‘Gooseberries’ can’t seem to find it’s niche. The short, directed by Christopher Compton, hasn’t been able to secure any festival screenings since being completed in July 2006. Fifth Floor Pictures produced the short to create diversity in a production line-up packed with crime-dramas, such as ‘Loose Ends’ (2006), ‘Leaving Town’ (2006), and next year’s ‘The Van Zandt Shakedown’ (2007). “I wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the “reader”, which would allow each individual audience member to see the movie in their own unique way, so I didn’t do a lot of flashbacks. Instead, I chose to show brief visualizations of what the lead character was speaking about. In retrospect, this may have hindered us a little with getting the short into festivals and before an audience,” says director Christopher Compton. Though, the end of the rope isn’t here just yet for ‘Gooseberries’, Fifth Floor isn’t going down without a fight. A new marketing campaign will be launched this week, featuring a new trailer, still images, and more. The short stars Jodie Moore, Richard Keller, Laura Leither, and Dave Carnell.

Promotional photos for ‘The Van Zandt Shakedown’ scheduled to be released at the end of this month will feature select characters from the film. Unofficially, those characters are Ciaran (Drew Waters), Vincent (Ronn Ausborne), Vicky Vixen (Brandi Brown), Princess (Zalika Thomas), Marcus (Keith Douglas), Detective Cortez (John Baran), and possibly Li (Vin Diep). Fifth Floor will be finalizing everything this week.