Reprint: BILLY PALMER, a character bio

Dude!!! What the fuck?! Cool, huh? I mean .... like, yeah ... where you goin' now, cuz I was thinkin' like, I don't know, maybe doin' somethin' like, shit ... you know, like, maybe I will, you know, cuz it's possible to, like you know ... get there from here ... you know? You okay with that? ... Cuz if you're not we don't have to, you know, we could maybe get it together to hang out somewhere else with them, you know, so don't sweat it if you're not sure yet, cuz we can decide like later, man, you know?

Huh? Vicky? What the fuck, she's great, man, old ball and chain, right? But you know, like what the fuck, right? Neutered, right, males, right, married men, like ... fucking women and shit right? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, right? Yeah, my mom was all like, you know, .... "Vicky Palmer! That whore?!", hahahahahahahahahaha, like look in the mirror, you know, right? She's a fuckin' saint, my mom, right? Not!

In highschool, man, that's when I got hip to her shit, like you know. Yeah, right? Had to work twice as hard for old Richy-Rich man Lessiter, right, lazy old farts on his crews, right, it's construction, right, I'm like sixteen and some old fat ass says like, right in my face, right, like I'm s'pose to know or somethin' right, "Slow down kid, no one's gonna fire you while old Lessiter's nailin' your mom." ... Just like that, right, I mean, what am I s'pose to do with that, huh? Like fuck you, dickhead, your daughter's blowing guys for quarters in the boy's bathroom, scumwad, like right? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Nah ...I don't believe it at first, right, but you notice shit, like, you know, secret shit, and I know it's true and shit so I shut the fuck up to save the old man, right, drunken piece a shit, and I take care of the little guys while she's out, right? Shit ... you know ... but I'm over it, man, like who fuckin' cares, right? History, right? The old man's dead, she's with Lessiter now, and Thanksgivings a bitch, right? ... But ... like .... I got vicky, right? Like what the fuck ... maybe we can, you know do some shit like later, man, okay like ... you know, right?

Reprint: THE DRIFTER

Ice blue flames flick the darkness, sharp edges bite at the dawn, the chill. How long now ... another few days I expect, till I face the past to see if there's a future there. I write in this small notebook, its leather binding now worn and rough in patches, spattered and splotched, liquid's history marks its cover with a heiroglyph known only to sprites and water daemons. I chronicle the events of my time in hiding, running from the grumblings of a war whose face I wear.

White men fight over economic subsidies, a president fights to align his constituents, all under the banner of the abolitionists cry, and yet ... they ALL hate us. Hate that we're the reason for this unrest, this anger, this ' nigger ...' animals, trainable, not educable. My people grow their food, wipe their asses, craft their civilizations, and we're the ones who are the beasts? They brought us here, flesh eating cattle, couldn't breed the fight out of us, the history, the memories as stories back to thatched huts and tribal fires, warriors ... and now that our presence has placed challenge to their collective morality, we are again to blame. The irony of it. What is fair after all? We the people ... ALL men are created equal ... according to someone's gods.

Who am I in this changing America? Born a free man to a Placee. Raised handsomely on funds deeded to us by a white father whom I call 'Sir' and 'Mister', a man who hears "Father" and "Papa" from white children elsewhere, in a world where I am not known, not welcomed. Where do I fit now that all distinction of class and money have gone, our way of life so irrevocably altered by this war to come. Any man may put a saddle on my back, a bit in my mouth and claim me as property. Some of our people will fight with the Confederacy, a futile effort to preserve the old ways of money and pastime. We men of color who have also owned our brethren. How must we pay for this? I run.

One aches for home. The smell of the river water at low tide when the mossy greens, the dark secrets of its depths, lay naked to the sun. Fish stews musky with bayou herbs, the lilt of Patois, sinister magic in spiced air, strains of a banjo companioned by lapping water, creaking wood, crickets bowing small fiddles ...

A free man. I will remain a free man ... by the waning flames of this small warmth carved out of night into day ...

