Sometimes the only thing better than seeing one of your own creative visions realized is seeing people you admire realizing theirs. With the announcement of the forthcoming short film The Captured Bird I am enjoying just that.
This film unites two of my favourite people in the Horror field: Jovanka Vuckovic and Guillermo del Toro.
Guillermo del Toro, the film’s Executive Producer, is someone I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting, but I have been enamoured with his work since I first saw Cronos in 1996. Aside from being a great artist, Mr. del Toro has always struck me as an individual of tremendous integrity. I can’t think of a better Executive Producer for this project.
Jovanka Vuckovic is a dear friend of mine and I am extremely excited to see her inaugural film endeavor. I first met Jovanka at a genre convention in 2003. I was there to promote an anthology that one of my stories appeared in. Jovanka was there on behalf of Rue Morgue magazine. The con was decidedly sf/fantasy-based, so spotting Jovanka and the RM booth was a welcome oasis for an unapologetic Horror writer whose work had received little more than puzzled glances from Trekkies all weekend. Jovanka and I talked briefly that day (about Richard Matheson, as I recall) and over the next six years Jovanka and I talked more, about anything and everything Horror. Thanks to her editorial guidance, my writing grew in leaps and bounds.
Once she moved away from magazine editing in 2009 I knew Jovanka would go on to great things, and quickly. With the birth of a beautiful baby girl, a comprehensive zombie encyclopaedia forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press, and now The Captured Bird, it is clear that she has fully come into her own.
I hope you all visit her website and drink in the first glimpses of what is sure to be a grimly magnificent modern fairytale. (And please do donate to the film if you’re so inclined. I know I am.)
Congratulations, JV! I’m proud of you.
