Michael Mongillo is an American feature film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for the 2007 mockumentary Being Michael Madsen, [1] [2] the 2017 supernatural mystery Diane, [3] and the 2021 sci-fi thriller The Changed . [4]
Michael Mongillo is an American feature film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for the 2007 mockumentary Being Michael Madsen, [1] [2] the 2017 supernatural mystery Diane, [3] and the 2021 sci-fi thriller The Changed . [4]
Mongillo founded Mean Time Productions in 1997. [5] The production company credits include the Shriekfest award-winning psychological horror The Wind (2001), the sci-fi dramedy Welcome to Earth (2005), [6] [7] the mockumentary Being Michael Madsen (2007), the supernatural mystery Diane (2017), [5] [8] and the sci-fi thriller The Changed (2021). [9] His work has screened worldwide, including the Raindance Film Festival, the Denver Film Festival, [10] San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Screamfest, [11] FrightFest London, [12] and the New Filmmakers Series, receiving positive press from The New York Times , Variety , BoxOffice, Fangoria , LA Weekly , Time Out, Film Threat , Londonist , and others. Mongillo has also directed several shorts, music videos, and commercials.
Mongillo co-founded the annual New Haven Underground Film Festival, which was launched with Todd Dzicek in 2004. [7] In 2009, Mongillo spearheaded its rebranding as the Maverick Movie Awards and, with Dick Boland, engaged in forming a diverse network of entertainment industry professionals to participate in this international “filmmakers honoring filmmakers” cooperative. Its exponential growth precipitated Maverick Awards for the films Sound City, The Imposter, Downloaded, The Maiden Danced to Death , and more celebrated features and shorts. Mongillo departed the MMA in 2013 to devote more time to his pursuits as a filmmaker. [13] [14]
In 1993, Mongillo wrote the comic book The Philistine and co-creator Michael Zittel illustrated the series. The super-spy-turned-superhero saga was originally distributed by One Shot Press, which went out of business after publishing only three of the six issues in the mini-series. The Philistine was revived a decade later by United Comics and the original mini-series plus several subsequent stories were released as a graphic novel anthology in 2003. In 2012, Mongillo created and wrote the graphic novel The Lost Girl with artwork by Rob Ten Pas. This fantasy-horror romance was originally released by Arcana Studio and in 2015 it was republished in Heavy Metal and digital. [15]
Along with Chris Wiedemann (vocals/guitar), Bobby Judkins (drums), and John Thudium (guitar), Mongillo (bass) was a founding member of the Rock band, 50 Feet Tall (a.k.a. Fifty Feet Tall), [16] a mainstay of NYC's original music scene in the '90s. Band highlights include a release on Deep Elm Records with positive reviews from Alternative Press, CMJ, Hits, Magnet, and more. [15]
| Year | Recipient/Nominated Work | Event | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | The Changed | Award This! | |
| 2022 | The Changed | Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards | Best Independent Film Nominee [19] |
| 2021 | The Changed | Screamfest, Los Angeles, CA | Competition Selection [11] |
| 2021 | The Changed | FrightFest, London, UK | Competition Selection [20] |
| 2021 | The Changed | New York City Horror Film Festival, New York, NY | Competition Selection [21] |
| 2021 | The Changed | South African Horrorfest, Cape Town, South Africa | Special Selection [22] |
| 2018 | Diane | Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards | Best Independent Film Nominee [23] |
| 2017 | Diane | New York City Horror Film Festival, New York, NY | Competition Selection [3] |
| 2017 | Diane | FrightFest, London, UK | Competition Selection [24] |
| 2012 | Mockumentary Retrospective: Being Michael Madsen | New Horizons International Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland | Honoree [25] |
| 2009 | Opening Night Feature: Being Michael Madsen | Dances With Films, Hollywood, CA | Honoree |
| 2008 | Being Michael Madsen | Mockumentary Film Festival, Hollywood, CA | Best Director [26] |
| 2008 | Being Michael Madsen | Faux Film Festival, Portland, OR | Audience Award [26] |
| 2008 | Being Michael Madsen | San Francisco Independent Film Festival, San Francisco, CA | Competition Selection [27] |
| 2007 | Being Michael Madsen | Denver Film Festival, Denver, CO | Competition Selection [28] |
| 2007 | Being Michael Madsen | Raindance Film Festival, London, UK | Competition Selection [29] |
| 2007 | The Lost Girl | Shriekfest Film Festival, Hollywood, CA | Best Screenplay [30] |
| 2006 | Welcome to Earth | WorldFest Houston, Houston, TX | Bronze: Remi Award |
| 2006 | Welcome to Earth | Bare Bones International Film Festival, Muskogee, OK |
|
| 2003 | UnSeen (with James Charbonneau) | Shriekfest Film Festival, Hollywood, CA | Best Screenplay [31] |
| 2002 | The Wind | Bare Bones International Film Festival, Muskogee, OK | Best Picture: Horror/Sci-Fi [32] |
| 2002 | The Wind | Valleyfest Film Festival, Knoxville, Tennessee | Competition Selection |
| 2001 | The Wind | Shriekfest Film Festival, Hollywood, CA | Best Picture [33] |
| 2001 | The Wind | Dances With Films, Hollywood, CA | Competition Selection |
Michael Søren Madsen is an American actor, producer, director, writer, poet and photographer. Known for playing "charming, careless, terrifying bastards," he has starred in many films and television series, frequently collaborating with director Quentin Tarantino, most famously in the latter's debut film Reservoir Dogs.
