Cast and crew in attendance, including Michael Berryman & Kristin Booth.

A claustrophobic thriller with an inside-movie twist, method writer Signe Olynyk’s BELOW ZERO is a tense addition to the unique roster of films making their world premiere in the Alberta Spotlight series. Shot in Edson, Alberta, this screenwriter’s nightmare stars Michael Berryman, who graced CIFF two years ago in 2009’s Black Carpet Gala, SMASH CUT, along with Edward Furlong and Kristin Booth. BELOW ZERO is the impressive result of Olynyk’s gutsy approach of locking herself in an abandoned slaughterhouse freezer to come up with the script.

The story follows Jack (Edward Furlong), a once-successful writer who is now suffering from writers block and facing a rapidly approaching deadline for his new script. With a high-pressure agent looming over him, Jack decides to remove himself from all distractions and put himself in absolute isolation. BELOW ZERO takes viewers in and out of Jack’s screenplay, and as the freezer temperature begins to shift, so does the line between fiction and reality. Filmed in the same freezer where Olnyk wrote her script, BELOW ZERO is a beautifully shot and perfectly cast feature debut that will leave you wondering what pieces of the story will come to life.