[announcer] This time on Film Maker.

[speaker] This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.

And by Oolite Arts, what Miami is made of.

Hello, my name is James Cotton and I'm the writer and director of "Daggers Drawn," which is a contained thriller about two people on a date and it transpires that their intentions are not what you initially assumed.

Did you paint these?

And those.

What's that?

It's a which is French for merciful, i.e., it was used to compassionately put soldiers out of their misery on the field of battle.

Thin enough to pierce the chain mail armor around the heart.

Or, through the eye of an enemy at close combat.

Oh.

And you're into collecting this morbid kind of stuff?

Yeah.

Oh.

It's not dissimilar from the stiletto, in fact, which originally was a dagger from which those sexy heels got their Name of war.

Oh.

Do other girls ask you the same question, about that?

Girls tend to be drawn towards the dangerous stuff.

Sure.

And dangerous men?

A toast.

To the completion of a great first date.

And potential for a second.

Won't they hear us?

No.

I've been up to all sorts and never had a single complaint.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

You okay?

Yeah, it's just my head, I feel a little woozy.

I'm sure this feeling will pass.

I'm just gonna-- Maybe you have some Tylenol, in your purse.

This is a bit kinky.

What is it, dessert already?

Uh uh, just desserts.

Revenge.

What was that phrase you used?

A mercy killing.

Sick puppies need putting down.

Revenge for what?

Granted, it took me a while to find you, but, once a fisherman in the Everglades happened upon my sister's left leg, instead of a large mouth bass, the toxicology report revealed the presence of chemicals that could only signify cherry meth.

And after I found that cherry meth is only sold by three dealers in the Tri-County area, I started to narrow things down, until-- You are very much mistaken.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Really?

I mean, I wasn't sure you were my guy.

What's that?

It's a Until you dropped like a sack of potatoes.

You're gonna tell me that's all out of the blue?

How about all that Saran Wrap around your bedroom?

And God knows what's in your safe.

Please, untie me.

Mm, you're a bonafide Bundy type, but you won't get your day in court.

This is frontier justice.

Do your wrongful execution.

Listen to me, I'm an artist.

I paint like Pollock.

I need the sheeting for my art.

A polygraph test or a DNA test would convince you.

Please.

I don't even know your sister's name.

Deanna.

Anna and Deanna?

You kidding me?

Sounds like a 60s pop group!

Your sister had that same stupid look on her face when I took her life.

So the title, "Daggers Drawn," obviously it is plural, it suggests threat from multiple angles.

Both of these characters are out for each other.

Literally there are multiple daggers.

Probably day two of the shoot and the action sequence, everything involving collaboration with the stunt coordinator, who's a South Florida legend, and being able to, on the same day, play with fake blood.

The big ones for this project, "Daggers Drawn," would be Brian De Palma and Alfred Hitchcock.

Well, there were only two days of filming with the full crew, so they were manic, and very quick collaborative, problem solving, without much time to come up with set solutions.

I was actually researching something else for another project.

I was looking at medieval weapons.

The stiletto was originally a dagger and I thought it was a good concept to pit a dagger enthusiast against a female.

Hi, my name is David de Souza.

I am the writer and director of "Woodlandish Ghoul."

It's a horror film inspired by a poem by Edgar Allen Poe.

In the poem that I read, he mentions a woodlandish ghoul, and I thought how cool would it be to create a modern-day woodlandish ghoul.

Enjoy the film.

Lay down my guard, show you my card Hop in, I'm only heading about 20 miles north.

That's as far as I can take you.

Give you my heart Don't move to fast or we won't last Don't move to fast-- I'm Dan.

Nice to meet you.

It won't last She said maybe do you think Yeah, I remember reading those short stories back in school.

That's uh, that's some pretty dark stuff.

Lots of years, that's the only speed I go Where are we going?

You know, you really shouldn't have been out here all alone this late at night.