Chris LaMont is an American professor, screenwriter, and independent filmmaker who co-founded the Phoenix Film Festival in 2000 and is currently the President of the Advisory Board for the non-profit Phoenix Film Foundation which he founded in 2000. He has produced and directed several independent films, including Film Club, My Apocalypse(film), Netherbeast Incorporated, The Graves, Justice Served (film) and Postmarked (film).
Screamfest Horror Film Festival is a horror film festival founded by film producers Rachel Belofsky and Ross Martin in August 2001. It runs over ten days during the month of October and is hosted at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Los Angeles, California. In 2015, the festival celebrated its fifteenth anniversary and has been credited as being the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States. The 2016 Screamfest was from October 18 through the 27.
After Dark Horrorfest was an annual horror film festival featuring eight independent horror movies, sometimes with "secret" bonus films, all distributed by After Dark Films in the USA. The first HorrorFest was held in 2006.
Thomas Edward Seymour is an American filmmaker and actor.
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Being Michael Madsen is a 2007 comedy film directed by Michael Mongillo and produced by Daniel A. Sherkow. The film takes a mockumentary approach in re-imagining actor Michael Madsen as a paparazzi-hounded movie star who hatches a revenge scheme against a tabloid journalist. The film co-stars Virginia Madsen, David Carradine, Harry Dean Stanton, Daryl Hannah, Lacey Chabert, and Debbie Rochon.
Lake Mungo is a 2008 Australian psychological horror film written and directed by Joel Anderson and starring Talia Zucker and Martin Sharpe. It employs mockumentary-style storytelling with found footage and docufiction elements, using actor "interviewees" to present the narrative of a family trying to come to terms with the drowning death of their daughter, and the potentially supernatural events they experience after it.
Shriekfest Horror Film Festival is a film festival specializing in the horror genre. It is the longest running horror festival in Los Angeles. In 2017, Shriekfest expanded to include an Orlando, FL festival location.
Spike is a 2008 horror-romance film directed by Robert Beaucage, produced by String And A Can Productions, and starring Edward Gusts, Sarah Livingston Evans, Anna-Marie Wayne, Nancy P. Corbo, and Jared Edwards. The film has been described by Robert Hope as "Angela Carter rewriting La Belle et la Bête as an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
The Dead Inside is a 2011 musical horror film that was directed by Travis Betz. The film had its world premiere on December 20, 2011 at the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival and was released to DVD on November 20, 2012. It stars Sarah Lassez and Dustin Fasching as a young couple that must deal with supernatural along with their own personal demons.
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Diane is a 2017 American supernatural thriller drama directed by Michael Mongillo, who also produced the film and wrote the film's screenplay. The film stars Jason Alan Smith, Carlee Avers, Margaret Rose Champagne, and Dick Boland. It was produced by Mean Time Productions and distributed by Random Media.
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Friend of the World is a 2020 American black-and-white dark comedy film written and directed by Brian Patrick Butler in his feature film debut, starring Nick Young and Alexandra Slade. With the tone of an absurdist stage play, it is structured like an episode of Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone and pulls from inspirations such as John Carpenter's The Thing and Chris Marker's La Jetée. The surreal experimental film takes place post-apocalypse after a devastating war. A young filmmaker emerges from the destruction in an old bunker and discovers a military general who claims they are the last two people alive. There has been debate about what genres define the film; it has been categorized as a psychedelic film, a surrealist film, and an end of the world film.
The Black String is a 2018 American psychological horror-thriller film created by Brian Hanson and Richard Handley, starring Frankie Muniz, Blake Webb, Chelsea Edmundson, Richard Handley, Cullen Douglas, Colby French, Laura Richardson, and Mary K. DeVault.