Canadian Director David Winning to Be Honored in Hawaii

CALGARY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Filmmaker David Winning (Andromeda, Stargate: Atlantis, Blood Ties) is being honored at this years Big Island Film Festival in Hawaii. He will receive a special award on May 17, 2008 with a reception in his honor the same night. A doublebill of his two recent monster movies will also be presented at the festival; SWAMP DEVIL starring Bruce Dern and BLACK SWARM starring Robert Englund. Winning just won 2 awards at the Houston Film Festival in Texas and a Special Jury Award for his work on the Lifetime vampire series BLOOD TIES. BLACK SWARM is also screening at the Boston Film Festival on Friday the 13th of June. Both films were produced in Montreal by Muse Entertainment and RHI Films, New York.

Bruce Dern of “Coming Home”, “BIG LOVE”, and “Silent Running” fame and director Winning collaborated on the new monster movie SWAMP DEVIL. The southern bogs are among the most amazing of all the habitats on Earth, a mile-wide slow-moving river of grass and decay, home to an amazing array of wildlife. Some wilder than others. Responding to a call that her estranged father, Howard (Dern), is dying, Melanie Blaime returns home to the nearly deserted small southern town of Gibbington. She’s discovers he’s also a suspect. But when the sheriff is attacked and killed, it is clear that the culprit is someone, or something else. And there’s something funny about that swamp… If a foul vine-choked mass of mud and earth rises from a swamp and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? A fun, tense and campy monster pic.

Directing film and television for over twenty years; this production marks Winning’s Thirteenth feature. He is also a veteran of 20 Series and over 90 episodes for TV, including Stargate: Atlantis and multiple seasons on Andromeda w/ Kevin Sorbo. He was the 2002 recipient of the Director's Guild of Canada's National Award for Excellence in Television Drama. Winning also spent four months in Hungary shooting the ABC family series Dinotopia; now released on DVD. Last Spring he directed PAST SINS for Lifetime starring Young & Restless’ Lauralee Bell and Rebecca Jenkins -- and also episodes of the new LIFETIME TV Vampire series BLOOD TIES. Winning is repped by manager Jeff Aghassi in LA. In Canada by Anna Archer/Lucas Talent and Charles Northcote/Core Group.