I was broken in two last night without you Last night-- Don't move too fast or we won't last Oh Don't move too fast or we won't last I was going too fast Hoping that we would last Did you think you'd break my heart But here we are, here we are If I had to put a subtitle on my film, it would definitely be "Things Are Not What They Seem."

As soon as I said, "Action," on rehearsal, my two actors just demeanor completely changed and they got into character and it was as if I was watching, you know, the words that I had written down.

And I was like, "Oh man," you know, "they're dedicated."

And it was a good feeling, it was definitely one of the highlights of the film.

So we filmed this short film in one day.

Production was eight hours long, from crew call to crew wrap.

It was a whirlwind, it was a blur for me, but somehow we got it all done and it was fun, it was a lot of fun.

I couldn't have completed this film without the dedication, the talent, the expertise of my colleagues and the talented actors.

I mean, really, I played a small role in this film.

You know, I wrote it and I directed it, but everybody else really came together to make it happen.

If you have an idea in your head, nobody else can take that idea and make it for you, you need to be able to have the drive and the dedication to make that happen.

Hi, I'm Christopher Krider and this is our film, "La Rose Noire," a little thriller short that we shot during COVID-19.

Had a really small cast and crew.

That's why I had to act in it, but we had a great time shooting it and I hope you guys enjoy.

[speaker] You have ze money?

Yeah.

Half now, half later.

[speaker] Oui.

Just make it quick, and clean, okay?

You have nothing to worry about.

I'm ze best there is.

She'll dissipate like morning fog.

Hey.

It was my preference to take you in your sleep.

Take me where?

To death, ze final dream.

Oh, you know my brother probably sent you.

So are you gonna like shoot me?

Guns are so loud, I prefer ze intimacy, of ze knife.

Do you think that ze fraction of a millimeter steel can undo all of God's bindings?

The grand maul.

Hey!

Hey.

You get your hand out of le drawer!

Okay.

Oh, did you just say, "Le drawer?"

You!

Oh, my leg!

You Oh, it sounds like my brother met you in one of his little chat rooms.

Please, please don't call the cops.

I just shot you in the middle of the suburbs, like, the police are on their way.

Hey pup pup, yeah, it's me, Nancy.

No, yeah, I just wanted to call you and let you know this gun works perfectly.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah, no, I gotta go, yeah.

No, I really gotta go.

No, I'll see you Saturday at the Ernest Borgnine film festival.

All right, I love you too.

Bye.

Oh.

Just trying to get my inhaler.

You're like really bad at this.

Wow.

I killed like three people before this and there were no problems.

Were they like children?

There were like old people.

Oh, that's why, you see, you got cocky.

Open this yogurt.

No.

You got kids?

No.

Well if you wanna keep that option open, you're gonna open this Talenti.

Okay, yeah.

Can you, like, hand it down to me?

Shoot me.

You can do it.

Oh look, the cops are here.

Oh thank God.

I loosened that, you know?

Mm, you sure did.

Dark jazz comedy?

So we have a very jazzy soundtrack and, like, the whole movie kinda feels like jazz to me because the tone changes, but it's all one song.

"La Rose Noire," that means the black rose, and the character I play, uh, Henry, this is sort of his code name.

We don't address it in the film, but the implication is that, if you were gonna be meeting him on the dark web, that would be his online handle that you would use to hire him to perform bad deeds.

As the name implies, like I do love old school noire.

It's funny 'cause it's like as stupid as it is, like it's still fun to play a character like this who, you know, is a bad guy, an assassin and all that, it just, it's funnier to me to show somebody that that is an illusion, you know?

I think of this as a very Florida man type story, you know, like Florida man hires hit man on the dark web to assassinate his sister.

An article is published the next day and my character's simply reduced to the mythological Florida man, which is every man.

The Cohen brothers, in general, I think, inform everything I do 'cause they love to show the follies of bad people.

[announcer] This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.

And by Oolite Arts, what Miami is made of.