10/7/2009 -

Photo courtesy of Putnam family

A film made by Asheville resident Aaron Putnam for his senior thesis in Western Carolina University’s motion picture and television production program has been selected to screen at an annual international film festival in Spain during the first two weeks of October.

Located on the Costa Brava south of Barcelona, Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia is considered the most important festival for fantasy, science fiction and horror films, said Jack Sholder, director of WCU’s motion picture and television production program.

“Every major filmmaker in these genres has had their films screened there, from Steven Spielberg to Quentin Tarantino,” Sholder said.

Putnam’s film, “Strigoii,” is about a town attacked nightly by a fierce creature, and three people who must decide whether to let a friend who is trapped outside into their house.

“Every time I discover such talented young blood as Aaron Putnam, it makes me shout out loud, ‘I love my job,’” said Angel Sala, director of the Sitges film festival. “Aaron Putnam compresses in a few minutes what made us all love horror movies.”

Putnam, who graduated in May, said “Strigoii” was a film that he wanted to do since before he attended WCU. “The idea went through many different changes,” said Putnam (shown above right). “The biggest influence on the film was from a writing exercise in Terry Curtis Fox’s screenwriting class. For the assignment, I wrote a short about a man trapped outside a house while a vampire was hunting him. It turned out to be so good that I based the final version of the film on that assignment.”

The process included eight drafts, numerous cuts and a reshoot of the ending, all with one-on-one faculty mentorship. For two weeks during Putnam’s senior year, students and faculty in the stage and screen department worked on sets, costumes and other elements for senior theses. “The entire stage and screen department considers senior thesis projects to be like play productions,” said Sholder. “Everyone who worked on Putnam’s film is from WCU – all the actors are from the theater program, and the music was developed by students from the electronic music program.”

After spending a year and a half producing and shooting “Strigoii,” Putnam said he has been looking forward to attending Sitges. “A film festival is a place for filmmakers and producers to network in hopes that new talent is discovered,” Putnam said. “The motion picture and television production program has helped me become confident in my abilities as a filmmaker. When it comes to making films, I now trust my own judgment.”

Sholder, who won the special jury award at Sitges 20 years ago for his feature film titled “The Hidden,” said he had hopes for Putnam’s film from the beginning. “A lot went into this film, and I had a feeling that if Aaron could pull this off, he’d get into festivals,” he said.

Organizers of the Sitges festival agree. “For the director and me, the real thing, what really makes us wake up every morning, our true kick, the reason we go to the office every day, is that magic moment – when you open that brown envelope out of a pile of literally thousands of short films from all around the world applying for the festival and then you pray,” said Mike Hostench, co-director of the Sitges festival. “It is like a ritual, repeated ceremonially again and again. You pray for this being the one, the one that will really make you feel the same sensations you had with all the classics you came to love. And once every half a thousand viewings, it happens. ‘Strigoii’ was exactly that.”

Putnam will keep a blog while at Sitges at http://puttingputtputts.blogspot.com/.

For more information about the motion picture and television production program, contact Sholder at (828) 227-2324 or visit motionpicturetv.wcu.edu. 

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Last modified Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009.