The Dark of Night

I've never been very good at taking no for an answer.As a screenwriter, I wrote about women way before  it was a thing, back when Jodie Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer and Demi Moore were box office draws and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences struggled to find enough actresses to nominate for Best Actress year after year. I wrote period pieces about women in the mistaken belief that if women knew what women had done, as a gender we wouldn't waste so goddamned much time reinventing history with each successive generation.  Instead of young women fighting their way up the corporate ladder, we would start with the same building blocks men take for granted.  We have been  inventors, scientists, astronauts, pilots, doctors, mathematicians, welders, loggers, musicians, and firefighters, but most girls grow up thinking Kim Kardashian is the most they can hope to aspire to.I am too old to be a screenwriter, I don't live in Los Angeles, I don't have an agent, a manager, or a publicist, and I was recently told that a script I wrote about the Women's Air Force Service Pilots had two strikes against it; 1) "No one cares about the WASP.  It's old news" and b) Exactly ONE film will be made about women pilots.  Unlike the hundreds of movies about the male experience in World War Two there is room for just one film about women, and its isn't mine.  I still encounter people, some close friends, who tell me to give up writing period pieces because no one makes them anymore (fifty percent of all Academy Award nominated films are period pieces and close to forty percent of TV series are period pieces, but what do I know?).  And while I am at it, it might be a good idea to quit writing about women all together.Two years ago, after my 10,00th draft of LUCKY 13, I signed up for a short film competition just for something to do.  I was given a genre, a character and a setting, and eight days to write a twelve page script.  I wrote the first draft of THE DARK OF NIGHT in an hour and a half.   Two days ago, that script became a short film directed by a woman whose work I have admired as much, if not more, than Meryl Streep.  She is easily as good an actress (in my opinion at least) and now, I know she is not only an amazing director, she is a remarkable woman and one I am grateful to know.Robin Wright agreed to direct my short film after an angel named Nini Le Huynh brought it to her attention after Beau Gordon brought it to Nini's, and Denise Hewitt brought it to Beau's.  Nini is an outstanding actress and one of the most generous people I have ever met.  Together these wildly talented women brought my script to life with the crew of House of Cards (who volunteered their time) and a cast I could have only ever dreamed of. Leslie Bibb, Sam Rockwell, Callie Thorne, Michael Godere and Nini Le Huynh star in THE DARK OF NIGHT.  And that is how THE DARK OF NIGHT came to be.Stick around for more.  Because this is not the last you will hear about THE DARK OF NIGHT.