On October 3rd Rising Up: the Story of the Zombie Rights Movement, directed by Laura Moss, made its New York City premiere at the Coney Island Film Festival, playing in a sold out block to an enthusiastic crowd.
I've been an attendee/participant at the super fun, well-run CIFF for the past several years, and this year's Block 6 (which preceded the fest's official horror block but contained several horror/comedy-ish films) was one of the most solid programs I've seen at this or any other film festival. But even with all that strong competition, Rising Up was still a standout...
Rising Up is a History Channel-esque documentary spoof chronicling the troubled hippie- and beatnik-led fight for the rights of the nation's undead. It sort of occupies that same world presented in Fido or at the end of Shaun of the Dead, where zombies have been begrudgingly accepted into society as product testers or menial labor, but are still second-class citizens, one shamble away from further marginalization or possible extermination by a world that fears them. With a clever script by Brendan O'Brien (husband of the director), Rising Up presents its narrative through academic talking heads (one of whom is played by Kevin Allison from MTV’s “The State”) and "archival" footage. DP and editor Hugh Mackey does a great job making the protest footage and Civil War-era photos look authentic and the documentary reenactments appropriately cheesy. And of course there are zombies galore, designed by Moss (who is also an fx artist) and yours truly, Jane Rose.
Rising Up is streaming live through the month of October on Crackle.com. Info about the movie can be found at www.risingupmovie.com.
This film looks great, and me being in NYC am slapping myself for missing it! My friend (and one of the stars of my own zomcom movie, Eat Me!) Jun Naito had his own short zombie film playing at the CIFF as well. It's a spoof on '28 Days Later' called "8 Days Later" (http://www.8dayslatermovie.com/). I wonder if they played together -- it would've made a great companion piece to 'Rising Up' from the sounds of it!