The Rancor

WATCH THE TEASER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCEqWMKV-A

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your interest in learning more about my film, The Rancor. This will be my first feature length movie, a one-hour Black surrealist fairy tale that follows a writer’s return to Georgia after an Odyssey, only to find out that the place he once knew at home is no longer the same. This is a story that interrogates HERO.ISM. Why the “.ism?” Because we've trademarked hero.ism. There's the “Hero’s Journey” the Hero’s Odyssey, "super-heroes" are all supposed to be saviors and messiahs but what does that really mean? We claim celebrities as heroes, politicians, presidents, but what makes a hero, or who says that they are a hero? Often heroes are turned into legends after death, but a true legend always outlives the person.

I believe that the film industry is a perfect environment to capture all of this because it deals with it face on all at once. The surrealism of it all is coping with realities, fantasies, dreams and ambitions whether they're dark or light. From the beginning I want there to be an ambiguity of what is real and what isn't. And that will be reflective in composition that matches that tone, the environments, the costumes, etc. We will break down the molds of the film industry, Hollywoo, and its legendary recipients of the “American Dream.” We will present and challenge topics in a fictitious, hyper-surrealist spotlight through the eyes of a writer returning home from an Odyssey.
It is reminiscent of real Black horror - from the bones of slavery that began with Zurara’s fictional narratives on the account of Prince Henry the Navigator, the revolution for Civil Rights, and the destruction of the “American Dream.” The movie will dissect real monsters, spawned from myths and legends about basilisks and werewolves, vampires and Wendigos, and giants and dwarves.

And lastly, this is meant to be a character exploration of the people in Georgia and the film industry. It’s a film told through the writer, but following him and the rest of the ensemble of characters through an objective, “God’s Eye” lens. This will be shot documentary in that way where I will have characters moving freely in their respective environments, emerging in and out of shadows, but composition will translate the surrealness of it all through the photographer’s perspective to convey certain emotions. And it will be shot with a hallucinatory “film look” with 35mm film texture to maintain the timelessness of it all to show that some old structures and powers are still the same. The music will represent that too - going from classic 80s synth horror, to 70s fanfare, to futuristic and modern environmental sounds. It will be past, present, and futuristic all at once.

ABOUT ME

My dream of wanting to become a filmmaker started with Steven Spielberg. I read his biography in elementary school, where he would talk of adventuring to strange lands and fictional worlds, and being able to live in them in this thing called moviemaking. And because I also loved dinosaurs, I studied how he made these dreams become reality. What interested me most about storytelling was building worlds and populating them with life. Whether or not you believed someone, or something, was real, you could go through an entire journey and learn something about you, while they learned about themselves.

The pursuit of becoming a movie director required me to relocate to Los Angeles. There, I studied the industry and saw it for what it was: I realized their systems of old had no intentions of changing. But if you want to make yourself profitable, you have to stay truthful to your nature and not conform to an industry that’s going to continue keeping you down.

Atlanta doesn't have that system of old. It requires something new and different.

See you in the New Wave.

-Nathan DuConge

MY WORK

DR FRIDAY : Pottstown has had three disappearances of Black women in a row. An exiled reporter with a heavy past sets out to investigate. A muse is laced to a Sheriff's egregious son. Told like a classic noir tale, find out #whoisdrfriday. Winner of the Audience Award for "Best Sci-fi Short" of Something Wicked Film Festival, Silver Award for Independent Shorts Awards, Winner of IndieX Film Festival for "Best Web Series/TV Pilot."

EDEN : A supernatural web series following a teenage girl with magical abilities as she moves to Eden, California with her mother to start anew. Little do they know, they’re being hunted...

NIRVANA : A murder-mystery short film about a musician's twisted ambition on a quest for fame and fortune.

PODCAST - THE FIRST FEATURE 

"The First Feature" is a podcast where I interview filmmakers about the makings of their first feature films, their creative processes, their interests, and what they envision the future of cinema to be.

Guests have included Steven Perez, the first Atlanta filmmaker to make a studio movie with Blackhall Studios titled Burnt Offering, and Phillip Youmans: the filmmaker behind Burning Cane on Netflix. Phillip is the first and youngest Black filmmaker to win the Tribeca Film Festival's Founder's Prize.

To see more like my film photography, visit my website: ww.acidpandaproductions.com