Already winning awards on the film festival circuit, Prairie Dog, written and directed by University of Lethbridge new media professor C. Blake Evernden (BFA ’09, MFA '15), has been picked up for worldwide distribution by ITN Distribution Inc.
The monster adventure has already been awarded Best Actor and Favourite Feature at the Northern Frights Festival, Best Fantasy Feature at the Genre Celebration Festival, and Best Fantasy Feature at Motor City Nightmares Festival. Working with ITN Distribution Inc. means it won’t be long before fright fanatics can see this film outside the festival setting.
“Their current plan is to study the film from a marketing perspective, work with the trailer and artwork for the film, and then proceed to domestic and foreign sales,” says Evernden. “They are estimating a domestic release sometime early next year, although foreign sales could happen sooner.”
ITN Distribution Inc. is a leading independent film distribution company specializing in high quality, genre and star driven independent films for domestic and international markets. They’ve chosen Prairie Dog to be one of the only 24 films released this year. ITN connects with all major North American retailers and rentals such as Red-Box, WalMart, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and more.
Prairie Dog can be seen at many film festivals over the next six months including the Underground Film Fest which will show the film in Munich, Germany, UK, US, Vietnam, Cameroon, and Thailand until December 2016 with the possibility of extension to May 2017.
“I’m still waiting on about 25-30 festivals over the next six months,” shares Evernden.
Prairie Dog, originally Evernden’s master’s thesis, first premiered on February 11, 2016. The feature length film was modelled after monster movies from the 1950s and took over two years to make. Audiences can see Evernden’s detailed work in creating prosthetic creatures by hand while also spotting familiar U of L alumni and faculty including Doug MacArthur (drama), Daniel Howard (BFA ’13), John Bowers (BFA ’03), and Carly James (BFA ’13).
Check out the Prairie Dog trailer and prepare to be scared.