Reprint: ANNA

It was snowing. There was a fire in the fat bellied stove, a chubby baby in the basket at her feet, her hands in rhythmic concentration, repeating a pattern with hook and yarn, an everyday industry requiring no thought, so her mind wandered weaving unconscious spells, benedictions Anna wondered where he was ... Harry, where they laid him to rest. She hoped there was a view. Harry liked a view. A hillside on a rainy day when the mist rose up off the back meadow, hovering its invocation over the bee stung monardas and yarrow. Blessing it.

"Magic happens in the mist ..."

He'd whisper, as if he'd known the sacred words that unlocked those mysteries and measured them out in careful deliberate doses, not to awe, but to admire. He'd mezmerized her always. His small gallantries when no one else could hear, as if it were a secret only they would share. All her life she'd known he was her destiny, she'd recognized him, from somewhere deep inside, the memories embedded so long ago, she can't remember the time or place, just the longing. It took him a while to come around to the truth of it, chastising and chiding her for speaking her truth about them, for saying intimate things that made him wince and think, in that time before he'd come to recognize her as well.

Then he'd seen her. One day crossing the meadow in her flannels and frills, picking flowers, and talking to herself as if it were the most normal thing in the world to hold considered conversations in first person. She'd seen him then, and smiled. It pierced his heart, the simplicity of her, the truth she spoke so darn scary and deep its irritation worming its way into his heart. Before he knew it, her truth became their truth, for he truly could fathom no one else filling him up the way she did with her questions and wisdom, her hand in his.

And then he was gone. All their hopes now hers alone. There was the child, and there was Edmund, gifts from God. Religion an institution she had not abandoned though the Lord had set her such a hard burden to bear, she'd have missed the social life.

Anna pulled at the ball of yarn suspended through the arch of the child's basket. The ball nestled next to the flanneled baby swaddled there, a turtle on its back, all four appendages dancing toward that moving thread, eyes popping at the teardrop prisms off the lamp, and sometimes startled by something unseen just past his mother's head. She wondered if he saw spooks. The old folks always spoke that way, as if the ghosts of the dead were part of living. She had to admit to having seen shadows at the fringes of her sight, her thoughts, and sometimes to hoping it was Harry come back to her. To them.

Jack was a strong baby. The Stokes were sturdy stock. They were cousins to her kin, but then everyone in Cedarsville and its outlying lands had a claim to the founding families. Anna had come from two towns over to visit Stokes Farm with her mother and father one bug nettled day. Someone's wedding, or christening. She'd not wanted to come all that long way by carriage and then a hot walk across the meadow, boiling in Sunday frippery, to the old farmhouse by the pond. She was eight, after all and would have preferred climbing a tree. She'd sat under a one instead, frowning, shooing away the gnats and that pesty little kid Edmund who'd started poking at her the minute they'd met.

Then she'd seen him ... Harry Stokes. He was 15, dressed in long trousers, and she knew she'd known him forever, that they'd made promises, somewhere, sometime, that only she'd remembered ...

The fire popped, boots scraped on the back porch, Anna startled from her reverie. She looked around her to what is, and smiled, ready to greet the man who has rescued her from ridicule and shame, who has taken another man's baby as his own, whom she has grown to love and trust and would never hurt for anything in the world. For all that was Harry was lost, its archeaology buried deep in the lining of her soul, to be mined in another time. This life it would be Edmund, he had earned it.

Reprint: HARRY AGAIN

Married ...?! I must've misunderstood. While I was busy dyin' Anna was marrying my cousin Edmund? There was even a child now, the conception of whom I didn't even want to consider. The familiar pain in my chest flared again, the feel of that Confederate's knife twisting the truth deeper into the already damaged organ. Anna was married, and not to me.

I Stayed around the farm the better part of a month, I thought to win her back, finding time alone with her, reminding her with the heat of my kisses of promises made and broken, in a vow to someone else, our love a casualty of war. Edmund. My kid cousin, pest, who we let tag along with us, endured his endless questions and the moony way he'd look at Anna like she was a dish of Aunt Oneida's fresh peach ice cream.

