Would you die for the one you love? A thrilling whodunit flick, Winter Ridge is the story of promising detective Ryan Barnes, who’s struggling to come to terms with wife’s condition after an accident on their anniversary places her in a coma. Six months removed from the crash and still in a coma, Barnes buries himself in a case that involves a serial killer who’s targeting elderly, medically fragile victims.
See “Winter Ridge” on February 17, 2019 @ 3:45 pm pm at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 8th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. Winter Film Awards Jerry Del Priore recently spoke with director Dom Lenoir about the film.
Who are some of your movie influences?
Blockbusters like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, as well as Westerns and film noir. I had some great all around films, too, like The Natural and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Rainman, too.
How old are you? Where were you born, reside now?
31 years young and living in the UK. The aim is to move to the USA after my next film which is largely set there. That’s always been the dream because of the mentality and the style of cinema.
What other projects have you worked on?
I’ve done a lot of shorts and two smaller features which were very much learning exercises but I am, in a way, still proud of. I like to produce as well and I think building teams, and creative development are my strengths.
How did you come up with the plot to the movie?
The writer Ross Owen William’s lived in the USA and wrote it partly out of his experiences with degenerative diseases and his living out there, and the rest is fiction. Then, we adapted it for the UK and kept that American detective feel. In my mind I was always out to make another Prisoners or Insomnia, not a UK style thriller.
Why did you choose to use such beautiful locations to shoot scenes?
The location had to feel like it wasn’t like every other British countryside town. I wanted somewhere that was raw, moody, atmospheric and remote. The location in Lynton and Lynmouth was actually very much like Scandinavia or Canada, so it was perfect for a fictional town.
How did you find the process casting of the movie?
We casted Michael Mckell (John Faulkner), as we had worked with him on a short film together first. He then brought Hannah Waddingham (Dr. Joanne Hill) from Game of Thrones, and we then pushed for Alan Ford (Dale Jacobs) from Snatch who is with Michaels agent, too. Olwen was with Matt’s agent and had just done Autopsy of Jane Doe. Ian Pirie from Netflix’s Calibre was a friend of Matt’s, Noeleen, we had both wanted to work with due to her acting ability and Justin came up through a recommendation.
How long was the entire process of making of the movie, from script writing to filming?
We adapted the script in October, were shooting by April and post was finished by October the next year. It was a very fast turnaround and all hands were on deck to hit deadlines.
You directed and produced, was pulling double duty something new for you, and difficult?
It’s difficult on the one hand because you have to worry about problems, but at the same time it empowers you to make decisions and things happen that get you bigger results as a Director.
Example: Getting the town to help out with the production with deals on locations and accommodation which made shooting in somewhere that looked amazing logistically possible. When it came to the shoot, thankfully, the other producers took over more of the day-to-day worries and managed the set so I could focus. But there was very little time to prep as a Director.
You have won 13 awards for Winter Ridge, right? How proud of you of that, and the movie itself?
It’s actually 16 now, as we won three at our last festival! We never intended to have a festival run but we started the festival run in America because that’s the style of cinema we were going for and it won several awards there.
From that it just snowballed and kept winning and we picked up a lot in the states, so that’s been our main focus. I think the movie is something we can all be proud of, I like to think of it as a mini blockbuster as it’s budget is actually a lot lower than you might expect, but it feels like something a bit bigger. We did a lot with what we had and with only 17 days to shoot, too. Something that is really nice actually is how welcoming and helpful our USA friends have been, people we barely know have traveled to festivals to support us, represent us when we couldn’t fly over in time and someone even brought an award across 8 countries for when they stopped in London!
Jerry Del Priore
Jerry Del Priore is an accomplished writer, author, blogger and reporter. He has written on topics such as sports, health and fitness, NYC lifestyle and food, as well as movies and music. Del Priore runs his own weblog called www.BrooklynSportsWorld.com.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 8th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 14-23-2019. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 89 fantastic films in all genres from 32 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NY State Council on the Arts.
