IMDb (link)
• Website (link)
• Facebook (link)
• Twitter @WithdrawnAFI
• Instagram progeny_movie

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