Last summer, I published a “speculative fiction” piece, specifically on author and screenwriter Steven Barnes (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Stargate SG-1 and Andromeda) and his novel Zulu Heart, which is part of a longer series of riveting tales of slavery in an alternate America, to put it broadly.
That was my intro to Steven Barnes’ work, and, as I said at the time, I wish I’d discovered him much sooner.
Barnes is married to author Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep, The Living Blood) – a name I’m sure many of you are familiar with, and one that has come up twice or thrice on this blog, especially when we’ve had discussions about sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction authors of African descent, whose works we’d like to adapted to film.
But to keep this brief and get right to the point, Barnes and Due, who most recently co-wrote the apocalyptic tale Devil’s Wake (currently on sale) have embarked on a new journey – this time one that will see them produce a short horror film based on their original screenplay, titled Danger Word.
The plot:
A 13-year-old girl and her grandfather have survived the zombie plague in his wooded cabin – but her birthday celebration goes badly awry.
The film has already been cast – Frankie Faison and Saoirse Scott will star as the grandfather and the 13-year-old girl. And Luchina Fisher, an award-winning writer and producer of televised docs on B.B. King, the 30-year history of Title IX, and Gladys Knight, will direct.
Due and Barnes have set up a Facebook page (HERE), as well as a website (HERE) for the project, and have launched a fundraising campaign to help finance the film.
The campaign goal is $15,000 which they’d like to raise before a planned Memorial Day weekend shoot, starting on May 25th.
Thus far, close to $4,000 has been raised, so the campaign has about a month to go, and another $11,000+.
Your contributions are strongly encouraged (by us) and I’m sure greatly appreciated (by them). This is a veteran team, with credits, at work here, so the end product should be strong, and I’m looking forward to seeing it eventually, especially as we continue to lament the lack of *genre* films by and about black people.
But first, money has to be raised, which is where you come in!
So watch the couple pitch the project in the video below, and to make your contribution, go to the project’s website which can be found HERE. I put $50 in the pot. But you can give as much as you can. Let’s get this project made!