Very special thanks to Danny Caprio and the fine people at Mediterranean Film Festival at George Beach in Italy for their recognition of our promotional photo. The same festival also awarded Mike’s  Fight or Play Basketball with Best Social Drama feature film screenplay.

Click here for the complete  Mediterranean  Award Winners List

Congratulations to the Disregard the Vampire  team as a whole with special kudos to  photographer Chris Hunter, photo editor Geena Matuson, HMUA (Hair, Makeup Artist) Katie Ciampa and Actors Geena Matuson as Valentine and Anna Rizzo as Ginger.

We shot this photograph at the time thinking it would be for our narrative Vampire film , which was derailed, and eventually became Disregard the Vampire – a Mike Messier Documentary. 

I can remember when this photo was taken, in the middle of a very hardcore snow storm.

Our Actresses Geena and Anna, as well as our lead Actor Jose Guns Alves, and our HMUA Katie Campia all braved the weather to drive out in the storm to Chris’s home studio from various locations for our photo shoot.

While I thought myself and Jose had long rides – coming from “over the bridge” in our mainland to the peninsula city of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, even more credit goes to Geena and Anna driving in from Medfield and Boston, MA respectively, and a real salute to Katie coming all the way from New Hampshire.

Everyone was so dedicated,  and I remember it was Katie who convinced me that the photo shoot must go on and the snow was not so bad (although it really was!)  So… the photo shoot went on… and we captured this magic.

This type of dedication from the key players remains a strong memory and why I continue to honor the project as Disregard the Vampire – a Mike Messier Documentary.

I remember making postcards from this image to send out for promotional reasons and to this day, some of these surviving postcards will often pop up in various backpacks in my car and apartment, as a constant reminder of the work put into it.

So for me already,  the photo of Geena as Valentine and Anna as  Ginger is iconic, and if and when our doc reaches the audience I believe it will, perhaps my own perspective will be shared by many more indie doc film lovers. Time will tell.

Never surrender.

– MIKE

film poster: photo by Chris Hunter, HMUA Katie Ciampa, photo edit by Geena Matuson and Tim Labonte, poster design by Tim Labonte.

Update: After a three year process, Disregard the Vampire – a Mike Messier Documentary is currently being sent to top festivals throughout the world, with an emphasis on festivals that qualify as Oscar Qualifying for short documentaries (40 minutes maximum run time). Basically, this means that in order to be “looked at” by the Oscar Awards committee, our doc must first win a Qualifying award at one of these Qualifying festivals. There are about forty  of these festivals. These  festivals costs money to enter, usually about $40 each, so anyone interested in sponsoring one – or more – festival entries , please contact.