When he left me to die on the battle field I chalked it up to fear and inexperience. Everyone else thought I was a goner, why wouldn't he? But now it took on a sinister tone. I watch him now with fresh eyes, the way his hand rests with ownership on Anna's back, the way he cannot meet my eye or shake my hand, the shut bedroom door, the child who should have been mine ... Had this been his plan; to get me out of the way and make Anna his own? It was improbable. It was ...

I left the day she took my ring off. As long as she was wearin' it there was hope. And then ... there was nothing. Nothing but an endless stream of tomorrows far away from the place I had always planned to turn up my toes, my loving wife and a passel of babies with babies of their own gathered round, tears and fond memories. There have always been Stokes in Cedarsville ... but they won't be mine. My future stretches out on an endless road to somewhere else. I could not stay in Cedarsville and watch my cousin live my life, with my wife.

I headed west.

There's always somewhere to hang your head and drown your sorrows.

Reprint: HARRY; COMING HOME

When they found me at Cedar Creek, that battlefield in Virginia, I was pushing out my last breath,

"Anna ...".

There was pain, in my chest, as if my heart was broken,

"Anna ..."

They heaved me onto a pile with the dead, and near dead, sure I wasn't gonna make the night, too many others with a better chance of seeing the sunrise. Come the dawn the pile of bodies on top of me had grown, I must have welcomed the warmth, until I decided not to suffocate instead of bleeding to death, the pressure of all those bodies above having stemmed the flow of my life's fluid enough for the wound to close up a mite on its own.

It took me near an hour to work my foot out into the open enough to wiggle it sose someone might notice. I could hear the voices of the medics, and walking survivors, calling for the living. I hoped someone might pass my grave and notice that the meter of my foot was different from those of the twitching corpses. It occurred to me that a regular rhythm, some synchopated measure, might serve,

'Oh! Susanna ...' I tried to hum it in my head, while bobbing my foot in time to the beat, my feeble voice muffled by the cloth and flesh tomb.

I thought back to Anna and me dancing to that song, old man Finkbbinder on fiddle, poncy Billy Ofsteder singing full tenor. I'd change the name to "Oh, Miss Anna ..." and whisper it in her ear all soft and secret. She'd catch her breath, and tell me not to hold her so close, it was getting hot in there ...

"...Oh don't you cry for me ..."

My cousin Edmund watching us, ignoring sweet Helly who followed after him like a lapdog.

"... Miss Anna, don't you cry ..."

My foot alone in the air, the rest of me crunched under meat sacks of blood and excrement in what use to be the living, singing that song.

"Over here!!"

A voice boomed near by. I felt the pile jostle overhead and the pressure give way to a gunsmoke clouded sky. I thought maybe it was heaven.

I woke up again in a dungy hospital tent to some grizzled old man, smeared in blood, digging a horse needle into my chest

"Aaaaaggghhhhhh ....!!!

There was something in my mouth, I bit down hard, grateful for a place to revenge the pain. Someone splashed me with liquid, liquor by its smell, and then I was gone again until I came to much later in more pain then I knew anybody could have and live. I thought about Anna, she was what I was livin' for. The look on her face when I dragged my sorry ass back and walked her down the aisle of the reformed church we'd been worshipping at since we were children.

I lived for the soft of her skin, the memory of the warm wet between her thighs the one time she had let me in, when I'd told her I was heading off to war. How we'd repeat that bliss after making a pledge before the preacher and the rest, make us some sons and daughters ... there have always been Stokes in Cedarsville. The thought of Anna made me pray to live instead of wishing I was dead. Anna was worth living for.

It took longer than I'd hoped. Everytime I'd get near well enough to make the journey home, I'd push too soon, and land myself in some flop house nursing a fever and an abcess. A spinster lady took me in up in Maryland, or was it Delaware. Said she was only doin' it in the hopes that some other woman was doin' the same for her men folk on the road home from war. It took almost a whole year to make it back to Cedarsville, and when I rounded that bend down Schooner's Lane, named after the ship builder turned farmer who'd settled the land along with the Stokes men back around the time a Henry was king in England, by the time I turned that corner and saw the farmhouse, well, I thought my aching heart was like to burst with joy. I was finally home, almost to Anna ...


