Brandon Doo knew he wanted to be a filmmaker ever since he saw Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” – what he calls his favorite film by his favorite filmmaker – with his parents when he was just a pre-teen.
Well, he halfway knew.
“My mother covered my eyes for about half of the movie,” said Doo. “So, I missed most of it. But I went back a week later with my dad, and he said, ‘You’re going to see all of this movie.’”
Doo, a 2004 graduate of Turlock High who went on to study cinema at San Francisco State, will screen his first feature-length film – “For Matilda” – on Sept. 19 at the Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway. Admission is free but donations are welcomed.
Doors open at 2 p.m. and the movie starts at 2:30 p.m.
Doo, who resides in Glendale, was back in his hometown this week to meet with Carnegie staff in preparation for the film’s premiere. He tested the facility’s sound and lighting systems, checked the screen quality, and mapped out the McVey Loft’s conversion into a 100-seat theater; no detail was overlooked.
“This film has been two years in the making and it’s completely self-financed,” said Doo, who is the film’s writer, director and co-producer along with brothers Joseph and Philip Matarrese. “This whole process has been about perseverance.”
Another of Doo’s influences is Orson Welles. Unlike Welles, who was given free reign at RKO Studios as a 24-year-old wunderkind in 1939 and in short order directed the classic “Citizen Kane” (though Doo says he favors the Welles documentary “F is for Fake”), he has had to persevere ever since graduating college in 2008. He’s directed a handful of short films – “The Heartless” (2012), “The Late Shift” (2017) and “To Monte” (2018) – but has paid the bills working as a grip or a gaffer on more than a dozen films. He hopes “For Matilda” will lead to more opportunities and a full-time career in the director’s chair.
“I sure hope so, because working as a grip is a young man’s game; you have to haul around cables and a lot of heavy equipment,” said Doo, 40. “Hopefully, this leads to another project that I won’t have to finance myself.”
Made on a budget of $100,000, “For Matilda” is about a family that decides to gather for a reunion at its condemned home, and the familial bonds that begin to fray as toxic fumes from a nearby oil derrick affect them in a way they never could’ve imagined.
“I’d call it a family drama that turns into a murder mystery,” said Doo. “I’d classify it as a psychological thriller/horror film.”
Though Doo is searching for a distribution deal, for now he’s content to break away from the traditional distribution model and focused on getting the movie into various film festivals.
“I am very excited about the screening because it’s given me a chance to reconnect with the town that I grew up in and the town where I made my first short film,” said Doo. “And it gives others a chance to see where a Turlock native has gone.”
“For Matilda” runs 1 hour, 55 minutes, and is suitable for ages 13-older.
