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For the past few years, editor, director, and animator Zach Passero has been working on a hand-drawn, animated horror film called The Weird Kidz and it’s finally making the rounds at film festivals. Passero, who has frequently worked with Lucky McKee on films like May (2002) and Tales of Halloween (2015), created The Weird Kidz from the fond memories of his childhood, and McKee serves as a producer on the film. Featuring cassette tapes and mullets and perfectly capturing the vibe of the eighties, The Weird Kidz follows three friends, 12-year-old boys Dug (Tess Passero), Mel (Glenn Bolton), and Fatt (Brian Ceely), as they go camping in the desert with Dug’s older brother Wyatt (Ellar Coltrane) and his girlfriend Mary (Sydney Wharton).

When the group stops at a gas station, the owner Duana tells them about The Night Child, a creature she claims lives in the desert and took her younger brother twenty-five years ago.

Bristol Bay Prods. has hired husband-and-wife writing team Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley to pen a family comedy centered on a Texas Hold 'Em tournament. When an enterprising eighth-grader unintentionally loses his older sister's savings, the entire family is compelled to converge in Las Vegas for a high-stakes poker match as they learn the true meaning of family along the way. Texas Hold 'Em is a mild obsession of the writing team as Zeltser has participated in many professional poker tournaments. He recently wrote and directed The Circle, a 96-minute feature shot on digital video in one uninterrupted take.

NEW YORK -- The 11th Hamptons International Film Festival wrapped during the weekend with Tomorrow Never Dies helmer Roger Spottiswoode's Spinning Boris taking home the audience award for best feature. Writer-director Kirk Davis' Screen Door Jesus won the HIFF's Golden Starfish Award for best film. Penned by Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley, Boris stars Jeff Goldblum, Anthony LaPaglia, Liev Schreiber and Svetlana Efremova in the story of three American political consultants who agree to manage Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign in the mid-'90s. The Hamptons screening was the film's New York premiere.