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

REPRINT: SADIE'S FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE FARM

Sadie spent her first holiday back on the farm alone. Grandma was there, but she didn't talk, just sat, propped in her wheelchair, staring at nothing. Moving with assistance, Emmeline Stokes could transfer her weight from one warehoused position to the next, offering no emotion to the event. Sadie wondered what she was thinking ... where had she gone so far away in her head while her body was maintained on the farm. First by Mrs. McMichael, Emmeline's oldest friend, whose brood had all grown and moved away from Cedarsville in search of the bright lights and big citiness of Manhattan, an island so far out of Lily McMichael's realm of thinking it might well have been on Mars instead of just 2 hours down the Thruway.

But Lily had dropped dead of a heart attack on her way to bring Emmeline her supper. So Sadie was sent a telegram by a social worker, and she'd left her quiet librarian's life in Lorain, Ohio, where there was nothing much to hold her, to come home and see to things. There was no one else to do it. But Grandma had been a shock.

Emmeline, Sadie's Grandma, had married onto the Stokes farm the summer she was 17. Abner, that was her husband's name, Abner Stokes was 30 when she caught his eye. He'd been married before, but that wife had been barren and then she dried up and died on him at least five years before Emmeline filled out, right in front of him. Her dad had owned the dairy farm down the road and she was always taggin' along after her brothers. Then giggling with her friends walking past Abner's barns. And finally whooshing by in the souped-up cars of teenaged boys. It had been too much for Abner to bear, his imagination was wild with raw images of flowers wrenched from their stalks before the blossom had bloomed. So he'd married her and they'd had Violet and not much else.

Sadie couldn't remember her Grandma whole. Violet, her mother, lit out off the farm as fast as she could. She'd dragged Sadie, the lovechild of a boy who'd never come back from Nam, and headed west for glamour and the movies, for which she knew she was destined. They ran out of money in Lorain, Ohio and Violet died there many Marlboros and MaiTais later. Leaving Sadie alone to clean out her drawers and rent her mother's room to make ends meet.

Sadie'd flirted with that other life, the one of booze and barstools she'd inherited from her mother, which resulted in several small tatoos and waking up to men who held no interest by daylight, no real joy at night. There had to be something more to life. Something like the adventure of the novels into which she escaped. But so far life's journey held nothing more glamorous then picking out a container for her mother's cremains, and then figuring out where she'd have wanted them spread. She knew her mother would not want to be locked in a box, but rather floating in the ether of something grand. Sadie had taken a trip to Cinncinnati and dumped Violet into the Ohio River, where she'd swirled away, a grey-green mass, sinking on her way to Kentucky.

But, like I said, Grandma had been a shock. Sadie had seen pictures after all, and heard stories of someone powerful and vibrant and alive. "Not enough room for the two of us ...!" Violet had always said. Sadie assumed this meant personalities. Personality was what Violet had a lot of, and Sadie had known to diminish her own to make room in the small house, or it would probably have exploded. But Grandma just wasn't there. No personality at all. Like a window onto nothing. It had been a great disappointment to Sadie.

She had so looked forward to belonging to something larger than every day. But Grandma was just maintenance ... in the beginning. Sadie started poking around the old farm house a month or two after she'd set up a routine for Grandma with Mrs. Palmer, and gotten herself a pocket-money job at the used bookstore in town.

Town. One block of not much. There were the weekenders who brought the exotic with them up from New York City and looked down their noses at the trades. There were the regulars who roamed the town; Dollar Bill, the homeless guy who they say walked out of his office on Wall Street straight up the Henry Hudson, landing in Cedarsville, in the same suit, now shredded and dirt caked, the Windsor knot of his tie holding his collar together. His parents had had a house there when he was small. It was where he'd been happy.

There was a Busy-Body, who owned the dress shop down the street. Gender dubious, She liked bouffant hairstyles, rhinestone glasses, and sold a mix of kitch and boutique. Her companion was a troll-man, who everyone knew was a woman, also known as the Gossip. She could be relied upon to recall the salacious events of Cedarsville, no matter the era, and made the most godawful smelling linament, which worked really well, but could clear a room. Sadie wondered what President Bush would make of this heterosexual couple.

