Two Moscow filmmakers earned a recent nod from Cannes for a film made in their hometown.
Partners Martin McGreevy, 30, and Jace Wrigley, 26, co-wrote and directed the film “Mar” accepted in May to the Short Film Corner at Festival De Cannes.“It’s been a great honor,” Wrigley said about their film’s inclusion in the international festival.
Wrigley said they were told the Short Film Corner receives 8,000 to 10,000 submissions from around the globe each year and about 10 percent are accepted. Theirs was one of about 1,500 accepted to the
2016 festival. Anyone who attended Cannes could view the film.
“We could have actually attended the festival but financially it wasn’t feasible for us,” Wrigley said.
Made for $50, the 10-minute film was shot in the Moscow area last January and is about a mysterious healer, played by Eve Weston, who struggles under the weight of her powers (see the trailer here). It is the filmmakers’ second project together. The first was a comedic web series called “Savance,” which is on-going with the latest episode released this week.
Wrigley and Martin are self-taught filmmakers. For Wrigley, the
Cannes seal of approval shows they are on the right track. The two recently moved back to Moscow after living in New York City. Both graduated from the University of Idaho, McGreevey in 2010 and Wrigley in 2015. Their film company is called Arthur Uhlrich Productions.
They plan to make “Mar” into a feature film this winter, Wrigley said. In the meantime they are focused on “Savance,” a fictionalized version of Moscow based on stories from their lives and the lives of their friends cataloging “the weirdness of a little town in Idaho.”
New episode announcements can be found at facebook.com/savanceshow.