Private Project

A Kidnapping

Two police officers, Gerald the wizened veteran and new-to-the-force Waas, are called to a warehouse to investigate a break-in. As soon as they enter, we are transported nine hours earlier to the moment two teenagers in love (Boom and Princess) broke in the night before with a young girl in their charge, Luula. The teens are on edge because they thought they had been hired to help bust a grown woman out of a facility and bring her to the man who's paying for the help. But Luula is a young girl and nothing feels right anymore. And for a "kidnapped" little girl, Luula seems unperturbed.

In the next-day story, the cops discover that the furniture in the warehouse has been sucked to the middle and there's a HOLE underneath. Glimpsing a figure below, Waas gets ready to descend as Gerald reminisces about his time exploring tunnels while deployed in Iraq. Hours earlier, the teens agonize over "selling" this little girl in their charge. They decide that even though it sits badly, they will go ahead. Hearing this, the little girl turns on them -- there's more to this young woman than meets the eye.

In the daytime, Waas descends below the floor where a monster-like version of Luula lures Waas into a room where now 70-year-old versions of the teens have been sitting in despair for years. As Waas is also trapped we realize Luula is a kind of vampire, feeding on other people's time to keep her an adult age. The story comes full circle as it becomes clear that Gerald has set all of this up to reunite with the vampire he fell in love with so many years ago in Iraq. Fully grown now through consuming the years from her victims, Luula finds Gerald and they reunite, rejoined in love, until the next time such a "kidnapping" must be arranged.

  • Karl Gajdusek
    Director
  • Karl Gajdusek
    Writer
    Oblivion, The Kings Man, and The November Man
  • Matt Roy
    Producer
    Canusa Street, Sanctified, and Bough Brothers
  • Mary Rachel Gardner
    Producer
    The Wishflower, A Purgatory Story, and Chocolate Cake
  • Nickolaus Swedlund
    Producer
    Sanctified, Blue Check, and Bough Brothers
  • Sam Heyer
    Producer
    Blue Check, 25 Ukraine, and Trench
  • Andrew Wheeler
    Key Cast
    "Gerald 'G.T.'"
  • Valencia Proctor
    Key Cast
    "Waasnodae 'Waas'"
  • Mitchel Carlyle
    Key Cast
    "Boom"
  • Agatha Pokrzywinski
    Key Cast
    "Princess"
  • Mathias Brinda
    Key Cast
    "Young Luula"
  • Athereal Rose
    Key Cast
    "Adult Luula"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    24 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 1, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    30,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    4K DCI Scope
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.38
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Karl Gajdusek

Karl Gajdusek is a writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Current projects include The Ministry for the Future, an adaptation of the award-wining novel with Darren Aronofsky and A24; Courage with Charlize Theron at Netflix; The gun-violence story His Only Living Boy for Amazon Studios with Ben Affleck, and the Liam Neeson series Unknown also at Netflix with Jaume Collet-Sera directing. Karl wrote The King's Man for Fox/Disney with Matthew Vaughn directing Ralph Fiennes in the next film in the Kingsman franchise. Television work includes Showrunner & EP Season One of Stranger Things at Netflix, creator and Showrunner of ABC’s Last Resort with Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Timeless, SWAT), and Riverview also with Daren Aronofsky at HBO. In development Karl is adapting the novel Age of Light about the artist Lee Miller, as well as an adaptation of the novel Lexicon by Max Barry for Matthew Vaughan's MARV. Previous credits include the Tom Cruise film Oblivion, the Pierce Brosnan thriller The November Man, the Nicole Kidman and Nicholas Cage Trespass, Story Editor for the Showtime series Dead Like Me, and feature film Blood Brother at Lionsgate. Other endeavors include Showrunner of season 2 of Z: The Beginning of Everything at Amazon, the science-fiction series The Spark at HBO, and an adaptation of the Gary Shteyngart novel Super Sad true Love Story with Ben Stiller.

Before establishing himself in TV and film, Karl was a playwright whose plays have been produced in New York and across the country. Karl did his undergraduate work at Yale University and graduate Playwriting at the University of California at San Diego.

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Director Statement

A KIDNAPPING was created in response to the challenge of creating a short film in the horror genre that would excite and expand the imagination of crew of high school volunteers who would shadow the professional crew during its production. Immediately, I knew I wanted to stretch the “horror” genre moniker to demonstrate all the different tonalities it can encompass. Thus was born a high-concept story told in a low-concept envelope. Two timelines and a love story were also introduced to replace jump scares and gore with a more intricate and nuanced story that none-the-less would get under the skin of its audience. Thus we set out to capture a small piece of a larger concept-driven story that could easily expand into its own feature or series.