EARTHLING a HIT at SXSX!  At  Dallas International Film Fest, April 8 - 18!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's me in blue and glasses with fella Texan Stacy Cunningham in Clay Liford's sci-fi thriller EARTHLING (starring Rebecca Spence, at left).  Check it out at www.everythingcomesfromthewater.com.

 

* *By JOE O'CONNELL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Dallas filmmaker Clay Liford dares you to call /Earthling /anything but

pure science fiction, but it's indeed much more. The arty feature film

marks him as a shooting star in the state's independent-film galaxy. 

/Earthling /premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival this past

week and also has been selected to screen at the Dallas International

Film Festival in April. This comes on the heels of his comedic short,

/My Mom Smokes Weed/, screening at the prestigious Sundance Film

Festival in January.

Liford, still putting the film's final pieces in place when we spoke

recently, said /Earthling /is "about a group of people who realize after

an accident occurs that everything they thought about themselves is

false, perhaps a cover-up for another life." 

If that sounds as much art-house introspection as sci-fi fare, it's no

accident. Liford made his cast and crew watch John Cassavetes' 1976

gangster genre-buster, /The Killing of a Chinese Bookie/. "I wanted to

merge two things I love that you don't often see together: interpersonal

drama shot in the Cassavetes way, and science fiction, which seldom gets

any respect and is often action-driven . . .," he said. 

It's a line Liford knows well. He's a respected director of photography

for hire with more than a dozen North Texas-shot films under his belt.

"I don't have any other viable skills," the Berkner High and University

of Texas grad said. "If I wasn't doing this, I'd be working at Blockbuster." 

Liford sees two strains of independent film coming out of North Texas as

well – the ones set on making art and those aiming to make a sure

profit. "The guys who are making the quick-buck films are making the

cash," he said. "Again, those films are paying my salary, too, so I

can't complain."

He looks back to the '80s television series /Night Flight/, writers like

Philip K. Dick and a slew of challenging films including Terry Gilliam's

/Brazil/, David Lynch's /Eraserhead /and David Cronenberg's /Scanners

/as inspiration.

A next film is already funded and ready to go, this time a comedy about

a high school teacher who is regularly beaten by students but is too

embarrassed to complain. 

After that, Liford will return to science fiction for a bigger-budget

film he'd earlier had to shelve about a future where advertising

agencies battle it out for real.

Check out an in depth interview and CLIPS from EARTHLING on www.io9.com!

AND ... soon to be released SPILT MILK!

Award-winning director Blake Calhoun was at the helm of (title may change?) SPILT MILK, an ensemble comedy about a hostage situation gone bad in an all night grocery store.  That's me on the right with fella misfit Sue Rock.