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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Watch the First Ever Public Screening of George A. Romero’s Short Film Jacaranda Joe

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Watch the First Ever Public Screening of George A. Romero’s Short Film Jacaranda Joe

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Published on April 1, 2022

Night of the Living Dead, Barbara

If you think you’ve seen every film made by George A. Romero, the director of Night of the Living Dead (above), you haven’t—not yet. This month, the University of Pittsburgh is hosting an online screening of Romero’s short film Jacaranda Joe, which was long presumed to be lost. But a copy of the short was found in the university’s library system.

Filmed in 1994 with the help of students from Florida’s Valencia College, Jacaranda Joe is a bigfoot movie—and an early example of the found footage style of horror.

As Adam Charles Hart explains at the University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies website, “the film was the second installment of an innovative program devised by Valencia Community College faculty member Ralph Clemente that brought established filmmakers to campus to direct a short film.” The Orlando Sentinel covered the project, noting that Romero wanted to know “if audiences can be scared by a documentary format.” The production, as Hart details, was complicated by the fact that all the students who worked on the film graduated before it was completed.

Hart also went into (really fascinating!) detail on the film in a recent Twitter thread:

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Jacaranda Joe screens on April 12th, at 7 pm Eastern; the event also includes a discussion with some of the crew members who worked on the film. You can register for the screening here.

(Via Bloody Disgusting)

About the Author

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Molly Templeton

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Molly Templeton has been a bookseller, an alt-weekly editor, and assistant managing editor of Tor.com, among other things. She now lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods.
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