And then there was Henry. Henry Becker, whose mother, Abby, had been the only person Violet could tolerate in that small town, so the stories of little Henry Becker were tinged with a magical charm, and the mandate to look after Violet Stokes's girl was inherited. Henry had showed up at the bus the day she arrived with her small suitcase of treasures, the rest of her life not worth the freight. He'd driven her up to the farm house, took her in to meet Grandma and Mrs. Palmer, and she hadn't been able to get out a word. Not a single word. Nothing seemed good enough to say to him, this special and rare beast who had come so suddenly upon her in this wooded place. She wanted to be her best self for him.

This had never happened to her before. She could talk. Have conversations. Though she rarely did. Henry had been something else. He was a seismic event. The heat rushed to her face, her chest got tight, and all the words rushed from her head ... all she wanted to do was throw her arms around his neck, give her mouth to his, feel his hands on her ... but she could never find the path, the words, which are the normal road to such events.

Henry had awakened something in her. When she set presents for Grandma and herself under the small tree she'd sawed down and decorated with the red-glass ornaments she'd found in a dusty trunk, forgotten reflections of a warmer time in the old farmhouse, she gave herself a present from Henry. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a green velvet ribbon, a ribbon her mother had given her to wear in her ginger hair at a piano recital when she was 12 ...

She didn't need to open it, she knew what it was. So she stared at it, wondering how she would react if it had really come from him. Well, because it had really come from him in a way, its spirit. She knew her cheeks would flush with color and she'd smile without being able to stop herself as her fingers fumbled with the ribbon, too pretty to let go to waste, looking up at him as he watched her, waiting for her impetuous delight ... when she'd fling herself into his arms laughing at the small scrap of old paper on which he'd written but a single word ..."Hope?".

Sadie smiled, blushing as if it were more than her fantasy. It was enough.

HAPPY-MERRY!

RACING DAYLIGHT Races Heart Beat

Lorna London Sloukji
BellaOnline's Entertainment News Editor

Racing Daylight races heart beat

"I always knew I would end up insane," says Sadie Stokes, one of the protagonists in Nicole Quinn's Racing Daylight.

A story that encompasses ghosts, murder, passion, and love, Racing Daylight unfolds three stories, told from three different perspectives.

The first story shown is Sadie's, a lonely woman living in the country who takes care of her sick grandmother. Played by Melissa Leo, Sadie's life becomes saturated with colour and adventure when she sees a man in her mirror that calls the name "Anna". Sadie then begins to act out as her ancestor, Anna exemplifying characteristics of boldness, much more different than her original personality.

We learn that Sadie and Anna both want Henry, played by David Strathairn, the farm's handyman who "Anna" mistakes for Harry, her lover.

We also see the love and mystery story unfold through Henry's perspectives. Played by David Strathairn, Henry's storytelling unravels his relationship with Anna, leading to another man in Anna's life, which then results in yet another perspective. Edmund's story discloses even more information, as viewers learn more about Anna, the two men in her life, and what happened to her to cause such inner turmoil.

Award-winning writer and theatre director, Nicole Quinn makes her feature film directorial debut with Racing Daylight, a story rich with plot and character development.

Reviews for Racing Daylight have commended its narrative structure, performances, and overall presentation.

"Excellent work!" says director, Seret Scott. "Every element (cast, crew, designers, editors, writer-director) everybody was completely on-board in making (this) moving, frightening, visually stunning film."

Writer and director, Nicole Quinn endured many hardships including losing loved ones. She wrote Racing Daylight amidst all the rapid changes in her life, declaring this screenplay as "a map through the then unknown land of grief."

Is this another chick flick? Another love story with complex characters? If you enjoy symbolism, question your haunting past, or wonder about the transcendence of time, then Racing Daylight is simply a great film full of colourful characters, astounding performances, and a solid screenplay.
"If you don’t mind that some things in life are not readily explainable, then this may well be a journey you’d like to take," says Quinn.

