Interview with Black Widows Director/Producer Venita Ozols-Graham - a long time member of the Director's Guild of America. Her short film 'Used Body Parts' is winning awards this festival season. You can read an earlier interview about Black Widows with Venita Ozols-Graham and Producer/Writer Jordan Goettling here

Congratulations! Your film’s been released in the US. What’s been the response so far?

Hi Carmela! Thanks for following up with us :) I always thought releasing a film was like BOOM! One day you're out there and it all happens at once. Surprise! It's more like a slow moving train. In theory, we were released on August 5th, but several of the platforms like Amazon for instance, didn't have us up and running immediately. As a matter of fact, we're still not on Amazon because they've made some sort of internal change that has us back logged with a lot of other new releases until they have that platform in place. But our distributor, Gravitas, is helping us iron out the wrinkles and all the VOD and cable platforms we are on can be found on our web site: www.blackwidowsthemovie.com!

Can you describe the release strategy?

Gravitas pre-released us on iTunes and we were on their best pre-sells list! After the release, we've been inundating the internet (just ask my friends, lol) with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and google ads. And, of course, all the cast, musicians and crew members have been sharing the posts and asking their friends to share.

What type of feedback have you received so far?

Astonishing! We've been contacted by people from all around the world, which is interesting since our foreign distribution hasn't kicked in yet! People love the relationship between the widows...how friends support each other to the bitter end.

Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?

What surprised me is that two thirds of our audience appears to be male. I thought this would be an overwhelmingly female audience. I'm guessing three extremely hot actresses in a funny movie about male/female relationships interests men. Go figure

Would you like to add anything else?

The challenge we had with this movie is that it's based on very serious subject matter (date rape) but written as a dark comedy. We worked hard to say right smack in the middle without leaning to far one way or the other between drama and comedy. I've always believed the best way to deal with life's slings and arrows is with humor. That's what saves us in this insane existence. Hopefully, we succeeded.

What next for you?

I'm excited! The script I just finished, 'Spider lake', is in the hands of interested parties! Hoping to start production in the spring. In the meantime, I'm producing and directing a short called 'The Hook'. I'll be working with most of the people from Black Widows on the next one. I'm a loyal person :)

Thank you so much for watching out for us! You're site is awesome and the filmmakers you support are very grateful! All the best, Venita

Interview: August 2016

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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela

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