Experiencing Interruptions?

Splinter

Young Benjamin (Brooks Firestone) has spent most of his ten years on an airplane that almost never lands, because when his feet touch the ground, rage spreads like a virus. But when a mid-air collision forces the plane out of the sky, it falls to his caretaker Morgan (Yetide Badaki) and Chris (Moon Bloodgood) to deal with the explosive fallout.

  • Marc Bernardin
    Director
  • Marc Bernardin
    Writer
    Castle Rock, Treadstone, Carnival Row, Star Trek: Picard, Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina, Masters of the Universe: Revelation
  • Rachel Walker
    Producer
  • Carrie Finn
    Producer
  • Kyle Smithers
    Producer
  • Yetide Badaki
    Key Cast
    "Morgan"
    American Gods, This Is Us, Rise
  • Moon Bloodgood
    Key Cast
    "Chris"
    Terminator Salvation, Falling Skies
  • Tricia Helfer
    Key Cast
    "Capt. Susan O'Neill"
    Battlestar Galactica
  • Brooks Firestone
    Key Cast
    "Benjamin"
  • Tiffany Smith
    Key Cast
    "Crawley"
  • Yvette Nicole Brown
    Key Cast
    Community, Disenchanted
  • Keitumetse Mokhonwana
    Cinematographer
  • Sunna Wehrmeijer
    Composer
  • Joshua Wilmott
    Editor
  • Ariel Vida
    Production Designer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Sci-fi, horror, thriller, drama
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 15 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 12, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    210,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Pan African Film Festival
    Los Angeles, California
    United States
    World Premiere
  • Overlook Film Festival
    New Orleans, LA
    United States
  • Chattanooga Film Festival
    Chattanooga, Tennessee
    United States
    Dangerous Visions Award
  • Gen Con Film Festival
    Indianapolis, Indiana
    United States
    Best Short Film
  • Gig Harbor Film Festival
    Gig Harbor, Washington
    United States
  • HollyShorts Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
  • Haiti International Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    Best Short - African Diaspora
  • Vortex Film Festival
    Providence, Rhode Island
    Directorial Discovery Grand Prize
Director Biography - Marc Bernardin

Marc Bernardin is a WGA Award-winning television writer-producer who has worked on Star Trek: Picard, Batman: Caped Crusader, The Continental, Carnival Row, Treadstone, Castle Rock, Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina, Masters of the Universe: Revelations, and Alphas.

In an earlier life, he was a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Playboy, and Entertainment Weekly. In comics, he’s an Eisner-nominated writer of Adora and the Distance, Census, Peter Parker: The Amazing Shutterbug, Genius, The Highwaymen, and Monster Attack Network.

And he cohosts the Fatman Beyond pop-culture podcast with Kevin Smith. Born in The Bronx, NY, he currently resides in Los Angeles.

SPLINTER is his directorial debut.

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Director Statement

SPLINTER was going to be an episode of The Twilight Zone, the kind of short, genre-blurring morality play that Rod Serling was so great at crafting. Shot (mostly) at a single location, featuring a small cast of characters, all wrestling with just one issue. In our case, that issue was faith. What does it mean to believe? Does belief require evidence? And when that evidence is provided, does it reinforce that belief or shatter it in favor of a new one? And, because I was a kid of the ‘80s, brought up in the cultural bosom of Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, that issue formed the kernel of a story about a child who might be a monster and the people who keep him safe and healthy while keeping him away from everyone else.

Though the script was written so that we could cast anyone in any role—save the part of young Benjamin, our central character—when thinking about how you’d staff a long-haul crew trapped on a plane for months on end, it felt right that the crew would be entirely female. For harmony’s sake. Luckily, I’ve got some incredibly talented friends: Yetide Badaki, Tricia Helfer, and Tiffany Smith signed on immediately, followed by the great Yvette Nicole Brown. Moon Bloodgood followed and, thankfully, turned us on to Brooks Firestone, who makes his screen debut as Benjamin.

It was important to me, as a creator of color, to be as inclusive as humanly possible when it came to crewing up the department heads. Producers Rachel Walker and Carrie Finn helped carry the ball from the very beginning, while cinematographer Keitumetse Monkonwana and production designer Ariel Vida transformed the script from the theoretical to the tangible—and brought along a phenomenally talented crew that mirrored our cast.

I graduated from college wanting to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans. I spent 20 years as a journalist before segueing into writing and producing for TV. But I made myself a promise a few years back: That I’d make that adolescent dream come true and write and direct my first film before I turned 50. We rolled cameras the week after my 50th birthday.

Close enough.