Racing Daylight released on DVD December 23, 2008.

WHY RACING DAYLIGHT?

My mother died in august of 2000. My brother informed me, at her funeral, that he had four months to live. He lived six. Three months after he died my sister was told that the goiter she'd had removed the year before had been mispathologized and that she actually had a rare form of cancer; medullary carcinoma of the thyroid; from which she died after two years of multiple surgeries and numerous drugs.

I wrote RACING DAYLIGHT in the midst of this life changing season. It became a map through the then unknown land of grief. A place everyone visits and from which some never return. I knew then that I would make this film, it seemed so important.

Many will watch RACING DAYLIGHT and see the quirky characters, the sweet small town, and the lack of overt sex and violence and think of it as a 'girl' movie. And to that I reply, what's wrong with 'girl' movies? 52% of our population are female, and yet we talk about cinema targeted at this segment of the population as if it is second class by virtue of its 'girl' or 'chick' moniker. Its content often the stuff of life; love, loss, hope ... is a 'dick' flick (thank you, Gloria Steinam for the phrase) with guns, bombs, violence, and in-your-face pornography somehow more accurately reflective of the human condition? Is this the world to which we aspire? I hope not.

It is hard to get a film made. For men and women. It is even harder to gain distribution. Thank you VANGUARD for seeing our film as a story, well crafted, well told, and peopled with amazing actors. It's a subtle ride, so if you're looking to be hit in the face with fast paced action, this may not be for you. BUT ... If you are compelled by subtlety. If you like puzzles. If you don't mind that some things in life are not readily explainable, then this may well be a journey you'd like to take.

Come visit us in Cedarsville. The countryside is beautiful and the ghosts are friendly.

RACING DAYLIGHT FEATURED IN NETFLIX TOP TEN DVDS RELEASE LISTS

MovieJuice: December 23th 2008 New Releases!!
Mainstream Releases 12-23-09 {16}
robowriter new dvds 12-23-08 +starter+ {29+}
New DVD Releases 12/23/08
New DVD Releases 12-23-08

Also Featured in the following Top 10 lists:
Phatz' New DVD Releases 12-23-08 {44+} CURRENT
*CURRENT* New DVDs week 12/23, +27th {54 Titles}
Mainstream Releases 12-23-09 {16}


*All lists on Netflix

EXTRA SCREENINGS AT ROSENDALE!

Uncle Tony and Michael Cacchio have advertised our film as screening at the ROSENDALE THEATER TUEDAY, WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY 12/16-12/18 5PM.

We'll be there! Will you?

Racing Daylight review from Kansas City Star, A'n'E Vibe!

Rating: unrated

DVD RELEASE: December 23rd 2008

4 Stars

Reviewer: Deborah Ground Buckner

Writer and director Nicole Quinn tells a haunting Southern story in Racing Daylight. The film is three short films together, each presented from a different viewpoint. When they are viewed in their entirety, they become pieces of an intricate puzzle uncovering a story of lost love and attempts to regain it in another lifetime.

In Sadie, Sadie Stokes (Melissa Leo) has returned to Cedar County to care for her Grandma (Leclanche Durand) nearing the end of life. “There have always been Stokes' in Cedar County,” but Sadie and Grandma are the end of the line. Sadie has a crush on Henry (Academy Award-nominated David Strathairn), her grandmother's handyman, but she can't get a word out in his presence. One night, Sadie sees a face in her mirror, a man who calls “Anna!” then disappears. Sadie learns the gossip of her ancestor, Anna, who left her husband, Edmund, and their son to run away with Edmund's cousin, Harry. Anna begins to take possession of Sadie, bringing out a new side who shops for fashionable clothing and becomes the aggressor in her relationship with Henry.

The second film of the trilogy is Edmund. Set in Civil War time, the costumes and settings recreate the period, nicely aided by haunting fiddle music. Edmund's story of life without Anna is told, as he lives with his mother and young son. Just as Sadie, in the present time, found herself haunted by spirits of the past, Edmund, in the past, is haunted by Sadie's return to the present time, seeing glimpses of Anna in her movements. The concept that different times exist simultaneously and face these intersections is enthralling.

The third film, Henry, returns to present day and gives Henry an opportunity to relate his feelings for Sadie and his observations of her behavior as Anna casts her spells. David Strathaim's portrayal is wonderful, bringing a gentle, but intelligent folksiness to Henry whose quiet life of labor and memorizing Civil War facts is turned upside.

Without announcing from the beginning it is a mystery, the film becomes one, gradually fitting together the clues and culminating in a moment of resolution and redemption. It is a moving experience, a mix of pathos and humor, just as life has always been through the ages.

OUR FIRST DVD REVIEW!

Racing Daylight

By Ed Grant -- Video Business, 11/10/2008
VANGUARD
Street: Dec. 23
Prebook: Nov. 14
> Unconventional chick flick toys with time-travel.


A clever variation on Akira Kuro-sawa’s Rashomon, this time-traveling romance presents three points of view on events in present and post-Civil War America. The film is smartly scripted by director Nicole Quinn, but its strongest suit is its cast. Melissa Leo (Righteous Kill) plays the schizo lead character, a present-day woman who has hallucinations that she is her 1860s ancestor. The superb David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) steals the picture as the man she loves in both eras, who solves her dilemma when he turns into a third-act narrator who explains most—but not all—of what we have seen.

Shelf Talk: Racing Daylight is hard to categorize, but it is most like memory and time-travel chick flicks The Lake House and The Notebook. Target female viewers looking for a slightly offbeat “timeless romance” with a comfortably happy conclusion.

Drama, color, NR (nothing offensive), 83 min., DVD $19.95
Extras: none
Director: Nicole Quinn
First Run: DVD premiere

RACING DAYLIGHT OPENS S.N.O.B. FESTIVAL!

Thanks for inviting us!

S.N.O.B. Invited us to become friends and to submit our film through MYSPACE. It proves it works, this self-promoter friendly medium, the internet.

As independent filmmakers, with product to sell, niche markets to woo, we're always looking for event screens. We don't have a P&A budget, which we will have the next time around, enough at least for a stockpile of screeners and niche festival entry fees.

That's been our great revelation. If you're not married to the traditional model of theatrical release, and then on to ancillary markets, and are clear about where and who you think your audience is, (especially if your film straddles genres) you can drive your film towards that audience, see if it flies, sort of test drive it for potential distributors.

Straight to DVD is not the failure it once was. It used to be 'actors' wouldn't do tv, it was seen as a a comedown. Now some of the best work is on tv. The advent of cable as a player forced a more competitive market. If theatrical is only the commercial (taking into account the blockbuster exceptions and Hollywood accounting), the independent filmmaker only inflates the cost of the film by venturing there, and yet needs the exposure in order compete for viewers. So much product, so many choices.

The internet and its social interacting networks have become clear avenues of distributing information to niche consumers.

Grass roots audience building for us. And until the walls of restricted access are built, one can still pioneer in cyberspace.

RACING DAYLIGHT ON NETFLIX!

It's the little tings. I have to say, it was quite a thrill when our movie poster came up on Netflix this morning!

Our official DVD release date is December 23rd, all the usual places are taking pre-orders and we will be selling off the site as well.

We will be screenigng at the NEW YORK FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL - NEW YORK on September 19th - Village Cinemas East at 6pm.

And again in Brooklyn on September 28 LIU's Kumble Theatre with REEL SISTERS OF THE DIASPORA FILM FESTIVAL AND LECTURE SERIES.

We are so proud to be screened by both of these wonderful organizations.

RACING DAYLIGHT ON DVD DECEMBER 23, 2008!

We have delivered our film, photos, artwork, and bts to Vanguard Cinema Ineternational who plan to release it in October of 2008. We are proud to be associated with Vanguard. Look for us! Just in time for Christmas ... The perfect stocking stuffer.

www.independentfeatures.com

So we've entered another online film festival; www.independentfeatures.com. We tried Babelgum but asked to be removed because they only ever loaded two of our three films, which didn't play properly, and they had the audacity to promote some films on the home page and not others. Both Sophia and I (mac and pc users) could not load the viewing instrument. Once the festival was up and running we could get no response from any of the coordinators re: our technical problems. Here's hoping this is a smoother run.

