In development
1917 Montana, an immigrant family battles the deadly Spanish Flu while a life threatening blizzard rages around them.
About the Film
The Pitch
The Director
The Director
Siri Omdal hates her father.
Siri is 11 and that’s how she feels. It’s 1917. All Siri ever wanted was stability in a comfortable home surrounded by loving extended family and friends. Like she had in Wisconsin. And before that, Norway.
Now she’s in the barren, wintery plains of southeastern Montana. Her father brought her, her mother, and h
Siri Omdal hates her father.
Siri is 11 and that’s how she feels. It’s 1917. All Siri ever wanted was stability in a comfortable home surrounded by loving extended family and friends. Like she had in Wisconsin. And before that, Norway.
Now she’s in the barren, wintery plains of southeastern Montana. Her father brought her, her mother, and her brother to a tiny tarpaper shack with a single door that doesn’t shut and whose walls rattle with the smallest wind.
It’s not Wisconsin.
Just days before Christmas, her mother deteriorates, consumed with the Spanish Flu. Father abandons them to seek medical help.
Worse still, he leaves Siri, just 11, in charge of her dying mother, her 8-year-old worthless brother and the farm, promising he will soon return. What insanity would lead her parents to possibly believe someone as young as she was up to this?
When her father fails to return as soon as promised, that promise is quickly replaced by encompassing darkness, raging winds and a seemingly endless blizzard. Her long-cherished dream of the comforts of home, even in this empty landscape, is forgotten.
Siri now struggles with diminishing fuel and food, and her own failing faith.
Siri hates her father, it’s true. But she would love him forever if he would only come back. But before that can happen, if it even does, she must confront her fear and reach deep inside herself to find the faith and the strength she will need to help her family survive.
The Director
The Director
The Director
This is not my first feature film. But it’s my most personal one. I have directed three features (two of which I also co-wrote) and have edited 25 (I belong to IASTE 700, the editors guild). Add to that, I have directed a couple of feature-length documentaries, a dozen documentary and educational shorts, and you can see that I have a gre
This is not my first feature film. But it’s my most personal one. I have directed three features (two of which I also co-wrote) and have edited 25 (I belong to IASTE 700, the editors guild). Add to that, I have directed a couple of feature-length documentaries, a dozen documentary and educational shorts, and you can see that I have a great deal of experience.
As the writer of CAT AND THE TROLLS, I have an MFA from UCLA where I won the Jack Nicholson and Larry Thor Awards. Two of my screenplays were semi-finalists in the Nichols Fellowship.
One of the semi-finalists, TEACHING TOOTS, was purchased by Oscar-winning director Euzhan Palcy’s Flying Antelope Productions.
My screenplay TAKE THE REINS ( co-written with Marsha Pincus and Belle Allen) was just optioned by INQ Spacers and Lovely Day Films.
The Plan
The Director
The Plan
We plan to shoot "Cat and the Trolls" on the very general location where it takes place. In the plains of Southeastern Montana.
For the most part, filming is centered around two main locations; the exterior of the Omdal farm and the interior of the homestead shack.
The exterior is to be built and filmed on location, while the interior is to
We plan to shoot "Cat and the Trolls" on the very general location where it takes place. In the plains of Southeastern Montana.
For the most part, filming is centered around two main locations; the exterior of the Omdal farm and the interior of the homestead shack.
The exterior is to be built and filmed on location, while the interior is to be filmed at a rented warehouse.
I made a short film, the award-winning "Halvor's Radio", a few years back that has served as a dry-run for the feature project.
Cinematographer will be Luis Molina Robinson. Based out of New Mexico, Luis and I collaborated on "Halvor's Radio" and the feature film, "Lean Like A Gangster." We read each other's minds.
Accomplished Scandinavian actors, Annemette Andersen and Aasmund Bride Eike, have interest in playing the mother and father.
Marsha Pincus, CEO of Two Ravens of Santa Fe, will join Patrick Dawson as producers,
Pincus developed "Take the Reins," a feature length screenplay about a young black barrel racer's ambition to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo. "Take the Reins" was optioned last year to INQ Spacers and Lovely Day Films.
She also produced the powerful documentary short "Third Act in Taos."
Patrick Dawson is a Billings, Montana writer, whose books include Mr. Rodeo and Montana Cowboy; Legends of the Big Sky Country. He was a journalist for TIME Magazine.
He also served as a producer and writer on the documentary about the 1989 Montana Centennial Cattle Drive.
As it says on his LinkedIn page: he is "reputed to be ethical, accurate, perceptive, incisive, creative and fearless."
Shooting is to take place over a combined 3 to 4 weeks with a budget of under $200,000.
An animated portion of the film based on the troll drawings of Theodor Kittelsen will be produced simultaneously.