A trailer just dropped for Mildred and the Dying Parlor, an 11-minute short film that’s debuting tonight at Tribeca Film Festival and stars Jane Krakowski, Zosia Mamet and Steve Buscemi. The completely bizarre-looking short from director Alexander H. Gayner and writer Ilan Ulmer centers around Mamet’s character, Mildred — who’s the daughter of a couple who run a “dying parlor.”
Said place of business allows people to die in a cozy old home with their family members — in other words, it seems like a Bed & Breakfast/hospice hybrid. But, as the brief description on the Tribeca site indicates, “Today’s client is not who [Mildred] expects,” and from the looks of the trailer, the film quickly takes on a sinister tone. The film is adapted from a short story by painter Andrea Heimer called “Red” — which itself was a very loose reinterpretation of “Little Red Riding Hood.”
The film is the first project developed (with the producing help of Mamet) by Blood Orange Pictures, which was, according to what they told Deadline, looking to fill what they see as a current filmmaking void. (The production company is so new that if you Google search “Blood Orange Pictures,” you will just end up seeing a lot of photos of attractive citruses.) Founder Samuel Goldberg said:
It came out of us realizing there’s a bit of a void in this space coming out of the recession. Studios are doing a certain kind of movie, the indie companies are doing a certain kind of movie, but there are not a lot of people focused on – sometimes – the almost purgatorial exercise of creative development. Nurturing writers, looking for IP, scouting for stuff that isn’t a huge best seller.
Blood Orange Pictures may end up looking to turn the short into something longer, Deadline suggests, and Mamet allegedly offered that it could work as a television show.
Watch the trailer: