Come See a Movie I Wrote and Produced at the Sidewalk Cinema!

If you’re a longtime subscriber of Dust On The VCR, you’ve gotten occasional updates from me for almost two years about Don’t Die, a feature film that I made with my friends in the great states of Alabama and Tennessee. I hope you’ll bear with me just a few more months, though.¹ Because we’re finally on the verge of releasing the film into the world later this year.

I can’t tell you most of the details of our release strategy yet. But I can tell you the very first step in our journey: We’re doing a three-day run at the Sidewalk Cinema in Birmingham next weekend as part of Alabama Film Week! And tickets are now on sale!

Though this is the first round of (hopefully) a handful of theatrical screenings we’ll be lining up this spring and summer, it’s also a full-circle moment for us. We had our world premiere at the Sidewalk Film Festival in August of 2023, where we screened at one of their biggest venues and walked away with an award.² Don’t Die went on to screen at Panic Fest, the Oxford Film Festival, the Montgomery Film Festival, and a few others, but that first time was something special.

Naturally, we were hoping to do a full weekend at Sidewalk’s cozy underground duplex as soon as the time was right, and now is finally that time! (Well, in 10 days it will be.)

And since most of our team lives in or near Alabama, some of us will be stopping by, of course. In fact, director Benjamin Stark will be in the building for a Q&A after all three screenings! And if our schedules align, a few other collaborators and I will be joining him for one or more of those screenings.³ Also, this is unconfirmed, but I believe Ben will be buying a small popcorn for everyone in attendance.

I have to say, I’m really glad this is happening during Alabama Film Week and not just any ol’ weekend. Have you seen the rest of the schedule? We’ll be sharing the Sidewalk Cinema screens with three other great films that were shot at least partially in the Yellowhammer State: Big Fish, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Hale County This Morning, This Evening.⁴ That’s pretty good company! I might just stick around after our last screening.

Of course, most of you don’t live in Birmingham.⁵ And most of you also don’t live in the other cities where we’re hoping to screen. So I won’t be sending out emails for every single update about our theatrical run. But! When Don’t Die is released digitally in North America, you can be sure that I’ll share all of the pertinent details here for anyone who wants to watch the film and hasn’t been able to yet.

Thank you, reader, for supporting my dreams, no matter how tangentially. Hope to see some of y’all at the Sidewalk Cinema next weekend! (And if Ben won’t buy your popcorn, I will.)

1. I can promise you that no one is more ready to move on to the next project than my team and I, who’ve spent more than five years making it and sharing it with audiences. We’ve been itching to make a new film for a while now! (More on that eventually.)

2. Thank you again to all 600+ of you who showed up for our premiere and rated our movie high enough for us to win the Best Alabama Film Audience Award. I’m forever in your debt.

3. My flight home from New York City lands about 45 minutes before our screening on April 6, so please ask the Weather Gods (and/or the Airport Gods) to deliver me promptly.

4. For last year’s edition, I showed up to watch You’re Next and Payday. Where the hell else are you gonna see Payday on the big screen? I love Alabama Film Week.

5. If you’re not an Alabamian and you’ve read this far, you’re a very kind person.