Manassas professor produces thriller film

An original film produced by Kathryn O’Sullivan will be shown tonight at 9:30 p.m. at the Old Town Theater on King Street in Alexandria.

O’Sullivan, a drama professor at the Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College, will show the premiere of her movie, “The Fugue,” at that time.

“The Fugue” is a thriller about a young graphic designer living in Chinatown who is haunted by the spirit of a dead childhood friend.

O’Sullivan served as executive producer and her husband, Paul Awad, was writer, director and editor. The couple live in Reston.

The movie was filmed last summer in the Washington metropolitan area.

Several NVCC drama students or former students appear in the film: Carole Bellacera, Tina Cipara, Evan Shaw and Nicole Underwood of Manassas; Jared Mehraban of Bristow; Harold Demas and Raj Sandhu of Centreville; Kawan Karadaghi of Herndon; Jacob Yet of McLean; and Bob Martin of Sterling.

Sandhu, a former student, said “I had roles in a few plays as a student at the Manassas campus and that got me interested in writing,

producing and directing. I worked on ‘The Fugue’ to get experience for my own project which I’m currently filming. Being invoved with these projects is exciting because you’re doing what you love.”
Two other actors, Summers Askew and Rebecca Kiser, were cast from the Center for the Arts in Manassas.

“The idea for ‘The Fugue’ first came to my husband, after watching a number of Asian new wave horror films and their American remakes (‘The Ring,’ ‘Shutter,’ etc.) Paul wanted to see if he could create a story that incorporated the Chinese mythology of some of these films while giving the story an American origin.

“We had made several short films and screened them at festivals and wanted to see if we could meet the challenges of making a feature flim on a microbudget ($15,000). Since many of our students are also interested in making films on low or no budgets, we knew we could bring whater lessons we learned back to the classroom,” said O’Sullivan.
Admission to the premiere is free.

O’Sullivan added, “Additionally, Paul and I were intrigued by the idea of setting the film in D. C.’s Chinatown. The D. C. area has great locations and a wealth of actors and crew. In fact, we employed many of our former students from Northen Virginia Community College and The Art Institute of Wasington.

The principal shooting took three weeks and the couple have spent the remainder of the time since last summer in post-production.

“We are pleased with how the film turned out and look forward to having an audience see it this month for the first time,” O’Sullivan said.

For more information, call 703-464-5709.