"You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another."
- Ernest Hemingway
Meet the Cast
Jolie Vanier
Jolie Vanier began her movie career as lead actress in Robert Rodriguez's film "Shorts" for Warner Brothers. Her performance in this lively, light-hearted film earned critical acclaim. Jolie earned a reoccurring role in the dark, compelling vampire TV series "From Dusk Till Dawn". Her most recent role was in "Chasing Grace", a film that has been featured in the South by Southwest Film Festival and many other notable festivals. It should be noted that throughout her career Jolie has complemented film appearances with theater roles.
Fun fact: Bessy and Jolie worked together years ago on Bessy's graduation thesis short film from CalArts "Strange Little Girl" The film has been successful proving Bessy's storytelling skills and Jolie's talent as an actress. Who knew they'd come back together to work on another project after 9 years. When Bessy was looking for her lead, Jolie was at the perfect age and appearance for the character.
Laurelle Mabalot
Laurelle Mabalot is an actress/dancer from Los Angeles, CA, and has been in the industry for 12 years. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor's degree in English to expand to screenwriting in the future.
Nicoletta Hynes
Nicoletta Hynes is an Italian-American actress with a passion for creative writing and beguiling plots. Although LA born and raised, she studied in New York City at the New School for 5 years. Acting isn't her only passion, she also sings jazz and writes stories of her own.
Emma Freyre
My name is Emma Freyre. I am 20 years old and I was born in raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I will be a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the spring of 2018, and will continue pursuing my acting career from there.
Brett Schaberg
Since my first show in high school I knew I was going to be an actor. I committed to attending Western Michigan University and auditioned for their competitive acting program. After two years at WMU I decided that I was ready to make the move to LA and pursue TV and film. I am stoked to be apart of this project, and can't wait to start working on it.
Alfredo Soto
My name is Alfredo Soto, my love for film began at a small age when me & my family would watch movies every Saturday & come home and rate them as if we were critics. Then acting would take over my life when me, the shy kid was forced to play Julius Caesar in my high school theater to get my A in class.
Meet the Crew
Bessy Adut
Director/Producer/Co-Writer
Award-winning Writer/Director Bessy's short films have screened at international film festivals worldwide, and won audience awards including Pasadena Art Film Festival and Brooklyn Film Festival. In 2009, she graduated from California Institute of the Arts, MFA in Film Directing with Fulbright Grant. Last year, she received screenwriting program certificate at UCLA. She was selected for the CineStory Writers Retreat as a Quarterfinalist and nominated for Nate Wilson Joie de Vivre Award. She is working on making a proof of concept of short film before her first directorial feature debut. Xenia and Bessy met at UCLA Professional Screenwriting program and that became the beginning of their friendship & collaboration. They believed in this project and pieces started to come together.
Xenia Puiggros
Screenwriter
Xenia is a filmmaker/screenwriter from Barcelona, where she studied her BA in Film and TV. After that she left for London to further her filmmaking studies, and she stayed there for four years working in film development and production. When one of her short films was bought and made by an independent production company, she decided it was time to focus her efforts on her passion, writing. She moved to Los Angeles for a year to do a feature screenwriting course in UCLA and came out with two features under her arm. Now she lives in Barcelona, pursuing her career as a writer.
Eric Sherman
Producer & Consultant
Eric Sherman has been involved with the film industry nearly his entire life. In 1976, he founded Film Transform, Inc., a full-service production company that has produced virtually every type of "moving image" product--including feature films, television programs, educational series for PBS, documentaries, corporate profiles, instructional videos and commercials. He works as a consultant producer for Escape Room.
Brandon Miree
Producer
Brandon Miree is a writer, director and award-winning producer. In 2018 he founded his multi-media production company Moviefield Entertainment and is currently in various stages of development with several short and long-form projects for the screen. He completed professional programs at UCLA in both Producing and TV Writing in 2016. Before storytelling, Brandon was a professional football player for the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers. He is one of the Producers of Escape Room short film and potential EP for the feature film.
Yin Lui
Editor
Yin Lui is a picture editor from San Francisco who currently resides in Los Angeles, California. With over 15 years experience in the industry, and credits in nationally broadcasted commercials and web spots, she is using her storytelling skills in narrative work to create entertaining, compelling, and unique stories. She is currently available for freelance projects.
Bessy met Yin as she was looking for more narrative work to edit. Yin had amazing commercial reel. She jumped on board warming up with the Indiegogo intro video and she will be the editor of our short film and trailer.
Lasse Elkjaer
Film Music Composer
Lasse Elkjaer is a Los Angeles-based composer and orchestrator who has been working on several features, movie trailers and video game productions. Furthermore, he is collaborating with film composers such as five time Emmy winning composer Jacob Groth (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and Golden Globe-nominated composer Christopher Young (Spiderman 3, Swordfish, Hellraiser). He won an award with the horror short film "Sticks" recently.
Jess Foster
Web Designer
Jess owns Imagine Higher LLC, a web design company based in Greenville, South Carolina. She enjoys building websites to help small businesses and creative professionals achieve their goals. In her leisure time, she loves to watch films, whether they are black-and-white classics, thought-provoking documentaries, or international productions. As a film lover, she is thrilled to be able to help her friend Bessy Adut raise money and awareness for her first short film "Escape Room."
Serhat Sonmez
Storyboard Artist
Serhat Sonmez is a Turkish -American artist and illustrator currently based in Los Angeles, California. In 2003, he graduated from Marmarian Institute of Fine-Arts ( Istanbul ), with a BFA in Painting and Sculpting! He also dabbled in teaching as a fine arts teacher and teaching private art classes. His work is driven by making a strong visual impact by combining various styles and techniques as a way to follow an idea and in clarifying the content of each project.
The day after Sandy and Bessy came up with a shot list and talking about a storyboard, Serhat wrote to Bessy on Linkedin! Serhat did the first storyboard pages, poster and concept art that you see on the page.
Story
"Escape Room" is a film about a brilliant student who is bullied in high school and suffers from OCD reluctantly joins her older sister and her popular friends at a horror-themed Escape Room game. When the group realizes that a revenge-seeking Game Master has set them up in a custom-made deadly trap, the five teenagers start turning on each other. The two sisters will have to join forces in order to get out of the room alive. The theme involves love, trust, teen issues and the importance of the sisterhood. It is our hope to inspire audiences to pursue the idea of standing up for one another when confronted with adversities caused by a valued one. Our goal is to make the short proof of concept to move us to the next step: turn into a feature film.