We would certainly like our DVD release through VANGUARD CINEMA INTERNATIONAL to have some exposure. Please visit: www.independentfeatures.com view our film and vote often!

Other venues where RACING DAYLIGHT may be viewed in the coming months. Please contact us for details:

MOLLY'S LOFT, Brooklyn, NY
APPLE CHICAGO, 7/08
CHILDREN'S MEDIA PROJECT, Poughkeepsie, NY, 7/08
CATHERINE'S BACK YARD, STONE RIDGE, NY July 2008
ROUND LAKE AUDITORIUM, ROUND LAKE, NY, July 25.
WESTCHESTER BACKYARD FILM FESTIVAL, July 2008
TRIBECA COMMUNITY CENTER, NYC
JUSTIN'S HOME, Maryland
EVANS-ROBERTS' BACKYARD, New Jersey
MANHATTAN PLAZA COMMUNITY ROOM - NYC
FILM LOUNGE - London
DIGIFLICKS- world premiere movie
DELAWARE COUNTY ARTS ALLIANCE - (date pending)
MARKET ARCADE, BUFFALO - (date pending)
NORTHWEST CONNECTICUT COMMUNITY COLLEGE (date pending)
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND EU Cultural Capitol Celebration 10/08

DISTRIBUTION!!!

We have just signed a USA DVD distribution deal with Vanguard International. With plans to release our film-that-could in the fall we are continuing our grassroots theatrical release with screenings at Apple stores, colleges and universities, living rooms, community centers, libraries, backyards and any other venue which will let us hang a sheet and project our love child. Please watch for us as the world premiere feature online on DIGIFLICKS.

Thanks to Vanguard for taking us on. We know that we are a quirky film. We also know that to our niche audience we have become a comfort film. Repeat viewing is the norm and I'm proud to say that many of my film fanatic friends number RACING DAYLIGHT among those films they have on a special shelf. Those films they watch over and over again because they like spending time in those worlds. Thanks to all of you who have visited Cedarsville. To those of you who come back often, it's nice to see you again. And if you've never been, well, it's an easy detour, not very far off the main road, the folks are nice, the food is fresh off the farm, and magic happens with regularity. The door is open, come on in.

APPLE CHICAGO!

We've been invited to screen at the Apple Store on N. Michigan Ave in Chicago! Thanks so much to the Apple Programmers at the Soho store who have given us good marks. And thanks to Marissa Flaxbart and Patricia Thomas, the Chicago programmers for liking what they heard. We are grateful to all of those who are willing to showcase a film made by a team of artists without industry backing. These screenings are our theatrical relelase, helping us create an audience for our 2008 dvd launch. We hope to be in the windy city in June.

Onward!

RACING DAYLIGHT SEEKS SCREENING HOSTS WORLDWIDE!

RACING DAYLIGHT starring Melissa Leo, Academy Award nominee David Strathairn, Jason Downs, Giancarlo Esposito, Sabrina Lloyd, and LeClanche Durand. 3 short films tell one story in two different time periods. A quirky ghost story, murder mystery, a love story which crosses time. what happens when time collides?

In an effort to grow our grassroots audience for a 2008 dvd launch, we will hold screenings in living rooms, community centers, libraries, etc ... worldwide. We will send you a dvd with postage paid return if you will host a screening of 20 or more people; potluck, big screen tv, on a sheet in the yard, anyway you like to watch movies. In return all we ask is that you gather at least 20 working email addresses for our sales list and any interesting comments we can post on our viewer response page.

We will also be available(director, producer, cast, and key crew members pending availability), for post screening q&a(s) either in person, if we can drive there, or by phone (we will pay the charges).

Please drop us a line at info@racingdaylightthemovie.com if interested, so we can add you to our map. Power to the people!