We featured the fundraising campaign for this evolving project 3 years ago, in early 2013 – one whose description really intrigued. It did eventually surpass its goal, raising over $46,000, and, in 2015, made its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) as part of the “Signals: What the F?!”-themed section, which should be an indication of what to expect. It went on to screen at several other film festivals around the world
Titled “The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes,” from writer/director Nancy Andrews (her feature debut), the filmmaker described it as an “original indy, musical, animation, schlock-opera, science-fiction, micro-budget, alternative dramatic feature film.”
Rotterdam called it a “cinematographic marriage between ‘mad-scientist’ Hollywood dramas from the 1930s, and juicy B-films from the 1960s – with an eccentric strong female scientist as protagonist, for a change.” And, given this blog’s specific interests, I’ll add that this “eccentric strong female scientist as protagonist” also happens to be black… for a change. It’s rare that peculiar films like this star actors of African descent, without the fact that they are of African descent being of any influence on the story/film. They just are.
The film stars Michole Briana White, an actress who’s been around for a while, but who we just don’t get to see quite enough of, given her talent. You might remember her from her work on TV (“100 Centre Street,” “Reed Between the Lines”) and in film, co-starring role in Ava DuVernay’s “I Will Follow,” as well as in the Viola Davis/Jennifer Lopez action/drama “Lila & Eve” as well as on “Reed Between the Lines” – the former BET series.
Here’s a brief synopsis for “The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes”: After a near-death experience, Dr. Myes, researcher in the science of perception, attempts to graft animal senses to the brain in order to revolutionize human consciousness. She must face the consequences when she uses her own body and mind as a research tool and transforms herself into a creature with super-senses.”
Michole Briana White of course stars as Dr. Myes, in a project that promised something quite fantastical. In 2015, it was selected as 1 of 10 projects for the IFP’s first annual Screen Forward Labs – a yearlong fellowship for content creators with story-driven, serialized projects. The program ran from November 9-13 that year at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center, supporting innovative content creators with $10,000 worth of services and support over the course of a year. Under this program, the film was eventually turned into a web series. And that web series is now available to watch online in full.
Per the filmmaker, “‘The Strange Eyes of Dr Myes’ was created with the intent of finding a larger audience for the work; and after a year on the festival circuit, it seemed the best way to do this would be to re-edit the material and release the content as a series on the web. Andrews returned to re-edit the material as a web series with editor, Paul Hill, at the Wexner Film/video Studio in 2016.”
There are 8 episodes and each is about 10 minutes long. Watch the first 3 episodes below; the watch the rest, head over to the series’ website here:
